Starfleet Jedi

In episode 9 season 2 the NX-01 shatters 2 asteroids about the same size as its self. I was wondering if anyone ever did scalings of this episode?
Asteroid 01
http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... ty_583.jpg
http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... ty_584.jpg
http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... ty_585.jpg

Asteroid 02
http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... ty_588.jpg
http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/ ... ty_589.jpg

First off, those asteroids are far larger in volume than the NX-01 herself, even if they are of similar linear dimensions. The first asteroid is tough to scale in size because of the perspective shot. We only have the phase cannon beams to do any scaling with there. The second asteroid we can bracket because of the change of perspective and the fact that the Enterprise has nearly run it down with mere seconds to spare before a collision when the cannons blow it apart.

My rough estimate would place the second one at about 136 x 102 meters. Just crunching the numbers through the asteroid destruction calculator, the expected firepower would be between 1.1 and 2.5 kilotons. Call it 1.8 kilotons average.
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:First off, those asteroids are far larger in volume than the NX-01 herself, even if they are of similar linear dimensions. The first asteroid is tough to scale in size because of the perspective shot. We only have the phase cannon beams to do any scaling with there. The second asteroid we can bracket because of the change of perspective and the fact that the Enterprise has nearly run it down with mere seconds to spare before a collision when the cannons blow it apart.

My rough estimate would place the second one at about 136 x 102 meters. Just crunching the numbers through the asteroid destruction calculator, the expected firepower would be between 1.1 and 2.5 kilotons. Call it 1.8 kilotons average.
-Mike

That's what i thought when i eyeballed the screen caps.

Isn't that several times the stated yield for phase cannons?

Aren't the Phase Cannons, once overloaded, rated at 5 TeraJoules?

Praeothmin wrote:Aren't the Phase Cannons, once overloaded, rated at 5 TeraJoules?

Pretty much:

Silent Enemy wrote:REED: This, ladies and gentlemen is a phase-modulated energy weapon. It's rated for a maximum power output of five hundred gigajoules. Enterprise was designed to carry three of them. We have one, and it's only a prototype

Silent Enemy wrote:REED: Check the cannons. Be careful down there. The blast yield was ten times what we expected

So 5000 Gigajoules/ 5 Terajoules per cannon. Still Lucky's example is a nice confirmation of them keeping that kind of firepower as opposed to the 500 gigajoule starting point.

Well, if memory serves, they were able to adjust the weapons so they always fired in overload mode without taking out power conduits all over the ship...

Travis when attempting to make similar modifications to the Horizon's (In the episode of the same name) plasma cannons mentions that.
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:Travis when attempting to make similar modifications to the Horizon's (In the episode of the same name) plasma cannons mentions that.
-Mike

Silent Enemy
REED: This, ladies and gentlemen is a phase-modulated energy weapon. It's rated for a maximum power output of five hundred gigajoules. Enterprise was designed to carry three of them. We have one, and it's only a prototype.
TUCKER: Our job is to get it up and running and build two more from scratch. The Captain is taking us back because he thinks this ought to be done by the boys in Spacedock.

REED: Check the cannons. Be careful down there. The blast yield was ten times what we expected.
ARCHER [OC]: What happened?
REED: Something overloaded the phase modulators.

Horizon
TRAVIS: I can tie the plasma turrets directly into the impulse engines. Lieutenant Reed did that and it increased our yield by eighty percent.

So the NX-01 was able to increase the standard yield by 80% rather then ten times 500 gigajoules?

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Doesn't this kind of disprove the idea that weapons in Star Trek do more damage then the DET equivalent?

Lucky wrote:Doesn't this kind of disprove the idea that weapons in Star Trek do more damage then the DET equivalent?

Comparing hull damage to shield damage, phasers vs photon torpedoes does as well. Also the fact that the asteroids shattered instead of disintegrating lends credence to that viewpoint.

Except that here you two are making one big mistake. Phase cannons are not phasers. This is made explicitly clear by Mirror Archer in "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part 2" while interrogating a prisoner, and threatens said prisoner with a Type-II phaser pistol. Never once in all of ST:ENT have we seen phase cannons on any power level or setting "poof" away an object or person like phasers and disruptors do. We only see DET-like effects from them, and the "Singularity" examples with the asteroids are no exception.
-Mike

That is very true, I keep forgetting they use completely diffrent weapons in Enterprise.

Phase cannons instead of phasers, photonic torpedoes instead of photon torpedoes, and NX-Class instead of upside-down Akira.

Mike DiCenso wrote:Except that here you two are making one big mistake. Phase cannons are not phasers. This is made explicitly clear by Mirror Archer in "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part 2" while interrogating a prisoner, and threatens said prisoner with a Type-II phaser pistol. Never once in all of ST:ENT have we seen phase cannons on any power level or setting "poof" away an object or person like phasers and disruptors do. We only see DET-like effects from them, and the "Singularity" examples with the asteroids are no exception.
-Mike

I can't seem to find the quote you are talking about. Could you please provide it?
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Phase Cannons are often argued to have higher yields then their actual output would imply from what i recall. Such is argued for all Trek weapons.
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The name "Phase Cannon" would imply similar technologies to Phasers, just as Photonic Torpedos are implied to be similar technology to Photon Torpedos.

Lucky, "similar" is not "identical"...
I too assume that the Phase Cannons are older Phasers, yet there may still be great differences between the two...
The modern gasoline engines, after all, are vastly different from the earlier models, even though they retain the basic configurations, like spark plugs, pistons and other parts...

Lucky wrote:

Mike DiCenso wrote:Except that here you two are making one big mistake. Phase cannons are not phasers. This is made explicitly clear by Mirror Archer in "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part 2" while interrogating a prisoner, and threatens said prisoner with a Type-II phaser pistol. Never once in all of ST:ENT have we seen phase cannons on any power level or setting "poof" away an object or person like phasers and disruptors do. We only see DET-like effects from them, and the "Singularity" examples with the asteroids are no exception.
-Mike

I can't seem to find the quote you are talking about. Could you please provide it?
_____
Phase Cannons are often argued to have higher yields then their actual output would imply from what i recall. Such is argued for all Trek weapons.
_____
The name "Phase Cannon" would imply similar technologies to Phasers, just as Photonic Torpedos are implied to be similar technology to Photon Torpedos.

ARCHER: Stand aside. (draws his phaser)

T'POL: T'Pol to Major Reed. Bring another prisoner to the Briefing Room.

REED [OC]: Acknowledged.

ARCHER: From what I'm told, the maximum setting can actually disintegrate a person. I've been looking forward to trying it.

Read that carefully. This pretty much separates phase cannons and phasers quite definitively. On maximum setting, a phase cannon merely makes things blow apart, like any high-powered DET weapon would (See "Dead Stop", "Civilization", and "Regeneration" for examples). So what makes phasers unique is that they are disintegration weapons on their highest settings.
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:
ARCHER: Stand aside. (draws his phaser)

T'POL: T'Pol to Major Reed. Bring another prisoner to the Briefing Room.

REED [OC]: Acknowledged.

ARCHER: From what I'm told, the maximum setting can actually disintegrate a person. I've been looking forward to trying it.

Read that carefully. This pretty much separates phase cannons and phasers quite definitively. On maximum setting, a phase cannon merely makes things blow apart, like any high-powered DET weapon would (See "Dead Stop", "Civilization", and "Regeneration" for examples). So what makes phasers unique is that they are disintegration weapons on their highest settings.
-Mike

That quote is rather ambiguous as to what the actual differences are between phasers and phase weapons. For all we know the only real difference could be the output/yield of the maximum setting. We see phasers act similarly to phase weapons on lower setting after all, and Star Fleet tends to improve technologies that work well rather then replace them as shown in TNG Relics.