1189 replies to this topic

[Steadfast]

Of course, totaly unbiased - WH 40K. Because The Emperor protects. And if he does not - The Emperor provides.
End of communication.
*blip*
Cheers and carry on, some good reads here.
Daniel

[Jack Gammel]

Catamount, on 17 January 2012 - 10:48 AM, said:

For instance, the Alcubierre drive works on paper, under certain conditions, but those conditions aren't necessarily possible in the real world. For instance, it relies on the existence of hypothetical exotic particles that aren't known to exist in reality (they may, but they don't necessarily). You can make anything work on paper if you're allowed to make up particles that can do anything.

For that matter, we're not even really sure that space is anything, which means it might not be pliable in the first place, because it might really just be empty nothing. Now, most physicists disagree with that assertion as I understand it, and accept the general relativity model, but there's really no certainty there at the moment, not that I'm aware of. One of the big things that will help determine that will be better understanding gravity. Does gravity actually bend space, as GTR suggests, or is it a purely particle-interaction force, like the other fundamental forces (magnetism, strong/weak nuclear force)?

Just wait until we find the Spice, then we'll teach normal space who's boss (and maybe ride Shai-Hulud too!).

Maybe it's just me, but has anyone else made a connection between the concept of aether (luminiferous ether from the 19th century) and dark energy today? Not a scientist here, so maybe I have my head up my...well you know. From my limited understanding of so-called dark-energy (and dark matter to a certain degree), our only "proof" of their existance is that we can't explain the universe without them. At least with black holes we can see powerful effects being exerted on massive stellar objects and the bending of light.

Hey, maybe the aether actually does exist and we're just calling it dark matter now...

Not really serious.

Edited by Jack Gammel, 17 January 2012 - 12:23 PM.

[guardiandashi]

I am going to toss my 2 cents in re star wars.

depending on what you look at /read star wars power generation is all over the place and is not consistant

in 1 piece of material you have the various megalaser weapons that have planet busting potential (in single shots) and can evaporate star wars cap ships in a single hit

in another novel/series (rogue squadron novels) a single battletech fighter while it goes "putt putt" across a battlezone could outrange and OSK star wars fighters based on the energy outputs reported for the fighters and their ranges (~1.5-3km for starfighter lasers and ~14km for proton torpedoes) also cap ships are reported to have outs in mega-giga joules possibly terra joules. and yet the fighters CAN tear down their shields and damage these cap ships

at least star trek is semi consistant in their ships energy outputs (most ships are likely working with a GEB (Global Energy Budget) ie the entire power output of the planet earth in the present or more

[Catamount]

guardiandashi, on 17 January 2012 - 01:05 PM, said:

I am going to toss my 2 cents in re star wars.

depending on what you look at /read star wars power generation is all over the place and is not consistant

in 1 piece of material you have the various megalaser weapons that have planet busting potential (in single shots) and can evaporate star wars cap ships in a single hit

in another novel/series (rogue squadron novels) a single battletech fighter while it goes "putt putt" across a battlezone could outrange and OSK star wars fighters based on the energy outputs reported for the fighters and their ranges (~1.5-3km for starfighter lasers and ~14km for proton torpedoes) also cap ships are reported to have outs in mega-giga joules possibly terra joules. and yet the fighters CAN tear down their shields and damage these cap ships

at least star trek is semi consistant in their ships energy outputs (most ships are likely working with a GEB (Global Energy Budget) ie the entire power output of the planet earth in the present or more

Trek has some consistency, but it also has its share of gross inconsistency in some areas, like all franchises. On the whole, a lot of important things were preserved because the producers were smart enough to create writers manuals, to attempt to create at least some level of consistency. It didn't always work, however, so you end up with the bulk of the canon being consistent on most points, but then having a few outliers here or there.


Wars is much the same way, it's just important to remember what's actually canon Star Wars, as opposed to canon Star Wars EU.

Star Wars, the continuity of the films created by George Lucas, consists of the films, scripts, novelizations, and radio plays. The EU canon is way bigger, and outlined by Lucas Licensing.


In the film canon/continuity, there's also a lot of consistency, with an odd outlier or two. Wars civilization is fusion-powered, and sometimes apparently even fission-powered, but they make up for it largely by just building gigantic ships (again, keeping in mind that although the Republic made some awesome war machines, the Empire didn't seem to make very effective weapons of war; maybe I'll do a post on Imperial engineering later).

This power source is outlined again and again and again in the novelizations, both for the original and prequel films, and most canon is consistent with it. The only exception is the Death Star, which has a higher effective yield than can be attained through a fusion reaction that you could actually put inside of it, which means either the Death Star is Wars' first post-fusion weapon (which we know is not the case, because the ANH novelization establishes its power source as fusion), or the Imperials have a weapon with an effective yield higher than is attainable through DET weaponry. Now, the EU already has weapons that have higher-than-DET outputs, causing damage from simple hand-weapons far in excess of what normal blasters display, basically, showing the capability to entirely vaporize people, not just poke holes in them. It's unclear if this the case in normal canon, but Vader did forbid disintegrating the Millenium Falcon crew in TESB, so clearly it's possible. We may also have seen a case in ANH, but it's unclear, as far as I know, whether Luke's aunt and uncle were reduced to skeletons by normal blasters, or were simply killed and burned afterward. The fact that unarmored Imperial officers were shown to take much less bodily damage only a little later on the Death Star suggests the latter.


So basically, pound-for-pound, basic physics puts Wars power generation behind Stargate, Star Trek, Andromeda, and a couple of others (Starcraft perhaps, as they may use M/AM). However, they build big ships, and like some of these other franchises (Stargate and Trek at least), they have shown some technology capable of multiplying effective weapon outputs, such that they do more damage than a DET weapon of the same power would, however it's unclear how much they should be included, because they don't seem to be wide-spread anti-ship ordinances (we just don't see that kind of firepower past the Death Star, and possibly a few exotic hand weapons).

Edited by Catamount, 17 January 2012 - 01:51 PM.

[Zakatak]

In my opinion? I don't think Death Stars can vaporize planets because they have 32-digit energy outputs. I don't think Star Destroyers can turn asteroids into fine dust because they have Exowatt lasers. I think it's because the movie producers didn't really care enough to bother with science. This IS the same universe that has space-wizards with swords that hold light in mid-air, and AT-AT's with lasers that have a splash radius of 25 centimetres. Concerning the Death Star: is Zero Point Energy possible? (think Project Arcturus)

Speaking of power outputs: anybody have an idea as to how Naquadah holds more energy then antimatter, gram for gram? Because Stargate, while not exactly hard sci-fi, isn't spongey and certainly puts effort into explaining technobabble phenomena. Does it have some kind of interaction with neutrinos that doesn't apply to other matter? Also, how much energy does a ZPM hold? I think I read 100 Yottajoules somewhere, or enough to evaporate every litre of water on Earth.

For fun: ZPM-powered Hive Ship (SGA) vs. Scimitar (ST: Nemesis)

The former has a super-regenerative hull over 20m thick (which shrugs off the low gigaton-range Asgard Plasma Beams), and a signal that detects cloak and blocks transporter beams. The latter has, what, 57 Phaser banks, 27 Torpedo bays, and 2 shields?

Edited by Zakatak, 17 January 2012 - 03:10 PM.

[Ilithi Dragon]

Naquadah and Naquadria seem to have some sort of connection to subspace (part of why they're used as stargate material), which is likely where the extra energy comes from (or the biggest source of energy - they both also appear to have somewhat unstable atomic structures (especially Naquadria), potentially releasing considerable amounts of energy from the atoms breaking apart - and the stuff is ridiculously dense, so there's a lot of mass to convert to energy that way).

[Catamount]

Zakatak, on 17 January 2012 - 02:50 PM, said:

In my opinion? I don't think Death Stars can vaporize planets because they have 32-digit energy outputs.

The Death star is powered by fusion, and it would take a fusion reaction six orders of magnitude bigger than the sun to manage that energy output, so flat out, the Death Star does not have those sorts of energy outputs. Her effective output is in that ballpark due to whatever weapon is being used but then... that's still pound for pound at best only about the same as Trek's DS9 The Die is Cast bombardment, which was slated to achieve nearly that much destruction in five hours, with a group of ships. Realistically, the TDiC fleet is probably better, pound for pound.


Just to put both into perspective:

The TDiC fleet is a combined 266 million cubic meters; the Death Star is 904.7 trillion cubic meters.

So the Death Star is 3,401,128 times the size of that fleet.


The TDiC fleet is slated to blast a planet to its core in 5 hours, or 18,000 seconds. Now, let's bend over backwards and say that to destroy the entire planet, core and all, it would take 36,000 seconds, and it really is bending over backward. That means if the fleet was the size of the Death Star, with the same pound-for-pound effectiveness, it would vaporize the planet in ~.01 seconds (give or take a ten thousandth).

So that fleet, if it were willing to take a little longer, say, .1 seconds a planet, could blast ten planets apart at a time, had it the power of the Death Star.



Yet another thing to consider is that pound for pound, the Death Star is probably more gun than most ships since she's literally nothing but a flying gun.

Quote

I don't think Star Destroyers can turn asteroids into fine dust because they have Exowatt lasers.

Those shots aren't really all that impressive. Those asteroids are pretty small, comparing them to the width of the turbolaser being used, and it takes only gigajoule-range energy to to blast asteroids that size apart:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWaster.html


EDIT: silly math error


Also, Ilithi informs me that it takes about 6 frames, or .25 seconds, for the Death Star to destroy its target, so in that time, the TDiC fleet, were it scaled up that big, would have the pound-for-pound ability to destroy roughly 24 planets. Even accounting for planet size differneces, which can't be all that large (both Alderaan and the Founder homeworld are typical habitable planets, with seemingly typical gravity), that means that pound-for-pound, the TDiC fleet showed considerably better firepower than a giant flying gun in Star Wars.

Edited by Catamount, 17 January 2012 - 04:31 PM.

[Catamount]

Also, the spice must flow

Jack Gammel, on 17 January 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

Maybe it's just me, but has anyone else made a connection between the concept of aether (luminiferous ether from the 19th century) and dark energy today? Not a scientist here, so maybe I have my head up my...well you know. From my limited understanding of so-called dark-energy (and dark matter to a certain degree), our only "proof" of their existance is that we can't explain the universe without them. At least with black holes we can see powerful effects being exerted on massive stellar objects and the bending of light.

Hey, maybe the aether actually does exist and we're just calling it dark matter now...

Not really serious.

Hmm, I'm no expert, far from it on that particular topic, but it should be noted that even mere explanative power means a lot more than it did in the 19th century. In the 19th century, something offering an evidence-fitting explanation really didn't mean much at all, because we didn't know anything!

We had no grasp of the nuclear atom, the universe's fundemental forces, the physical layout of the universe (beyond understanding heliocentrism), shoot, we didn't even know the age of the Earth! 200 years ago, "science" still largely meant running around trying to prove the literal truth of the Bible.


Things are a little different today, so a model working well enough to explain a phenomena, while still fitting into everything else we know, isn't nothing. It's not enough for something to become a workable theory, on its own, but it's still enough to give an idea some credibility.

Now, again, I'm fairly ignorant here, but I'm guessing we have a little more evidence than "this makes some math work". Even if the evidence is purely theoretical, and I don't know for sure if it is or it isn't, if the model explains the universe in sufficient detail, parsimoniously, then it's worth serious consideration, because something fitting as a nice piece in our puzzle means a lot more today, now that we actually have some of that puzzle completed, and a vague idea of what the picture is supposed to look like



I'll have to ask the stellar physics major I know later on when I get a chance; I know he's studied the topic in some depth.

Edited by Catamount, 17 January 2012 - 04:49 PM.

[Ilithi Dragon]

To further refine Catamount's math, the mantle and lithosphere of the Earth comprise ~85% of its volume, and ~70% of its mass. This will vary from planet to planet, but we can use these as a rough approximation, since Earth-like planets will have similar mass distributions. This means that 266,000,000 m^3 of Trek ships (and Romulan and Cardassian ships are not the best in volume-to-firepower efficiency), are capable of vaporizing 70% of an ~Earth-sized planet in 5 hours or 18,000 seconds. This means that they could completely obliterate an entire Earth-sized planet in ~25,714 seconds. Rounding this up to 26,000 seconds for the sake of being conservative.


By comparison, as Catamount noted, the Death Star's superlaser took ~6 frames, or ~0.25 second to demolish Alderaan, an ~Earth-sized planet, with a 904,700,000,000,000 m^3 ship.

To figure out the difference in firepower-to-volume ratios, we simply take the Trek figure, 26,000 seconds, and multiply it by 4, giving us 104,000, and divide that into the difference in volume, or 3,400,000, giving us a Trek firepower-to-volume superiority figure of ~32.69 times.

Now it is worth noting that Federation firepower-to-volume figures are probably 3.5-4 times better than the Romulans achieved with the D'Deridex (the D'Deridex and Galaxy are roughly comparable, with the D'Deridex having superior firepower and the Galaxy having superior shield/spaceframe endurance, yet the D'Deridex is roughly 5 times the size of the Galaxy), and it is also probably better than the Cardassians' as well, though not to the same degree (the Cardie ships are more dedicated warships than the D'Deridex, and they have some pretty good engineers in their own right). Going with conservative figures again and assuming that the Galaxy has only 3.5 times the firepower-to-volume, and assuming 1-to-1 parity with Fed-Card firepower-to-volume ratios, we can get a good conservative estimate for modern Federation ships vs the Death Star.

The 10 D'Deridexi comprise ~250,000,000 m^3 of the 266,000,000 m^3 of fleet seen in DS9 "The Die is Cast", and that divided by 3.5 gives us a Federation equivalent volume of ~71,428,571 (about 13.5 Galaxies), plus 16,000,000 gives us 87,428,571, or about 87.4 million m^3 for a round figure. That gives us a volume difference of 10,351,258 times, and dividing that by our 104,000 figure from above, we get 99.53 times better firepower-to-size ratio in the Federation's favor, comparing against a mostly-gun-and-gun-support-systems Imperial ship/station.

This is actually fairly in-line with the known power generation technologies of the two franchises. Star Wars uses fusion reactors, and Trek's primary power comes from M/AM reactors, which generate about 100 times more energy per unit of fuel consumed, and Trek reactors are damn near 100% efficient (about as close as you can get to 100% efficiency in any kind of power generation - Wars reactors aren't likely to be any more efficient in their fusion reactors).

[Vincent Vascaul]

I have to throw the Whoniverse in here again and I am not talking about the doctor alone I mean the Time Lords and Daleks at the height of their power, they manipulate Time and space like putty and fold dimensions like we do paper. I know time travel is usualy deaus Ex but in the Whoniverse its a actual weapon and if Star Wars can be in the conversation with the force then I see no reason a interdimentional empire cant be.

[Zakatak]

I don't watch Who, but I find that time travel, in any show/genre/movie/situation, seems to fudge everything up. Too many paradox's and shat. We can have a Ascended Ancients vs. Time Lords vs. Xeelee vs. Chaos Gods vs. Culture argument some other time, mmmkay?

Oh ya, going back to my old sci-fi idea. How ridiculous does this device sound? Basically, when you insert a specific code into said device, a bubble of spacetime surrounding your ship is "swapped" with an equally sized bubble of another dimension. Each dimension has a slightly different laws of physics.

- Instead of some energy shield, your ship would be surrounded by a bubble of spacetime in which photons move incredibly slowly in a vacuum (5m/s) and lose energy relatively quickly. The energy consumption required for this would be, say 1TJ/s but rate of consumption would accelerate exponentially the longer you have it open.
- Instead of an FTL drive, you swap spacetime with a dimension in which Velocity=Force^3/Mass^2 and the speed of light is incredibly higher (say, 7500000c) and the consumption would be 200GJ/s
- Instead of a cloak generator, you use a dimension in which photons pass through solid mass, like neutrinos or tachyons.

You get the idea. Dimensionology. Interesting idea? Combined with battery=endurance idea behind space combat, I think it would be something new.

Edited by Zakatak, 17 January 2012 - 05:56 PM.

[Vincent Vascaul]

The thing about who that makes it great is that the show is about time and dimensional travel, Paradoxes can be weapons themselves among tons of other stuff (not to mention its the longest running sci-fi franchise out there, the show started out in black and white) YOu have to really watch the show to truly know what I am getting at but before the Final Time war with the Daleks the Timelords were basicly keepers of time and the rifts between parallel dimensions. Tey Grew their own time machine warships which could be tiny in extirior dimentions but with the intireor being virtauly endless (we really don't know how big the TARDIS is inside)

[Ilithi Dragon]

To further expand on my math, not taking the conservative figures, using 25,714 seconds for Trek ships and assuming that modern Federation ships have 4 times the firepower-to-volume of a D'Deridex, and twice the firepower-to-volume of modern Cardassian ships, gives us a total Federation equivalent volume of 70.5 million m^3 (62.5 million for the D'Deridexi, 8 million for the Keldons), and a volume difference to the Death Star I of 12,832,624 times. Divid that by 102,800 (25,714 * 4) and that gives us 124.83 or ~125 times more firepower per unit of volume for Federation ships vs a mostly-gun-and-gun-support-systems Imperial ship/station. Comparing to conventional Imperial warships, that could easly be 130-150 times more firepower-to-size for Federation ships (depending on just how greater percentage of the Death Star's volume is dedicated to the big gun vs volume dedicated to weapons on conventional Imperial ships). So just going with ~100 times the firepower-to-size for Federation ships is a fair conservative value.

And how much bigger are Wars ships than Trek ships? Well, an Imperial Star Destroyer has a volume of ~69.5 million m^3, compared to a volume of ~5.3 million m^3 for a Galaxy class. 69.5 / 5.3 = 13.11. 13.11 bigger but 100 times weaker pound-for-pound. So a Galaxy class starship should be equivalent to ~7.63 ISDs in pound-for-pound firepower (5.3 * 100 / 69.5). Then you have to factor in the Galaxy's superior maneuverability and sublight speed, and range and accuracy, but that's a whole 'nother can-'o-worms.


As for the Whoniverse... Yeah, those guys win because of their time travel capabilities. I mean, even in their OWN universe, their time weapons are Deus Ex Machina. The Doctor and ONE Battle TARDIS was basically able to obliterate his entire civilization and their military and their opponents, iirc. Nobody has anything that could defeat that.

[Jack Gammel]

Catamount, on 17 January 2012 - 04:39 PM, said:

Hmm, I'm no expert, far from it on that particular topic, but it should be noted that even mere explanative power means a lot more than it did in the 19th century. In the 19th century, something offering an evidence-fitting explanation really didn't mean much at all, because we didn't know anything!

We had no grasp of the nuclear atom, the universe's fundemental forces, the physical layout of the universe (beyond understanding heliocentrism), shoot, we didn't even know the age of the Earth! 200 years ago, "science" still largely meant running around trying to prove the literal truth of the Bible.


Things are a little different today, so a model working well enough to explain a phenomena, while still fitting into everything else we know, isn't nothing. It's not enough for something to become a workable theory, on its own, but it's still enough to give an idea some credibility.

You just have to kill any hope I have of building a steampowered jumpack out of brass and mahogany and buzzing past my old highschool just to show 'em who's boss don't you?

Next thing you know people are going to tell me that mechs aren't a really viable military asset as the weight-to-mobility ratio and balance issues would insure that they'd be either giant targets or incredibly fagile.

Don't murder my dreams please?

Also, as I recall the Death Star was dangerous, not because of its reactor, but specifically because its weapon (a "super laser" according to the fluff...really creative writing there...we all should have seen what we were in for before opening night of Episode 1...) was a unique design. While it's obviously based on some sort of laser technology, it was revolutionary enough to significantly increase the power potential of a regular laser (using unknown means).

Also, light sabers are cool. Who cares if they should work or not? They probably run on awesome (a possible power source currently ignored by modern science, but which I'm sure will revolutionize human technology once we recognize the true potential there).

And someone finally mentioned the Culture! I wondered if I should mention it before, but then the Culture hasn't been made into a movie or show.

Edit: Ok, apparently the technobabble behind the Death Star superlaser has it drawing power from a "hypermatter" core, which I guess means its pulling energy directly from hyperspace. I've been out of Star Wars fluff for too long to know if this is canon or expanded universe (boy, that makes me sad-I used to know so much about Star Wars before Lucas decided to kill the things I loved as a child).

Edited by Jack Gammel, 17 January 2012 - 09:12 PM.

[Catamount]

Jack Gammel, on 17 January 2012 - 08:46 PM, said:

Also, as I recall the Death Star was dangerous, not because of its reactor, but specifically because its weapon (a "super laser" according to the fluff...really creative writing there...we all should have seen what we were in for before opening night of Episode 1...) was a unique design. While it's obviously based on some sort of laser technology, it was revolutionary enough to significantly increase the power potential of a regular laser (using unknown means).

The superlaser seems to follow certain smaller-scale Republic weapons that we see in the Prequel films, and those weapons (on gunships and cruisers alike) seem to have higher yields than the normal blaster technology or "turbolasers". Clearly Wars weapons aren't lasers usually anyways; they're clearly sub-luminal, and so they're some kind of packeted energy weapon. This other type of beam weapon seems to travel faster, and work differently. As for increasing firepower, again, it's probably a matter-disruption effect of some sort.

Quote

Edit: Ok, apparently the technobabble behind the Death Star superlaser has it drawing power from a "hypermatter" core, which I guess means its pulling energy directly from hyperspace. I've been out of Star Wars fluff for too long to know if this is canon or expanded universe (boy, that makes me sad-I used to know so much about Star Wars before Lucas decided to kill the things I loved as a child).

Yeah, hypermatter is EU. In the Star Wars film canon, all devices are either fission or fusion powered, usually fusion (though Luke's lamp on Degobah was referred to as a fission device in the TESB novelization).


And yes, the original Star Wars films are amazing, and while the prequel stuff isn't the worst thing I've seen in cinema in recent history, it's often really not very good, either. Good, old-fashioned film-making was replaced by bad humor and lacings of downright frightening moral lessons from the George Lucas School of Warped Philosphy.

Maybe Bioware should have made the prequel films; they'd have done a better job!

[Jack Gammel]

Catamount, on 17 January 2012 - 10:00 PM, said:

The superlaser seems to follow certain smaller-scale Republic weapons that we see in the Prequel films, and those weapons (on gunships and cruisers alike) seem to have higher yields than the normal blaster technology or "turbolasers". Clearly Wars weapons aren't lasers usually anyways; they're clearly sub-luminal, and so they're some kind of packeted energy weapon. This other type of beam weapon seems to travel faster, and work differently. As for increasing firepower, again, it's probably a matter-disruption effect of some sort.


Yeah, hypermatter is EU. In the Star Wars film canon, all devices are either fission or fusion powered, usually fusion (though Luke's lamp on Degobah was referred to as a fission device in the TESB novelization).


And yes, the original Star Wars films are amazing, and while the prequel stuff isn't the worst thing I've seen in cinema in recent history, it's often really not very good, either. Good, old-fashioned film-making was replaced by bad humor and lacings of downright frightening moral lessons from the George Lucas School of Warped Philosphy.

Maybe Bioware should have made the prequel films; they'd have done a better job!

Actually, the blasters in Star Wars aren't lasers at all. They draw on packets of special gases (quality and specific chemical mixtures vary-altering the color and power of the weapon fire). These gases are ignited and super-heated in a special focusing chamber before being fired. An energy "package" keeps the super-heated blast together until it strikes a solid surface which allows the power to be released (or it hits a lightsaber and gets reflected-I remember that this is caused by the interaction of the energy package and the lightsaber's beam-a lightsaber can also deflect ion beams, but it must be recalibrated by a trained jedi to do so-lightsabers cannot deflect blasters and ion beams at the same time...for purposes of narration I suppose). Disintegrators work on the exact same princple as a regular blaster, but on a much bigger scale. Disintegrators have significantly bigger fuel packets and much bigger focusing chambers. Instead of punching a small hole in a target, the disintegrator is designed to burn away huge sections, sacrificing range and overall weapon durability(disintegrators wear themselves out quickly-I think that Trek phasers do the same thing if you walk around firing them on wide beam all the time...which the characters should do anyway) for huge damage potential (or at least huge in terms of Star Wars). Also, disintegrators are illegial in most civilized systems in Star Wars. Bobo Fett used disintegrators anyway because that's just how he rolled. Wow, I remember more about Star Wars than I thought I did. I guess reading the old tech manuals over and over again in middle school actually paid off.

And it wasn't just Lucas. Spielberg is doing it too now. I like to pretend Indiana Jones 4 never happened, but it was still the only movie that has ever prompted me to leave the theater before the end and demand my money back. I still don't know what happens to Indy and the crystal Mayan aliens, and I never want to know. What are those monsters doing to my childhood? Weren't they the ones who once advocated leaving black and white films in their original spectrums to maintain authenticity? Now Greedo shoots first and Anakin was actually 7 when the jedi found him. Sigh .

Bioware certainly seems to be doing a decent job with the Mass Effect franchise. Hope they maintain their high standards in the 3rd installment (and fix the issues that arose in #2).

[CatJock]

*sigh*

Some people *still* believe that Trek has more in the realm of weapons technology than a galaxy-spanning empire with millennia of expperience fighting wars in which entire planets were demolished, versus the Federation which has barely managed to explore 10% of it's home galaxy and considers a 600 ship fleet to be huge (compared to the 25,000 Imperial Star Destroyers, each of which has more than enough firepower to slag the surface of a planet)?

Lol, right.

Considering the Federation was created by Roddenberry to be a peaceful organization that specializes in scientific exploration while the Empire in Star Wars was created by Lucas to be a nigh-unstoppable force of military might, it makes absolutely no sense from a literary standpoint to assume that the Federation would be anywhere near capable of defeating the Empire, even ship vs. ship.

From a scientific standpoint, photon torpedoes, the most powerful Federation weapons, created explosions that can't be much more than the 64 megatons stated in the tech manuals. By contrast, turbolasers were seen blasting *through* nickle-iron asteroids, which requires a *lot* of energy, and their shields are just as powerful (an asteroid in the same scene was observed hitting the shield and vaporizing, leaving nary a scratch on the destroyer).

I'll leave you to make your own jokes about the engineering incompentence seen aboard Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Borg ships (let's start with a reactor that's always ready to explode, with no failsafes that actually *work*).

Bottom line, what you see is what you get, and Trek ships are invariably shown to be much weaker than Imperial Star Destroyers.

Now, Stargate seems to show *real* warships, and it would be interesting to see a fleet of Bliskners fighting off a fleet of ISDs.

Regarding SW vs. Battletech, just lock on a tractor beam and aim for the huge solar sails on the jump ships. Boom, no more jump capability.

[Prince Ian Davion]

CatJock, on 18 January 2012 - 11:31 PM, said:

*sigh*

Some people *still* believe that Trek has more in the realm of weapons technology than a galaxy-spanning empire with millennia of expperience fighting wars in which entire planets were demolished, versus the Federation which has barely managed to explore 10% of it's home galaxy and considers a 600 ship fleet to be huge (compared to the 25,000 Imperial Star Destroyers, each of which has more than enough firepower to slag the surface of a planet)?

Lol, right.

Considering the Federation was created by Roddenberry to be a peaceful organization that specializes in scientific exploration while the Empire in Star Wars was created by Lucas to be a nigh-unstoppable force of military might, it makes absolutely no sense from a literary standpoint to assume that the Federation would be anywhere near capable of defeating the Empire, even ship vs. ship.

From a scientific standpoint, photon torpedoes, the most powerful Federation weapons, created explosions that can't be much more than the 64 megatons stated in the tech manuals. By contrast, turbolasers were seen blasting *through* nickle-iron asteroids, which requires a *lot* of energy, and their shields are just as powerful (an asteroid in the same scene was observed hitting the shield and vaporizing, leaving nary a scratch on the destroyer).

I'll leave you to make your own jokes about the engineering incompentence seen aboard Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Borg ships (let's start with a reactor that's always ready to explode, with no failsafes that actually *work*).

Bottom line, what you see is what you get, and Trek ships are invariably shown to be much weaker than Imperial Star Destroyers.

Now, Stargate seems to show *real* warships, and it would be interesting to see a fleet of Bliskners fighting off a fleet of ISDs.

Regarding SW vs. Battletech, just lock on a tractor beam and aim for the huge solar sails on the jump ships. Boom, no more jump capability.

Ignoring EVERYTHING but the last line, coz I can.

What would happen if the jumpship tried to jump while in a tractor beam..? Would the SW ship get dragged with?

[Catamount]

CatJock, on 18 January 2012 - 11:31 PM, said:

*sigh*

Some people *still* believe that Trek has more in the realm of weapons technology than a galaxy-spanning empire with millennia of expperience fighting wars in which entire planets were demolished, versus the Federation which has barely managed to explore 10% of it's home galaxy and considers a 600 ship fleet to be huge (compared to the 25,000 Imperial Star Destroyers, each of which has more than enough firepower to slag the surface of a planet)?

Lol, right.

Considering the Federation was created by Roddenberry to be a peaceful organization that specializes in scientific exploration while the Empire in Star Wars was created by Lucas to be a nigh-unstoppable force of military might, it makes absolutely no sense from a literary standpoint to assume that the Federation would be anywhere near capable of defeating the Empire, even ship vs. ship.

-I would like you to quote me a canonical source (in other words, not EU) that indicates that a single Star Destroyed can slag the surface of a planet. I hate to break it to you, but Base Delta Zero is not canon, and wha'ts more, even in the EU this statement is not suppored: http://st-v-sw.net/STSWbd0.html

-600 ships is not a huge fleet for Trek; it's the scrapings of a fleet when you have to engage in an operation before half your forces can even arrive, and another huge chunk decide they aren't even coming, and even then, it's not a fleet. That was just ELEMENTS of fleets, gathered for one operation. That said, 25,000 ships would be a rather huge fleet for the Empire, since that's several orders of magnitude larger than anything we've actually ever seen assembled in Star Wars (namely, a few dozen Star Destroyers in ROTJ). 25,000 ships of ISD level firepower might not be an unreasonable estimate for the Empire, though that's probably a higher estimate given the biggest fleets we've seen assembled, but that would only place them on roughly parity with the Federation fleet, estimated by producer Ron Moore at ~30,000 total ships by late TNG, hence why they were planning to assemble what would have been well over a thousand ships just for one short operation to take one station (The Dominion forces deployed just in that part of the galaxy were also stated, on screen, to be 30,000 ships, iirc). Since we've just spent much of last page showing that even a giant flying gun from the Empire can't match the pound-for-pound capability of a modern Starfleet ship (and in fact falls about two orders of magnitude short), one ISD isn't really going to be that formidable for its size.

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By contrast, turbolasers were seen blasting *through* nickle-iron asteroids, which requires a *lot* of energy

Sure it does; a few gigajoules worth, given the size of those asteroids. I just addressed this last page.

That's a lot of energy by, say, 21st century Earth standards, but it's not much compared to ~270PJ per photon torpedo, to say nothing for phasers.

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I'll leave you to make your own jokes about the engineering incompentence seen aboard Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Borg ships (let's start with a reactor that's always ready to explode, with no failsafes that actually *work*).

Ah, yes, because so many Trek ships have been seen exploding from spontaneous reactor failures, a grand total of no less than two!

To my knowledge, the USS Yamato and Enterprise D were the only case of a ship suffering a spontaneous core breach. The Odyssey had been rammed by a ship that detonated its core, the Enterprise in All Good Things could have easily ejected their cores, but for plot-related reasons, chose not to.

And the Enterprise D was hit by plot-induced stupidity (we call it the curse of the odd-numbered movies; they always suck), because they never even mentioned ejecting the core (but it made for a nice dramatic scene).


Also, those volatile cores produce orders of magnitude more energy than Star Wars primary power source, nuclear fusion (occasionally fission). If that's the worst thing you can say about Trek engineering (which doesn't even apply to the Romulans), then I'd say they're miles ahead of Star Wars.



Now, if you want to talk about real bad engineering, shall we discuss AT-ATs? They're top-heavy slow mechs that are nearly defenseless against a competent enemy. They mount their sole array of weapons on what's basically a non-atriculable turret, which means that if the Rebels had just flown at them from the side, they would have been entirely defenseless. Even after the imcompetent approach by the Rebels, these things were brought down by toe cables, and all because the AT-ATs couldn't effectively fire at anything out past the front arc, or anything directly in front of and below them. Then we see an even greater weakeness when Luke latches onto the bottom of one, opens up a hole, and tosses a grenade in, neutralizing the whole machine with nothing but infantry weapons. So basically, if you want to defeat an AT-AT, just grab any old ground vehicle, drive at it from the side, and shot at its bottom, because apparently even infantry-grade weaponry can penetrate down there and destroy the entire vehicle.

AT-TEs didn't suffer these problems, but that's because the Republic actually knew how to design stuff. Yes, the Republic, the altruistic peace-oriented power that didn't even have a standing war force, designs better stuff than the oppressive, war-centric Imperials. You want me to tell you something really funny? It works that way in real life, too! Altruistic, democratic nations that are relatively peaceful (most of the time, at least), make better stuff than oppressive regimes that dedicate most of their national budgets to war, and are almost in a constant state of war. Actually, the US has been doing that since its foundation. Our warships outclassed those of the British handily, having firepower equal to smaller capital ship, but better agility than British sloops, and being more armored than even the best British capital ship.


Then we go to ISDs. You know, if you're going to make giant shield generators, it's best to keep them inside the shield, so that an A-Wing doesn't make a pass on it, and knock out your bridge deflector just in time for another A-wing to take out the whole bridge. I could chide Starfleet for putting bridges on external locations as well, but at least they shield them with something that a fighter strafe can't take down (the shield generators being deep in the ship).


Oh, but it doesn't end there with Wars ships. Whereas Trek ships are very capable designs consisting of smaller numbers of enormous guns that they can point in almost any direction (Federation ships usually have two giant phaser arrays, which have nearly 360 by 360 degree coverage), Wars ships are so badly designed in this manner, they're actually PRE-DREADNOUGHT! They are less sophisticated in their gun layout than World War 1 battleships.

You see, where as Trek ships, and even modern warships (since WWI) have arrays of big guns they can aim on either side of the ship, Wars ships just have smatterings of turrets on either side, so they can't bring the majority of their firepower to bear on a single target port or starboard, and since Wars battles typically consist of giant ships pulling right up next to each other and broadsiding each other, that means that in a typical wars engagement, a ship will only be able to fire with a fraction of its theoretical firepower, and Wars guns are tiny relative to the ship anyways. Even TOS designs in Trek aren't that primitive in their layout, and that was long before arrayed phasers.


We could talk about TIE fighters being unshielded, though I suppose there could be some debate on whether to include that, since, to my knowledge it's not solidly established outside of the EU.

On the other hand, the Death Star gets no such escape. Okay, the second Death Star was under construction, so I get having maintenance corridors still open to the core, but did the Empire really not feel it was necessary to make a way to, you know, close them?!

The first Death Star is even worse. Do you want me to design a Death Star I that would have survived the Rebel attack? Are you ready for this awesome, radical redisign of the entire station?

BAM! Armored Plate



You know, so you still can stop the "exhaust" from the fusion reaction (great science there!) without leaving a giant holein your station that's so vulnerable, that a warhead can fly down the entire thing and land right inside the reactor.


You want a better design idea for the Death Star? How about shields? Surface area only squares while volume cubes, so as a ship gets bigger, it gets easier to put big enough shield generators in to shield the ship, not harder. I guess a fusion reactor of that size just wasn't up to the task?

While we're on the subject, making a fusion reactor that explodes violently, that's really bad engineering! M/AM reactors can be excused, because they're normally volatile, and because they require pods of volatile fuel, but a fusion reactor? You have to try pretty hard to engineer one of those to explode, torpedo or no torpedo.

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Bottom line, what you see is what you get, and Trek ships are invariably shown to be much weaker than Imperial Star Destroyers.

This is certainly possible, but it would contradict all the evidence brought up thus far, and it does not follow from the evidence you provided.

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Now, Stargate seems to show *real* warships, and it would be interesting to see a fleet of Bliskners fighting off a fleet of ISDs.

You do realize that the stated power output of the Biliskner is vastly lower than Trek-level weapon outputs, right?

Now, there's probably a lot more to the story than this, and we've given some discussion of Stargate, but the way this is phrased leads me to think that you aren't aware of the stated figures behind Asgard power generation, at least in regards to that particular class of ship.

Edited by Catamount, 19 January 2012 - 07:11 AM.

[Catamount]

Also, again let me reiterate that anything bad that can be said about the Empire usually doesn't apply to the Republic.


The Empire had no serious external threats, so apparently unlike the Republic, they didn't build serious war machines.

Instead, they built weapons of terror, designed to intimidate the enemy. The Galactic Republic, on the other hand, designed weapons of war; they're designed to kill your enemy.


10 points to anyone who gets where that's borrowed from