The most common warship weapons in STAR WARS are turbolasers and ion cannons, powerful energy weapons mounted in one or multiple-barrel batteries. These weapons are present on planetary installations, Star Destroyers, Mon Calamari cruisers, and battle stations the size of the Death Star. An excellent resource for turbolasers and ion cannons can be found on Brian Young's "Turbolaser Commentaries". Combat starships also carry proton torpedoes and concussion missiles.
For STAR TREK, capital ships as well as smaller vessels in Starfleet Command use phasers almost exclusively for energy weapons, supplemented with photon or quantum torpedoes. Planetary phaser installations however, are curiously missing, although it is known that the Cardassians have planetary disruptors. Unlike turbolasers, phasers don't rely on direct energy transfer to impart damage to a target. Instead, phasers use a "phased particle energy" that is dependant on the target's molecular structure to inflict damage. Mike Wong has a very informative page on phasers here.
In the canon reference book, "ATTACK OF THE CLONES: Incredible Cross-Sections" a Quad Turbolaser from an Old Republic-era Acclamator is rated at 200GT. And the Acclimator is a troop transport, not a dedicated warship.
While the non-canon Star Trek Technical Manual states that the Enterprise-D's phasers are in the gigawatt range, Chief Engineer LaForge says in the TNG episode, "The Mastepiece Society" that the output of the warp core is in "the terawatt range". This is consistent with Cmdr. Riker's statement in "Dauphin":
DATA: "Sensors indicate that the communication originated from a terawatt source on the planet"RIKER: "That's more power than our entire ship can generate."
DATA: "It is what is needed to penetrate the atmosphere."
RIKER: "Which means we lack the ability to respond, sir."
Many Trekkies dismiss two clear statements from two high ranking crewmembers in two seperate episodes about the Enterprise-D's weapons power, because its simply too underpowered, for them, to be acceptable.
In "The Empire Strikes Back" the Star Destroyer Avenger easily cuts a path through Hoth's asteroid field using its point-defense turbolaser cannons. These cannons are also referred to as antistarfighter weapons. The cannons vaporized asteroids from 10 meters to 40 meters in diameter in less than one second (1/15th of a second by most estimates). This scene is one of many ways to quantify the powerful weaponry sported by the Star Destroyers, since asteroids are a real-world constant. The power required to take a nickel-iron asteroid to even near its melting point, let alone vaporizing it instantly, has been shown on many impressive websites, such as Dr. Curtis Saxton's Star Wars Technical Commentaries
Estimates of the firepower in this scene would be a lower limit of the point defense turbolaser capabilities, and the Star Destroyer's overall firepower. The lower limit estimates for these cannons range between 250TW to 2000TW. The medium and heavy turbolasers comprising the sixty-four plus turbolaser cannons would of course, have considerably greater firepower.
VS Trekkies will often begin their criticism of this evidence by questioning the composition of the asteroids referred to in the calculations. Most attempt to either use NEAs (Near-Earth Asteroids) as an excuse for much lower calculations to be used, or speculate that the asteroids could have been "dirty snowball" comets, or that the asteroids were even hollow! Metallic asteroids are much more common in the inner region of an asteroid belt. It is quite clear that the asteroid scene in "TESB" happened DEEP in the asteroid belt, not on its perimeter.
Furthermore, the silicon dioxide that is the most common material in both silicaeous and carbonaceous asteroids actually has a much HIGHER melting temperature than iron. And the melting temperature of rock is even higher than iron. The melting temperature of iron therefore, is a conservative estimate when used in asteroid calcs.
In the anthology "Tales of the Bounty Hunters", the story "Dengar's Tale" labels the asteroids of the Hoth system as nickel-iron. It says nothing about ice, uranium, idridium, or anything else.
Pg.102: "Rocks the size of his ship hurtled toward him, and they weren't the soft carbonaceous chondrites that his weapon might punch a hole through-these were nickel-iron rocks that could smash him to pieces."
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If the debris disappeared after a while, then tell me this - where did they go? |
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It didn't "go" anywhere. Within the space of couple of frames, the majority of the vapor cloud expanded and attenuated to such a degree that it's transparent and off-screen. In simpler language, it dissipated much like steam "disappears" over your stove. It was completely vaporized. |
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What about the flashing bits of glowing debris sprayed about at the moment of impact? |
There were no "flashing bits". The after-flash effect after the vaporization can hardly be called solid. We saw no "glowing debris" , no "flashing bits", nothing. Thr mass is instantly turned into boiling liquid, like lava. It then instantly turns into vapor. Remember chemistry class? The vaporized "cloud" that used to be an asteroid flashed from bright luminescence to invisibility in less than one second.
Turbolaser vaporizing a 10m asteroid
So how do Trek's phasers measure up? Well, in DS9's "Return To Grace," Gul Dukat tested phasers from the Cardassian military freighter Groumall against asteroids. It took three seconds of constant fire to destroy even one of them.
Later, Dukat upgraded the freighter's firepower by installing a Cardassian "System 5 Planetary Disruptor" in the freighter's cargo hold. He then returned to the asteroid field and test fired the disruptor. Did we see vaporized asteroids then? Nope. The asteroid was shattered, not vaporized in the manner a Star Destroyer LIGHT TURBOLASER CANNONS demonstrated.
So how big was that asteroid? To find the size of the first asteroid Dukat fired phasers at, we need to refer to an object with a known size. The second target the freighter fired on was a Klingon Bird of Prey. However, it was unable to damage the unshielded Klingon ship at all.
Sean Robertson, analyst on Brian Young's BabTech On The Net, offered the following scaling proof:
Assuming the BoP was of the 109m long variety—a reasonable assumption given her crew size, mentioned in the episode at 36, and at least one exterior shot opposite Groumall. When the phaser hit the BoP, it expanded to encompass the engineering hull. The BoP's engineering hull is about 25m wide—one fifth the "attack" wingspan.
Using this data, the size of the phaser beam before it expands is approximately 3m to 4m wide. Therefore, the asteroid targeted earlier would be about 10m to 12m in diameter. The asteroid itself is about 27 pixels wide. If the beam is 3-4m wide where it is narrowest and closest to the camera (5 pixels at the very bottom of Groumall's viewscreen), the asteroid would be 16-22m in diameter. Halfway between the viewscreen and rock the beam's 8 pixels wide, yielding a 10-13.5m rock as originally estimated. Precision's a little difficult here, so the safest would be to peg the asteroid in the 10-20m range. As we established, the Bird's engineering hull was about 25m wide. The bolt is easily a fifth that--almost 6m wide by Sean's measurements. Compare that to a frame or two before the bolt actually connects. In that image, Sean found that the asteroid was 61 pixels by 73 to the bolt's 15.
(Click icon above to view image) Diagram of the S5-PD bolt's size relative to the Bird of Prey and the asteroid
Conclusion; 20m to 40m asteroids are vaporized in less than one second by light turbolaser cannons on a Star Destroyer in "The Empire Strikes Back". A 10m to 20m asteroid is broken apart in no less than three seconds by phaser fire from the Cardassian military freighter, Groumall. Additionaly, the Carassian "System 5 Planetary Disruptor" shattered a slightly bigger asteroid in about a second. Shattered, as in made a bigger cloud of debris than the phaser did. That asteroid was 24m high and 28m wide vs. the first's 10-20m diameter. Sean Robertson measured the disruptor bolt's size relative to the BoP's keel, right before impact. While this IS a fair comparison, because these are light phasers vs light turbolasers, I'd still take the antistarfighter turbolasers any day...
What about the heavy phaser banks on the Enterprise-D? In TNG episode "Legacy," the Enterprise drills through 1.6 km of solid granite with its phasers to allow transportation into an underground facility. Chief engineer LaForge stated that he would need two hours to retune the phasers for that purpose.
LaFORGE: "I'll need two hours, to refit the ship's phasers for drilling."
When the phaser fires, the beam is the same width as the strip, as it should be. The picture above shows the scale of the beam to the hole. The beam appears about 20 pixels wide, and the hole is about 370 pixels wide at the widest point (part of it looks like the sides caved in when the smaller center of the hole was opened).
The Tech Manual says on page 125 that the phaser segments measure 3.25x2.45x1.25 meters. Assuming 3.25 is the width (because it is the largest dimension, and we are looking for an upper limit), and assuming the beam stays coherent all the way down (if not, its range has nearly reached its upper limit), the hole may be as much as 60 meters in diameter.
The phaser beam took 14 1/2 seconds to drill through the granite(from the phaser beam striking the ground to
LaForge's report of 1.6km.) So, about 4,525,000 (rounding up) cubic meters of granite in about 14.5 seconds, for an average of about 312,000 cubic meters per second. How does this compare to turbolasers?
The upper limit of phaser destruction against rock is about 10 times the (conservative) lower limit on light turbolasers. Looks good for the Federation, right? No...
Conclusion: The mighty Enterprise-D took under 15 seconds (after two hours or retuning phasers for this purpose) to drill into solid granite to a depth of 1600 meters. Impressive right? Well let's see; Star Destroyer Avenger vaporizes nickel-iron asteroids in 1/15th of a second with its point-defense turbolaser cannons. That would be 600 meters a second for a total of less than three seconds for the Avenger to use its smallest guns to vape the equivalent amount of nickel-iron. When you consider the fact that iron is denser than granite, and turbolasers rely on nothing but brute force for destruction....again, I'll take turbolasers any day!
The fact of the matter is, light turbolaser antistarfighter guns can fire at least five times a second, as seen when pursuing the Millennium Falcon over Tatooine. This alone cuts the difference by 5 times. At least two guns are firing; 20 bolts in 3.9 seconds. That is about 5 times per second per gun.
The Revenge Of The Sith:IncredibleCross Sections book says on page 5 that the Venator's reactor annihilates up to 40,000 tons of fuel per second. Assuming the 40,000 tons is "metric tons" for simplicity (since all units in the book are metric), we're looking at about 3.6E24 watts total power output. That is about a hundredth of the sun's total output. On the same page, the heavy DBY-827 guns are "the standard requirement in naval gunnery for intense inter-ship combat and planetary bombardment." These are the heavy guns, where we've been talking about antistarfighter guns.
The classic Trek episode "Devil in the Dark" shows something that should settle the whole phaser effectiveness question once and for all.
In case you're not familiar with the episode, it involves a creature called a Horta terrorizing a mining colony. The miners have been unable to stop it, and need the help of the Enterprise's crew. The relevant point is made after the creature is reported to have survived direct phaser hits. Spock feels this is impossible, and theorizes based on that that the creatures body chemistry must be based on silicon rather than carbon...AND MODIFIES THE PHASERS TO BE MORE EFFECTIVE AGAINST IT! So there you have it. In plain English, in an absoloute canon source, from the mouth of no less a personage than Mr. Spock, a statement that phaser effictiveness is directly related to the composition of the target.
The other energy beam weapon STAR WARS ships use is ion cannons, which are used to disable other ships and their systems.
Ion cannons also cause damage:
Dark Apprentice
Comparing an ion storm to ion cannon fire can simply speak in behalf of the toughness of STAR WARS ships versus their TREK counterparts. If a Star Destroyer can withstand an ion blast with no apparent structural damage, it doesn't mean ion cannon blasts are weaker than an ion storm, but that Star Destroyers are stronger and better made. Ions are charged particles, and for a condensed stream of particles to hit a ship at near-light velocities with no physical damage implies a powerful ship.
Since an ion storm is by definition a less dense phenomenon than a concentrated beam of energy, one has to wonder why TREK ships are so flimsy. From STAR TREK: THE WRATH OF KHAN, we see that after many ship lengths there is no noticeable obscuring of line of sight by ionic material. Nebulae even affect the Borg, as seen in The Best Of Both Worlds With all their technology and assimilation of many diverse technology and cultures from across the Milky Way, the Borg has STILL never adapted to this, and couldn't detect the E-D, which was just out of visual range. They began firing blindly into the nebula to flush Picard out!
The KDY v-150 Planet Defender Heavy Ion Cannon bolt is approximately six meters wide. This bolt highly obscures line of sight. The ion beam is vastly more dense, more concentrated, than those puny ion storms that cripple ST ships.
All we need do is look at Deep Space Nine, and see the examples that refute such idiocy. In DS9's One Little Ship, the crew of a runabout is shrunk down to action figure size. Ah yes, more proof of TREK's harder scifi edge over STAR WARS. Hey, I didn't write it! Anyway,
Chief O'Brien and Dr. Bashir are beamed into one of Defiant's bridge consoles to reroute something or other integral to the story. During the course of the two's adventure, O'Brien confirms that bridge consoles and isolinear chips
on the highly advanced Defiant do indeed make use of electricity:
O'BRIEN: All right. It looks like we have to go...
(looks up)
O'BRIEN: Julian -- stop!
Bashir freezes. Without realizing it, he has almost backed into another one of the chips.
O'BRIEN: That [isolinear]chip behind you is carrying twenty microamps of electric current. Not very much...
This is further backed up by the Defiant being taken out by an ion cannon-like weapon, in DS9's The Changing Face of Evil, with exactly the same result as an ion cannon blast.
Data used an "ionic pulse" to defeat the Klingons in ""Generations". Which would have been a great idea in Rascals as well, but I digress...
Usually, newbie VS Trekkies will begin their career with this oft-repeated mantra:
Trekkies wet themselves by referring to this scene in the TNG episode, "The Outrageous Okona":
RIKER: "Lasers?"
WORF: "Yes sir."
PICARD: "Lasers can't even penetrate our navigation shields. Don't they know that?"
First of all, turbolasers ARE NOT the same as the weapons named "lasers" in Star Trek, which in turn bear little resemblance to real life lasers. In RL of course, lasers can't be seen in the vacuum of space, and as yet none have the destructive force even coming close to what we see in science fiction. In Star Trek, lasers are presented as being very low powered pop guns, and are dismissed as such when even mentioned.
In Star Wars, "laser" weapons bear no chariceristics to RL or even Trek lasers. We never see Okona's lasers used in "The Outrageous Okona", but in episodes such as "Home Soil" and "Conundrum", they have destructive potential, but exhibit very limited power when compared to phasers.
First of all, the FACT is, Picard NEVER said, 'no matter WHAT the wattage.' The FACT is, that comment was made in ONE TNG episode, with ships having laughably underpowered lasers. Picard didn't even bother RAISING shields. In "Conundrum," the FACT is, the Lysian lasers poised enough of a threat that Picard raised FULL FORWARD shields.
In "Q Who?" and every other time the E-D has encountered the Borg, the FACTS are that they RAISED SHIELDS.
This disproves the statement above completely, that "..navigational shields are IMMUNE to lasers. Lasers of ANY power." If this were true, WHY were the defensive shields of the E-D raised if the
NAVIGATIONAL SHIELDS could render "LASERS OF ANY POWER" harmless?
Want more proof? Here ya go:
"Suddenly Human"
RIKER: "Geordi, the Talarians are moving into attack posture. Classic triangular envelopment."
GEORDI: "I've tapped the impulse engines for additional power to shields, Commander. We're ready."
Gee, why would Geordie bother? After all, the 'navigational shields are IMMUNE to lasers. Lasers of ANY power', aren't they?
"The Outrageous Okona"
Hmm.. in that same episode that Trekkies are rubbing one off to, Picard qualifies his earlier comment. Whoops...
"Conundrum"
RIKER: "They're no match for the Enterprise.."
DATA: "The pods are equipped with fusion-generated pulse lasers and minimal shielding."
RIKER: "Not much power there."
PICARD: "Forward shields to maximum."
Forward shields to maximum?? But...but...'navigational shields are IMMUNE to lasers. Lasers of ANY power', aren't they?
Guess not. Apparently, VS Trekkies are so delusional that they think Okona's people can manufacture a moon-sized space station that blows up planets, or the Lysians have this ability as well. Gee...that sounds stupid as well...
If SW fans began using the bone-headed, literal "proofs" the Trekkies jump to, ie— taking a line of dialogue and hyper-interpreting it, then we'll end up with ridiculous arguments around one-liners like the statement that the Old Republic was "invulnerable to any outside force" (STAR WARS novelization)!
A single point defense turbolaser blast from a Star Destroyer is roughly ONE BILLION times more powerful than that Lysian drone shot. Weapons fire from the Lysian destroyer actually ROCKED the E-D and affected its internal systems enough to disrupt its stability.
Star Destroyer can perform planetary bombarments to quell uprisings and to destroy enemies of the Empire. Geosynchronous Earth satellites usually have an altitude of about 22,300 miles in a 24 hr period equal to the rotational period of the Earth. In TESB, Vader's Death Squadron deployed around Hoth above Echo Base, this would be a geosynchronous orbit, and the lower limit for Star Destroyer turbolaser range.
An upper limit for turbolasers can be found in the Revenge Of The Sith:ICS, which notes that the Venator–class Star Destroyer's 8 DBY-827 heavy turbolaser turrets can hit a target at distances of over ten light
minutes.
This correlates with Darth Vader's original plan of bombarding Hoth outside the Rebels' sensor range. Vader said Ozzel came out of light speed "too close to the [Hoth] system." While VS Trekkies attempt to dispute this clear proof of weapons range for the Empire, there is simply no other possible advantage the Death Squadron could have gained by dropping to sublight outside the Hoth system.
Let's suppose that the Rebels only have light-speed sensor capabilites as some Trekkies have suggested. That means that if the Death Squadron drops into sublight at a range of 300,000km from Hoth, the Rebels will see it in one second. That gives the Imperials a whole second in which to bombard the planet. That's barely enough time to say, "open fire"
Older references used "space units" as a measure of range. The "Behind The Magic" CD states that turbolasers have a max range of 75 space-units, compared to the Death Star's 100-space-unit range. The Star Wars Technical Journel gave the maximum range for the Death Star superlaser range at 47,060,000km. Using both of these sources one space unit would have equaled 470,600km.
STAR TREK weapons ranges for phasers allegedly have a range of 300,000km. However, this has never been stated onscreen. As for photon toroedoes, check out the analysis of the TNG episode, "The Wounded".
In "Conundrum,"The E-D is virtually on TOP of the Lysian command center, yet Riker says they'll still need 55 seconds for "optimal range" to use the photon torpedoes
Since torpedo yield is largely unaffected by range (within reason), the "optimal range" was obviously a targeting limitation- they had to approach in order to accurately target the complex's vulnerable systems precisely (say, for instance, its primary reactor). That fact would also support the notion that a single photon torpedo simply can't destroy an object that large no matter how primitive it is- it would have had to hit its primary reactor and cause an explosive failure.
One VS Trekkie misinterpreted a scene from TESB novelization and film, to attempt a "canon" stated range for turbolasers. The scene in question is the Millennium Falcon's escape from Hoth, when Han Solo and co. were being chased by one Star Destroyer and encountered two others. Lord Edam even put this claim on his website.
The two Imperial Star Destroyers had come almost within firing range of the Falcon as they loomed ahead; the pursuing TIE fighters and the Avenger were also dangerously close. Han felt he had no choice but to take the Falcon into a ninety-degree dive.
Clearly the Star Destroyers were within visual range of the Millennium Falcon - Han could look out the window and see them. If we assume the apparent size of these ships was 1 arcminute (1/60 of a degree - the very limit of what human eyes can resolve), we can get an upper limit of their distance from the Falcon using basic trigonometry (tan alpha = width/distance)
This results in a MAXIMUM weapons range of just over 5000km for a Imperial Star Destroyer.
If we begin using the more likely assumptions, such as the fact the Star Destroyers would be travelling straight towards the MF, thus using the width of the ship in the calculations, we can halve this value to 2500km maximum, and if we take the film as evidence this figure drops even further to under 1000km)
Sounds pretty impressive, eh? That is, until one properly investigates the misinterpreted evidence presented (TESB novelization):
Now, the canon movie representation of this above scene would be this:
HAN: "Star Destroyers, two of 'em coming right at us!"
In the novelization, this scene would belong here:
The screenshot I offer is right before Solo dives the Falcon. Exactly the point in the novelization I quoted above.
INT. MILLENNIUM FALCON - COCKPIT
Inside the cockpit, Chewie lets out a loud howl. Han checks as the ship is buffeted by exploding flak. He appears to be doing six things at once.
HAN: (harried) I saw them! I saw them!
LEIA: Saw what?
HAN: Star Destroyers, two of them, coming right at us.
As you can see, the "bright star-sized objects" is a SEPERATE SCENE. There's passage of time between the ships being "star-sized" and us seeing how large they are from Han's point of view. The MF has moved closer to the ships. The MF continues to move towards the ships, and it is some time LATER when we get the quote from the novelization that they aren't in range yet. The exact point where the novelization matches up with the movie, as before:
Now, even if we backed up the movie to accomodate your attempt at a weapon's range for the Star Destroyers, the novelization scene above would only POSSIBLY take place at best, THREE SECONDS before the posted screen capture above, which in the movie would be:
HAN: Oh, great. Well, we can still outmaneuver them!
Given the closing speeds of the Star Destroyers, which we see as the Falcon dives, they STILL wouldn't be "out of range" as seen in this image from ANH:
The range quote from the novelization could not POSSIBLY come before the above, or you would have to concede that the novelization is COMPLETELY off-track when matched with the film. It couldn't be here:
LEIA: Saw What?
HAN: Star Destroyers, two of them, coming right at us.
It couldn't be here:
HAN: (to Leia) Shut him up or shut him down! (to Chewie) Check the deflector shields!
Chewie barks a reply as he readjusts an overhead switch.
So obviously, the novelization is wrong, on THAT POINT.
--demonstrates shorter range than the onne I used above.
The "other information" Lord Edam presented on his webpage consisted of an analysis of ships outside the Emperor's window in "ROTJ". He made several assumptions that were geared toward supporting his incorrect conclusions above. First of all, the Imperial fleet simply broke from their cover from behind the Sanctuary moon, as the Emperor ordered. There is absolutely ZERO canon indication anywhere in the film, novelization, or radio drama that the fleet were at a "range limit" for their turbolasers. Any estimates taken from this scene to figure out range limits is useless.
And finally, Lord Edam used a novel quote from "Shield of Lies" in an attempt to validate both incorrect conclusions above:
"Shield of Lies", pg. 292
In this first instance, the fighters being ordered to move into the open hex formation at three thousand kilometers is a tactical consideration ordered by Tuketu. Again, ZERO indication that "range" was a deciding factor in this tactic.
"Shield of Lies", pg. 293
This second instance is about Yevethan thrustships firing on the New Republic. What this has to do with turbolasers of the New Republic or the Empire, I have no idea.
Strangely ironic, isn't it, that Lord Edam focused on quotes from a book called "Shield of Lies", eh?
Proton torpedoes fire a proton-scattering energy. This forces atoms away from each other on a quantum level. Much more powerful that atomic based explosions like nukes or antimatter.
Star Wars Sourcebook, pg.8:
"Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology" pg. 76:
In Voyager's "Scientific Method," it is stated that a strong proton burst would bring the shields down on Voyager.
HARRY: "It's like being hit with thousands of needles."
KELLIN: "They can penetrate any shield even if the modulations are changed,"
It is also stated in "Unforgettable" that shields are susceptible to particle weaponry.
In Star Trek 6:The Undiscovered Country, it took FIVE photon torpedoes to knock out a Klingon Bird of Prey.
Some VS Trekkies claim one photon torpedo can completely vaporize an unshielded ship, and point to obscure examples like the USS Lantree from TNG's "Unnatural Selection" as "evidence". The Lantree wasn't destroyed because of a powerful, almighty photon torpedo; VS Trekkies always seem to overlook the fact that Federation ships go boom because of their warp core cooking off. Every time a photon torpedo hit has supposedly vaporized a ship, it is very clear that the photon torpedo detonation occurs a split-second BEFORE the ship actually explodes.
The Enterprise fired a torpedo at a Bird of Prey in Star Trek 3:The Search For Spock., which didn't even have its shields up because it was just decloaking when it was hit. No serious damage was suffered, except to kill the Klingon commander's dog. The BoP in "Generations" hit the Enterprise-D with a dozen hits which all penetrated the shields and struck with full force on the hull, and the ship only suffered enough damage to destabilize its warp core (which doesn't take much, as evidenced by the TNG episode, "Cause And Effect", when the
Bozeman set it off by scraping its nacelle against the Enterprise). Again, there was no conceivable reason in context not to use full power.
And why not REMOVE the weaponry on a decomissioned ship, instead of "reducing the reactants"?
There are numerous examples which place Federation ship weaponry in the megawatt and gigawat range rather than the terawatt range. In TNG's "Survivors" the enemy ship's weapons went from the MW range to the GW range.
WORF: Again forty megawatts. No damage.
RIKER: If that's as good as they can do, this'll be over in five minutes.
And later:
PICARD: Damage?
WORF: Superficial. But I am having trouble reassembling the shields.
[Vessel fires again]
WORF: Shields down. There is thermal damage to the hull.
DATA: The warship is capable of striking us with far more powerful bursts.
It was at this point that Picard (wisely) left the area.
While the Hunsock ship wasn't a Federation vessel, the above shows the uppermost limits for the Enterprise shields to turn away weapons fire in the MW to GW range.
In "Battle Lines" the runabout's sensors picked up an 600MW power surge in the attack satellite just before they opened fire. DS9 runabouts can survive briefly against even large Star Trek ships, but these satellites were so powerful that it wasn't worth it to even try getting CLOSE.
SISKO: Shields up!
KIRA: (urgent) ... Reading a significant power build- up in the satellite... six hundred megawatts... nine hundred...
A ANGLE - MONITOR (VPB): to see the growing image of a satellite approaching... releasing an energy burst...
KIRA: (continuing) ... it's firing... !
RESUME - WIDE: A huge shake... Red warning lights flash and a klaxon sounds. Kira frantically presses panels. Smoke fills the cabin.
KIRA: Shields are down... forward thrusters are gone... we're losing power...
SISKO: Attempting to compensate with secondary boosters.
KIRA: Impulse generators failing --
Sisko and Kira struggle to control the shaking craft.
SISKO: Hold on... we're going down!
Trekkies like to artificially kick photon torpedo numbers into the stratosphere by willfully misinterpreting what they see onscreen. One of these examples comes from the TNG episode, "Skin Of Evil" (where Tasha Yar gets killed by Armis.) Deanna Troi crash lands on Vagra II in a shuttlecraft, and when the Enterprise crew tries to rescue her, Armis prevents them from doing so. Eventually, he kills Tasha Yar by giving her an oily money shot to the cheek.
After the Enterprise loses Tasha Yar to the Glad trash-bag monster,
Trekkies manufacture yield numbers from the explosion to be around 250 - 300 km in diameter (scaled to the planet being the same size as Earth). They attempt to legitimize this number by using an equation that relates blast radius to yield, and this gives a number of around 5 or 10 gigatons for that torpedo!
When the antimatter fuel for the shuttlecraft is pointed out as being a contributing factor for the size of the resulting explosion, Trekkies do backflips in an attempt to dismiss this. Many of their claims are:
1) Picard wanted to kill the creature, so he used an super-high explosive fat-ass photon torp on Armis. However, NO ONE mentioned anything about killing the creature that was within ball-throwing distance of the shuttle! Even if Armis himself were targeted, the shuttlecraft would have been destroyed as well. Unless it was one of those "blank" torpedoes Trekkies like to maintain the Enterprises like to shoot at super-powerful beings just to piss them off.
The fact is, Picard did not want to kill Armis. Thus, he did not expect the creature to be killed by the torpedo.
In the TOS episode, "Obsession", Kirk did intend to kill a creature. He beamed down to
the planet with an ounce of antimatter in a pod, which he intended to use to destroy it. So, why didn't Kirk use a torpedo? Because...two of them failed to kill the creature earlier in the episode!
2) This shuttlecraft didn't carry antimatter at all! Even though Troi made an interstellar journey before nose-diving into Armis' planet. Others maintain that most shuttlecraft have fusion powerplants instead! They further this fantasy by claiming the shuttle in "Skin of Evil" was a previously unseen, relatively large design.
However, this same Type 7 shuttlecraft was also seen in "Coming of Age". The presence of warp nacelles makes it clear they were warp capable, and the Type 7 was used for several long range trips over the course of TNG.
3) Troi ejected the antimatter before the crash! At no time does anybody on either the away team or the ship ever mention this as a possible source of danger, or even as a factor to consider. DS9 runabouts almost never
eject their antimatter when a crash was imminent. The only time antimatter WAS ejected, was in "Battle Lines", the runabout was a total loss. Shuttlecraft crash all the time, like when Picard and Wesley crash in "Final Mission", or four of the crew crash in "Power Play"
; or the crash in "Liasons".
All the images from the show are good for is telling us that the blast was orders of magnitude less intense than the Tunguska impact, which lit up the sky a quarter of a planet away.
The most rabid VS Trekkies attempt to prove that Trek ships blow up asteroids that are bigger than the Star Wars counterparts. They tend to forget that Trek ships routinely use their more powerful photon torpedoes to destroy asteroids. Star Wars ships simply rely on light turbolasers, or blasters to pop asteroids. While Avenger vaporized asteroids with ease in TESB, this isn't the only example of asteroid destruction in the movies. In AOTC, Jango Fett's Slave-1 is no slouch in that area either.
In the image above, the Slave-1 is about 65 pixels long in background, and Kenobi's Jedi Starfighter is about 26 pixels wide in foreground. The smallest dimension of the white/yellow glowing area of the asteroid is the height, and is about 44 pixels. Width is about 67 pixels. Thus, we have an lower limit of about 6.75x10.3 meters, and an upper limit of about 14.6x22 meters. This asteroid vaporized in just over 1/2 second. Assuming the lower limit of ~6.75 meters in diameter, we're looking at at least 9.6 terajoules (2.3 kilotons).
In the image above, the Slave-1 is about 95 pixels long in background, and Kenobi's Jedi Starfighter
is about 32 pixels wide in foreground. The asteroid is about 65x70 pixels. Lower limit ~8x8.75 meters, upper limit ~14.7x16 meters. Assuming the lower limit of ~8 meters in diameter, we're looking at a minimum of 16 terajoules (3.8 kilotons). This asteroid vaporized in about 1/2 second.
In the image above, the Slave-1 is about 118 pixels long in background, and Kenobi's Jedi Starfighter
is about 48 pixels wide in foreground. The asteroid is about 100 pixels diameter. Lower limit would be ~8.3 meters, upper limit ~18.2 meters. This one is close enough to Slave-1 to illuminate the hull. None of the three glowing asteroids here are visible in the next 5 frames or so, thus they were vaporized. Assuming for a moment that the real size of the asteroid is the mean of the upper and lower limits (it was close enough to illuminate both hulls) We'd have an asteroid ~13.25 meters in diameter, requiring about 73 terajoules to vaporize (17.4 kilotons). That is more than the total energy released by the "Little Boy" bomb on Hiroshima, leveling approximately 60,000 buildings. There were many, many more, including some seen through Kenobi's canopy.
The E-D appears to be about 29 pixels tall in the first image, where the chasm opening is about 107 pixels tall, making it around 528 meters or so. This jives with Picard's statement that if the opening closes to less than 500 meters, he will abort the mission. In the second image, the chasm opening, on that same side, appears about 15 pixels tall, and the longest dimension of the asteroid is about 240 pixels, or about 8450 meters, indicated here in red with the actual lines I measured with.
The width, at the widest point, is about 167 pixels, or about 5880 meters, indicated here in blue with the actual lines I measured with. These measurements are consistent with the crew's reports that the ship passed through ~3 kilometers of rock to exit the asteroid. This would place the Pegasus at the approximate center of the asteroid. Assuming the largest dimension seen in the image of ~8450 meters, and assuming a spherical asteroid for sake of simplicity, it would take a centrally buried explosive of about 605 megatons to fragment this asteroid.
So, using Brian's calculated size, which is an upper limit, the asteroid above is at least 5 miles wide (8km). Using our generous estimate of Riker's "most" comment of 166 photon torpedoes, we're looking at about 3.6MT per torpedo. How about if we're REEEALLY generous and assume that Riker's "most" comment referred to half of the torpedoes? That would be 125 photon torpedoes. 605/125=~4.85 megatons/torp. So, if Riker is right, and assuming these torpedoes would be detonated
inside the asteroid, we're looking at a generous estimate of ~5 megatons per torp.
The second seismic charge, from detonation to the last asteroids destroyed by it on Fett's screen,
was about 10.8 seconds by actual frame count.
It appears that the wave passed through the asteroid in just over 1/2 second. If the wave was thus traveling at a rate of 200 meters per second, and traveled at least 10 seconds before it finished fragmenting asteroids, the blast radius at that point is around 2000 meters. Of course, this is a lower limit, as the wave was still fragmenting asteroids on Fett's screen, and that is the last we see of it. We never see it "fizzile out."
Does this mean it could fragment a 4000 meter wide asteroid (2000 meters was the radius)? Unknown. But at a distance greater than that, it can still fragment 100 meter wide asteroids.
Interesting to note two things. One, the first bomb started violently shaking an asteroid before the wave reached it. Second, this wave travels much slower than sound, if our calculations are so far correct. There is enough tolerance in those calculations to allow it to travel at exactly soundspeed though. Sound doesn't travel in vacuum, but this is obviously
some kind of exotic technology.
If we assume that the radius at the time of impact of those last few asteroids we see is in fact ~2000 meters, and fragmented a 100 meter asteroid at that time, we may be able to get a crude lower limit by applying geometry. The wave is planar, no more than a meter thick subjectively. The circumference at that point would be about 12,500 meters. The asteroid was about 100 meters or so wide, and about 1/125 of the wave's circumference would contact it. As it takes a centrally-buried bomb of about a kiloton to fragment an asteroid this size, the seismic charge released at least 125
kilotons
Apparantly, this Trekkie either owns the Braille version of "The Empire Strikes Back", or he's hoping no one would examine the evidence. Let's take a look at those two "remarkably similar" scenes:
Actually, we observe TWO asteroids being destroyed. But most Trekkies aren't known for accuracy. He apparantly corrects the number of asteroids in that scene below, yet doesn't fix the above mistake:
LaFORGE: "That and about two kilometers of solid granite above their head."
After all that, these lower and upper limits are still comparable.The Venator-class, as a true warship, can feed almost its entire reactor output to its heavy guns when required.
If we divide 3.6E24 watts by 8 guns, and figure a certain amount of inefficiency, we're looking at around 100 teratons per second from each gun at maximum firepower!
In ALL SW literature, ion bolts cause NO structural damage and only disrupt electrical flow and very delicate electronic equipment. However in ST, an ion storm is so powerful it is capable of destroying a starship. Thus, an ion storm is MUCH more powerful than any ion cannon blast since it will not only damage delicate electronic equipment, but also cause SEVERE structural damage and even destruction. Thus ion storms are undoubtably more powerful than even the ion blast from the Rebel's KDY v-150 Planet Defender Heavy Ion Cannon.
pg.115: The New Republic engineers powered up the ion cannon and focused a single blast toward the lower section of the closest Imperial walker. The bolt struck and fused the knee joint of the AT-AT's front foreleg, melting the sevomotor mechanisms.
Ion Cannons have no effect on Trek ships because they don't use electricity! They employ optical computers and plasma conduits! INT. OPTRONIC CIRCUIT - CONTINUOUS
Star Wars weapons are turbolaaaaaasers! Lasers can't even penetrate the Enterprise-D's navigational shields! HooWaaa!! WORF: "They're now locking lasers on us."
A Laser is a laser, you can't escape this! They won't affect the navigational shields, no matter WHAT the wattage. Saying it is a "Star Wars" laser won't cut it either. A laser is a well defined term. So unless whatever they speak in the SW galaxy doesn't resemble english in any way, a laser is a laser! Navigational shields are IMMUNE to lasers. Lasers of ANY power! 
The E-D destroys Lysian drone pods in "Conundrum"
Borg laser cuts into the E-D's hull in "Q Who?"DATA: "Talarian warships are limited to neutral particle weapons, high-energy X-ray lasers, and merculite rockets. No match for the Enterprise, Captain."
PICARD: "No. They could fire 'till their lasers ran dry; they wouldn't hurt the Enterprise. My dilemma is what to do with you."
DATA: "The destroyer has minimal shields. Their disruptor capacity appears to be only 2.1 megajoules."
From the TESB novelization we learn that the Star Destroyers ahead of the Falcon were'nt even in weapons range: Han pointed out the window at two very bright objects "Two more Star Destroyers. and they're heading right at us"
The two Imperial Star Destroyers had come almost within firing range of the Falcon as they loomed ahead; the pursuing TIE fighters and the Avenger were also dangerously close. Han felt he had no choice but to take the Falcon into a ninety-degree dive.
No, Wayne, the canon movie representation of this above scene would be: 
Sorry, but you're wrong. The shot you refer to is when Solo says: Chewbacca howled over the roar of the Falcon's engines. The ship was beginning to lurch with the buffeting flak blasted at it by the fighters. "I know, I know, I see them," Han shouted. It was taking everything he had to maintain control of the ship. "See what?" Leia asked. Han pointed out the window at two very bright objects. "Two more Star Destroyers and they're heading right at us."
Having re-watched the film, you are right.
I know.
The actual position would be somewhere between the two. In actual fact, round about where Han starts to pull the levers to turn. My screen shot is the absolute farthest they could possibly be from the ISDs (ie, a highly generous upper limit); your screen shot is the absolute closest they could be - infact, at the point of your screenshot they could very have entered range.
Okay, even if we roll back the scene to 1 1/2 seconds before my screen shot, we'd still see the bows of both oncoming Star Destroyers at extreme close range. Once again, the claim in the novelization that the destroyers were "almost within firing range" is completely contradicted by onscreen canon. As it is pursued, the Falcon races toward two very bright star-sized objects.
The two Imperial Star Destroyers had come almost within firing range of the Falcon as they loomed ahead; the pursuing TIE fighters and the Avenger were also dangerously close. Han felt he had no choice but to take the Falcon into a ninety-degree dive.
HAN: I saw'em! I saw 'em!
THREEPIO: Sir, sir! Might I suggest--
This scene:
Naturally. But it contradicts the TESB novel quotation, and renders it inadmissible by default.
No, it simply gives us a better lower limit. the previous information still sets the upper limit, especially when coupled with the other information given on my page.
No, you can't pick and choose where you want to shoehorn a scene from the novelization in to the timeline simply to justify your incorrect assumptions. As shown above, the novelization is INCORRECT when it states the Star Destroyers were "almost within firing range" in that scene. The film, being of higher canon value bears this out. Their system entry had placed them a startingly close 16,000 klicks from their targets, and the thrustship grew quickly in the scopes and screens as the bombers accelerated to attack velocity. At the range of three thousand kilometers, Tuketu ordered Red Flight to move into the open hex formation, which would give them all room for evasive maneuvers on the way in and an unobstrusive power pullup on the way out.
There was no sign of enemy snub fighters, but the flight began taking some fire from the thrustship at fifteen hundred kilometers.
TORPEDOES AND MISSILE WEAPONS
"Proton torpedoes carry a proton-scattering energy warhead."
"Proton torpedoes are high-speed concussion projectiles that carry high yield proton-scattering warheads."
KELLIN: "Our weapons are proton-based particle beams--very tightly focused."
Those torpedoes obviously weren't full-power! The Enterprise-A had virtually no shields at that point! Kirk nor Sulu would have risked using high-yield photon torpedoes that might damage the Enterprise-A further!
You're telling me that, in an all-out, no-holds-barred fight to the death, two Federation starships fired unarmed projectiles at their deadly adversary? That Bird of Prey not only had its own "warp core", but also had several warheads worth of anti-matter left on board when it blew! If the Enterprise-A was so vulnerable to even one full-power torpedo, why wasn't it annihilated by the exploding Bird of Prey? That ship obviously exploded with the force of more than one torpedo, and the Enterprise-A was undamaged by the blast. Kirk and Sulu are rather experienced at space combat, and would be able to tell if he would be putting his ship in danger with a torpedo.
Photon torpedoes may be able to take out an X-wing, but I am not so sure, given the fact that a rock dropped from orbit would have done more damage than the torpedo in Star Trek 5:The Final Frontier that landed near Kirk. 
It is not that unreasonable. One of the early things you would do when decommissioning a ship is to remove its weapons. This is what the US Navy does when ships with nukes are involved. Usually the nukes are off the ship before it has even reached it final port. Removing and/or reducing the reactants inside the torpedoes would be the first thing done.
So you are seriously suggesting that the Enterprise was carrying "blanks" for photon torpedoes in ST3? Come on! If they were carrying "blanks", how did they do any damage to the BoP at all? And how do you explain the limited damage the BoP's return fire did to the Enterprise? Was it carrying "blanks" as well? We all know the Klingons routinely load their torpedo tubes with low-power armament so that they could ensure their own destruction if they were in an emergency by using weak weapons, don't we? 
WORF: The vessel is firing jacketed streams of positrons and antiprotons, equivalent firepower of forty megawatts. Shields are holding.
(The Husnock ship fires again)
WORF: Shields are down. Captain, they hit us with four hundred gigawatts
of particle energy!
KIRA: We're being scanned by one of the satellites. (checking sensors) I don't like this... it's heading toward us...
Picard deems the creature too dangerous to the galaxy at large, and wants to prevent anyone else from beaming down and getting killed by the creature. He orders a photon torpedo to destroy the shuttlecraft so that no other passing ships will stop by the planet anymore. Trekkies use the flash of light after the photon torpedo destroys the shuttlecraft as an indicator of a massive yield.
When Trinity was detonated, the light was so bright, that it could blind you from 10 miles away. Trinity was about 20 kilotons. In 1909, when an asteroid crashed into the Tunguska River in Siberia, it leveled trees for hundreds of square miles, and it lit up the sky in England. The impact has been estimated at about 2 megatons. What we see in "Skin of Evil" is the intense light produced, not the blast radius.ASTEROIDS AND A-HOLES
Measuring the blueprints of the E-D in the TNG Technical Manual, and assuming a 650 meter length, it looks like the ship is about 143 meters tall. I measured the chasm at the near edge, which is closer, providing an upper limit. I also rounded all my results up, being slightly generous, as it is best to err on that side when dealing with upper limits.
It may sound like fanatical wanking, but the numbers are right—this is more than the entire E-D torpedo magazine. Even if we go with the upper limit non-canon ST Technical Manual, which was ~65 megatons per torp, we're looking at about 16¼ gigatons total, or just more than one of the seismic charges. ~12 vs ~16.
That puts things in perspective, huh? How about this - the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated was about 50 megatons IIRC. That is why people feel the ICS figures are overblown. But Curtis [Saxton] does careful analysis.
In TESB, we see the Falcon enter an asteroid field while being pursued by four TIE fighters. In the early phase of this, we see, outside the cabin of the Falcon, an asteroid come flying from the right, colliding in the upper center of the screen with a larger asteroid. This results in a bright flash, followed by a quick, gaseous explosion that dissipates within a scant few frames. The collision causes the total destruction of the two asteroids, leaving only a small dust cloud and a large number of asteroidlets that the Falcon flies through. The asteroidlets cause no apparent damage, though they do cause a little shake. Were we to compare this to the scene in which an ISD is popping asteroids later on, we find that the effects are remarkably similar. 
We observe the destruction of an asteroid in a quick explosion that dissipates rapidly.
There are no glowing embers drifting off from either destroyed asteroid. 
Look at that! Fireflies in space!
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The only debris from the explosions is seen by the Falcon, which happens to fly through the apparently cool asteroidlets. |
Especially since the glowing embers the Trekkie didn't see were shot—
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The question is, could similar asteroidlets have resulted from the later scene, where turbolasers are being used? Such asteroidlets would not have been visible in the Star Destroyer scene, much as they were only barely visible in the Falcon scene until the Falcon was going through them. |
Yet again, we see the carnival of blatant falsehoods this clown is gathering under his circus tent. Did you catch that subtle bait and switch the Trekkie employed there? He dismisses his false statement about no glowing bits emanating from both asteroids colliding into one another, and instead switches to the uh, "asteroidlets"; begging the question that there MUST be asteroidlets present because he says so! Even in the face of direct, onscreen evidence which proves that:
A. The two above asteroid destruction examples are NOT "remarkably similar"
B. There is no spray of "asteroidlets" at all from turbolaser fire
C. Stepping away from suspension of disbelief for a moment, insisting that there are "asteroidlets" present in a scene where they clearly weren't put there by ILM, is the height of idiocy!
Even throwing Trekkies a bone and saying "yes, there's asteroidlets we can't see there because you say so!" it would STILL jibe with Star Trek's version of what they deem "vaporized" means (centemeter sized debris, VOY: "Rise")
Uh, BTW, there really aren't any "asteroidlets" to see...
The Falcon never flew through any glowing embers, but DID fly through what "asteroidlets" from a result of two asteroids colliding with one another. Trekkies beg the question above, since the asteroids fired on by the Avenger were clearly vaporized.
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Granted, there is a difference between a turbolaser hit and a hit from a smaller asteroid, but my hypothesis is just as likely. |
Only if one lobotomizes oneself with a ice cream scoop. The last asteroid vaporized by the Avenger took 9 frames. The asteroids which collided in front of the Falcon took a total of 74 FRAMES to dissipate completely.
 |
Unfortunately, it is difficult to get a size estimate of the Falcon's larger asteroid (the one that was hit by the smaller). However, were we to assume a strikee asteroid width of, say, 15 meters (probably too big, but we'll use it for the moment), we'd have a striking asteroid of some 5 meters width (approximately) |
Here we see such laughably off-base assumptions, that its difficult for me to believe that VS Trekkies can generate enough electrical energy in their brains to breathe. In the above scene, the Falcon is speeding through the asteroid field. We see the asteroids collide, then a scene switch to a reaction shot of Chewie. When we return to the asteroids, the Falcon STILL hasn't passed the area of the collision. Obviously, those asteroids were MUCH bigger.
Sean Robertson for the "Return To Grace", "Cost Of Living", "AOTC" scalings, and answering another ton of questions! These guys from Babtech are good!
Adam Gerhls for general notes and corrections
"Meest" for the awesome anigifs
"McC" for some great screencaps
