Trekkie Dishonesty

[StarshipTitanic]

And tractor beams are related to sound...how?

Through shields?

And then it would be a Tractor/Repulsor Cannon, not a sound cannon.

A Borg tractor beam was able to pierce the Enterprise-D's shields in "Best of Both Worlds." It could be termed a sonic disruptor as it created sound within the hull of the Enterprise.

sound: Vibrations transmitted through an elastic solid or a liquid or gas, with frequencies in the approximate range of 20 to 20,000 hertz, capable of being detected by human organs of hearing.

Ok, tractor beam latches on to Enterprise and sound his heard inside...so? If I banged hard on the outside of the Enterprise with a hammer, they could hear it inside, but would that be a sonic weapon?

[Shadow]

Ok, tractor beam latches on to Enterprise and sound his heard inside...so? If I banged hard on the outside of the Enterprise with a hammer, they could hear it inside, but would that be a sonic weapon?

No, because the sound would not damage the Enterprise.

[LordChaos]

" It could be termed a sonic disruptor as it created sound within the hull of the Enterprise . "

If that was the case in the instance that trekies cling to, with the numbers given, the crew of the enterprise would have suffered instant deafness, permently. (at a minimum).

[Guest]

If that was the case in the instance that trekies cling to, with the numbers given, the crew of the enterprise would have suffered instant deafness, permently. (at a minimum).

There may have been a force field protecting the ship. In Star Trek: II defensive force fields are raised, but shields are not up.

[Shadow]

That was me.

[SPOOFE]

The most blatant Trekkie dishonesty I remember is the claim of examples of phasers having 300,000 km ranges. When Wayne Poe called the claimant on it, he was unable to produce any proof... indeed, Wayne examined the episode in question and found no reference to 300,000 km ranges.

I was much amused by the hemming and hawing that followed... "But someone told me that there were 300,000 km ranges!"

[Shadow]

The most blatant Trekkie dishonesty I remember is the claim of examples of phasers having 300,000 km ranges. When Wayne Poe called the claimant on it, he was unable to produce any proof... indeed, Wayne examined the episode in question and found no reference to 300,000 km ranges.

I was much amused by the hemming and hawing that followed... "But someone told me that there were 300,000 km ranges!"

It probably came about because of the TM. There were 100,000 km ranges in "The Wounded," I believe. In "Human Error" torpedoes are fired from 8 million km.

[Darth Wong]

Two words : SOUND CANNON. How does sound work?

It could use a tractor beam to cause vibrations in the target.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ... I love it when people don't know Newton's laws of motion. If you had a tractor/repulsor device which could produce such a vastly powerful sonic vibration (1E28 decibels or some other ridiculous figure IIRC) in a distant target and you mounted it on a planetary surface, what would happen to your precious planet when you activated it?

Here's a tip: think "reaction forces".

[Iceberg]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ... I love it when people don't know Newton's laws of motion. If you had a tractor/repulsor device which could produce such a vastly powerful sonic vibration (1E28 decibels or some other ridiculous figure IIRC) in a distant target and you mounted it on a planetary surface, what would happen to your precious planet when you activated it?

Here's a tip: think "reaction forces".

I'm thinking that would be roughly the kind of effect that Paladin was going for with the Temblor Bomb in Wing Commander III... Maybe not enough to destroy the planet, but definitely enough to fuck up everything on the surface.

[Darik Sdair]

The most blatant Trekkie dishonesty I remember is the claim of examples of phasers having 300,000 km ranges. When Wayne Poe called the claimant on it, he was unable to produce any proof... indeed, Wayne examined the episode in question and found no reference to 300,000 km ranges.

I seem to recall that one having its origins in the "Star Fleet Battles" game. Which would be all well and good if it wasn't for the fact that Trekkies vehemently disown the game at every opportunity.

Oh well, their loss. Its a cool game if you can get over the phone-book-sized manual.

Edit: Checked my old SFB stuff...

this is TOS era mind you, and admittedly non-Canon by Paramount...

Offensive Phaser: fully effective to 50,000 km; after that it sharply drops off until at about 750,000 km it has no effectiveness.

Defensive Phaser: fully effective to 20,000 km, sharply drops off until 150,000 km beyond which it is totally ineffective.

Photon Torpedo: minimum range of 20,000 km. 50% accuracy to 80,000 km, maximum range 300,000 km. Proximity fuse increases accuracy, but reduces impact damage (further detonation from target).

[Doomriser]

Odd. Don't defensive weapons (e.g. SAMs, HMGs) usually have greater ranges than offensive weapons (e.g. ASMs, GPMGs)?

[Rob Wilson]

Odd. Don't defensive weapons (e.g. SAMs, HMGs) usually have greater ranges than offensive weapons (e.g. ASMs, GPMGs)?

So much the wrong way round.

ALARM has a Range of 10km+ whereas Rapier goes to 6-8km. Just as an example.

What are you thinking of as an HMG?

[Pablo Sanchez]

Odd. Don't defensive weapons (e.g. SAMs, HMGs) usually have greater ranges than offensive weapons (e.g. ASMs, GPMGs)?

So much the wrong way round.

ALARM has a Range of 10km+ whereas Rapier goes to 6-8km. Just as an example.

What are you thinking of as an HMG?

Probably a Browning .50 or NSV or somesuch.

The "defensive phasers" might be point-defense weapons, or a high-powered short-range weapons for ship to ship melee.

[Shadow]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ... I love it when people don't know Newton's laws of motion. If you had a tractor/repulsor device which could produce such a vastly powerful sonic vibration (1E28 decibels or some other ridiculous figure IIRC) in a distant target and you mounted it on a planetary surface, what would happen to your precious planet when you activated it?

Here's a tip: think "reaction forces".

Wesley's small tractor beam didn't follow this. Otherwise, he would have been killed by using it.

[Howedar]

Odd. Don't defensive weapons (e.g. SAMs, HMGs) usually have greater ranges than offensive weapons (e.g. ASMs, GPMGs)?

Large SAMs usually have shorter range than large ASMs (unless you're thinking of ship-based ones, but those are still outranged by Harpoons and such), small SAMs usually have shorter range than small ASMs, and both GPMGs and HMGs have offensive and defensive roles.

[Doomriser]

Really? That sucks for the defender. How does a defensive plan with shorter-ranged weapons work?

[Pablo Sanchez]

Really? That sucks for the defender. How does a defensive plan with shorter-ranged weapons work?

In a word, ambush. The defender has the advantage in that he doesn't have to move, and can therefore be quite stealthy.

[Mr Bean]

Gota ya beat the classic Worst Treky mistament

Cause theres a Laser in the name ST shields can strung off any blow no matter how powerful the Laser
(They even said for awhile a Shuttle Craft Shileds could stop the Death Star's Laser at full power)

[VF5SS]

Gota ya beat the classic Worst Treky mistament

Cause theres a Laser in the name ST shields can strung off any blow no matter how powerful the Laser
(They even said for awhile a Shuttle Craft Shileds could stop the Death Star's Laser at full power)

They seriously believe this when the DS's beam is fucking huge compared to a shuttle? Someone's lost all touch with reality...

[Rob Wilson]

Odd. Don't defensive weapons (e.g. SAMs, HMGs) usually have greater ranges than offensive weapons (e.g. ASMs, GPMGs)?

So much the wrong way round.

ALARM has a Range of 10km+ whereas Rapier goes to 6-8km. Just as an example.

What are you thinking of as an HMG?

Probably a Browning .50 or NSV or somesuch.

The "defensive phasers" might be point-defense weapons, or a high-powered short-range weapons for ship to ship melee.

Yes but Guns are not purely defensive or Offensive. Dedicated AAA Guns are like Shilka or Phalanx, but in any situation when they are firing, thier rounds are going upwards and the targets rounds are coming downwards so can go a lot further. Defensive weapons are always shorter ranged than the targets they are built for.
Even in the situation where it's an Arty position on a hill for the defenders, that weapon will outrange that of the attackers, but that weapon is being used offensively.

In purpose-built defensive weapons, they are always shorter ranged than the Offensive weapons they are trying to stop.

[Darik Sdair]

1Odd. Don't defensive weapons (e.g. SAMs, HMGs) usually have greater ranges than offensive weapons (e.g. ASMs, GPMGs)?

The defensive Phaser IIIs and their rapid fire Gattling Phaser cousins in SFB were designed mostly for shooting down Klingon and Kzinti torpedos; they were deployed well before the first warp-speed fighters and bombers started to see deployment, and as a result weren't really design to function like modern-day SAMs. Actually, in the SFB universe, most nations deployed warp-speed missiles for shooting down fighters rather than dedicating energy weapons strictly for the task.

Actually, now that I think of this, the best analogy might be....

Offensive (Type I) Phaser -> 12" gun
Offensive (Type II) Phaser -> 5" gun
Defensive (Type III) Phaser -> PHALANX weapon system
Photon Torpedo (Fed type) -> contemporary FSU rocket torpedoes
Photon Torpedo (Kling/Kzinti type) -> contemporary wire-guided torpedoes
Warp-Speed Missiles -> contemporary SAMs and light SSMs

hmmmm, well, that wasn't as clear as I hoped -- but hopefully it'll clear up the weapons philosophy of SFB a little bit.

[SPOOFE]

Cause theres a Laser in the name ST shields can strung off any blow no matter how powerful the Laser

To be fair, none of the big-name Trekkies at Spacebattles have trotted out this attempted defense in quite a while. Every now and then a newcomer pops up and tries it, but, well... they're quickly "educated".

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

The Empire is only 1 system.

[Gil Hamilton]

Cause theres a Laser in the name ST shields can strung off any blow no matter how powerful the Laser

To be fair, none of the big-name Trekkies at Spacebattles have trotted out this attempted defense in quite a while. Every now and then a newcomer pops up and tries it, but, well... they're quickly "educated".

Actually, Gothmog did fairly recently. He was trying to argue that since we didn't have any statements to modify it and that their was no example of a laser penetrating a navigation shield, we had to accept. I argued him into turning around on the issue. Finally he said (and claimed he was saying it the whole time ) that a laser won't penetrate the navigation deflector... unless it has sufficent energy, then it will.
It's sort of like saying that bombs won't penetrate their navigational deflector, unless they are powerful enough, then they will.

I understand alot of the big-name Trekkies are talking about how a single man with a phaser could beat an entire regiment of Nepoleonic Infantry unassisted, which is almost as rediculous.

[Rob Wilson]

The Empire is only 1 system.

Fuck off! What numpty came up with that one? It's right up there with "Star Wars is a dwarf Galaxy because we see it at the end of ESB", despite the fact the disc is visibly rotating and it's more likely a Star forming and spinning up its accretion disc.