Star Trek weapon output level question.

[JohnM81]

Im new to the whole ST vs SW debate and I read Wongs write up on turbolaser output. I have noticed that in response trekkies tend to put this following quote up from a startrek site:


Here is something I have found from www.ditl.com

During this episode the Enterprise-D confronts a Borg cube which initiates an attack with a tractor beam and cutting beam. The cube is unshielded. Captain Picard orders Lieutenant Worf to 'bring whatever force necessary to terminate that beam'. The Enterprise fires several shots at the cube, damaging it and terminating the tractor beam. Of the visible damage to the surface, one shot into a face of the cube has vaporized a roughly hemispherical volume who's diameter is close to that of the Enterprise Enterprise, i.e. about 600 metres.

We don't really know the composition of the Borg ship. For our first pass at the energy required accomplish this feat, I'll assume it is a solid cube of tritanium. From the tech manual, page 134, we know that vaporizing a 3 cubic metre block of tritanium takes 7.2 x 1012 Joules (see the 'materials' link on the left for further details). The volume of a 300 metre radius hemisphere would be greater than the 3 cubic metre block by a factor of :

F = (0.5 x 4/3 x pi x r3) / (3 x 2)
= 56,556,000 / 6
= 9,426,000 times larger.

The energy required is thus :

E = 9,426,000 x 7.2 x 1012
= 6.8 x 1019 Joules

Now of course, the Borg cube is not a solid block of Tritanium - in fact, from both the exterior views and what we have seen of the interior, much of a Borg cube is unoccupied. Say 50% of the cube is unused empty volume, and say that of the remaining 50%, only about 0.2% is actual walls and floor - the rest being corridors, crawlspaces and the like. Overall, the cube would be about 0.1% solid metal. So a more realistic value for the energy required to do the damage we see is around 6.8 x 1016 Joules.

The phaser blast lasted around 1 second, so this equates to a total power output of :

P = 6.8 x 1016 Watts, or :
= 68,000 TeraWatts




Give me some pointers to responding to this.

[Ghost Rider]

A few pointers because the debate is dead, but I'm bored.

Understand what is and is not canon and how to spot flaws in Graham Kennedy's supposed evaluations. Canon for SW is first movies, novelizations, then the rest in certain descending order. For Trek, the canon is the movies and televisions shows with everything else being apocrypha by Paramount's decree.

1. Technical Manuel has never been canon.

2. GK ASSUMES a fictional material to be something he took from the technical manual and goes from there, which puts the foundation into serious question.

[CaptJodan]

2. GK ASSUMES a fictional material to be something he took from the technical manual and goes from there, which puts the foundation into serious question.

Yes, he seems perfectly happy to take upper limit values from the TM, while ignoring, say, the 5.1 megawatt per segment (for a total of 200 segments for the large arrays) phaser array values that would vastly undermine his calculations.

Using the Borg as a benchmark for destructive force seems counter-productive anyway. Their "adaption" would make any values derived pretty useless, since the damn thing goes from seeming to be made of tissue paper to neutronium in the same episode.

[Ghost Rider]

2. GK ASSUMES a fictional material to be something he took from the technical manual and goes from there, which puts the foundation into serious question.

Yes, he seems perfectly happy to take upper limit values from the TM, while ignoring, say, the 5.1 megawatt per segment (for a total of 200 segments for the large arrays) phaser array values that would vastly undermine his calculations.

Using the Borg as a benchmark for destructive force seems counter-productive anyway. Their "adaption" would make any values derived pretty useless, since the damn thing goes from seeming to be made of tissue paper to neutronium in the same episode.

Both parts are cherry picking from the Technical Manual, but for me, it's not what he uses for Phasers, but the material

Taking a fictional material and basing one's math from that is absolutely asinine. The reason things like asteroids and why people use Iron for ship materials is that these are objects we can derive objective analysis from them. We can dervive analysis from TV and movies, but having a objective basis will always be superior. People can check your math and you can recieve feedback from it. Going from a fictional material means you can move the goalposts to suit your personal view.

This is why for all his yabbering Graham Kennedy is no better then Darkstar in this.

[Darth Ruinus]

This has always bugged me, and I believe it is linked to my lacking understanding of what exactly chain-reaction means, but, in ST, wouldn't all the weapon yields be lower, since the CR does most of the work? Or are all the calcs based on what the CR does?

[Darth Servo]

in ST, wouldn't all the weapon yields be lower, since the CR does most of the work? Or are all the calcs based on what the CR does?

Yes, the CR does lower the work needed. As such, no sci-fi CR weapon can have calcs since its impossible to derive how much energy is released in the reaction. In the case of hand phasers making things vanish, the energy is obviously negligible.

Other problem with GK's figures:

• They invariably ignore the fact that Trek reactors are bombs waiting to go off, which would contribute to the destruction.
• He always assumes 100% vaporization of the target material, even when one can see debris flying away from the explosion.

[nightmare]

Unreasonable assumption -

#1. The cube is made of tritanium.

No evidence.

#2. Vaporizing a 3 cubic metre block of tritanium takes 7.2 x 1012 Joules.

Non-canon, aka no evidence. A reasonable assumption wouldn't start with using non-canon fictional materials with unknown composition.

#3 Say 50% of the cube is unused empty volume

No evidence. The assumption is taken out of thin air, plus we can know a cube has vast interior space with a hull that's not even solid. In addition, the vast majority of any real-world transports are mostly empty, even if they are battleships. This relation also increases the larger the ship is. A more reasonable assumption would start well over 95%.

#4 Phasers use direct energy transfer (this assumption is not stated, but it's there).

Phasers induce some kind of chain reaction in the material it hits, which puts any and all calculations on how much energy they use to shame since we have no knowledge of the inner mechanics of this reaction. Especially, when used against unknown materials with unknown composition and unknown thermal resistance, kinetic resistance, and mechanical durability.

Conclusion: Above presented calcs have no value whatsoever.

[nightmare]

Self-correction to #4 since I apparently didn't bother to read it through enough (and in truth, it's not worth it)...

"Say 50% of the cube is unused empty volume, and say that of the remaining 50%, only about 0.2% is actual walls and floor - the rest being corridors, crawlspaces and the like. Overall, the cube would be about 0.1% solid metal."

That's better, a 99.9% empty assumption. It does, however, assume that the correlation is linear which is fair enough for a simple comparison but not really 'correct' in terms of ability to take damage. Unless one is talking about total vapourization, which it can't be, because there's no vapour, yaddayaddayadda... sorry I got bored.

[Darth Wong]

You have to love the way GK uses the tritanium figure from the TM and then totally ignores the weapon firepower figures from the same TM when it described past battles. He's the classic dishonest Trek troll, but that should be obvious as soon as you realize that he thinks a shuttlecraft could shrug off a Death Star blast.

[JohnM81]

You have to love the way GK uses the tritanium figure from the TM and then totally ignores the weapon firepower figures from the same TM when it described past battles. He's the classic dishonest Trek troll, but that should be obvious as soon as you realize that he thinks a shuttlecraft could shrug off a Death Star blast.

Are there any tritanium properties that can be found from the st episodes?

[Batman]

It's a) a metal or alloy, likely the latter and b) considered rather sturdy by contemporary standards and that's about it.
@DW: While the TM definitely puts one hell of a damper on phaser firepower (the aforementioned 1.05GW for a Type X array) I don't think I get the 'when it described past battles.' part.