Debating against "The Die is Cast"

[Enigma]

I'm over at clubasvs.net and there is a topic about defending TDIC. I'm trying to debunk it but RSA\Scooter gets brought up when I mentioned SW's BDZ and neutronium.

Can anyone tear this argument to shreds?

Warning! Please refrain from bashing your head against solid objects as you enter the site.

[Samuel]

Also as far as your other claim goes; we don't see 1/3 of the planetary crust destroyed BECAUSE WE DON'T SEE THE WHOLE PLANET! We see a small section shown on the viewscreen.

Just the section they are shooting at.

The false sensor readings were ONLY in relation to the life sign readings NOT the physical damage.

And where do you think the false sensor readings were generated from?

When you think about it, it's no more inconsistent that an ISD supposedly being able to take Turbolaser blasts but being creamed by a slow moving asteroid.

Because physical impacts and energy are exactly the same. Or being hit by asteroids destroyed the ISD

Any fighter pilot who is halfway competent knows the yield of his weaponry. There is no way he would conclude that he destroyed a third of a city with a small missile. If he did, he belongs in a mental institution, not a cockpit.

Unless you aim for say ammo depots. Than you get really big explosions. If only there were some sort of structure that when destoryed liberates large amounts of energy, you know, a reason for the fleet to approach so close to the planet.

It is not logical to think that the Romulans would have gone to the Founder's planet for the EXPRESS PURPOSE of demolishing the surface, if they were incapable of doing it.

They came to exterminate the Founders.

In TOS, in the second season episode "Bread and Circuses", Claudius Marcus tells Kirk he knows that his ship could "lay waste to this world".
Yes, the terms are broad, but this and the "General Order 24" shows us that 1 ship can do immense damage to a planet's surface.
Destroy one?
I don't think so, but damage immensely, I have no doubt...

Citizen, give me a spaceship and I can kill billions. Being at the top of a gravity well means that you can drop things and they hit the ground hard. Aim an asteroid at each ocean and you can basically end modern civilization.

As for part 2

#1

They show a planet with gigantic ripples covering it's surface. Are we to expect close ups of the planet's surface to confirm what the sensors said and the limited visuals suggest?

Slagging the surface would result in the ground glowing.

#2

The false sensor data was ONLY in reference to life signs. Not to damage of the planet's surface.

Where were the generators for said false sensor data?

We also have the inconvenient fact that the Romulans and Cardassians expected that kind of damage.

Planets in Trek vary greatly in how they react to bombardment. We had a world that just decided to explode in TWoK. I doubt anything fazes the crew of starships anymore.

An example. A fighter aircraft fired a single missile at a target, say a small building, and the enemy had a way of sending back false damage pictures to surveillance satellites. The false imagery showed half the city destroyed by that
missile. Does anyone really think the side that fired the missile would pat themselves on the back and say "Good job! That missile took out half the city!" when the missile only had the capability of destroying a small building?

"What sort of idiots leave tactical nukes lying around in small buildings? Must have been a concealed ammo depo."

you cannot try to exclude inconvenient evidence by trying to claim it doesn't fit with the rest of the series.

Actually we can. The degree of power generation needed requires a method of dumping heat orders of magnitude better than the Enterprise displays for example.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Who the fuck is Tyralak? I mean he's obviously gone to the trouble to try and revive ASVS exhausted corpse after the beatings the poor equine has been through, but for some reason the name does not ring a bell.

[Enigma]

He's an ASVS old timer. One of the original ASVSer. He's also from here but hasn't posted here much because he simply doesn't care how this site is run. He prefer something a lot more open and free willed(as in free to troll).

[Vehrec]

Here's something-we never see this level of destruction anywhere else. In the very same series, Earth's defenses are bypassed and an attack staged, wrecking the city of San Fransisco. But it is still recognizably san-fran, down to parts of the golden gate bridge still standing and in their customary orange paint. No massive craters or plumes of ejecta scar the city or its skyline. No indication anywhere of the crust being breached, let alone the kind of firepower ascribed to in TDIC. Why? If you have the capability to attack your enemy's homeworld, and you wish to wipe them out or enslave them, why only give them a veritable love tap when you supposedly could trigger the next K-T event? The answer is they can't. They never could. Sure, there exist very rare planet demolishing munitions in Trek, but come on people. This is as much a one-off as Genesis or the Red Matter.

Also, I believe General Order 24 was a bluff. How can you prove otherwise? Kirk invoked it when he was held hostage, and never followed through. Nobody can prove that such an order actually existed, let alone the capability to carry it out. For all we know, General Order 24 is really a memorial ceremony that Kirk appropriated and turned into an authentic sounding threat to low level civilizations.

[Captain Seafort]

Also, I believe General Order 24 was a bluff. How can you prove otherwise?

Scotty's reaction:

SCOTT: All cities and installations on Eminiar Seven have been located, identified, and fed into our fire-control system. In one hour and forty five minutes the entire inhabited surface of your planet will be destroyed.

Plus the fact that, later, Kirk repeated the order as Plan B in case he couldn't destroy the computers, and specifcally cancelled it before beaming up. Why do all that if it was just a bluff.

Moreover, given the known capabilities of Fed ships, it would be more surprising if they couldn't flatten a planet - a Connie's arsenal is dozens of megatons, minimum, and probably hundreds. Plus the phasers - if a hand phaser can remove several cubic metres of rock in a second, a starship's weapons should be able to remove hundreds.

It obviously isn't a BDZ, but a BDZ isn't required to destroy the civilisation as is it previously existed.

[Darth Hoth]

In TOS, in the second season episode "Bread and Circuses", Claudius Marcus tells Kirk he knows that his ship could "lay waste to this world".
Yes, the terms are broad, but this and the "General Order 24" shows us that 1 ship can do immense damage to a planet's surface.
Destroy one?
I don't think so, but damage immensely, I have no doubt...

Wait, I happen to have watched that one. Why does the Trekkie not also mention how that same pseudo-Roman emperor thought that 100 troops armed with phasers could conquer the entire planet? Said fact does impact rather considerably on his credibility as a military analyst.

Moreover, given the known capabilities of Fed ships, it would be more surprising if they couldn't flatten a planet - a Connie's arsenal is dozens of megatons, minimum, and probably hundreds. Plus the phasers - if a hand phaser can remove several cubic metres of rock in a second, a starship's weapons should be able to remove hundreds.

Seeing as how The Doomsday Machine has a self-destructing Constitution-class ship releasing less than 100 megatons, which amount of energy is also shown to be sufficient to destroy a target that the Enterprise's weapons could barely scratch?

It obviously isn't a BDZ, but a BDZ isn't required to destroy the civilisation as is it previously existed.

Do we have any data on Eminiar? It could be one of those Stargate-like worlds where everyone lives in one city (or a couple of them) for all we know.

[Captain Seafort]

Seeing as how The Doomsday Machine has a self-destructing Constitution-class ship releasing less than 100 megatons, which amount of energy is also shown to be sufficient to destroy a target that the Enterprise's weapons could barely scratch?

The 100 Mt figure referred to the detonation of the ship's impulse engines, not it's total power generation capability. PTs are probably in the low Mt range, based on the Pegasus asteroid and Reed's comment about them putting 3km craters in asteroids, and a Connie carries about 80 of them (from STVI) - hence as a rough estimate the total yield of a Connie's PTs is probably between 100 and 500 Mt. Phasers can obviously remove far greater masses than equivalent DET weapons, but they're a bit iffy due to their ineffectiveness against metal. They'd probably be more effective against rock though, given that Chain of Command showed a hand weapon removing a couple of cubic metres of rock in an instant.

Do we have any data on Eminiar? It could be one of those Stargate-like worlds where everyone lives in one city (or a couple of them) for all we know.

The general impression given by the episode is that the planet is heavily populated. Their war casualties were on the order of 1-3 million per year, sustained for half a millennia, and one attack alone "killed" half a million people.

[Formless]

Seeing as how The Doomsday Machine has a self-destructing Constitution-class ship releasing less than 100 megatons, which amount of energy is also shown to be sufficient to destroy a target that the Enterprise's weapons could barely scratch?

A crippled Constitution class ship which couldn't go to warp and barely had weapons capability. I see no reason a fully operational ship like the Enterprise couldn't muster much more power than that one could on a good day.

[Captain Seafort]

A crippled Constitution class ship which couldn't go to warp and barely had weapons capability. I see no reason a fully operational ship like the Enterprise couldn't muster much more power than that one could on a good day.

And, moreover, detonating inside the side, instead of against it's belt. It's even questionable whether the total yield of the Constellation's destruction was that low - the yield given was that of a single "impulse engine", of which the Connie has at least two, and possibly more if the TNG tech manual depictions are supported by canon and the same principle of series-linked reactors was used in the Connie.

[Ritterin Sophia]

He's an ASVS old timer. One of the original ASVSer. He's also from here but hasn't posted here much because he simply doesn't care how this site is run. He prefer something a lot more open and free willed(as in free to troll).

Okay, now that I've done a bit of research (I know a chronicler whining about doing research, but in my defense it did occur in my one year absence) I know who this whiny little fuck is. So from what I gather ASVS pretty much degenerated into a bunch of Trekkie's circlejerking, Tyriak purportedly being one of the originators of the group is trying to revive it in a better format. So pretty much it's another Starfleet Jedi and the only reason anyone gives a flying fuck is because he's part of the ASVS Old School Crew and now I understand Wong's reluctance to identify with the group. So I've got to ask, if all the information has been presented to them and they refuse the very plain evidence (How can you reconcile 1/3 of the crust being destroyed with those kind of visuals and the fact that San Francisco looked like it had only been carpet bombed? Especially when an actual photo of a fusion device from orbit was shown.), how do you plan to change their deluded minds and what point is served by giving them legitimacy by actually pretending they are anything but circlejerking retards?

[Enigma]

I've done my best but they've seem to think that if dialogue contradicts visuals then go with what will help the Trek side.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I've done my best but they've seem to think that if dialogue contradicts visuals then go with what will help the Trek side.

And I'm trying to tell you that it's futile. The general rule of debating is that if your opponent is willfully ignoring your evidence then you should be arguing to convince what spectators you can. The problem here is there aren't any, the group is made of previous ASVS debators, SFJ retards, and SDN rejects, like creationists they've been presented with the evidence but they persist in denying that it exists and that the objectives facts contradict their interpretation.

[Darth Wong]

Just look at the name they're using. They actually want it to be like a social club. They might as well proudly put up a banner saying "We all think alike and we're proud of it".

[Ritterin Sophia]

Just look at the name they're using. They actually want it to be like a social club. They might as well proudly put up a banner saying "We all think alike and we're proud of it".

I think you'd get a kick out of this thread, Wong. Link

I just want to let

Stark, Flagg, Coffee, Cloudstrife

know that they better watch out cuz Colefail's coming.

[Darth Wong]

Any group of people which tries to shrug off the severity of a contemptible act like posting child porn is only making the case against itself without our help.

[Manus Celer Dei]

I think you'd get a kick out of this thread, Wong. Link

I liked how they thought that time child porn was posted here was "awesome". They're obviously a real classy bunch of guys.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Just look at the name they're using. They actually want it to be like a social club. They might as well proudly put up a banner saying "We all think alike and we're proud of it".

Ironically, they accuse SDN of being a community of like-minded people. And they are not entirely incorrect either, obviously, but their real beef is still with the moderation policy, which they think is too strict. They seem to think that the totally uncontrolled anarchism of the Usenet was a good thing. Although I was never in the original ASVS, I have been on the Usenet longer than ASVS has existed and the "secret" to what killed the Usenet is quite simple: not enough moderation. It was obvious for most Usenet old-timers after the Eternal September had been going on for a few years. Currently many of the Newsgroups still alive are moderated ones, but unfortunately there are not enough of them to keep the whole Usenet alive. Which is a shame, since technically it is a much better form of a global discussion forum than the motley of Web-based boards we have now.

[Covenant]

Given the way people act in an unmoderated environment, a trend towards rules is simply normal. You don't increase valuable discourse via anarchy, but you do remove safety nozzles for idiocy, so unless lowering your signal to noise ratio is important to you for some strange reason, there's no reason to have a discussion forum without strict rules. This place has much laxer rules than most forums, which have no-flame policies that nix most debate, but I can't see why you'd want to strip yourself of rules unless it's just yammering and not discussion that you want to accomplish.

[Darth Wong]

Just look at the name they're using. They actually want it to be like a social club. They might as well proudly put up a banner saying "We all think alike and we're proud of it".

Ironically, they accuse SDN of being a community of like-minded people. And they are not entirely incorrect either, obviously, but their real beef is still with the moderation policy, which they think is too strict.

Yeah, well, when you have people who think it's funny to post child porn, I'd say that their idea of "too strict" is so far from social norms that it can be ignored.

[Darth Hoth]

PTs are probably in the low Mt range, based on the Pegasus asteroid and Reed's comment about them putting 3km craters in asteroids, and a Connie carries about 80 of them (from STVI) - hence as a rough estimate the total yield of a Connie's PTs is probably between 100 and 500 Mt.

Hm, alright. That makes sense. It does make the characters in The Doomsday Machine appear stupid for not using torpedoes, but then that would hardly be a first. Or perhaps we can be generous and assume that they had run out of them offscreen, somehow.

Phasers can obviously remove far greater masses than equivalent DET weapons, but they're a bit iffy due to their ineffectiveness against metal. They'd probably be more effective against rock though, given that Chain of Command showed a hand weapon removing a couple of cubic metres of rock in an instant.

As I have not watched the episode in question, I could not comment on that.

The general impression given by the episode is that the planet is heavily populated. Their war casualties were on the order of 1-3 million per year, sustained for half a millennia, and one attack alone "killed" half a million people.

Yes, but I do not remember it detailing the distribution of that population. If most of them are confined to comparatively few cities, it would make them much easier to destroy.

A crippled Constitution class ship which couldn't go to warp and barely had weapons capability. I see no reason a fully operational ship like the Enterprise couldn't muster much more power than that one could on a good day.

And your point would be? That the Constellation is badly crippled does not change the point that its 100-megaton explosion (or 97.835 MT, if we quote Spock's precise figure) is apparently still more destructive than any weapon Kirk, Spock or Decker think available at the time.

[Formless]

And your point would be? That the Constellation is badly crippled does not change the point that its 100-megaton explosion (or 97.835 MT, if we quote Spock's precise figure) is apparently still more destructive than any weapon Kirk, Spock or Decker think available at the time.

My point is that that ship should not be taken as representative of the total energy available to a ship of that class because of the damage it suffered. As for the fact that it was the most powerful weapon available, I think we can chalk that up to an issue of delivery. All their other weapons were bouncing off the Nutronium hull of the Machine like it was nothing, and they knew that the maw was its weak spot. By throwing a self destructing spacecraft down it they could deliver all the energy potential of said ship all at once in a form the Doomsday Machine couldn't shrug off. For all we know, they decided that pumping torpedoes in its mouth would be too dangerous because it would put the Enterprise directly in front of the Doomsday Machine's main weapon, one which they knew had planet destroying capabilities. This does not disprove the notion that a Constitution class ship has enough firepower to completely devastate a civilization comparable to modern earth.

*edit* A thought just came to me: perhaps its possible because of the nature of how phasers do their damage? The main website still advocates the NDF chain reaction theory, and I remember it talking about how silicate rock seems to be especially effected. Perhaps this could explain why Kirk was so confident in his ship's capability to ruin Eminar Seven's shit? */edit*

[Marcus Aurelius]

PTs are probably in the low Mt range, based on the Pegasus asteroid and Reed's comment about them putting 3km craters in asteroids, and a Connie carries about 80 of them (from STVI) - hence as a rough estimate the total yield of a Connie's PTs is probably between 100 and 500 Mt.

Hm, alright. That makes sense. It does make the characters in The Doomsday Machine appear stupid for not using torpedoes, but then that would hardly be a first. Or perhaps we can be generous and assume that they had run out of them offscreen, somehow.

And your point would be? That the Constellation is badly crippled does not change the point that its 100-megaton explosion (or 97.835 MT, if we quote Spock's precise figure) is apparently still more destructive than any weapon Kirk, Spock or Decker think available at the time.

Surely there's a difference between one big explosion and several smaller ones over a certain time when trying to destroy what is probably an armored target? I don't know if maximum rate of fire from PT launchers of the Constitution class has ever been established, but judging from the various scenes I remember it would take something like 30-60 seconds to fire all 80 torpedoes. If we assume 1.5 PT/second and 4 Mt yield per torpedo, it would take more than 16 seconds to reach 97.835 Mt total yield.

[Darth Wong]

I don't know if maximum rate of fire from PT launchers of the Constitution class has ever been established, but judging from the various scenes I remember it would take something like 30-60 seconds to fire all 80 torpedoes. If we assume 1.5 PT/second and 4 Mt yield per torpedo, it would take more than 16 seconds to reach 97.835 Mt total yield.

Why couldn't they put staggered fuses on them and have them all go off more or less at once?

[erik_t]

The timing-positioning coupling could be terribly finicky if they're trying to actually get blast fronts to coalesce.