The Die is Cast

[Howedar]

The destruction of the mantle is still not particularly impressive. It takes more energy to melt the surface kilometer of a globe than to shatter rock and break the mantle of a planet apart. In fact, it takes far more energy. And BTW, life would survive on a planet whose mantle had been turned up, too. In fact, life would survive easily. This is not a BDZ. In fact, it's not even really a poor man's BDZ, because it does not even eliminate escapees and communications, which is a critical phase in a BDZ. Also, a BDZ is material independent.

The sheer volume of the mantle makes this an amazing task.

[Kamakazie Sith]

The destruction of the mantle is still not particularly impressive. It takes more energy to melt the surface kilometer of a globe than to shatter rock and break the mantle of a planet apart. In fact, it takes far more energy. And BTW, life would survive on a planet whose mantle had been turned up, too. In fact, life would survive easily. This is not a BDZ. In fact, it's not even really a poor man's BDZ, because it does not even eliminate escapees and communications, which is a critical phase in a BDZ. Also, a BDZ is material independent.

They destroy all the crust, and all the mantle......and this isn't impressive.

Granted we don't know to what degree they mean when they say destroy, but if they plan on destroying the mantle I'm sure the crust is completely gone.

[Crossover_Maniac]

Granted we don't know to what degree they mean when they say destroy, but if they plan on destroying the mantle I'm sure the crust is completely gone.

Gone where? That's the troubling thing about it. Is it pulverized to the point most of the crust material is floating around the atmosphere leaving a thick layer of dust in the upper atmosphere. Do ST weapons have enough penetration to drill through the rumble that was the crust to the mantle. I'm tempted to say the crust is vaporized, but ST have never showed the firepower necessary to vaporize 1.6E19 cubic meters of rock (assuming a planet the size of earth with an average crust thickness of 20 miles) to get to the mantle.

[Master of Ossus]

The destruction of the mantle is still not particularly impressive. It takes more energy to melt the surface kilometer of a globe than to shatter rock and break the mantle of a planet apart. In fact, it takes far more energy. And BTW, life would survive on a planet whose mantle had been turned up, too. In fact, life would survive easily. This is not a BDZ. In fact, it's not even really a poor man's BDZ, because it does not even eliminate escapees and communications, which is a critical phase in a BDZ. Also, a BDZ is material independent.

They destroy all the crust, and all the mantle......and this isn't impressive.

Granted we don't know to what degree they mean when they say destroy, but if they plan on destroying the mantle I'm sure the crust is completely gone.

I never posted that bottom part, Crossover maniac, that was Kamikazie Sith attacking me!

Okay, we don't know to what degree they mean when they say "destroy." You are completely correct, however, you do not need to destroy the crust of a planet in order to attack the mantle. In fact, it would be far easier if you did not. What you need to do is fire into the mantle with some explosive devices. That does significant damage to anything within the mantle (kind of like hydrolic shock affects people who are shot). This would create pressure waves within the mantle, doing considerable damage to the entire planet, and the crust. Thus, both the crust and mantle could be "destroyed" simultaneously. This would not eliminate all life on a planet, in fact, it would not even be close, but it would be the fastest and easiest way of doing what the Romulans and Cardassians were talking about. And BTW, the mantle and crust would have to go somewhere. They could not just disappear, as you imply. They would have to be vaporized or they would have to be merely broken up. ST ships clearly do not have anywhere near the firepower to vaporize that much rock. In fact, it might even be impossible with the DS (I'll have to check that). The best way for ST to accomplish what they are trying to do is by drilling straight to the mantle and firing torpedoes or other weapons down into the mantle. It would be consistent with what we have seen ST ships do in the past, but it would not be a BDZ.

And, BTW, you completely ignored my points about why the TDiC operation is nowhere near a BDZ (ie. Does not eliminate all life, has survivors, has communications, etc). You completely ignored my statements about how the Romulan fleet might not be "pulling its weight" and you completely ignored my statements about the military definition of the term "destroyed." Concessions accepted, Howedar.

[Cpt_Frank]

Here's a BDZed planet.

Not exactly what the planet in tdic looked like.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Granted we don't know to what degree they mean when they say destroy, but if they plan on destroying the mantle I'm sure the crust is completely gone.

Gone where? That's the troubling thing about it. Is it pulverized to the point most of the crust material is floating around the atmosphere leaving a thick layer of dust in the upper atmosphere. Do ST weapons have enough penetration to drill through the rumble that was the crust to the mantle. I'm tempted to say the crust is vaporized, but ST have never showed the firepower necessary to vaporize 1.6E19 cubic meters of rock (assuming a planet the size of earth with an average crust thickness of 20 miles) to get to the mantle.

You took me too literally. I didn't mean it vanished.....we only saw 10 seconds of bombardment. My point is that in those 10 seconds we did not see enough to claim that the plan was impossible.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I never posted that bottom part, Crossover maniac, that was Kamikazie Sith attacking me!

Choose your words carefully, I was not attacking you.

Okay, we don't know to what degree they mean when they say "destroy." You are completely correct, however, you do not need to destroy the crust of a planet in order to attack the mantle. In fact, it would be far easier if you did not. What you need to do is fire into the mantle with some explosive devices. That does significant damage to anything within the mantle (kind of like hydrolic shock affects people who are shot). This would create pressure waves within the mantle, doing considerable damage to the entire planet, and the crust. Thus, both the crust and mantle could be "destroyed" simultaneously. This would not eliminate all life on a planet, in fact, it would not even be close, but it would be the fastest and easiest way of doing what the Romulans and Cardassians were talking about. And BTW, the mantle and crust would have to go somewhere. They could not just disappear, as you imply. They would have to be vaporized or they would have to be merely broken up. ST ships clearly do not have anywhere near the firepower to vaporize that much rock. In fact, it might even be impossible with the DS (I'll have to check that). The best way for ST to accomplish what they are trying to do is by drilling straight to the mantle and firing torpedoes or other weapons down into the mantle. It would be consistent with what we have seen ST ships do in the past, but it would not be a BDZ.

I understand your point. However, we still do not know what they meant by destroy...so speculate as much as you want.

And you also took me too literally.....I didn't actually mean it would just "disappear" I find it amusing that you would actually think that I was claiming it would simply disappear.

And, BTW, you completely ignored my points about why the TDiC operation is nowhere near a BDZ (ie. Does not eliminate all life, has survivors, has communications, etc). You completely ignored my statements about how the Romulan fleet might not be "pulling its weight" and you completely ignored my statements about the military definition of the term "destroyed." Concessions accepted, Howedar.

My fault, I wasn't trying to imply it was a BDZ. However, I was arguing that such an operation would destroy all life on a planet.

You should also know that the plan called for the extermination of the founders ie no survivors.

I ignored them because I didn't see any relevance to them...because the plan did not call for any special instructions like...destroying part of the crust and then planting explosives in the mantle.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Here's a BDZed planet.

Not exactly what the planet in tdic looked like.

I agree, in fact I don't know of any planet that looks like that....rather cartoonish don't ya think

[nightmare]

The Cardassians are using phasers, Romulans are using disruptors beams, pulses and plasma torpedoes.

I guess it shows that I don't pay much attention to Trek anymore. It's Voyagers fault. The holodoc is the only thing worth watching on that show, and I prefer to watch things go boom

[Master of Ossus]

Wait, you tell me to choose my words carefully because my "attacking" statement was too literal, and then you passed off my statement that you were implying that the crust and mantle would disappear because you said "gone?" You need to choose your words more carefully, too.

Founders seem to be highly vulnerable to weapons, and in many ways are more vulnerable than humans to certain weapons. Yes, they were trying to exterminate the Founders, but they were not doing a very good job of it, as they were leaving Odo and some other founders in the AQ. Clearly there were bound to be some survivors. What they were trying to do is destroy the founders as a military threat (my definition of "destroyed" CLEARLY makes sense, here), and in so doing eliminate the Dominion as one. Even if all the Founders were killed, that is laughable compared to a BDZ operation. In a BDZ, all LIFE is exterminated, including bacteria and such. That would require that the planet's crust be uniformly melted down to a depth of one half of one mile.

By your definition of destroyed, it is impossible to destroy the mantle of a planet. If you mean "vaporize" that is far more firepower than any ships in ST have, including the Scimitar from Nemesis, which is supposed to be top-of-the-line. Clearly the operation was more limited in scale than the one you propose.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Wait, you tell me to choose my words carefully because my "attacking" statement was too literal, and then you passed off my statement that you were implying that the crust and mantle would disappear because you said "gone?" You need to choose your words more carefully, too.

LOL okay whatever..lets move on.

Founders seem to be highly vulnerable to weapons, and in many ways are more vulnerable than humans to certain weapons. Yes, they were trying to exterminate the Founders, but they were not doing a very good job of it, as they were leaving Odo and some other founders in the AQ. Clearly there were bound to be some survivors. What they were trying to do is destroy the founders as a military threat (my definition of "destroyed" CLEARLY makes sense, here), and in so doing eliminate the Dominion as one. Even if all the Founders were killed, that is laughable compared to a BDZ operation. In a BDZ, all LIFE is exterminated, including bacteria and such. That would require that the planet's crust be uniformly melted down to a depth of one half of one mile.

What episodes did you determine that founders were more vulnerable to certain weapons?

They weren't doing a very good job? When the Empire BDZed Camaas...did they get all of them? IIRC no. There were some off world that survived...so I guess BDZs don't do a very good job either.

Agreed they were trying to destroy the Founders...they destroyed the mantle because the founders can resort to liquid and can find places to hide.

I will conceed that destroyed gives us low end and high end calcs. Since the operation was not completed we can not conclude anything.

By your definition of destroyed, it is impossible to destroy the mantle of a planet. If you mean "vaporize" that is far more firepower than any ships in ST have, including the Scimitar from Nemesis, which is supposed to be top-of-the-line. Clearly the operation was more limited in scale than the one you propose.

I always took that scene to mean that the fleet would have left the planet with just the core...and it is not "more firepower" the TOS connie was capable of such things. The Defiant was stated to be able to turn a planet into a smoking cinder. I'm going off dialogue, which in ST IMO is more important than visuals.

[Darth Wong]

The "dialogue vs visuals" debate can be settled by simply looking at this thread. It's a fine example of how people can wrangle over the meaning of a word like "destroy", which in turn demonstrates that dialogue is subjective.

In other words, visuals are objective (no one can argue that the visuals showed no significant crust damage whatsoever) while dialogue is subjective (different individual interpretations can lead to many orders of magnitude different levels of destruction).

In short, TDiC is not objective evidence for high ST weapon power. At best, it is a subjective suggestion that ST may be capable of destroying lots of rock (not heavy metal armour), depending on your interpretation, and it would have to be rationalized with 4.2GW phaser banks and the entire armament of the E-D being necessary to destroy a 5km wide asteroid (see "Pegasus"), while Jango Fett could do that with a single seismic charge.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Here's a BDZed planet.

Not exactly what the planet in tdic looked like.

What did the planet in TDiC look like?

[Master of Ossus]

Where did I determine that the founders were vulnerable to certain weapons? When they were on Earth and Odo was helping SF bolster its security against changelings. In fact, all of the episodes on Earth demonstrated curiously that the Founders were highly susceptible to even knife attacks, as well as weapons set for such low power that humans are not even bothered by them.

When the Empire BDZed Caamas, they killed all life on Caamas. You tried to say that the Cardassian/Romulan fleet in TDiC was trying to exterminate ALL founders, when this was clearly not their goal. They were merely trying to remove the Founders as a military presence and as leaders of the Dominion.

How would the planet be left with "just the core" that makes no sense. The "destroyed" material must be going somewhere, or you must be mistaken.

BTW, Darth Wong is correct, we must not use the dialogue to override the visual effects. And we must also rationalize what we hear in the dialogue with other instances from the show. When one incident among hundreds seems particularly unusual, we must write it up as an anomaly. TDiC is clearly an anomaly, but one that can easily be rationalized with false sensor readings/strange definitions of "destroyed."

[Kamakazie Sith]

Where did I determine that the founders were vulnerable to certain weapons? When they were on Earth and Odo was helping SF bolster its security against changelings. In fact, all of the episodes on Earth demonstrated curiously that the Founders were highly susceptible to even knife attacks, as well as weapons set for such low power that humans are not even bothered by them.

I don't remember this, you'll need to find the episode.

When the Empire BDZed Caamas, they killed all life on Caamas. You tried to say that the Cardassian/Romulan fleet in TDiC was trying to exterminate ALL founders, when this was clearly not their goal. They were merely trying to remove the Founders as a military presence and as leaders of the Dominion.

"Tain doesn’t think that the Dominion will be striking back, “Our intention is to wipe out the Dominion in one single blow, by eliminating the Founders. Without them, the Dominion will collapse.”

I'm only claiming what canon dialogue supports.

How would the planet be left with "just the core" that makes no sense. The "destroyed" material must be going somewhere, or you must be mistaken.

It seems your being very dense....of course it has to go somewhere...but if it had been vaporized or blown out into space....it would be gone figuratively speaking.

[qoute]
BTW, Darth Wong is correct, we must not use the dialogue to override the visual effects. And we must also rationalize what we hear in the dialogue with other instances from the show. When one incident among hundreds seems particularly unusual, we must write it up as an anomaly. TDiC is clearly an anomaly, but one that can easily be rationalized with false sensor readings/strange definitions of "destroyed."[/quote]

Yes your right....by rationalizing the definitions of destroyed it can mean many things.

[Kamakazie Sith]

The "dialogue vs visuals" debate can be settled by simply looking at this thread. It's a fine example of how people can wrangle over the meaning of a word like "destroy", which in turn demonstrates that dialogue is subjective.

In other words, visuals are objective (no one can argue that the visuals showed no significant crust damage whatsoever) while dialogue is subjective (different individual interpretations can lead to many orders of magnitude different levels of destruction).

In short, TDiC is not objective evidence for high ST weapon power. At best, it is a subjective suggestion that ST may be capable of destroying lots of rock (not heavy metal armour), depending on your interpretation, and it would have to be rationalized with 4.2GW phaser banks and the entire armament of the E-D being necessary to destroy a 5km wide asteroid (see "Pegasus"), while Jango Fett could do that with a single seismic charge.

I understand. However ST episode effects don't have the resources that SW movie effects do when I say resources I mean budget...and those kind of effects are expensive. That's why I have a problem with taking visuals over dialogue in ST especially when the visuals make the characters seem like they don't know what they are talking about.

Though I realized that the definition of destroyed can mean many things, including what we've seen of ST ships abilities.

[SirNitram]

Sith, by your line of argument I can claim Alderaan was a neutronium-filled Dyson sphere, but the special effects of the day couldn't properly indicate this.

[Crossover_Maniac]

In every-day speech, you would be correct. In military terms, the term "destroy" means to damage something beyond any utility, and beyond the point where a reasonable amount of repair could restore the object to functionality.

Thank you for clarifying the situation. The purpose of the bombardment of the Founders' homeworld was to wipe the Founders out of existance. So, 'destroy' means kill all Changlings on that world. So, we have something to start from.

To do this to a planetary crust, I think, means to break it up so that only very small buildings can remain (which would also do a whole bunch of other damage to the planet, BTW).

Probably a little bit more thoughal than that. The purpose of the mission was no Changlings left alive. This would mean wiping the surface clean of anything, even very small buildings.

I do not think that this requires anywhere near the firepower of a BDZ. It would mean that the top of the planet is lightly scarified, to the point where it takes a highly concerted effort to remove the debris and begin building, again. That is where I got my interpretation of the word "destroy." You are quite correct, though, Howedar, we have NO idea what the term actually meant, but I do not think that it could have meant "melted" or "vaporized." At the most, it would involve drilling down to the liquidy parts of the planet and creating small volcanoes.

Assuming the planet's mantle was liquid. Mars and the Moon has a solid mantle. But given the definition of destroy, why go through the trouble of destroying the mantle. I believe the Romulians and Cardassians were assuming there might be some sort of underground facilities that a simple bombardment of the surface would not destroy. So, by definition of the mission goals, 'destroy' meant subject the mantle and crust to enough firepower to destroy underground facilities. That's my guess. Now how much energy does it take, I don't know.

[Crossover_Maniac]

I wonder how much force would it take to generate a shockwave of debris spreading out at 100 kilometers per second. Any takers for this one?

[Howedar]

The "dialogue vs visuals" debate can be settled by simply looking at this thread. It's a fine example of how people can wrangle over the meaning of a word like "destroy", which in turn demonstrates that dialogue is subjective.

In other words, visuals are objective (no one can argue that the visuals showed no significant crust damage whatsoever) while dialogue is subjective (different individual interpretations can lead to many orders of magnitude different levels of destruction).

In short, TDiC is not objective evidence for high ST weapon power. At best, it is a subjective suggestion that ST may be capable of destroying lots of rock (not heavy metal armour), depending on your interpretation, and it would have to be rationalized with 4.2GW phaser banks and the entire armament of the E-D being necessary to destroy a 5km wide asteroid (see "Pegasus"), while Jango Fett could do that with a single seismic charge.

Agreed: the dialogue indicates anything from opening up some new volcanoes to the complete and utter vaporization of the crust and mantle (a capability far out of reach to the entire fleets of every major ST "younger race", but I digress). There are situations when I might take dialogue over visuals (say, if it were Dodonna's brief vs. the Darmok phaser from a torpedo launcher), but TDiC is definately not one of those situations.

[Crossover_Maniac]

Agreed: the dialogue indicates anything from opening up some new volcanoes to the complete and utter vaporization of the crust and mantle .[/quote]

Whatever the dialogue indicates, it has to be at least enough to kill every changling on the planet.

[Darth Wong]

I wonder how much force would it take to generate a shockwave of debris spreading out at 100 kilometers per second. Any takers for this one?

I'll take this one, since the answer is so blindingly obvious: it depends on the mass of the debris and the resistance of the medium.

However, both must be small, since there was no fireball and no persistent luminescence at ground level. You do[/i] know what happens when large quantities of debris are hurled through sea-level air at hypervelocity, don't you? That's right; ion storm and blindingly intense wake radiation. Since we didn't see any such effects, there were obviously no significant quantities of hypervelocity matter. Sorry, but you lose.

The "shockwaves" you saw (planar, with no significant omnidirectional propagation) were obviously upper-atmospheric phenomena, perhaps similar to aurora borealis or maybe even the pretty but essentially harmless Praxis effect (which, I remind you, had no effect on the adjacent Klingon homeworld apart from ozone depletion). Your interpretation generates predictions which are so wildly out of sync with the objective data that it forces me to call either your competence or your objectivity into question.

Whatever the dialogue indicates, it has to be at least enough to kill every changling on the planet.

Not much of a feat, since the changelings occupy a thin (geographically speaking) layer on the surface, so that every changeling has a clear line of sight to the sky. They don't live in houses, they don't live in mines, there is no evidence whatsoever of underground facilities or cities, etc. The whole planet looks like a giant ocean of changeling goo: perfect for orbital bombardment.

They figured it would take an hour to "destroy the crust", but the only theory which can be physically rationalized with both the dialogue and the visuals is that they meant "destroy" only in the military sense. Burrowing torps and volcanic action would easily accomplish this task since the ensuing lava flows would burn the changelings alive. Moreover, if you only want to kill every changeling (the only thing we know for sure that they wanted to do) and you have an hour to do it with 30 ships at your disposal, you can easily fire more than 100,000 shots (disregarding torpedoes), which is more than enough to cause total fatalities in a thin organic surface layer (far more delicate than metal or rock) through direct radiation.

Remember: it takes the E-D's entire photorp armament to destroy one measly 5km wide asteroid (in "Pegasus"). Rather than trying to concoct explanations that simultaneously fit all of the evidence, you seem to be extracting fanciful explanations from one particular piece of evidence and ignoring the serious problems it creates for overall consistency.

[Darth Wong]

I understand. However ST episode effects don't have the resources that SW movie effects do when I say resources I mean budget...and those kind of effects are expensive. That's why I have a problem with taking visuals over dialogue in ST especially when the visuals make the characters seem like they don't know what they are talking about.

Umm ... we are talking about the people who discuss sonic weapons in space, cracks in mathematically defined event horizons, and devices that can change the (mathematical!) laws of probability with a perfectly straight face, remember? The characters don't know what they're talking about. This is canon.

Besides, while there is a such thing as an FX "mistake", there is also such a thing as a dialogue "mistake", yet I never see anyone admitting as much. If there's a mistake in TDiC, why do we automatically assume it's bad FX instead of bad dialogue? The FX looked fine to me; no internal inconsistencies to note whatsoever. The dialogue, on the other hand, is contradictory with countless other dialogue descriptions of ST weapon capabilities!

Remember: we're talking about a form of fiction which is created as a TV show or a movie, and in such a form, everyone from the actor to the director, the producer, the FX people, and the set designers can lay just as much claim (if not more) to the title of "creator" as the writers can. Consider the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" example; the director and actor decided to have Indy shoot the Arabian swordsman instead of fighting him as per the script. Is this not canon because it violated the writer's intent? Of course not. Why? Because Raiders was a movie first, not a movie adaptation of a pre-existing book. This common notion that the writers constitute canon and the FX constitutes an unreliable implementation of that canon is completely false when we are talking about entertainment media which are films or TV shows first.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Destroy!=vapourize

[Crossover_Maniac]

I wonder how much force would it take to generate a shockwave of debris spreading out at 100 kilometers per second. Any takers for this one?

I'll take this one, since the answer is so blindingly obvious: it depends on the mass of the debris and the resistance of the medium.

However, both must be small, since there was no fireball and no persistent luminescence at ground level. You do[/i] know what happens when large quantities of debris are hurled through sea-level air at hypervelocity, don't you? That's right; ion storm and blindingly intense wake radiation. Since we didn't see any such effects, there were obviously no significant quantities of hypervelocity matter. Sorry, but you lose

The "shockwaves" you saw (planar, with no significant omnidirectional propagation) were obviously upper-atmospheric phenomena, perhaps similar to aurora borealis or maybe even the pretty but essentially harmless Praxis effect (which, I remind you, had no effect on the adjacent Klingon homeworld apart from ozone depletion). Your interpretation generates predictions which are so wildly out of sync with the objective data that it forces me to call either your competence or your objectivity into question.

Whatever the dialogue indicates, it has to be at least enough to kill every changling on the planet.

Not much of a feat, since the changelings occupy a thin (geographically speaking) layer on the surface, so that every changeling has a clear line of sight to the sky. They don't live in houses, they don't live in mines, there is no evidence whatsoever of underground facilities or cities, etc. The whole planet looks like a giant ocean of changeling goo: perfect for orbital bombardment.

They figured it would take an hour to "destroy the crust", but the only theory which can be physically rationalized with both the dialogue and the visuals is that they meant "destroy" only in the military sense. Burrowing torps and volcanic action would easily accomplish this task since the ensuing lava flows would burn the changelings alive. Moreover, if you only want to kill every changeling (the only thing we know for sure that they wanted to do) and you have an hour to do it with 30 ships at your disposal, you can easily fire more than 100,000 shots (disregarding torpedoes), which is more than enough to cause total fatalities in a thin organic surface layer (far more delicate than metal or rock) through direct radiation.

Remember: it takes the E-D's entire photorp armament to destroy one measly 5km wide asteroid (in "Pegasus"). Rather than trying to concoct explanations that simultaneously fit all of the evidence, you seem to be extracting fanciful explanations from one particular piece of evidence and ignoring the serious problems it creates for overall consistency.

If were paying attention to this thread, you'd know I'd never made any 'fanciful explanations'. I even stated ST ships weren't capable of doing the damage necessary to destroy the crust and mantle in the sense of vaporizing that was claimed by other. As for whether I'm imcompetence or bias, I'm bias. I'm bias towards the canon of a series. Example, in the thread on the size of Starfleet, I stated the number was 8,000 to 12,000 ships even though most of the numbers given on the thread because the show's executive producer, Brannon Braga, stated the size of starfleet was around 8,000 to 12,000 ships, not counting shuttles and fighters. I try to follow canon as close as possible.