Alyeska wrote:Irrelevent. Evidence indicates there is a layer of subspace "behind" normal space everywhere. We also know that subspace interacts with real space to a degree. This is why subspace based technology can affect normal space.
This is so far from a physically rational theory that it's not even funny. If subspace is filled with energy, and it's so easily accessed, then I reiterate my earlier point: why don't they do this all the time, and why haven't they started building reactors on this basis?
They cant build reliable subspace weaponary(to the point were they have banned it in the Federation because of that), so what hope do they have to biuld a power generator based solely on that stuff?
They just dont have a 'pure' subspace power generator. But its stated outright that the warp core has some subspace effects attached to then. So they have hybrid generators, which would be vastly less powerful.
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I'd suggest that the mechanism for the phaser+torpedo = bigger flash + more lethality phenomenon could be due to the nature of trek shields. We know Trek shields are frequency dependent (whatever that may mean in the context of a M/AM torpedo impact). Is it possible that phasering the torpedo causes it to detonate in a chaotic or unpredicatable way, releasing its regular amount of energy, but across a broader or different set of frequencies? This might, under certain circumstances, make it more than usually effective against a shielded vessel, and could account for the bigger, brighter explosion due to a greater proportion of the energy being released as visible wavelengths radiation.
Lets see what we have here, as I've happen to see that ep. (and its boring imo)
If I remember correctly, the torpedo is detonated at somewhere around 45 degrees to the front in between the two ships, and a shockwave is formed. The shockwave that hits the ships, after after a brief shield interaction both opposing ships are clearly blasted backwards.
So the effects are, disabling and kinetic energy impact.
The second part is that we know it doesn't always work, or they'd have used it every time, or put a phaser in a torpedo. That suggest that such attacks are defendable by easy modifications that can be adopted quickly, probably in battle.
Here is my theory. Trek shields are probabily consisting of seperate energy and particle shield, and because they are the alien of the week, I'll assume this is true. Phasers are energy weapons and torpedos would detonate on the shield releasing energy based damage as the kinetic energy is generally unimpressive, and the shield is probably made to block primarily momentumless energy when in combat. Now when the doctor detonated the torpedo, a large fraction of the energy of the phaser and torpedo is converted into kinetic energy. The shockwave hits the opposing ships before the crews could respond to change shield energies and overwhelmed the kinetic aspect of the shield, and the residuce energy blasted the ship off course and disabled the drive system, probably due to being pushed off alignment of the drive field produced internal stress at top speed.
This is generally not done because the opponent can easily defend against it when they change shield energy distribution and it is an waste of torpedo shots that can be used more effectively though normal focused detonation.
Considering how well ramming works against trek ships, I'd say that idea is fairly well supported.
Alyeska wrote:Voyager shot down one of its own torpedoes once and created an explossion more powerful then either combining the phaser and torpedo together. The logical assumption is the phaser created an interaction with the torpedo the gave it "access" to more power from subspace.
What this means is torpedoes are rarely shot at because its more dangerous to shoot down the torpedo then it is to simply take the hit.
Why would that be? A photon torpedo is a missile carrying antimatter, which reacts with the casing and machinery of the torpedo to explode violently. Shooting the torpedo in midflight might break the containment and cause the thing to explode, but I don't see why it would be any more powerful than if it exploded normally.
Besides, even if the resultant explosion was more powerful, shooting it down far away from your ship is better than letting it explode directly on top of your ship. Explosive power decreases with distance, since the energy of the blast spreads out at a geometric rate, not to mention the precentage of the explosion that hits you decreases. Even if the bomb was hundred times more powerful if you shoot it with a phaser, it still would be an advantage to shoot it down as far from the ship as possible. If it explodes next to the enemy ship, as Warspite says, so much the better for you.
well conservation of energy does not exist in universe under the management of the two B's....
The scariest folk song lyrics are "My Boy Grew up to be just like me" from cats in the cradle by Harry Chapin
evilcat4000 wrote:The likely reason why torpedoes are not shot is torpedoes are shielded. This is supported by the glowing orange torpedoe SFX.
Why would a shield stop from from getting shot down? The shields they carry can't be that strong, not enough to make a difference. Even if they are shielded, it's still worth the effort to shoot them down.
Besides, I think the orange glow is their drive section in action, not a shield.
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evilcat4000 wrote:The likely reason why torpedoes are not shot is torpedoes are shielded. This is supported by the glowing orange torpedoe SFX.
Why would a shield stop from from getting shot down? The shields they carry can't be that strong, not enough to make a difference. Even if they are shielded, it's still worth the effort to shoot them down.
Besides, I think the orange glow is their drive section in action, not a shield.
The shields are probobly strong enough to offer just a few seconds of protection needed aginst phaser fire to hit their target.
I have to tell you something everything I wrote above is a lie.
evilcat4000 wrote:The shields are probobly strong enough to offer just a few seconds of protection needed aginst phaser fire to hit their target.
Since when? What evidence do you have of any of this?
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
evilcat4000 wrote:The shields are probobly strong enough to offer just a few seconds of protection needed aginst phaser fire to hit their target.
Since when? What evidence do you have of any of this?
No direct evidence exists to suggest torpedoes are shielded. This as an assumption.
There some reasons for this assumption however. Phasers despite their great speed and accuracy do not try to hit torpedoes. This suggests torpedoes have some sort of protection. Also despite being over a meter long and weighing 80 kilograms torpedoes carry only 1.5 kg of anti matter.
Based on this one could hypotheisis that the rest of a torpedoe mass is used by a small shield generator.
I have to tell you something everything I wrote above is a lie.
evilcat4000 wrote:The shields are probobly strong enough to offer just a few seconds of protection needed aginst phaser fire to hit their target.
Since when? What evidence do you have of any of this?
No direct evidence exists to suggest torpedoes are shielded. This as an assumption.
There some reasons for this assumption however. Phasers despite their great speed and accuracy do not try to hit torpedoes. This suggests torpedoes have some sort of protection. Also despite being over a meter long and weighing 80 kilograms torpedoes carry only 1.5 kg of anti matter.
Based on this one could hypotheisis that the rest of a torpedoe mass is used by a small shield generator.
We could also hypothesize that becuase your body is 100kg and only holds 25 kg's of bone, you are full of shit.
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evilcat4000 wrote:The likely reason why torpedoes are not shot is torpedoes are shielded. This is supported by the glowing orange torpedoe SFX.
Why would a shield stop from from getting shot down? The shields they carry can't be that strong, not enough to make a difference. Even if they are shielded, it's still worth the effort to shoot them down.
Besides, I think the orange glow is their drive section in action, not a shield.
Unless of course they have dune shields on their torpedoes....
The scariest folk song lyrics are "My Boy Grew up to be just like me" from cats in the cradle by Harry Chapin
Col. Crackpot wrote:We could also hypothesize that becuase your body is 100kg and only holds 25 kg's of bone, you are full of shit.
ZING!
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
evilcat4000 wrote:No direct evidence exists to suggest torpedoes are shielded. This as an assumption.
There some reasons for this assumption however. Phasers despite their great speed and accuracy do not try to hit torpedoes. This suggests torpedoes have some sort of protection. Also despite being over a meter long and weighing 80 kilograms torpedoes carry only 1.5 kg of anti matter.
Based on this one could hypotheisis that the rest of a torpedoe mass is used by a small shield generator.
Even a small shield generator won't much much of a difference to a phaser hit. It would be like wrapping yourself in a sheet of tinfoil to protect you from a bomb. Even if it did stop the blow, shields leak, remember? Even a tiny bit of leakage will crack the case and touch off the bomb anyway.
And just because I'm a nitpicking bastard today it's not an "assumption" it's "speculation".
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
The Yosemite Bear wrote:I still like the joking suggestion that it's using a Holzman shield from dune....
Of course you like it. You made it, dumbass.
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
That wasn't a photon torpedo, Chris. That was a missile that they put in a photon torpedo casing that in no way shape or form resembled the function of a photon torpedo. Considering that they shot it into a star (for the purposes of blowing that shit up), it's reasonable to assume that the shields were a special feature.
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
Gil Hamilton wrote:That wasn't a photon torpedo, Chris.
*snip*
DATA
The modifications that you have
made on the torpedo's guidance
systems are remarkable, doctor...
....
TIMICIN
(humble)
It has taken forty years of my
life to develop the programming
which will control your photon
torpedos... it has been my life...
my only wish has been to find a
way to revive our sun before I
die... thank you for giving me
this opportunity.
...
PICARD
Very well. Mister Worf?
WORF
Photon torpedoes... armed and
targeted.
PICARD
Fire in sequence.
23 EXT. ENTERPRISE (OPTICAL)
In quick succession, ten photon torpedoes spew forth
one by one.
24 INT. MAIN BRIDGE
Worf responds to his board...
WORF
First volley released...
DATA
Tracking torpedoes... entry
program confirmed.
WORF
Second volley released... third
volley...
25 EXT. SPACE - ON STAR BETA PRAXILLUS (OPTICAL)
As the torpedoes start to strike, we begin seeing the
onset of the SECONDARY EXPLOSIONS.
26
thru OMITTED
27
28 INT. ENGINEERING
Geordi works at his console... Timicin at his.
GEORDI
Torpedoes now entering the stellar
core.
TIMICIN
Their shields are holding.
Guidance systems normal.
GEORDI
Ignition sequence... six
seconds... three seconds... Now.
These quotes speak for themselves. They were photon torpedoes. THe visuals also are clearly the same photon torpedoes the Enterprise has lobed at things for all the seasons its been around. The major modification was some kind of advanced guidence system it took the guy 40 years to build to get the torpedoes to a specific location. Though I don't have the slighest clue how a Matter/Antimatter detonation at a Red Dwaffs core could reignite the star...then again, I don't have a clue how a start could shrink 30 percent in a few seconds then stop...
The episode would have been better served by the same way the DS9 episode Second Site reworked a star, using Genesis bassed technology to reorder matter...this episode I don't get. But it IS clear the ship fired photon torpedoes.
yes, chris but they were MODIFIED for a nission specific role. there is a difference between a warhead and package, and one redesigned for scientific research.. These had to be working in a precises coordination, secondarilly what good would anti matter do for a dying sun, you needed more hydrogen to make up for all of the lost helium, no these mission specific modifications, sure they only mentioned guidance, but lets face it we've also seen standard photon cases used as coffins too. Does that mean that they usually have a dead body when they are being fired at some enemy, or say the slow lazy photon from undiscovered country....
The scariest folk song lyrics are "My Boy Grew up to be just like me" from cats in the cradle by Harry Chapin
Chris OFarrell wrote:These quotes speak for themselves. They were photon torpedoes. THe visuals also are clearly the same photon torpedoes the Enterprise has lobed at things for all the seasons its been around. The major modification was some kind of advanced guidence system it took the guy 40 years to build to get the torpedoes to a specific location. Though I don't have the slighest clue how a Matter/Antimatter detonation at a Red Dwaffs core could reignite the star...then again, I don't have a clue how a start could shrink 30 percent in a few seconds then stop...
They weren't photon torpedoes, they didn't had an entirely different package than a photon torpedo, considering it had a weird red dwarf fucking warhead in it rather than an antimatter warhead, which would have just exploded and added negligable amounts of energy to the star. The only reason that Timicin talked the guidance system was because Data brought it up, because appearantly it took him forty years to rewrite the software on the photon torpedoes drive section (why it takes that long to modify a driver, I'll never know). That does not however say that they took the innards of the photon torpedo out and stuck the new starcrushing package in, because all his programming was done in the drive section, not the warhead.
The episode would have been better served by the same way the DS9 episode Second Site reworked a star, using Genesis bassed technology to reorder matter...this episode I don't get. But it IS clear the ship fired photon torpedoes.
Wrong, the episode makes it clear that they are using the photon torpedoes drive section, but with a new package, since their package is nothing like the function of a standard photon torpedo. This presumably includes a shield, since those particular photon torpedoes were purposely built for launch into a star.
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
Chris OFarrell wrote:These quotes speak for themselves. They were photon torpedoes. THe visuals also are clearly the same photon torpedoes the Enterprise has lobed at things for all the seasons its been around. The major modification was some kind of advanced guidence system it took the guy 40 years to build to get the torpedoes to a specific location. Though I don't have the slighest clue how a Matter/Antimatter detonation at a Red Dwaffs core could reignite the star...then again, I don't have a clue how a start could shrink 30 percent in a few seconds then stop...
They weren't photon torpedoes, they didn't had an entirely different package than a photon torpedo, considering it had a weird red dwarf fucking warhead in it rather than an antimatter warhead, which would have just exploded and added negligable amounts of energy to the star. The only reason that Timicin talked the guidance system was because Data brought it up, because appearantly it took him forty years to rewrite the software on the photon torpedoes drive section (why it takes that long to modify a driver, I'll never know). That does not however say that they took the innards of the photon torpedo out and stuck the new starcrushing package in, because all his programming was done in the drive section, not the warhead.
The episode would have been better served by the same way the DS9 episode Second Site reworked a star, using Genesis bassed technology to reorder matter...this episode I don't get. But it IS clear the ship fired photon torpedoes.
Wrong, the episode makes it clear that they are using the photon torpedoes drive section, but with a new package, since their package is nothing like the function of a standard photon torpedo. This presumably includes a shield, since those particular photon torpedoes were purposely built for launch into a star.
Read the fucking quotes. Timicin himself states they are standard Photon torpedoes. He merely changed the guidance software.
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This is an interesting topic of discussion. Too bad that civility has fallen by the wayside in a vain effort to be influential.
The only time I have ever seen a depiction of a ship shooting an enemy combatant's torpedoes, personally, is in the beginning cutscene of Activision's Armada II. A fed ship shoots about two or three torps fired at it.
I think for this to be possible, the ship would need to be outfitted with a special anti-missile defense system targeting package and have it active in preparation of such an attack. Normally, a capital ship's phasers and targetting system would be calibrated to track larger targets and fire an extended pulse at it. In addition, the phaser locking mechanism takes perhaps a second or so to track and lock to the target, and that's after the tactical sensors have acquired the target.
Firing at a photon torpedo, or ones of similar ilk, would probably require that the phaser array or hardpoint be set to short pulse mode, and the tactical sensors would need to be trained narrowly on the ship in question to expect a sudden rush of torpedoes coming at it. The targeting algorithms used would need to be quick acquisition with a greater degree of error allowance, immediately followed by quick successive firing pulses in a narrow conic pattern to 'trap' the quickly moving target in a hail of phaser energy. This would be a Star Trek equivelent of the Navy's Phalanx anti-missile system, only it's been adapted to the ship's main weapons.
As far as the Workforce episode, I haven't seen anything in these posts to effectively suggest that a phaser shooting a photon torpedo causes a massive chain reaction to occur. From a recap of the episode that I found on the web, it appeared that shooting the photon torpedo with the phasers resulted in a 'photonic shockwave' in the path of the pursuing ships, which basically 'jolted' them hard. So what this sounds to me like is a 'conversion' of energy from one form to another, not an increase in said energy. I am not sure how to explain how this conversion comes about, but it would appear that it's a subspace disruption that formed a veritable wall in front of the pursuers, kinda like something falling from 200 feet into the water, the velocity of such a collision makes the water interface seem as rigid as concrete. These ships were pursuing at warp speed, correct? If that is the case, then that is what made this tactic so effective...the shockwave expressed in subspace was sufficient to disrupt a vessel moving at warp speeds.
Why was it easy for Voyager to shoot its own torpedo? Because Voyager would know precisely when the torpedo is being fired and would have its phaser systems prepared with already in-place predictive targeting to shoot the torps. Shooting at an enemy vessel's torpedoes would not be so easy, mainly because of the timing issues, but also because of a less predictable trajectory until after the torpedo is launched.
