Next time someone makes excuses for packing crates ...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-03 05:45pm

We've all heard the excuses for the "take cover behind packing crate" phenomenon with hand phasers: they weren't using maximum power, they weren't specifically using a Federation-issue Type II hand phaser (of the sort that can supposedly destroy hundreds of cubic metres of material), etc. Well, let's see if anyone can explain away the latest entry in the Canon Database (click on the link to read it). Any takers?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2004-10-03 06:00pm

One would assume that if there's an inch of this torrid inlay that would still be more material than two surfaces of an average packing crate...

dragon · Post by **dragon** » 2004-10-03 06:08pm

Well its not the first time we see phasers unable to pierce a certain Material. In the TNG where they are on the planets of weapons they find a thin coat of metal and Tasha makes a comment that their phaser couldn't melt it. Was that a quaters door or a security door. Also this was a Cardassian station during an occuption with Terrorists so maybe they armoured the doors for more protected.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-10-03 06:12pm

Hmmm, I'm not sure if I saw that episode, but I saw another episode that had something similar, with phasers on maximum barely doing any damage. In fact, I've been taking notes on ST episodes since they started airing DS9 from the first episode, and I have that in my notes (I have a TON of notes, and will be posting them when the final episode airs, since we are in season 7...maybe earlier).

Nice entry!

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2004-10-03 06:14pm

While I'm propably not really one of the adressed parties, I fail how this changes anything. It shows that Phaser effectiveness is material-dependent (which we already know), that they're noticeably less effective against metal (which we also know), and that there's materials that are extremely Phaser resistant (which we, too, already know). And didn't that hundreds of cubic metres claim go the way of the Dodo when the TNG TM did? Even then, IIRC, that was against rock.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-10-03 06:17pm

Remember Chain of Command? Phaser on level 16 is just enough to burn a hole in some cracked rock.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-03 06:24pm

NecronLord wrote:One would assume that if there's an inch of this torrid inlay that would still be more material than two surfaces of an average packing crate...

Given several minutes of continuous attempts to cut through the door with specialized devices that were presumably more effective than phasers against this "toranium" substance (as compared to a single split-second blast against a crate), I don't see how this changes the conclusion.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-10-03 06:41pm

Just a note. Quark learned that hiding in a packing crate designed to carry gold pressed latinum doesn't stop hand weapons from penetrating the sides. Looked like a phaser, but it wasn't Federation in design.

Not all packing crates are made equaly.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-10-03 06:42pm

Alyeska wrote:Just a note. Quark learned that hiding in a packing crate designed to carry gold pressed latinum doesn't stop hand weapons from penetrating the sides. Looked like a phaser, but it wasn't Federation in design.

Not all packing crates are made equaly.

Yeah, but that was one extremely thin crate from what we saw

dragon · Post by **dragon** » 2004-10-03 06:44pm

Except why assume the crates are made of the same stuff. All we know crates are made of the material that Data and Riker vaped when they we pinned.

dragon · Post by **dragon** » 2004-10-03 06:47pm

Ignore my last post please.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-03 06:57pm

The point is not so much packing crates themselves, but the fact that some people have ridiculed the notion that any thin-walled container might be proof against max-yield phasers in the past no matter what it's made of, and we saw in this episode that hand phasers at confirmed maximum power didn't even scratch that "toranium inlay", not to mention their subsequent failure to cut through the door even after several minutes of trying with a specialized device.

dragon · Post by **dragon** » 2004-10-03 07:01pm

Ok thanks for clearing up the point. Been up for over 24 hours and brain aint quite working at full potential. I rally hate double shifts.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2004-10-03 08:55pm

Darth Wong wrote:The point is not so much packing crates themselves, but the fact that some people have ridiculed the notion that any thin-walled container might be proof against max-yield phasers in the past no matter what it's made of, and we saw in this episode that hand phasers at confirmed maximum power didn't even scratch that "toranium inlay", not to mention their subsequent failure to cut through the door even after several minutes of trying with a specialized device.

Maybe the toranium is a thermal super-conductor that runs about the station, through important walls and doors, as a security measure to prevent unauthorized entry, using phasers or cutting torches, to critical areas?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-03 09:03pm

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:The point is not so much packing crates themselves, but the fact that some people have ridiculed the notion that any thin-walled container might be proof against max-yield phasers in the past no matter what it's made of, and we saw in this episode that hand phasers at confirmed maximum power didn't even scratch that "toranium inlay", not to mention their subsequent failure to cut through the door even after several minutes of trying with a specialized device.
Maybe the toranium is a thermal super-conductor that runs about the station, through important walls and doors, as a security measure to prevent unauthorized entry, using phasers or cutting torches, to critical areas?

Nope, Kira said nothing about such a system, otherwise they could have tried to disable it or break the connections. The fact that there was a toranium inlay in the door was all she needed to know.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2004-10-03 09:10pm

Darth Wong wrote: Nope, Kira said nothing about such a system, otherwise they could have tried to disable it or break the connections. The fact that there was a toranium inlay in the door was all she needed to know.

And how, pray tell, would they go about doing that? They certainly wouldn't be able to use a phaser or cutting torch to do it; and its doubtful they have the strength to physically break it.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-03 09:38pm

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Nope, Kira said nothing about such a system, otherwise they could have tried to disable it or break the connections. The fact that there was a toranium inlay in the door was all she needed to know.
And how, pray tell, would they go about doing that? They certainly wouldn't be able to use a phaser or cutting torch to do it; and its doubtful they have the strength to physically break it.

I can't believe you're actually taking this idiotic idea seriously. Fine, provide the evidence for the existence of thiis system. Or have you forgotten that no phenomenon or entity can be assumed to exist without evidence?

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2004-10-03 11:04pm

Darth Wong wrote:
BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Nope, Kira said nothing about such a system, otherwise they could have tried to disable it or break the connections. The fact that there was a toranium inlay in the door was all she needed to know.
And how, pray tell, would they go about doing that? They certainly wouldn't be able to use a phaser or cutting torch to do it; and its doubtful they have the strength to physically break it.
I can't believe you're actually taking this idiotic idea seriously. Fine, provide the evidence for the existence of thiis system. Or have you forgotten that no phenomenon or entity can be assumed to exist without evidence?

Toranium could be the poor-man's answer to ablative armor.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-03 11:12pm

Matt Huang wrote:Toranium could be the poor-man's answer to ablative armor.

That would require that it ablate, and it did not appear to. The real question is why Kira felt that a "bipolar torch" would be more effective. We don't even know what a "bipolar torch" is, but it seems pretty clear that phasers are of very limited effectiveness against certain materials. At least the torch was making sparks fly off the toranium, which is better than what the phasers did.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-10-04 01:32am

Darth Wong wrote:
Matt Huang wrote:Toranium could be the poor-man's answer to ablative armor.
That would require that it ablate, and it did not appear to. The real question is why Kira felt that a "bipolar torch" would be more effective. We don't even know what a "bipolar torch" is, but it seems pretty clear that phasers are of very limited effectiveness against certain materials. At least the torch was making sparks fly off the toranium, which is better than what the phasers did.

Maybe it's a manically depressive torch? Perhaps similar to Marvin the Paranoid Android?

The Silence and I · Post by **The Silence and I** » 2004-10-04 02:55am

This is not that surprising to me, phasers on disrupt settings have always been material dependant.
I'd wager a guess "toranium" is highly conductive to phaser particles; phasers already make materials become conductive to phaser particles (I blame subspace), a material that exaggurates this effect may be able to spread the particles too thin to accomplish anything; being exotic particles they probably decay too quickly to allow a build up effect. Likewise thermal settings would fail, the material is too conductive.
It may also be superconductive in a normal sense, allowing it to defeat good oldfasioned cutters, and requiring a "bi-polar" cutter, whatever that is.

I do not think density has much to do this dependency, metals can be phasorized easily (Nemesis, Picard blasts a metal door to pieces, and modern cars, made of dense iron based metal alloys, can be phasorized readily (one with a future phaser, but more telling is the shuttle pwns semi incident)). I think cargo boxes may be made of something with a similar resistence, but I think power settings plus the surface area of the containers are the biggest culprits, sans no one increasing power output.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2004-10-04 03:46am

Darth Wong wrote:Given several minutes of continuous attempts to cut through the door

You're right. That is pathetic.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2004-10-04 04:00am

Darth Wong wrote: I can't believe you're actually taking this idiotic idea seriously. Fine, provide the evidence for the existence of thiis system. Or have you forgotten that no phenomenon or entity can be assumed to exist without evidence?

I'm well aware of Occum's razor, thank you very much. However, to answer you question, I don't have any explicit evidence, in the form of dialouge or "tech" manuals, for such a system per say- HOWEVER, we DO have evidence for phasers being effective against objects composed of metals- namely starships. If phasers were completely ineffective against metals, due to their inherint properties, then we wouldn't see them equipped on starships. A possible objection is that this "toranium" is a metal that is exceptionally resistant to phasers; I think its safe to say that we can dismiss that since if that were the case we would see all starships equipped with "toranium" inlays in their hulls- and we have no evidence of that. So that leaves us with the question, why can't the phaser melt/vaporize the "toranium"door?

Given the laws of thermodyanics, and the properties of matter, the only two reasonable explanations that I came up with are:

1. "Toranium" is capable of conducting heat out of the phaser contact point at a faster rate then the phaser is capable of putting it in. The superconductivity allows the energy to be absorbed into a far larger "area" of material; an area which is capable of absorbing far more energy that what a hand phaser can provide before it melts/vaporizes.

2. Toranium has an extremely high melting/vaporizing point- and the hand phaser simply does not have the energy reserves to reach this point.

Given the fact that the door did not glow (as we would expect) from having a huge amount of enegy dumped into it, and that Kira did not burst into flames (or even into a sweat) from being that close to a very "heated" object that would dump its energy into the atmosphere, I thought choice one was the more reasonable conclusion.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-10-04 08:09am

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:I can't believe you're actually taking this idiotic idea seriously. Fine, provide the evidence for the existence of thiis system. Or have you forgotten that no phenomenon or entity can be assumed to exist without evidence?
I'm well aware of Occum's razor, thank you very much. However, to answer you question, I don't have any explicit evidence, in the form of dialouge or "tech" manuals, for such a system per say- HOWEVER, we DO have evidence for phasers being effective against objects composed of metals- namely starships.

Only when the power levels are far, far higher. No doubt if a hand phaser actually had the kind of power output often attributed to them, this would not be a problem.

If phasers were completely ineffective against metals, due to their inherint properties, then we wouldn't see them equipped on starships. A possible objection is that this "toranium" is a metal that is exceptionally resistant to phasers; I think its safe to say that we can dismiss that since if that were the case we would see all starships equipped with "toranium" inlays in their hulls- and we have no evidence of that.

Unless toranium is mechanically piss-weak.

So that leaves us with the question, why can't the phaser melt/vaporize the "toranium"door?

Given the laws of thermodyanics, and the properties of matter, the only two reasonable explanations that I came up with are:

1. "Toranium" is capable of conducting heat out of the phaser contact point at a faster rate then the phaser is capable of putting it in. The superconductivity allows the energy to be absorbed into a far larger "area" of material; an area which is capable of absorbing far more energy that what a hand phaser can provide before it melts/vaporizes.

Then explain why it sparks and melts from the beam coming out of a "bipolar torch". It wasn't much bigger than the Type II phaser.

2. Toranium has an extremely high melting/vaporizing point- and the hand phaser simply does not have the energy reserves to reach this point.

Then explain why it sparks and melts from the beam coming out of a "bipolar torch". It wasn't much bigger than the Type II phaser.

Given the fact that the door did not glow (as we would expect) from having a huge amount of enegy dumped into it, and that Kira did not burst into flames (or even into a sweat) from being that close to a very "heated" object that would dump its energy into the atmosphere, I thought choice one was the more reasonable conclusion.

Then explain why it sparks and melts from the beam coming out of a "bipolar torch". It wasn't much bigger than the Type II phaser.

Sorry, the only thing which explains this is that toranium is simply exceptionally phaser-resistant, and that starships overcome the material-dependence of phasers via sheer power output, which hand phasers do not have. Your attempt to generate a contradiction here with starship phasers is a joke; they are easy to explain via mere power levels, requiring no such bullshit active-door-defense system in the space station. And why the fuck did you not even attempt to account for the "bipolar torch"? Oh yes, because it shoots your theory to hell, moron.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-10-04 08:51am

It begs the question, in my mind, why they didn't try to get a bar and shift open the door the manual way. After all, we've seen people like Worf and Data force open motorized doors in StarTrek. Sisko is a strong dude, a bar should provide enough leverage for him to crack open the door enough for them to open it. Trying to cut open the door seems like overkill.

I mean, they've got crowbars on DS9, right?