The Star Wars vs Star Trek Thread; because it's been awhile.

[vee4473]

I always thought that the torpedo weapons of star trek , such as the highly advanced quantum torpedos of the Enterprise, would cut a star destroyer in half with one maybe two shots....

The Empire only had lasers...except of course the death star...that's a different story...

That's a better question!

Do you think that the most advanced flagship, the Enterprise, could withstand a direct hit from the death Star?

I know it can detroy a planet, but are the shields on the Enterprise strong enough to stop the blow? A planet has no shields...

[Ben Kenobi]

Also you ignore, among other things, that lasers travel at light speed, so even if there were loads of dust, the blast would be going to fast to see. Turbolaser blasts are much slower than a laser could be.

So how can we see a flashlight, Boris?

That depends not on the speed, but the duration of the pulse.

Do you know what a nebula is? An area of space with above average dust grains and particles. The reason they are coloured is because light scatters when it strikes the dust particles.

You don't need that much dust to scatter a laser, although admittedly, most of space would not have enough dust to scatter the light.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by vee4473
I always thought that the torpedo weapons of star trek , such as the highly advanced quantum torpedos of the Enterprise, would cut a star destroyer in half with one maybe two shots....

Not at all...

"Photon torpedoes and quantum torpedoes both release energy equal to large nuclear fusion weapons. Star Wars shields have been designed to withstand such weapons- in fact, starfighters routinely fire directed-energy nuclear weapons at capital ships with little or no effect. The ROTJ novelization specifically describes a thermonuclear explosion immediately outside Admiral Ackbar's bridge window in the opening minutes of the Battle of Endor, which was undoubtedly caused by a fighter-launched missile since the capital ships of the two fleets had not yet engaged in battle. This explosion had negligible effect upon Ackbar's vessel, which is of course what one would expect. We project that our Star Destroyers should be able to withstand roughly 1000 photon torpedoes or 370 quantum torpedoes before losing shields. This estimate is based on the ISD shield strength of 1E20 joules determined in the Imperial shield analysis.

However, those torpedoes are almost certain to strike our large Star Destroyers repeatedly in spite of their poor maneuverability, because Star Destroyers have slow turning rates (and are very large targets). Also, we project that our TIE fighters will suffer heavy (but acceptable) losses if the Federation uses proximity-fused photon torpedoes against them."

However, due to the instability of Federation engines, they would be easily destroyed by the Imperial ships:

"It is our belief that the historically short combat lifespan of Federation vessels is due to inherent design flaws in those vessels, primarily their use of metastable power generation technology which is prone to catastrophic failure due to system damage. While their starships have been designed and optimised for very short-duration confrontations, all Star Wars Imperial warships were designed for prolonged survivability in combat. It is this design philosophy that gives us our primary advantage over the Federation- we can simply outlast their vessels by continuing to absorb and release punishment after their vessels succumb. "

The Empire only had lasers...except of course the death star...that's a different story...

D'oh! We've been dealing with this for the past two pages! The Empire's turbolasers are NOT lasers in the sense that exist now in science, it is NOT possible that they are. They don't act at all like lasers MUST behave.

Do you think that the most advanced flagship, the Enterprise, could withstand a direct hit from the death Star?

I know it can detroy a planet, but are the shields on the Enterprise strong enough to stop the blow? A planet has no shields...

Indubitably. Shield or not, the amount of energy required to blow a planet into very small bits with a very short blast is enormous: about 3 million times the power output of the sun.

Considering the ease with which Death Star II anhilated rebel MonCal cruisers in combat, with shields, it's unquestionable that they'd destroy the Enterprise just as easily.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by obiwan18


So how can we see a flashlight, Boris?

That depends not on the speed, but the duration of the pulse.

Do you know what a nebula is? An area of space with above average dust grains and particles. The reason they are coloured is because light scatters when it strikes the dust particles.

You don't need that much dust to scatter a laser, although admittedly, most of space would not have enough dust to scatter the light.

Unless you have powers I do not possess, I doubt that, when you turn on a flashlight, you can see the light begin, exit the flashlight, and then hit whatever object it will reflect off of. That's the point...to our eyes, it is instantaneous. No matter how you changed the duration of the "pulse," you'd never see a flashlight, or a laser, "emerge" from the flashlight and travel as if it were an object. You'd see an instantaneous and continuous beam of light from the bulb of the light.

And no, there wouldn't be near enough dust in space to make a laser beam visible.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The numbers are provided by a physicist, who runs the site.

Oh gee, I would have thought all that stuff was written by some person who is totally illterate in science if you didn't tell me. For example, he put the output of those weapons in both TW (tetavwalts I reckon) and megatons (of TNT). The thing is TW is a unit of power and megatons is a unit of energy. I don't think a physicist will rather be dead first than be caught with such a boneheaded mistake.

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
But if you read his calculations and the rationales behind them, I think you will find them quite sound.

Actually no. There are a whole lot of things missing. For example, all the relativistic effects are completely ignored. This is quite clear in the part about asteroids hitting the shields of some Star Destroyer. He also forgot that most battles in ST took place at warp speed. There's a good reason why they don't use lasers. I can keep going, but I will spare you the boring details

[Ben Kenobi]

No matter how you changed the duration of the "pulse," you'd never see a flashlight, or a laser, "emerge" from the flashlight and travel as if it were an object. You'd see an instantaneous and continuous beam of light from the bulb of the light.

Suppose you fire a laser for a few seconds...

Could you see the laser beam then? That is what I meant. Seeing a laser has nothing to do with the speed, merely the amount of material in the way.

Some areas of space have high concentrations of dust, and do manage to reflect light.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by obiwan18


Suppose you fire a laser for a few seconds...

Could you see the laser beam then? That is what I meant. Seeing a laser has nothing to do with the speed, merely the amount of material in the way.

Seeing the beam isn't the issue (provided the air was dense enough with dust to enable you to see it). The issue is that a laser beam wouldn't behave as a turbolaser blast does. Turbolaser's fire "bolts," which don't act like lasers at all. The bolt is cleary seen emerging from the cannon, exiting and then terminating, and then the bolt flies through space to hit its target. A laser beam could do no such thing...it would be a continuous stream of light, and when the cannon stopped firing, it would cease to be as well.

Some areas of space have high concentrations of dust, and do manage to reflect light.

Of course, but space battles in Star Wars don't take place in such regions (nebulae). They take place in the open void, where the dust concentration is negligible.

[Urban Ranger]

Obviously, turbolasers cannot possibly be lasers...
they are visible in vacuum.

It's not that they are visible in a vacuum, but they are visible against a background of absolute darkness.

One reason why you can't see the beam of a laser pointer, other than random scattering, is because of the background ambience. A laser is a very coherent beam of photons, so almost all the photons travel in the same direction. Scattering bounces the photons in other directions, giving you a chance to see it. But there is a very small fraction of these photons that travel in other directions, that's why a laser beam will lose coherence after a while. Anyway, against a bright background you can't see these, particularly something as weak as a laser pointer.

If you make the background absolutely black, and increase the energy of the beam by at least millions of times, I am pretty sure you can see it.

[Dr Strangelove]

Speed counts. In the first Star Wars series Han Solo brags that his ship can make "point 5 past light speed". Star Trek ships travel much faster, so they would be able to dart in and fire on the Star Destroyers and move out of range before the Imperials got off a shot. Also Star Trek weapons would presumably pass through Imperial shields without diminishing since phasor beams phase in and out of subspace. Since the empire hasn't discovered subspace then they wouldn't be able to shield their ships against such weapons.

[Kramerman]

The Federation wouldnt stand a chance...

Glory for the Empire!

[Kramerman]

and my avatar...

[Kramerman]

uh huh...

[Kramerman]

one of these in earth's orbit... goodbye San Francisco and Starfleet command...

[Kramerman]

and the landing party... legions of storm troopers...


And for anyone who says storm troopers suck, read the books! their training was hardcore, they were elite crack troops, with ballistic and vaccume proof armor (blasters had no problem with it tho...). Tho, for some reason they could never hit the broad side of a barn, when they came up against the heroes...

EDIT: pic too big, ill have to edit it later and post it.

[Kramerman]

this will do for now:

be afraid earthlings!