Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer-The Rematch!

[Czarcasm]

This is for you, SPOOFE. :)

[carnivorousplant]

Is that NCC1701 A, B, C, or bloody D?

[tshirts]

Here's the link to the original thread Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer - by SPOOFE Bo Diddly (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=23098)

[carnivorousplant]

Door: PING!
Kirk: Go away!
Spock: Captain, it is urgent that I speak with you.
Kirk: Beat it, Spock, I'm busy!
Spock: You gotta woman in there?
Kirk: What's it to ya, you pointy eared Peeping Tom?
Spock: I do not recognize the reference to a person named "Thomas"
McCoy: Jim! You've gotta let us in there!
Spock: Doctor, what an unpleasant surprise. You have a
small piece of broccoli stuck between your front teeth.
McCoy: You green blooded son of a bitch! I oughta...
Kirk emerges from room: Gentlemen, what the hell is
going on out here? A guy can't get la...a thing done
with this racket going on! Bones! Thosemedicaltests...they....were....allright?
McCoy: Yes Jim, she's healthy, it's this darn radar
contact.
Spock: "Sensor", Doctor. We have "sensors", not "radar".
McCoy: Well, whatever the hell it is, it's big and
black and has a bumper sticker that says
"We brake for nobody."
Kirk: And?
McCoy: Well, it breathes funny.
Kirk: "Breathes funny"?
McCoy: Yeah, like a bicycle pump inside a trach can.
Spcok: Really Doctor, such speculation will be the
undoing of you.

[tracer]

Well, the Enterprise will definitely win this battle -- IF Spoofe will let it fire photon torpedoes from warp speed at a sublight target this time. :p

[El_Kabong]

carnivorousplant -- hilarious.

They need on the writing team for ST-Voyager, bad.

[tracer]

In the last Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer thread, carnivorousplant wrote:

Who would win in a fight, Paul Atraides or Captain Kirk?
I'd just like to point out at this juncture that we in fact have already had a thread, started by yours truly, titled: Muad'Dib vs. Vader (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=33504)

[carnivorousplant]

Darth Vader: Paul, I am your Father.
Muab'Dib: Naw, He commanded a Nazi submarine, you old fart! (Stabs Vader in the tummy just as hard as he can.)

[Klaatu]

Well, maybe Riker could just ask his buddy Q to just snap his fingers, and no more ISD. Trek wins!

The SW universe doesn't have Q.

[SPOOFE]

Well, in the original thread, it was a fight between an ISD and the Enterprise-D... (many thanks to the almighty slythe for setting this sucker up).

Anyway, in the old thread, it ended with Vahktang writing...

> Now, there don’t seem to be any experts on this planet on kilometer and a half, hyperdrive driven, tie fighter holding star craft.

There are many. They wrote such books as "The Official Guide to the Star Wars Universe", "The Star Wars Encyclopedia", "Incredible Cross-Sections", and the like. These are the experts that I am quoting.

Star craft don’t need windows and should not have them except in a decorative capacity, which don’t belong on a bridge.

A: The space shuttle, a "starcraft" (despite what you may say) has windows. The Enterprise, a "starcraft", has windows (even on the bridge). An Imperial-class Star Destroyer, a BIG "starcraft" has windows. On the latter two examples, the bridge windows serve multiple functions, which include allowing the bridge crew to see what the hell is going on around their ship. After all, flying blind, even in space, is not recommended.

If the bridge gets taken out, you’re in deep kimshi.
> If it is on the hull, it is much easier to take out.
> If it has hulls, decks, bulkheads between it and what is shooting at them, it is much harder to take out.

I agree on all counts. Apparently, those that designed the Enterprise and the Star Destroyer found it necessary to put the bridge high up on the superstructure of the vessel. Is that so hard to understand?

The ship is a kilometer and a half long. The bridge is already ‘a significant distance away from these sensors’.

Not if the main bridge sensors are situated directly atop the command tower.

Why? A shot takes out part of the hull and some connections 10 meters from the bridge. The sensors linked to that connection are lost.

You seem to forget the fact that there're a lot of very powerful shields surrounding the Bridge.

The signals between the sensors and the viewscreens, whatevers travel at lightspeed or faster.

It's not a matter of speed, it's a matter of equipment failure. The more connections there are between sensors and readout display, the greater the odds of something along along that chain of command failing (the weakest link...)

If they lose sensors during a battle you are screwed, window or not. What are you going to tell the gunnery officer:
“Shoot over there. More to the right.”
“Uh, your right or my right, sir?”
“My right, or course.”
“Missed.”
>Continue until you are destroyed or sensors are fixed.

The gunnery officers aren't on the Bridge (for an ISD, anyway). They're down with (surprise!) the guns, and they have enough training to know what targets to shoot at. Heck, battle operations haven't been conducted in the manner you pointed out for centuries.

So it is a sensor screen. Good. Why is it a window?

So they can see through it, genius. It's kind of hard to see through a wall.

Why put the bridge on the hull on a starship?
> Why put a window on the bridge?

I believed I already answered both of these, but I'll reiterate... A: that's the best location for it, from an aesthetic, engineering, and tactical point of view (emphasis on "tactical"), and B: so they can see through it... apparently, being able to get a real-time, real-life view of the battlefield proves to be give the bridge crew/captain a better grasp of a potential battlefield.

I can get from Hartford to Boston in 132 miles or under two hours?

If there's a black hole in your way, and saying that getting there in 132 miles implies that you were going so fast as to avoid being sucked in by the black hole's gravity well, that would be a superior boast.

We all know that Lucas gaffed when he wrote about the Kessel Run.

Actually, I suspect that he originally intended for "parsec" to mean something along the lines of "partial second" or something else that implies condensed time (traveling faster than the speed of light and all), not worrying about consistency as he didn't think the movie would catch on nearly as big as it did.

> According to my handy dandy HP calculator, if we divide the volume by the number of crew and passengers (45,000) then give them a 3 m ceiling (not unreasonable, as we have seen) we get a personal space of 26 m X 26 m.

26 square meters is a lot of floor space for military personnel, especially when you consider that the 45,000 number is the maximum capacity for the ship (read: they're squeezed in). Standard troop complement is 9700.

Either way...

Not much space to live in, is it?

It's a military ship. Space is a luxury.

And I am aware just how many people one can comfortably squeeze into a kilometer cubed.

Your mistake is the word "comfortably". Stormtroopers/naval crewmen are trained from day one to ignore miscomfort.

Can we get entered into some ‘net award category as ‘nerdiest thing on the ‘net’?

Hey, it's been fun, and we've yet to resort to calling each other names. I think that deserves an award on its own.

After all this, Badtz Maru said...

Compare the hand weapons - those stormtroopers have guns the size of a small carbine or a large SMG that shoot bolts that punch holes in things. Princess Leia was hit by one and survived.

Well, the blast Leia got hit by was a stun blast. Shuts down neural receptors or something like that. Not a blaster shot.

The Federation has tiny pistols that make you glow and then disappear.

Well, only on the most powerful setting, which, I imagine, would drain power really quick. That's probably why Starfleet has the larger phaser rifles kept on their ships... more power AND a bigger power supply.

In the SW movies, the blasters / turbo lasers miss a lot.

Well, when you're using weapons that are normally meant to fire on medium/heavy-sized cruisers to shoot at teensy-weensy fighters, of course you're going to miss a lot. Ever see a Star Destroyer miss a Nebulon-B Frigate :D

[Kilt-wearin' man]

How about Darth Vader vs the Borg. He's already mostly machine, but what would Borg personal shields do against a lightsaber (or the Force, for that matter).

"Nanoprobes do not concern me, Commander..."

[SPOOFE]

How about Darth Vader vs the Borg.

A better fight would be Borg nanobots vs. midichlorians... (damn you, George Lucas, damn you!)

[Kilt-wearin' man]

Sorry, man, I just don't accept the existance of midichlorians.


Although they might make a good mixer with Scotch...

[SPOOFE]

I hear ya, 'Man... I figure, let's just forget most of what happened in Episode 1.

By the way... if you ever got pissed off, would you be Off-Kilter Man? :)

[Kilt-wearin' man]

Nah, I'd be "Give-him-a-good-Scotch-and-he-might-calm-down Man." Hmmm...maybe that's who I'd be if I was a super-hero instead...

I didn't mind the Phantom Menace so much (even Jar-Jar was somewhat bearable) but the midichlorians? Puh-LEEEEZE! George, dude, you should have called me. I could'a given you 10 other ways to test for Force potential. No-one ever tested Luke for micro-parasites!