psiflare wrote:
… which is a hell of an improvement over the shield response time back in the days of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
I mean, the Enterprise was already on yellow alert, then Kirk said, “Raise shields”, then Khan yelled, “Fire!”, then the phaser blast from the Reliant hit the Enterprise’s engineering section while its shields were still down! Bleah.
Well, I just checked the Encyclopedia. Either I was hallucinating seeing the entry, or the user interface is so cumbersome you can’t find anything you’re looking for. I’m almost positive I read that Transwarp was just a beyond Warp speed. But, after abandoning my search with the Encyclopedia, I did a bit of searching. The “Warp and Subspace FAQ”, located at aa.net - This website is for sale! - Aa Resources and Information., states that the term “Transwarp” has never actually been nailed down. It could be Warp 10, or a speed of Warp 10 and beyond. I quote, “If X is to transwarp as subspace is to warp, then perhaps X has the same relationship to subspace that subspace has to normal space? Trans-subspace?” So, this is yet another one of those damn terms that are never nailed down.
I did find, during my search through the Encyclopedia, that the Trek universe has sort of a counterpart to the hyperdrive jumping thing in Star Wars. It’s called Touch-and-Go Downwarping, when a Ship drops out of Warp for a second, and jumps back in very quickly.
The only method I can think of to solve the Star Destroyer v. Enterprise dillema, would be to completely eliminate all human involvement and get down to the actual Physics. If someone wants to hunt down the exact weapon and shield strength specs for both ships in known measurements, like Joules, we may be able to get somewhere. Let’s get away from this crap about how Starfleet Regulations don’t allow them to fire first.
Besides, all they need to do is beam Wesley Crusher and annoy them to death. 
A plasma conduit still transfers energy, and an ion cannon blast negates said energy. It doesn’t matter if the energy is being transferred through standard circuitry, plasma conduit, or by horseback… an ion cannon blast dispels electrical charges.
In Star Wars, where ion cannons are regularly-used weapons, lots of warships have “counter-measures” for ion bombardment… they’re really not counter-measures per se, they’re really devices that reverse polarity of transmitted charges that help in restoring power to vital systems quicker.
In Star Trek, where ion bombardment is rare (I can’t recall any specific mention of ions being specifically used for weaponry), I doubt they’d have a counter for this sort of attack.
And to address the shield issue… big thanks to Psiflare for getting us even more stats for the Enterprise. As far as I know, there’s no listing of how long it takes for a Star Destroyer’s shields to come online/recharge… though I imagine it’d depend on how much stress has been placed on the shields (in The Bacta War, they discuss a squadron of X-wings pounding on a Star Destroyer with proton torpedoes until gaps are opened in the shields, at which point they can begin damaging the hull. However, it’s mentioned that the gaps in the shields begin closing almost-instantly. Bigger gaps would take longer to close, barring a reroutement of the shield energy).
And… damn my family! (Expect me starting a thread about that in the Pit). I’ve searched and searched and dug through piles of crap strewn about the place, but for the life of me, I can’t find either of my sourcebooks (except for the Incredible Cross-Sections book for Episode I, nothing of which really applies here). So I still can’t dig around and find more stats to throw out.
Curses! ::shakes fist::
i still say detonate a warp core by them, or if that failed, have the enterprise tow a disabled excelsior with her tractor beams, then have kirk hop on the the excelsior set the self destruct, and a colision course, and then beam off just before impact, just like in that episode with the big nasty flying destructive HORN-O-PLENTY. that would tecnically be a weapon self guided brouhgt to battle in tow. that would be enough ofthat.
NO-O-O-O-O-O-O!!! Not that!!! ANYthing but that!!! We give up!! We gi-i-i-i-i-ive u-u-u-u-up!!!
If you send us Wesley, WE’LL send you Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker! HA!! Take THAT!!!
Spoofe wrote:
Ah! But! In the Star Wars universe, ion cannons aren’t stopped by shields because the shields are only ray shields, and ions are charged particles! (SW has “particle shields”, too, but these don’t extend out beyond the physical surface of the ship like ray shields do. Source: SW Essential Guide to Weapons & Tech, page 82. Thus, while the particle shields could keep an ion cannon blast from penetrating the hull, they couldn’t keep out the close-proximity electrostatic charges of the ions, which is why ion cannons are so effective in the SW universe.)
In the Star Trek universe, on the other hand, shields stop everything that isn’t tuned to their magical plot-loophole frequency. This would include ion cannons. ST shields have deflected “plasma”-based attacks many times in the past, and plasmas are just made of charged particles, such as ions.
Wouldn’t you have get the plasma out of its state (back to liquid or gas) before it stops producing charge? That plasma doesn’t just carry a charge, it creates one. Assuming ion weapons could disrupt it, they would need to be in the form of several constant beams to vital areas.
As plasma is ionized itself, it would also make some sense to simply give it the same polarity the ion weapons are using.
The damage ST ships recieve through shields is from the inertia of the weapon impacts jarring the ship (inertial dampers are supposed to take care of this, but it wouldn’t be very suspenseful if the ship didn’t get dinged up a bit), and feedback from the shield generators (why they don’t just vent this I have no idea… maybe they actually do, but it isn’t as theatrical and hence not fit for TV) as they absorb damage. Those exploding consoles, falling bulkheads&cables, and coolant leaks are for show, much the same way you always see a star destroyer either totally undamaged, or exploding into a brilliant fireball.
On the subject of the SD’s microjump; ST ships have FTL sensors, so what prevents them from seeing it coming? If somehow not the movement itself, then by the powering up of the engines and the ship’s heading.
I’m not sure where the idea of federation starships having eggshell armour comes from. Their outer hull is made of duranium. Ultra-dense depleted uranium.
One other thing that’s bothering me is the up to 1.5kg antimatter warhead on a photon torpedo. 1.5kg antimatter means 3kg of mass converted completely to energy. Maybe I’m off my rocker, but that seems like a HELL of a lot more than 50 megatons. Even a fraction of that much atimatter seems like a hell of a bigger bang (again, for theatrics, the shows and movies sissify these weapons). Does anyone know approx how many megajoules of energy in a one megaton explosion? I don’t know offhand and need that figure to do the calculations.
hi, me again,
as far as shields, i don’t recall from earlier, but can the E transport through the ISD shields? i mean ray or particle, becuase if they can alter variables such as the harmonics and wave frequencies, or even find places in the shields that are weak, is it possible? IMO, i find that this is a possibility that would occur even to Riker in fairly short time, to analyze the ISD shields and determine if this can be done, in which case i can see Data and LaForge working on it. What do you think???
Also, referring back to the issue of the ISD and E opening com with each other initially, i don’t know enough about SW universe type dealings with this, but isn’t there a chance they would want to capture the ship alive and well, or with minimal damage so as to be able to steal the technology? Seems like that’s the type of thing that would attract them, so as to be able to adapt it for their own use. Whereas the Enterprise of course will try to negotiate peacefully, but cautiously, (theyr’e not stupid).
oh, and welcome psiflare and Ator. i was obviously not including you in my BBQ Pit intervention earlier.
Target wrote:
And where are you getting this twisted version of physics from?
Rule Number 1: Charge is always conserved. Electrostatic charge can be neither created nor destroyed.
Rule Number 2: See rule number 1.
Right here, scrawled into the liner notes of my undergraduate physics text: 1 ton of TNT = either 2.6 x 10^9 Joules or 4.2 x 10^9 Joules, depending on who you talk to.
Now, by E = mc^2, 3 kg of matter and antimatter annihilating each other would produce 3 kg * (3 x 10^8 m/s)^2 = 2.7 x 10^17 Joules. If we use the first formula I listed in the previous paragraph, that’s 103 megatons; if we use the second formula, it’s 64 megatons.
This is slightly higher than the the earlier back-of-the-envelope estimate of 40-50 megatons, but it’s still awfully close.
soulsling wrote:
The hypothesis I posted earlier in this thread was as follows:
Since Star Fleet’s best engineers have not yet been able to concoct a shield that their ships’ own transporters can operate through, the blockage of transporter beams must be a “normal” consequence of all basic shielding technology. Therefore, Star Wars ray shields should block transporters by default. (Particle shields don’t project a field any distance away from the ship, and can’t stop nonmassive things like laser blasts – so they probably wouldn’t work against transporters.)
However, I do remember an episode of ST:TNG where Miles O’Brien found a periodic weakness in another Star Fleet ship’s shields, which allowed him to transport through it if he timed the transport properly. (This was the same episode that first introduced the Cardassians.) Given enough read-outs on a Star Destroyer’s ray shields, it’s possible that Geordi might be able to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow or quantum-destabilize the static warp conduit antigraviton emitters or frobnitz the ambivulent bivationary falvebarms and sneak a transporter beam through.
Oh, come on, Tracer! Just about EVERYTHING is the result of a particle or two… radiation is nothing more than hurtling particles (the smaller the particle, the more dangerous the radiation), light is a bunch of photons… etc. As Dark Helmet once said… “What’s with you man? Come ON!” Particle shields are designed to stop “macro” objects, while ray shields are designed to stop “micro” objects.
C’mon, guys, don’t judge something by what it’s named, judge it by what it does. If we were arguing based on names, then photon torpedoes would be nothing more than projectile sunburn makers.
Two things would prevent them from detecting a microjump… first, and simplest, it’d be practically instantaneous. Second, our good Star Trek buddies have no knowledge of hyperspace existing. While an object is in hyperspace, other objects outside have no means of detecting it. There’s no physics to back this up (hyperspace, along with subspace, are fictional tools to allow story), only brief mentions from numerous books (I believe it was in The Last Command where someone mentioned that a well-timed assault would have to be planned before jumping to hyperspace since there’s no hyperspace-realspace communication, but I’ll go through some of the novels and dig the exact reference… no time to do it now, though, it’d take hours).
I’ll tell you where… any Federation ship completely loses hull integrity when it’s structural integrity field collapses. Basically, it’s got an energy field that holds the thing together. All those high-speed maneuvers (relatively) and such would tear the ship to shreds without the inegrity field.
Also, simple “eye-ball measurements”. The battle section (with the nacelles and such) is connected to the saucer section by a REALLY thin structure… that “neck” thingy can’t be more than several dozen meters thick. Compared to how massive the saucer section is and the rest of the battle section is, that’s a really weak spot right there. Should a single turbolaser blast or two penetrate the shields and hit anywhere along that weak spot, there’s gonna be trouble.
Now, to address Soulsling’s shielding issue… I sincerely doubt that a transporter beam would be capable of penetrating the ISD’s ray shields (particle shields would do nothing, of course). There’s absolutely no mention in any novel or sourcebook that I’ve read of SW shields operating on a frequency basis… while I hate to dispel an idea based on lack of evidence, this whole argument doesn’t really have a firm basis in real-life facts, does it?
Before anyone berates me for “being biased” or “remaining ignorant” or “poo-pooing”, or whatever, let me explain: In an argument like this, it’s very easy to say “ST’s weapons and shields are far stronger than SW’s, and a phaser would slice through the Star Destroyer like a hot knife through butter”, and vice versa, without any shred of evidence since it’s all, of course, make-believe. I want to avoid that, which led to two required assumptions: 1. The two ships’ weapons and shield technologies have to be assumed to be relatively comparable in terms of strength (no exactly equal, but closer than a spitwad vs. a nuke), and 2. We have to go by what “official” sources say (TV, movies, novels, sourcebooks, etc.), and if something isn’t mentioned or implied, we either have to assume that it’s negligible/nonexistent/whatever. You can disagree with me if you want, that’s cool, but if you do, PLEASE offer another solution, just so we’re all batting in the same field, okay? Thanks!
Oh, man, ANOTHER long post… seems the longer this thread gets (it’s my baby, and I plan to add it to my sig, just like Esprix did with his Ask The Gay Guy bit), the longer my posts seem to get. Or maybe it’s just the longer I’m with the Straight Dope…? ::shrug:: And I didn’t even continue with my ideas about plasma conduits… oh well, I’ll let someone else think on that one.
The ISD could lay back out of phaser range and swarm the Enterprise’s defenses with TIEs. The Enterprise has some serious capital ship type weapons, but doesn’t seem to have much in the way of point defense. Imagine an aircraft carrier fighting a battleship…but the battleship has neglected to provide itself with AA weapons. No contest.
Dustyto warewolf, i reiterate my suggestion of spread-fire photorp and phaser fire against small fighters from the isd. this is not to say that they wouldn’t be a complete, possibly very disasterous pain, but these are possible. the ent-d (man, if this was vs. the ent-e…) can fire 10 photorps in 6 seconds, and each is considered “semi-autonomous”, as in, independently targettable and homing within reason. it also has 14 phaser banks, and i have seen photos of multiple beams coming from a single array.
noting spoofe’s comments on the weak points of the ent’s structure – that’s what shields are for. while shields are up, yes, power conduits blow up and lots of stuff can break, but no weapon penetrates the shield to contact the hull. once shields are down (a very resonable possibility), yeah, that could happen. ouch. heh…
i’m not at home now so i can’t check those measurements, but to comment on the armor issue, the ent has multi-layered duranium-trititanium hardened armor (or something like that…) of course, based on the laughable effect of a phaser to the hull of a typical ship, i wouldn’t know how effective this is.
last thing, the rapid nadion effect used to generate phaser blasts is supposedly very efficient, more so than disruptors (slow nadions), and much more than lasers. …of course, it’s been said that turbolasers are really plasma weapons, which accounts for their relatively short range…
okay. back to class for me.
-psiflare
The ISD cannot sit out of the E’s weapons range and attack with TIE’s because TIE’s are not hyperspace capable (Except for advanced TIE models). However, the ISD does have gunboats and assault shuttles it could use to its advantage.
I think in terms of shielding the ISD has a slight advantage in that it can adjust the strength of its shields. If one section is getting pounded on, it can divert energy from other sections to rebuild the damaged shield (And the more energy they dump into it, the faster it renews and the stronger it can get). I don’t know if the E can do this, all I know is they can adjust the frequency to block phasers.
monster – indeed the ent can divert energy to different sections of the shield and vary the strength of the sections. it’s a pretty common practice…additionally, i assume also available to isds, is the option to divert power from other ship systems, such as power-intensive holodecks, etc. in dire situations, the ent has successfully even diverted power from the intertial damping field and the structural integrity field, and i believe it’s possible to shut down certain decks on the ship to conserve power. it’s also possible to slightly increase the fuel supply into the warp core, and the impulse fusion plants in the saucer section can be utilized…
of course, isds almost certainly have equivalents for this…
-psiflare
Indeed, the unofficial Star Trek wargame Star Fleet Battles is centrally concerned with energy allocation throughout each ship. Individual shields (the shield system on a ship is divided into 6 separate shields, each facing a different direction) can be brought down, or reinforced with extra energy. All shields can be reinforced generally, but this requires twice as much energy as reinforcing a specific shield for the same degree of added protection.
This is s sort of hijack (hijacking my own thread? Who’d a-thunk!), but the thing with the Enterprise’s shields… it’s essentially a big “egg” that covers the ship, several dozen meters away from the hull, which makes the ship a bigger target, overall. Okay, the self-hijack is over.
[opinion-based speculation]
A little note about the Star Destroyer’s weapons… I’ve been unable to find any official sources that give a hint to the turbolasers’ power (the sourcebooks for the RPG may have some mention, but I don’t have any of the RPG manuals… dammit!). But I’ve always suspected that the reason a Star Destroyer has so many turbolasers and so few proton torpedo launchers was because turbolasers were stronger than proto-torps. While this doesn’t give a definite gauge of strength, it gives a general ballpark with regards to turbolaser strength (if my factless theory is correct, that is).
Another indicator of turbolaser strength is the description of what happens to other Star Wars ships when they get hit… that is, the armor plates evaporate. Yup, the turbolaser blasts are so powerful, they completely disintegrate armoring.
[opinion-based speculation off]
TIE fighters would be a nifty diversion, but more important would be the TIE bombers, which carry missiles (which are more powerful than starfighter-grade turbolasers), or the assault gunboats and Skipray blastboats. Heck, if the Star Destroyer needs to, it has shuttles, assault craft, landing craft, and any number of smaller support craft (well over a hundred, I’d estimate). This swarm of smaller craft would be disorienting to the crew of the Enterprise, to say the least.
With regards to an ISD’s power supply, I think the limitations are about how much power can be shunted to systems in how much time, not if the power is available or not (heck, the power reactor for the Star Destroyer is as big as the Enterprise itself, according to an eyeball estimate from the Star Wars Incredible Cross-Sections book… and as was noted earlier in the thread, the power sources are similar). In addition, the only limitations to turbolaser fire isn’t power, it’s heat… they have to wait 'til the barrel sheds some heat, otherwise it’d melt.
Anyway, I’ve been feeling gabby lately, so I’m gonna stop ranting now, so’s I can let some others give some input.
This being my first post to the group, I wish I could come on the scene with a big bang. At this point in the thread, however, I think I’ll just point y’all to a newsgroup that I have yet to see mentioned here. It’s alt.startrek.vs.starwars
It’s been around for years and there is still no definite resolution to the hypothetical conflict being discussed here. Considering that many of you have expressed the desire to see more technical info and specs, though, I figure those people will be grateful. Perhaps this will also serve to put an end to this thread. Sorry, Spoof, I know you consider it your baby, but it’s not a very pretty one. 
This being my first post to the group, I wish I could come on the scene with a big bang. At this point in the thread, however, I think I’ll just point y’all to a newsgroup that I have yet to see mentioned here. It’s alt.startrek.vs.starwars
It’s been around for years and there is still no definite resolution to the hypothetical conflict being discussed here. Considering that many of you have expressed the desire to see more technical info and specs, though, I figure those people will be grateful. Perhaps this will also serve to put an end to this thread. Sorry, Spoof, I know you consider it your baby, but it’s not a very pretty one.