Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer

In My Humble Opinion
101

Ok…assuming the Enterprise could fire at the ISD at warp speeds…they would be able to get, what, one shot before they’re hundreds of thousands of miles away? Yes, they could repeat this process, but at most they could get a phaser shot and a photon torpedo shot off on each pass. Like I said earlier, this type of strategy would not be able to take down the shields of the ISD, let alone destroy it. Granted, it will keep the Enterprise from being obliterated.

The ISD captain would try to devise tactics to counter this, but without warp capabilities that could be quite difficult. If anything, they would either A) Call in reinforcements to help track the Enterprise(Which, since hyperspace is way faster than the fastest warp speed, would get there in just a few minutes), or B) Just leave (again, since hyperspace is way faster, the Enterprise could not keep up).

102

Monster104 wrote:

Um, the Enterprise’s weapons have ranged of hundreds of thousands of miles. The ST:TNG Tech Manual, page 130 lists the maximum range of a photon torpedo as “nearly 3,500,000 kilometers from the starship.”

In fact, come to think of it, maybe the Enterprise doesn’t have to fly away at FTL speeds to avoid getting hit. What’s the maximum range of a Star Destroyer’s weapons? A few thousand kilometers? Ten or twenty thousand kilometers, perhaps? The Enterprise could stand off at 100,000 or 1,000,000 kilometers and shoot at the Star Destroyer from there. With its warp drive, or even its impulse engines, Enterprise would have no problem keeping that range constant, unless the Star Destroyer went into hyperspace or did a hyperspace microjump and caught the Enterprise off-guard.

And speaking of hyperspace:

Just how fast is hyperspace travel in the Star Wars universe? The only indications we have in the movies about how fast a “fast ship” can go are from Han Solo bragging about the Millennium Falcon in Episode IV. He says it made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs (a parsec being a unit of interstellar distance, not time), and that it’ll do point-five past lightspeed (point five what?).

103

What I find interesting is the way a SW fan bristles at any notion that SW couldn’t beat anything anywhere. It seems quite obvious to me that the technology used in ST is superior to SW technology. This is in no way a condemnation of SW, just a statement of fact. I mean, John Paul Jones was a great ship captain, but put his ship up against the USS Iowa and he loses every time. It says nothing about his abilities or bravery, he would just be unable to compete with modern weapons. Same withe SW. They are very enjoyable movies, but the technology just dosen’t compare. There’s no shame in that, it’s just the way things are, and dosen’t lessen SW in any way.

Cecil said it. I believe it. That settles it.

Relax, I’m not as Dave as I look!- A Wallified sig!

104

The basic difference between SW and ST, as I see it, is in the physical laws governing each separate universe. To wit:

Matter-energy conversion (a la transporters) is not physically possible in the SW universe. I posted a link to a SW technical discussion a while back, in which this is explicitly stated (this is based on SW canon).

ST doesn’t have ‘the Force.’ Note that ‘the Force’ is NOT telepathy or telekinesis, thus Troi or Spock or whoever wouldn’t be able to do a thing to any jedi – and probably vice versa.

Basically, we’re comparing apples and oranges here. If you really want to be clear about all of this, you’d have to state where the encounter was going to occur (which universe).

That being said:
‘Hyperspace’ and ‘Warp drive’ are probably the same thing, just descibed differently, with different methods of using them. If you check out descriptions of both throughout SW and ST canon, you’ll find that they are startlingly similar – although the character’s understanding of the phenomenon in each universe is different. The only significant difference between the two that I’ve ever found is in the distances that can be traversed: ST takes a couple hours to get from one star to another; SW take a couple days to get clear across the entire galaxy.

Note that no where in SW is it ever said that ships can’t do a Picard-like maneouver – in fact, I seem to recall reading descriptions of things like that in some of the SW novels.

One more thing, for the trekkies, before you make the blanket statement that ST technology is far more advanced than SW tech, go check out that link I posted earlier in the thread. I don’t remember exactly where it is, but it’s somewhere on www.theforce.net

Happy hunting.

105

I hate to admit it, but I’m starting to become a convert to the Star Wars side of the fence on this issue.

The thing that’s swaying my vote is something I hadn’t heard of until this thread. Namely, that a Star Destroyer is capable of performing something called a “hyperspace microjump”. You see, my argument about the Enterprise’s tactical sup[eriority centered on its ability to fight while moving faster-than-light. My favorite tactic was to have the Enterprise back up at warp 2 and lob photon torpedoes at the Star Destroyer until it blew up. However, if a Star Destroyer can “jump” precisely-calculated short distances through hyperspace, AND IF it can open fire immediately after completing the hyperjump (I’m talking less than a tenth of a second later), the Star Destroyer could microjump to a position just behind (and slightly to one side of) the Enterprise while it was backing up and open fire on its anticipated position. The crew of the Enterprise would not have enough time to react, and, if the Empire’s targeting is as good as they like to boast it is, the turbolaser beams (or ion cannon pulses, or light sabers thrown overboard, or whatever the hell it is they shoot in the Star Wars universe) will intersect the Enterprise.

Now, the question remains of exactly how much damage the Enterprise will take from a turbolaser bolt. I’m sure turbolasers are very powerful, but there’s a much more important factor to consider here. That is: Every time a starship on Star Trek is hit by anything – whether it’s a teensy tinsy little plasma flare, or the superweapon NOMAD fired at them in “The Changeling” (Spock said NOMAD’s weapon had the equivalent power of 90 photon torpedoes), or the plasma torpedoes fired by the outer defenses of the V’Ger cloud, or the antiproton beam fired by the planet-crushing horn of plenty in “The Doomsday Machine” – every single time the good guy’s ship is hit, it loses from 20-60 percent of its shields. Period. Apparently nothing can bring down the shields in a single hit. Apparently, also, nothing is so small and insignificant that it does not damage the shields at all. This applies not just to every individual weapon hitting the ship, but to every separate volley of weapons fire.

Therefore, no matter how many turbolasers or ion cannons the Star Destroyer fires at the Enterprise, and mo matter how powerful these weapons are, the Enterprise will lose 40% of its shields. :wink:

106

There isn’t any real explanation of how fast hyperspace travel is other than that it is “faster than light”. However, in many of the novels it has instances of Imperial Star Destroyers, Mon Calamari Star Cruisers, and other large capital ships being able to jump from one end of the galaxy to the other in a matter of months, whereas in Voyager it’s going to take them an estimated 80 years to get from one quadrant to another. This seems like a major difference in warp speeds to me.

The Kessel Run is a long story, but I have time. Kessel is the only producer of a drug called “Glitterstim spice”. Smugglers ship this drug from Kessel to prospective markets. However, Kessel is surrounded by a blackhole cluster (Kessel is in a decaying orbit into one of the black holes). The Kessel Run is the route smugglers use past these black holes. If a ship not capable of a fast enough hyperspace (generally larger ships and freighters) gets too close to a black hole…Kablooie. The closer you are to a black hole means a shorter travel time, as well as saftey from Imperial inspectors. Flying the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs is significant in bragging about speed because it shows that the Millenium Falcon is faster than almost every other ship because he is one of the few that has been able to do it in less than 12 parsecs(The Millenium Falcon is supposedly the fastest ship in the rebel fleet).

The Enterprise could fire at distances, but the ISD could easily do a microjump at 10,000 kilometers (or more, or even less). The ISD would appear to have vansished for not even a second before it was right next to the Enterprise again. It can keep track of the Enterprise every time it goes to warp through simple trajectories. However, there is a tactic the ISD could use…it could microjump to one spot, then do a second microjump immedietly to come up behind the Enterprise, and immedietly fire several salvos of turbolasers (which are plasma energy, remember), ion cannons (which anyone has yet to address a counter for), and proton torpedoes. This would either disable or destroy the Enterprise (since they don’t have to get through the shields completely, just get them down around 60% or so…man, what effective shields Star Trek has). If the ISD did not quite destroy the Enterprise, it still has 8 or so immensely powerful tractor beams it could use to anchor the Enterprise in one spot to finish the job.

Here’s an interesting idea I just thought of…what would happen if an assault shuttle filled with troops attached itself to the hull of the Enterprise with landing claws (Like the Millenium Falcon on the Star Destroyer)?

107

Ah, here we go. From http://theforce.net/swtc/hyperspace.html#microjumps :

According to this source, the shortest microjumps on record are on the order of a few light-minutes. No mention is made as to how precisely the exit from hyperspace can be placed, but it doesn’t sound like a Star Destroyer would be able to microjump directly atop another ship, or even microjump to a specific place near another ship with enough knowledge of what their relative positions are going to be that they don’t have to re-aim their weapons.

SPOOFE and Monster104, you both said that microjump maneuvers have been mentioned in many SW sourcebooks and/or novels. Does any of them talk about how accurately or quickly a microjump can be performed, or whether it could be used tactically to attack?

108

Monster104 wrote:

What happens to a tractored object if it jumps into Hyperspace? Or, for that matter, if it goes to Warp?

109

I’ll take these in order that they were posted…

Tracer, you poster this:

"In the very first episode of ST:TNG ever, the Enterprise D fired photon torpedoes at the Q forcefield that was following it, while it was travelling at warp 9.7.

In the first-ever episode with the Borg, the Enterprise D fired phasers and photorps at a Borg cube that was also chasing them at warp speed.

In the OLD Star Trek series, for crying out loud, the Enterprise was chasing a Gorn vessel at Warp 8 and was locking weapons onto it (episode “Arena”), and the Enterprise was shown engaging in wargames with other Constitution-class starships, firing its phasers at them while at warp 5+ (episode “The Ultimate Computer”)."

NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THOSE INSTANCES YOU DESCRIBED MENTIONS A SHIP IN WARP BEING CAPABLE OF FIRING AT A SHIP NOT IN WARP. Why should I provide evidence that you should have already brought up?

Second, I’m not bristling “at any notion that SW couldn’t beat anything anywhere” (a statement that can also be said of ST fans at times). I’ve taken the knowledge that I know about both of these Sci-Fi series and creating a likely encounter between these two ships. My scenario is posted earlier in this thread. Every thing I say about these two ships battling is being based on that scenario, and I’m assuming that anyone else who posts is basing their idea on that same scenario. If you want a different scenario, THEN POST A DIFFERENT SCENARIO. Sheesh. That’s like the third time I’ve said that.

Third: Microjumps. In “The Black Fleet Crisis”, Chewbacca uses a microjump to get right up next to a Super Star Destroyer. His starting point was well outside the system (and I think it was a light-half-minute for that). So a microjump, while probably not good for a surgical strike, isn’t something that’s totally random, either. And a Star Destroyer is, admittedly, quite larger than the Millenium Falcon (but also has more reliable targetting and trajectory computers, too). So I’d say that, at the very least, a Star Destroyer would be able to pull up within firing and tractor beam range pretty damn quickly.

Finally, a tractored ship can’t go anywhere. While I don’t know the exact science behind it (but that’s no big thing… nobody knows the exact science behind any of this), I can safely assume that, in both SW and ST, they provide a counter-force in the direction that the tractor beam is being projected from (like an energy lasso). If the tractor beam is strong enough, it’d be able to completely immobilize its’ target or even pull it back.

Now, nobody knows exactly how much counter-force the Star Destroyers’ tractor beams are (they’re strong enough to lasso a Corvette, but those are smaller than the Enterprise), and I’m sure that the Enterprise would be able to break the lock of a single tractor beam relatively easily… eight tractor beams, however, would take a while. So, at the very least, tractor beams (the Star Destroyer always has system stations like those manned and active, along with shields, comm, helm, weapons, etc.) would be able to delay any sort of evasion on the part of the Enterprise for a minute or so, at least.

Of course, something just occurred to me… in my scenario, I said that the captain of the Star Destroyer would probably be capable of detecting new technology on the Enterprise, thus prompting him to destroy the ship to salvage it. Another likely scenario would be he’d disable the Enterprise with ion cannons and board the ship. Now, I think it’d be a pretty good guess that ion cannons would be effective against the Enterprise (even in Star Wars, where the weapons are pretty common, they don’t have any sort of countermeasure for them). So there’s a chance (slight chance, I know, but it’d be interesting) that the crew would be able to arrange some sort of ambush on the inside of the Enterprise. While it probably won’t be very effective (9700 stormtroopers vs. how many Starfleet personnel there are on the ship?), if this were a movie, it’d be pretty damn cool.

And another thing that just occurred to me… the Enterprise can separate the two sections. I think I read somewhere that they’re supposed to do this anyway at the first sign of danger (or something like that… but I’m not certain), so suddenly the ISD has two targets.

Finally (I’m sorry to you all for typing so much) I’m pretty sure that the Enterprise would easily be able to escape… as would the ISD… since neither can track the other in their respective faster-than-light status. And with that, I’m gonna stop typing so much and give my poor fingers a rest.

-SPOOFE

110

SPOOFE Bo Diddly wrote:

Because your contention that the Enterprise D CAN’T shoot at sublight targets while at warp speed is an UNREASONABLE ASSUMPTION. We know the Enterprise can shoot at faster-than-light targets while travelling at warp. We know that the Enterprise can shoot at faster-than-light targets while travelling at sublight speeds. We know that the Enterprise can shoot at sublight targets while travelling at sublight speeds.

The Enterprise has never been shown firing at a sublight target while at warp speed only because the situation has never come up. It is reasonable to assume that, since photon torpedoes travel faster-than-light in normal Einsteinian space via warp drive – no matter whether they’re fired from the ship while the ship is travelling at warp speed or not – that they could hit warp-speed or sublight targets regardless of how fast the Enterprise happened to be travelling when it fired them. It is not reasonable to assume otherwise without a shred of evidence to support your position. Saying “I’ve never seen this particular permutation, therefore the Enterprise CAN’T do it” is nothing more than a cop-out.

111

What about phasers? Do phasers travel faster than light? Can they be fired while in warp, or can just photon torpedoes be fired while in warp?

112

When it comes to phasers, unfortunately, the available information regarding the speed of the beams is contradictory.

Page 125 of the ST:TNG Tech Manual, which is in the section labelled “11.1: Phasers”, says the following:

However, the original-series episode “The Ultimate Computer” shows the Enterprise firing its phasers at other Constitution-class starships in a wargame, while both the Enterprise and the other ships are travelling at warp speeds. (I believe the Enterprise had accelerated to Warp 5 by this point). Furthermore, the ST:TNG episode where Q first shows us the Borg (I forget the title) has the Enterprise fleeing from a Borg cube at warp speed and firing phasers at it.

While the Borg phaser incident may be explained by saying that the Borg cube was headed directly for the Enterprise and that firing a light-speed phaser at it was equivalent to dropping a caltrop on the road in front of a car chasing you, the Ultimate Computer battle cannot be explained away in this manner. The only possible retcon I can come up with is that phaser beams USED TO travel faster-than-light in the days of Kirk and Spock, but slowed down to light speed (c) by the time of Captain Picard. Maybe warp-speed phasers were more dangerous to the ships mounting them, or something.

113

Incidentally, the newsgroup rec.arts.startrek.tech is devoted to discussing “Treknology”. The five FAQs for that newsgroup contain information and analysis that can’t be found in the ST:TNG Tech Manual or the ST Encyclopedia.

The rec.arts.startrek.tech FAQs can be found here, about half way down the page: http://members.aa.net/~skeksis/Star_Trek/

114

Look guys, I’m going to make a few assumptions here. 1. It is the Enterprise, not some random starship. I am assuming Captain Kirk 2. Is is “a Star Destroyer+, ie it IS some random Imperial SD, NOT the 'flagship” type Vader is on.

Then it is no contest. Kirk may be a Blowhard & the most dangerous dick in the Galaxy, but he has the tactical skills & inititive of Horatio Hornblower. The ISD is commanded by some nazi-like dickweed, with all the tactical skill of a duck, and if he ever even thought of having any inititive, Vader strangled it out of him. Who cares which is the better ship? Hornblower in a Frigate could take out a Spanish SOL. Kirk in the Old Enterprise, with Spock, Scotty, etc, would outsmart the ISD so many ways they wouldn’t know what day it was. :smiley:

It is to laff.

Now, Kirk vs Vader, hmmm…

115

::sigh::

“…that the Enterprise D CAN’T shoot at sublight targets while at warp speed is an UNREASONABLE ASSUMPTION.”

Why is that unreasonable? There have been several hundred Star Trek episodes. They’ve encountered dozens upon dozens of unknown enemy ships. You’re making this “go to warp and fire torpedoes” thing out to be the greatest maneuver this side of Crossing the T. If it was such a great stinkin’ maneuever, I’d think it’d be used a bit more often than “zero”. And don’t give me any bull about “well, they’ve never encountered a Star Destroyer before”, since A: that’s painfully obvious and B: it doesn’t matter, an unknown ship is an unknown ship.

A more likely excercise would be the “warp, exit warp, fire, re-enter warp” strategy, but that would only be really effective with several ships, since it’d take too long to go through all that to have much effect with a single vessel.

Probably the easiest and most likely way for the Enterprise to come out on top would be for the saucer section to detach and send the nacelle section into a collision course with the Star Destroyer. That way, they’d lose half the ship, but the ISD would lose… well… ALL the ship.

-SPOOFE

116

Ah! I see why we’re having this disagreement now, SPOOFE. I thought you were saying that a warp-speed Enterprise can’t fire at sublight targets. But what you’ve really been saying is merely that a warp-speed Enterprise won’t fire at sublight targets.

In other words, I’ve been going on the assumption that you meant the Enterprise was physically prevented from making such a maneuver, whereas what you really mean is that the Enterprise is tactically prevented from doing so.

And there you have a point. Thus far, the only ships with sublight weaponry the Enterprise has encountered have been piddling little wimps built by primitive, backward savages who are just barely beginning to explore space. They’ve never encountered anything with formidable sublight weaponry before. The first volley fired by the Star Destroyer would come as a big shock to the crew of the Enterprise – if the Star Destroyer could get off its first shots before Worf can say, “Sensors show they are powering weapons! They appear to be sublight plasma-lasers, but with extremely high energy signatures!”

After the first volley, though (assuming the Enterprise survives and its engines still work), ol’ Captain Picard is certainly shrewd enough to engage the Warp Drive in order to evade the Star Destroyer’s barrage. In fact, given the way the Trek writers like to turn starship captains into living legends, I wouldn’t be surprised if Picard could subsequently figure out the previously-never-used tactic of backing up at Warp 1.1 while firing photon torpedoes. He is Captain Picard, after all.
I’m actually more interested in a scenario where the Enterprise and the Star Destroyer both know what each others’ capabilities are before they meet. (Chess games are, after all, more interesting when both sides know ahead of time how the Knight and the Rook are allowed to move.) In that case, the Enterprise crew will have already hammered out the details of flying around at warp speed while lobbing photon torpedoes at the sublight Star Destroyer, and the Star Destroyer crew will have already hammered out the details of when and where to make the most effective microjumps.

117

Having never been a fan of the Star Wars universe outside of the movies, I have just picked up a copy of each of Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels, Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, and books-on-tape versions of both the Timothy Zahn Heir to the Empire trilogy and that Jedi Academy trilogy.

And I just wanted you to know, it’s all your fault.

118

Ooh! And it looks like The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology just came in handy!

Page 82 describes the “Deflector shield generators” used in the Star Wars universe. I’ve been able to glean the following facts from page 82, some of which even contradict a few of the assertions made in this thread:

[ul][li]“Deflectors” and “Shields” mean the same thing.[/li][li]The two shield types are Particle Shields and Ray Shields. Ray Shields are sometimes called “Energy Shields”.[/li][li]Particle shields are standard equipment on all starships (although TIE fighters probably don’t qualify as starships because they don’t have a hyperdrive).[/li][li]Particle shields reinforce the structural integrity of their vessel. They do not project any kind of invisible barrier away from their vessel’s surface.[/li][li]Particle shields can be run continuously, but ray shields use a lot of energy and can only afford to be switched on when battle is imminent.[/li][li]Ray shields surround their ship with layers of energy that may extend as much as several centimeters away from the hull.[/li][li]The energy layers of a ray shield are harmful or fatal to touch.[/li][li]Most starfighters (e.g. Y-wings) carry ray shield generators.[/li][li]The two Epcot-center-looking geodesic spheres atop a Star Destroyer’s bridge are the ship’s only shield generators. They funnel their energy through shield relays to projectors located in various places on the hull. (The picture shows a shield generator tower bristling with shield projector relays, and one of the shield relay bumps on the hull.) While shield energy is usually allocated such that the bridge is more heavily protected than other parts of the ship, the placement of the shield generators next to the bridge appears to be coincidental.[/ul][/li]
This last point would, at first glance, appear to contradict the line in Return of the Jedi where the fighters blew up one of the Super Star Destroyer’s shield generators and the SSD’s crewman said, “They’ve taken out the shield generators for the bridge”. Perhaps the shield generator towers are also lined with projectors for the bridge area.

119

Crossing the T…
Good to see Spoof reads good literature :slight_smile:

If you’re wondering about the banana in my ear, it’s tto lure out the monkey inside my head…

120

Um … is “Crossing the T” from somewhere special? (Seriously, I’d never heard the expression before, other than in my primary school penmanship class.)