Let’s look as how the ships are shown in their respective source materials.
In the Star Wars movies, the ISD is portraid as a pretty much unstoppable killing machine. Our Heroes spend most of the movies running, hiding, or sneaking past them; it isn’t until the battle at Endor in the last move that any Rebel force stands a chance against a serious Empire battle force, and even then it’s a desperate, losing battle.
In the TNG TV series, the Enterprise gets beaten by the menace-of-the-week on a regular basis. True, it wins the occasional right, but it’s far more often that its shields are knocked down, the warp core destabilized, the computer core taken over, or whatever. When the crew of the Enterprise do win, it’s through technobabble trickery rather than any actual combat ability. After all, the Enterprise isn’t a dedicated combat vehicle like the ISD; it’s a ship built to do dozens of different tasks including combat. And Federaion technology appears to be dangerously buggy and unreliable.
Therefore, even if we ignore the vast energy-level superiority of Empire technology, the ISD has a great advantage in being a pure combat vehicle.
Furthermore, it should be pointed out that a simple one-on-one fight isn’t the ony scenatio to be considered. If we consider the case of a longer tactical campaign, the greatly superior speed of the ISD becomes a dominating factor. Not only does an ISD travel faster than any Federation ship, it actally travels faster than the subspace sensor pulses that Federation ships use to detect FTL-travelling objects. This means an ISD can pop out of hyperspace and attack a target with zero warning. If the scenario considered is the Enterprise attempting to protect targets from an ISD, the issue of who beats who becomes moot. The ISD doesn’t even have to engage the Enterprise if it doesn’t want to; it can simply travel to the target, destroy it, and be gone long before the Enterprise can catch up.
That’s because all the alien species in the Star Trek universe have FTL weaponry. If the Enterprise knew that an ISD’s turbolaser bolts only travelled at the speed of light (or much much slower, if you believe the special effects in the movies ), and was prepared for this, it could maneuver in such a way that the ISD couldn’t touch it. (The Enterprise’s torpedoes, on the other hand, would have no problem touching the ISD whenever the ISD wasn’t in hyperspace.)
Not only would the ISD’s weapons stand no chance of touching the Enterprise while the Enterprise was at warp, the ISD’s sensors also wouldn’t be able to detect it. Ships in the Star Wars universe can’t be tracked while they’re moving through hyperspace.
Feel free to name one (aside from, say, the Voth).
And the weapons of the Enterprise can’t hit the ISD while the Enterprise is at warp, either. So it needs to drop out of warp. And then it’s dead.
An Imperial scout vessel sure managed to detect the Teljkon Vagabond just fine in The Black Fleet Crisis. The reason why detecting a vessel in hyperspace can’t be done is because the vessel moves too fast.
Okay, my turn again. This is getting rather cumbersome, but I’ll do my best to respond to the relevant arguments you make… although I won’t respond to every single thing. Some arguments will be covered in statements from higher up in my post.
That depends on how thorough you want to be in a search. If they had stopped to think about it, they probably would have realized the Falcon’s hyperdrive wasn’t working. Therefore, there’s no way that the Falcon could be gone, unless it was completely smashed to pieces by a large asteroid. It seems to be a presumptous claim. Therefore, they may have spent a week searching, or perhaps they spent six hours.
Yeah, I probably was. As I’ve admitted, that’s the movie I didn’t watch when I made my last post. I’ve watched it recently though.
I’m certain he was convinced. And I agree that it was probably damaged again, although the hyperdrive trouble in the movie really starts to get comical after a while.
I know that you have to base weapons and shield estimates from visual evidence, but don’t you think it’s a little far to assume you know what asteroids are from a color tint? This is the same visual effect coming from a guy that used a tennis shoe as a Star Destroyer and who made Obi-Wan’s lightsaber keep flickering and nearly go out in SW IV. (As a side note, I think the lightsabers looked sort of cartoonish in AotC. I think it was the purple ones that made it seem that way to me – but at least they stayed on no matter what angle they were viewed at).
But since you’ve posted that quote from a book that says they are nickle-iron, that’s good enough. ALso, that’s really all I was asking.
You misunderstand me, but that’s my fault. I was casting a bit far there. I was simply using it as an example of how many captains feel an attachment to their ship. As in the captain goes down with the ship because he doesn’t want to live without her anymore. The main point there was that the captain might scream like that from damage anywhere to his ship. But forget that.
We saw an asteroid his a Star Destroyer’s command tower. This was right before the hologram scene.
By the way, when it jumps to the hologram scene, one of the captains says “Considering the amount of damage we’ve sustained, they must have been destroyed.” It sort of implies that they’ve taken considerable damage, otherwise he wouldn’t have cited how much they had taken.
Actually, I find their communications capability even odder. A holographic image is just another way of saying “3 dimentional picture.” This means that the only data you need is an x-coordinate, a y-coordinate, and a z-coordinate (with respect to some center of projection), and a “color” bit for each pixel. Overlay a voice stream over it, and you’ve got your holographic transmission. But somehow the Empire doesn’t have the resources for this.
Second point… I’m jumping ahead a bit to a later point, but you claim SW ships have energy shields and physical impact shields. All right, cool, I’ve read the same thing online. The energy shields would presumably block an energy transmission, but the physical shields would not. That would also explain why they didn’t worry about using holographic transmissions – energy shields don’t defend against iron boulders flying at you. No further objections to holographic transmisions going through shields.
Of course, that raises an interesting question. How exactly do targeting sensors work? They need to read an x, y, and z coordinate in relation to the weapon. Then they also need to what part of the target they’d be hitting. Not quite as much information as a hologram, but it’s happening for 120 weapons at the same time, all going right through shields? Inconsistency. I suppose that if all their targeting were based on visual perception, it would help explain why they have no accuracy.
Not so much a red herring as an aside with little bearing on the argument. I was merely stating that it doesn’t take a boulder with a one-foot diameter to destroy something.
Okay, I’m just quoting this one part, but I’m really going to respond (in general) to all points about TIE fighters and the asteroid field. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but here is the main point you’re making: The ISD captains are worried about the TIE fighters are other support craft.
All, right… they may not be worried about the craft and pilots themselves, but they care about the results returned by said pilots. Right, I agree.
ISD sensors are not sensitive enough to conduct a (long range) search of an asteroid field at a distance. I presume that you don’t dispute this. Therefore, there are two ways to conduct a search. First, send in support ships like TIEs. Second, take the big ship in. The third method, using unmanned probes, seemed to be un-utilized (either that, or bundled in with the support craft).
Now I may be misunderstanding what you’re saying, but you seem to be going down several different argumentative paths. You say the captain objects to going into the asteroid field because of his support craft. All right, let’s look at this logically. By my previous paragraph, to conduct a search, either the ISD has to send in support craft or has to go in itself. Therefore, by reason, the captain can only be objecting to: A.) Sending in support craft, or B.) Taking himself in. I’ve said nothing new so far, merely outlined the problem.
Now, as you yourself have said, Vader wants the search conducted in a timely manner. He’s ordered the ships in after the TIEs chasing the Falcon have already been destroyed. It’s clear from the later scene (where the four ships are flying leisurely in formation) that at slower speeds, TIE pilots don’t have much trouble avoiding getting hit. It’s when they were tearing pell-mell through the field after the Falcon that they got destroyed. Since the TIEs look like they’re not having a hard time of it, why do you argue the destroyer captain is worried about them? It seems far more likely he’s worried about his own skin in the ship that can’t dodge.
Never said they were incompetent. But again, I object to your term “Red Herring.” Just because it doesn’t directly support my point in one sentence doesn’t mean it has no relevance.
I’m having trouble reconciling this statement with your earlier one that the asteroids were moving no faster than 20 meters/second. Those must have been gigantically massive asteroids hitting the ISDs to create multi-megaton forces. For example, say that the multi-megaton force was 3 megatons. That would be 1.26 x 10^16 joules of energy. For an asteroid moving along at a pokey 20 meters per second, said asteroid would need to weigh 2.1 x 10^13 kilograms. Assume the density is 2.7 g/cm^3 (from this NASA page). We get a volume of 7.77 x 10^15 cm. Assume it’s a perfectly spherical asteroid (for ease of calculation), and we get an asteroid of radius 1228 meters. You’re talking about every Star Destroyer being hit by asteroids nearly their size. I think you need to rethink your own numbers.
“Huge” is rather subjective, don’t you think? It didn’t really seem all that impressive an area to me. And some later hits seemed to barely do any damage. Again, inconsistent.
I think the sourcebooks have to be top source here, since it comes down to a choice between your own judgement and official material. I certainly trust my judgement more than I trust “official material,” but I can’t cite my brain on a public message board.
I’m afraid that I don’t have the books with me at the moment, so I don’t know how far apart they are. However, the Stellar Web was sitting still (relative to the battle), while the VSD accelerated towards it. Do you have any clue how large a “gravity shadow” that the cruiser can cast? That would allow rough calculations.
By the way, “many hundreds, if not thousands, of G’s?” You have to be more specific. Hundreds of Gs a second? A minute? An hour? Besides, meters/second^2 is a far better way to express acceleration in a galaxy without an Earth (where one “G” is derived from).
We don’t know the mass of the ship (only that it was incomplete, but not what percentage incomplete), nor the exact speed. Only that a physical impact at relatively close ranges destroyed an ISD. Which was the point I was trying to make.
No need to calculate out the kinetic energy. I wasn’t using physical impact for calculating shield strength – I was making the point that physical impact is quite different from radiated energy in terms of how it affects the ship. Energy is energy… but a physical impact delivers it in a different way. Point made, thank you. Physical impact is different from radiated energy (as it affects shields).
In other words… as I said, the imperial fleet was stupid enough to do exactly what was best for the rebels. It’s only a matter of how you wish to phrase it.
And there’s quite a large difference between the Vietnam War and the “suppression of the rebellion.” The Empire was willing to go to extreme measure (blowing up entire planets) to suppress the rebellion. When, exactly, did the US do the modern day equivalent? In other words, nukes, the most powerful weapon of today. It would have “won” the war quite nicely, as a country of radioactive glass has a hard time resisting anything (except life’s attempts to get a foothold).
Actually it was four ships, two TIE fighters preceding two TIE bombers. Second, it was a several-second shot. I was exaggerating the multiple shots, yes… so I hadn’t seen the movie in a couple years. My memory isn’t all that great.
<smirk>. Yes, yes. Apologies. I have made a few incorrect statements… it happens when this much information is being thrown back and fourth <grin>. Still, you’re getting data wrong as well. For example, the asteroid hit on the tower was before any holographic transmissions that we saw, and while you claimed there were two ships, there were actually four. We all make mistakes with this much data.
Uh huh. Again, that was before the holographic transmission.
Heh. Well, yes, that is a legitimate speculation. I can’t say I’d blame him either.
Why’d he fire it, then? A guy as experienced as Fett should know exactly how his weapons work, right? Like how fast they go, and so on?
Yeah, how come they all seem to be like that?
But as to going to full speed… we’re talking about a fully trained Jedi knight here. When a novice like Luke can navigate down a narrow Death Star trench, and a pilot like Han Solo can navigate a just-as-dense field, I don’t think Obi-Wan would have any trouble. Besides, he didn’t even need to go any faster, since he was obviously already faster than the missile. He had been handling that speed quite well so far, as we saw.
Argh! Why am I plagued by people who take every single term I use absolutely literally? <smirk>. But you’re forgetting one last part… the tons of rubble from that explosion.
Wow, nearly a minute is enough to charge up shields that much? Impressive. Why can’t Star Destroyers use technology like these tiny ships have? Like regenerating shields? After all, in terms of the volume they can devote to power generation, they have far less surface area to protect than a fighter. I doubt weapons strengths have all that much to do with it, seeing as how the Falcon took at least two hits from an ISD (one seen on screen in ESB, the other one reported by 3PO).
They were trying to capture the ship. They were firing at the ship. Therefore, one can reasonably conclude they were trying to hit the ship to physically disable it. Yet they kept missing and missing and missing in the opening scene. I have to call this argument of yours a red herring… it has no relevance. If they weren’t trying to hit the ship, why were they firing? Warning shots? Oh, and apparently the concept of “two copies” is unheard of in the SW universe. They could have kept a copy of the plans in the computer… Vader finds it, problem solved. Second set of plans escapes.
Was this from a random fan website or a source on the canon scale? If it is the former, I wouldn’t give it much credit.
It works like that for a few seconds. Imagine that you were throwing rocks at another guy standing a good ways off. All of a sudden he vanished and appeared right in front of you and started punching you in the nose. I would certainly be rather surprised and not react offensively for a couple seconds. Are you saying you would be able to react instantly?
Enterprise computers do not automatically target and fire without being ordered to by the human (or Klingon) in charge of weapons, by the way. It’s that aforementioned reaction time… without an order, the computer just sits still. Perhaps it’s bad programming… but on the other hand, the Federation goes for diplomatic solutions first, and a computer that automatically targeted ships without orders would be counterproductive.
They have a better range in some instances then they have when compared to themselves against others. Under which circumstances are they worse than Star Wars sensors? You say yourself that they aren’t. I never said they were excellent in all circumstances.
They were looking for a few chunks of ship that could be anywhere in the entire sector. The ship was still fully intact when they found it (although partially buried in an asteroid). They were scanning for the absolute wrong thing the entire time. Compared to a hoard of ISDs and other support ships with full sensor focuses on the Falcon from multiple different angles. There’s a difference between looking for the wrong thing that’s years old and moved, and tracking a ship with hot exhaust from multiple sensors at different angles.
We don’t know how wide or “high” it is. 12 light years is quite a bit different from, say, 12 cubic lightyears if it was only one high and one wide. It might be 48 (1222) cubic lightyears to search, or more. That’s a lot of territory. What gives you the idea that the Enterprise is capable of searching 48 cubic lightyears at warp? Even I, as pro-Trek as I am, haven’t claimed it’s that easy. They probably park somewhere, conduct gigantic sensor scans, move onto the next spot, and so on. Again, remember that they don’t know what they’re looking for. They might be looking for the Fleming. They might be looking for a drifting cloud of debris. They might be looking for a pirate ship. They might be looking for nothing but the Fleming’s warp trail. That just might be slightly more difficult than looking for a fully operational Federation starship that’s perfectly intact.
You neglect the rest of what I said. Each time, they were trying to capture the damned station. Warp strafing doesn’t allow you to capture the bloody thing.
The show would get awfully boring fairly quickly if there weren’t ever any two-way battles.
What’s to keep the other ship from merely going into warp if you’re going to be unsporting about it? Second, the torpedo does have to go back into realspace, which drops it back to moving slower than light before impact.
Certainly. Stationary is relative in space. The very first scene of the very first movie (in order of production, not numbering), the two ships are stationary relative to each other. Second case: Battle of Endor. They sit there and slug it out. You can clearly see in the background (the shot when the ISD blew up) that none of the ships were zipping about. Third case to nth case… multiple books. For example, the fight to take Coruscant in the X-Wing books, Star Destroyers sat in orbit and slugged it out.
As for Yesterday’s Enterprise, that’s a different ship, the D. Insurrection featured it in an area where it couldn’t use full engine strength, and it ran from those two ships because it was trying to get a message out to fleet command. Time was of the essence. It only had to stop and deal with them when they got too close. Counter this with First Contact and Nemesis with nice sublight maneuvering.
Well, that page addresses novels and comic books. Neither of which I ever claimed was canon. Unfortunately, the “page” I can cite isn’t online. It’s the introduction to one of Okuda’s books (the history of the future one). I’ll paraphrase: “When we were putting together writer’s bibles for the show, we had to consider what was canon. Obviously, the aired episodes came first of all. Screenplays came second, but aired episodes were above in the priority list.” He went on to say that (again, paraphrased) “We [Okuda, Gene, and a couple others] thought long and hard about whether to make Trek books canon, but eventually decided not to, due to the contradictions.” Tech specs, however, as produced by people like Okuda, are from the “Writer’s Bible” of Star Trek, and canon. Interestingly enough, Gene decided that he didn’t want Star Trek V to be canon (I don’t blame him), but that caused a small crisis. They compromised on merely noting that Gene didn’t want it to be canon, but everyone else was unwilling to simply dismiss an entire movie. In other words, the official tech manuals are canon. If you’re unwilling to believe my paraphrasing of the opening page, I’m afraid you’ll have to go to a bookstore and read the introduction yourself. It ain’t online. Myself, I find it easier to just believe you when you cite from a book.
A proximity fuse can simply be a software instruction of “Detonate when you get this close.” It’s very easy to put together, and thus I don’t dispute they don’t have them… just that they don’t use them when they are most useful.
True. I’ve actually found sources that say they’re comparable in power. What’s the difference, then? Just the name?
There’s a difference between that and a cut from person back to the same person. In the latter case, you want to indicate the passage of time. In the first case, it’s generally showing a different place (outside the bridge of the flagship) at the same instant. But that’s mainly a matter of filmography, and we don’t have Lucas around to say what he intended.
Well, I can’t think of a way offhand. However, I say again that I have read many tech manuals (higher on the canon scale than novlels by your own admission) that call the domes shield generators. In fact, when I took that trip to B&N, I glanced as the ISD page in every Star Wars tech manual they had, and each one called them shield generators and not anything else.
Check the page again. Along with my previous quote of:
Visit the page again. Scroll down and you’ll see the “enhanced” statistics.
All right, I’ve responded to your points. My turn to introduce more arguments <grin>. It makes it more fun than simply respond-respond-respond, don’t you agree? Besides, you said that it sounds like I’m stretching to make points. I’ll be happy to oblige with fresh stuff <grin>. Time to do Star Wars/Star Trek comparisons of non-weapon and non-shield technology that nonetheless might have impact on a battle. Some of this stuff I did address above, I’m merely putting it more concisely and combining it with other data.
First of all, let’s discuss Star Wars engine capability. First of all, interestingly enough, they seem to be unaffected by the square-cube law. When the Falcon was trying to escape Tatooine from SW IV, the Star Destroyer broke orbit and chased them. Somehow, a vessel that’s well over a kilometer long managed to pace the Falcon, doing it’s absolute best to escape. The Falcon wasn’t damaged that time, either. Interesting how, despite the vast differences in scale, the travel at the same speed. Even more interestingly, the ISDs appear to never be able to do it again, outside of a second Falcon-chasing in ESB. Maybe the Falcon has some sort of ISD Engine Enhancer Field?
Ships in the Star Trek universe are limited (by design) to do no more than about .25c in order to keep relativity problems to a minimum. No problems here with chasing and catching up, when you have a self-imposed speed limit. Besides, how many times has a Trek ship chased a technologically-similar ship that’s significantly smaller? Voyager and Delta Flyer is what I can think of offhand… and that’s mostly at warp.
Also interesting about Star Wars engine technology is that it forces fighter craft to perform with World War II style aerodynamics. This is odd, considering that space in general is a vacuum. Maybe the whole galaxy has an atmosphere? For a good example on how fighter craft should perform, watch Babylon 5 Starfuries in action. I’m curious to see the reasonable explanation for why SW starfighters perform like this, and why no one has ever made a better fighter that could fire weapons in a direction other than which it was travelling in. Also interestingly enough, fighters at “attack speed” can “pull up” from hitting something with their engines still accelerating them towards the surface. Maybe their engines generate an atmosphere bubble around the ship as well for them to perform like this.
The Federation doesn’t employ small fighters like the Empire does. Sure, there are examples like the Runabouts (and I do admit they violate a few laws of physics too, in terms of motion), but they don’t move like WWII fighters.
As I addressed briefly above, it’s interesting as to how limited the data sending abilities of ships is. An ISD that’s over a kilometer long can apparently manage voice communications with fighters and other support craft, other capital ships in general, and receive all sorts of targeting data from their sensors. Yet a holographic image (also known as three coordinates and a color value per “pixel,” and a voice stream) is unable to be sent through these selfsame shields. Speaking about communications, can’t they manage any better than those pathetic holograms that you can see through and 2d views that are staticy?
Federation ships don’t employ holograms to communicate. However, detailed 2d images can be sent quite easily through shields, as can virtually every other form of communication. How many times have you heard a communications officer say “We can’t signal them that way sir, because our shields are up?” In terms of communications quality… they don’t use holographic images to regularly communicate, but when they’re used (holodeck), they look solid (ooooh!). Shinzon in Nemesis used a 3d projection system that looked quite real, too. In terms of 2D communications… you don’t usually find static. Compare this with the static on the screen for intraship communications that marred the conversation between Vader and Piett in ESB. They were on the same bloody ship, and static covered the screen.
Summing up the sensor data… ISDs are apparently unable to track a ship through an asteroid field with multiple viewpoints. Multiple Imperial ships focusing on a single fleeing ship somehow miss it parking itself ON the Star Destroyer. That same Star Destroyer doesn’t have external sensor ability to notice something on it. Apparently noticing things near their ships are limited to “looking out the window.” They don’t have the sensor capability to detect anything light years away. Their sensor capability in hyperspace is limited to “mass shadows” only, and only at close ranges.
Federation sensors, conversely, can detect things at range. An active not trying to stay undetected can be casually detected from light years away. A fixed location (such as a moon or planet) can be easily scanned from light years away. I’ll admit there is some evidence that scanners can have trouble at close range, but every incident cited and that I can think of has some unique circumstances. Such as odd conditions in that region of space.
Hyperdrive can’t be initiated in gravity wells. Gravity can pull a ship out of hyperspace. This is well known, I don’t think I need to cite anything. Also, calculations for hyperspace have to be made quite carefully in advance (I can cite book examples as to the dangers of it). Probably because they can’t use sensors while in hyperspace. It takes a (relative) while to plan a hyperspace jump. That ISD better have a preprogrammed hyperspace escape route or it won’t be able to leave when the Enterprise is pounding it to pieces. Also, a ship can’t change directions in hyperspace
Warp drive is affected by gravity wells, but not ruined by it. Consider the many episodes where the Enterprise warps out from close orbit. Star Trek IV features a Klingon Bird-of-Prey warping out from inside the atmosphere of earth, and then warping at extremely close ranges to the sun. The one example where gravity bothered a ship that I can think of is the Dyson Sphere in one of the TNG episodes. Other then that, gravity doesn’t pull ships out of warp. Also, a ship can jump into warp at any time (and can change course) on pretty much any heading. Example: Q-Who? I paraphrase: “Get us out of here, any heading. Engage!” The Enterprise does an abrupt spin and takes off.
On a lighter note, Star Wars ships have no apparent entertainment. Admittedly, these are stormtroopers and naval personnel here, but entertainment seems to be limited to reading, using the gym, and computer games of all types. Probably gambling too.
The Federation has the holodeck. Make your own jokes about using it as a sex room, but it can also be used to do anything from skiing to watching a historical concert. Need I say more on entertainment on the Enterprise?
All right, time to move on to a fairly simple “tactic.” I maintain that we have to consider tactics in a battle such as this. If we leave things to their default, the Enterprise always wins and ISDs manage to always lose in the end. Therefore….
According to this site, a Star Destroyer has 60 turbolaser batteries and 60 ion cannons. This number agrees with what I’ve read in books. The Imperial II has 100 and 20, respectively, but either way, the ship apparently has 120 weapons. An impressive number, but my question is: how many can fire into the rearward arc? Remember that the ISD is a triangular ship that gets wider towards the back, so only weapons on the extreme rear of the ship have a firing arc that includes behind the ship. How many weapons do you think are on the extreme rear of the ship? A dozen, a full tenth of the ship’s armament? I doubt it. Half a dozen? Perhaps. So how does the ISD respond when the Enterprise just parks behind it and commences attack? Remember that it’s hardly maneuverable enough to shake the Enterprise off its tail.
Sure, the ISD can destroy the E-E if it lands a good salvo of tens of weapons, but I doubt it would ever land that salvo.
By the way, Spoofe, just as an aside… the “Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology,” a tech manual published by “Lucas Books” claims that the effective range of a concussion missile is 300 meters, and the maximum range is 700 meters. What do you make of this claim? It also claims that torpedoes are only twice as powerful as the four lasers of an X-wing.
The Enterprise didn’t run into problems until Picard commanded Enterprise to come out of warp and re-enter realspace, at which the Enterprise shuddered at the transition point due to gravimetric shear.
The plasma torpedo fired by the Romulan Bird of Prey in the TOS episode “Balance of Terror” was gaining on the Enterprise while the Enterprise was backing up at maximum warp.
Also, non-Federation “nations” also have access to photon torpedoes (which move at warp speed). Although never stated on film, the red torpedo-looking things fired by the Klingon K’T’Inga-class up-rated battlecruisers at V’Ger in Star Trek: The Motion Picture were supposed to be photon torpedoes. If the Klingons had access to photorp technology back in the 23rd century, you can bet your sweet bippy they wouldn’t have let go of it in the intervening years. And, since Quark the Ferengi once discussed buying and selling photon torpedoes (and even quantum torpedoes) with non-Federation persons, it stands to reason that photorps are somewhat commonplace outside the Federation’s borders.
A relatively safe defensive posture for a Star Fleet vessel, therefore, would be to assume that any unidentified assailant vessels had photon torpedoes or other FTL weaponry. If they knew that their enemies were only armed with light-speed-or-slower weapons – say, turbolasers, f’rinstance – they could employ different tactics to take advantage of this technological edge.
SPOOFE, you’ve made that ridiculous claim a few times before. People other than myself have brought up the ST:TOS episode “The Ultimate Computer”, in which the Enterprise is shown shooting at other ships while travelling at warp 5 – not to mention the ST:TNG pilot episode where the Enterprise D is travelling at warp 9.6-9.7 and lobbing photon torpedoes out of its rear at the Q shield-thingy that was chasing them at warp 9.9.
You base your claim on the foolish notion that because no Trek scriptwriter has put the Enterprise into a position where it had to shoot at a slower-than-light ship while at warp, the Enterprise must therefore be incapable of firing at a slower-than-light target while at Warp. By your logic, because no Star Wars novel has ever shown an Imperial ship firing at a Federation Star Fleet starship, they must therefore be incapable of doing so. :rolleyes: The TNG Tech manual clearly states that photon torpedoes travel at warp speed, and the ship has obviously fired photorps while travelling at warp speed itself (with a sensor lock on its target). There is no reason to suspect that slower-than-light objects would somehow be magically “immune” to photorps fired from a Federation starship travelling at warp speed.
Hmmm … I haven’t read The Black Fleet Crisis. How fast was the Teljkon Vagabond travelling at the moment the Imperial scout vessel managed to detect it? Were both vessels travelling faster-than-light? And, more importantly, how fast is “too fast” for detection to be impossible? Would any faster-than-light speed be able to outrun Star Wars sensors, or would you have to be travelling at, say, 1000 times the speed of light or more? (And as we say in GD, “cite?”)
A .50 caliber Desert Eagle and a ladies’ pearl-handled revolver are both handguns, despite having huge differences in firepower.
“Luke! You’ve switched off your targeting computer! What’s wrong?”
The problem with arguing about the relative effectiveness of targeting computers is there is no effective way to judge the effectiveness of the other ships’ electronic counter measures. SW ships might have incredible targeting computers, and even stronger ECM, which is why their apparent accuracy is so bad. Star Trek ships might have only marginal targeting computers, and no ECM at all. Or it might be the other way around entirely.
And a nuclear bomb and a knife are both weapons, yet have a gigantic difference in destructive ability. You can make the field as wide as you’d like and still get accurate comparisons. The point is that these are specific types of weapons - “concussion missiles.” Not missiles in general, but a named specific type of missile.
Your point loses some effectiveness when they actually miss their shots at asteroids. I doubt someone is going around and putting ECM on every asteroid in the galaxy. Also, how can a missile lock onto a target (such as a starfighter) if the ECM is so incredibly high? A missile needs constant lock and tracks in on the target. If such a super-small pacakge can track something on its own, I’m certain capital ships have that same sort of technology. Which brings up a good point… maybe if they ripped out the guts of their missiles and installed them in targetting computers for turbolasers, their accuracy rate would be much greater.
), and was prepared for this, it could maneuver in such a way that the ISD couldn’t touch it. (The Enterprise’s torpedoes, on the other hand, would have no problem touching the ISD whenever the ISD wasn’t in hyperspace.)