Questor

Yup, read it wrong. Remember though, if we picked it up recently, they would have sent it out 20 years ago. The 70s were such a wonderful time. Hell, I'd have changed the channel in the mid 60s. My guess would be that its similar to why we keep answering some of the debate questions in this forum. Morbid curiosity.

Event Horizon And I didn't even need to google.

Take care. I really do hope everything starts working out for you. I know its seemed like it never would for me a couple times.

And another posrep for you.

"Laser-like in nature" Says collimated beam to me, not omnidirectional pulse. Not to mention, how the heck do they know we're here? 200 years ago we were barely emmiting light from the planet, much less signals someone could pick up. And if they have FTL sensing, why the hell weren't they less ambiguous?

Only according to Cryptic. And since cryptic has a financial stake in convincing the hordes of unwashed trektards that their plotline is part of "canon," then I'm going to wait for word directly from CBS.

Actually, I'd be willing to grant ammunition replicators. It is an obvious extrapolation of existing technology. My only question would be how large they would be and how efficient they would be (power for the replicators and the replicators vs carrying the ammo.)

Are you on drugs? A million people? FOR A SPHERE 160 KILOMETERS IN DIAMETER (FOR THE SMALLER ONE!!!!)? YOU WILL NOW CALCULATE THE AMOUNT OF THREE DIMENSIONAL SPACE A 80 KM RADIUS SPHERE WOULD GIVE EACH MEMEBER OF A 1,000,000 PERSON CREW.

Tyralak... You have now reached bermanesque levels of strangeness. Stop, see a therapist.

On the electricity discussion, you have that entirely wrong. Electricity OF ANY KIND cannot travel through a non conducting medium. In a gas, such as air, either AC or DC can create an electric breakdown in the surrounding gas, turning it to plasma. Eventually you get an arc. This has nothing to do with frequency. Electricty CANNOT travel through a vacuum at all. I will respond to the rest later today.

I don't care. Staying is probably less work, so do that.

How does a lightning gun have a frequency? Electricity only has frequency if it's AC. Also: Why does a turbolaser have to have a frequency. You are claiming they have a frequency, you need to prove they do. The only basic type of energy with a frequency is radiant. Everything else operates differently in one way or another. Why are we assuming that a slower than light weapon is light? Just because you want it to be is not sufficient evidence to assume that there is any frequency involved other than the color of the light emitted by the bolt.

You can't do that. You can't just say they work the same when the very idea of this property is so outlandish. Saying they must be the same because they share some properties (and I don't believe they do) is like saying that a nuclear event and a chemical explosion are the same because the both generate an overpressure wave.

None of them, which was the point of that rather long post. Turbolasers do not exhibit behavior consistent with any known energy transfer mechanism. Neither do phasers for that matter. I don't say phasers have frequency because they are light based (which any idiot should be able to deduce from the extreme STL speeds shown). I say they are frequency based because it is one of the most consistent items of technobabble in the series. I'd much rather throw that out, but canon is to consistent on the subject. The same way I'd rather say the Borg are adapting in a rational way, and that shields are just some kind of energy capture/radiation device. Unfortunately, we have to much canon saying "frequency, frequency, frequency." In SW, I do maintain that shields are energy capture/storage/radiators because the technobabble rot has not spread as far and I still can. Am I being clear here?

Infrared radiant energy is not the same as thermal energy, but it is one way thermal energy is radiated. As for the rest, there are also chemical and nuclear energy, neither of which have frequency. Not to mention the myriad of things being lumped into kenetic energy here.

Right, because the only way we'd have seen it is if it was aimed at us. They couldn't be sweeping the sky...

BURN THE WITCH!!!!!

To sum up: If it weren't for some of the stupidest technobabble in the history of technobabble becoming a meme in Star Trek, I suspect one of the biggest arguments in versus would not even be an issue. I know it wouldn't be for me.

My one issue with Tyralak's post, (and I do agree electromagnetic is the most likely option out of known physics) is that Turbolasers, like phasers, do not exhibit the one KEY property of electromagnetic weapons. They are not speed of light. I'm far more inclined to believe that there is some kind of particle involved in both for this reason. The simple fact of the matter is that we have absolutely zero idea how either set of weapons work. From an understanding standpoint, torpedoes and missiles are relatively simple analogues of what we have. Understanding energy weapons in either universe makes my skin crawl because of the numerous issues with physics. Here's the way I sum up: Turbolasers work by: I've got nothing They have these properties: FAR slower than light Highly variable damage yields Power SEEMS to be proportional to emmiter size Flak bursts can be defended against by ray shields Seem to have an explosive/kinetic damage when damage is onserved at all (did I miss anything? I'm tired) Phasers work by: I've got nothing They have these properties: Slower than light Frequency tunable (whatever that means) Can be set to many different settings. Emmiter size does not seem to determine maximum setting most are continuous beams, but pulse phasers exist (do pulse phasers operate on frequency as well? - Unknown) Damage type seems to be int the thermal/explosive level for ship weapons and the kenetic/other level for handheld, but can change depending on "settings" and target. Unlike many others who've come before me, I decline to propose a mechanism, and simply try and work with the observable evidence. Were it not for the MANY times phasers were stated to have a frequency, I would not have assumed they would from the other properties of the weapon. Were it not for the MANY times that frequency has been the reason borg are able to adapt to phasers, I would not assume that frequency was how they do that, either. My guesses would generally have been energy storage/redirection combined with some kind of shield (I.E. exactly what we see on screen) So my reasoning for why the borg MIGHT not be able to adapt to turbo lasers is simple. They seem to adapt primarily to frequency based weapons (even if we have no idea what the method for the frequency base is). The observable evidence does not support a frequency base for turbolasers (or for phasers, but I have to assume that Geordi and Data were not making stuff up all those times, as much as it actually HURTS me.) Without dialog or descriptive evidence that turbolasers are frequency based, I come down on the side of "can't adapt to them." I acknowledge that my method is not the only way to approach the problem, but it is the one that makes the most sense to me and avoids the gigantic speed of light issue.

It's MAD! MAD I TELL YOU!!!!!

Darn, I was hoping to be able to win the funniest Youtube video award when you tried the broadsword one.

It's a tech level fallacy and a no limits fallacy. The assumptiont that a laser can't penetrate the shields fails because if I pump enough energy into it I can get anything to penetrate a shield. It comes from a badly written episode - you know the one. It also comes from the simplistic assumption that one piece of technology being more advanced than another makes the first piece automatically invincible against the second, which is an attractive shorthand, but you have to understand the why to really play with it. If you want a demonstration of this, I'd suggest you walk into a broadsword fight wearing a suit of kevlar. Or you could look at what a 16" shell will do to a modern ship.

Nope... If I punch you in the face, I'm transmitting energy, but there's no frequency unless I do it again. I think you mean: "Any type of electromagnetic or sonic energy that is transmitted has a "frequency." EDIT: Enigma, you idiot, why'd you conceed they have a frequency? That's playing to their strength. Demand THEY prove that turbolasers work by transmitting light.

Posrep for you...

Sorry, I've been spending to much time on another board.