NDF: A Myth

[scvn2812 504]

You realize the irony in that statement, don't you? This is something that's been rattling around in my head for a while, and at the risk of dragging Star Wars into a thread that really is strictly a Star Trek matter. I also want to make clear that the following isn't a dig at Brian or Curtis. I have the utmost respect for their work. I'm simply shedding light on what appears to be a double standard by some in the VS community.

 

What you described is exactly what we're expected to do with the ICS. Now, I haven't changed my position. At least until Lucasfilm outright contradicts those firepower figures in a TCW episode or a subsequent movie, I still accept them. But this is the issue. We are expected to accept the ships generate X amount of power and have X amount of firepower based on extrapolation of acceleration. The lack of secondary effects from that kind of acceleration? Not important. The lack of any visual support for multi gigaton beam weapons? Not important. Mystery reactors that beat E=MC2 like a redheaded stepchild and somehow generate stellar level power with very limited fuel sources and without obliterating the ship from the inside out? Not important. Ships that can supposedly take stellar level energy bolts but can get creamed by a slow moving asteroid? Not important. It's just something we have to keep in mind. In any of these series, contradictions abound. It's not simply a matter of finding ways for such and such franchise to come out on top, but all explanations have to be explored, preconceptions challenged and angles examined. Khas is thinking outside the box, and that's extremely important. He brought up an interesting point of view and a direction that may not have been considered before.

 

You do realize that I can turn this around (again) for Star Trek? No matter how realistically pessimistic we get about it, its still flat out absurd. A civilization able to manufacture antimatter on a scale large enough to have reactors of arbitrary power, said ships can endure M/AM explosions in said reactors, dozen and two hundred kiloton starships have moved themselves in and out of planetary atmospheres without visible cataclysm from unleashing nuclear scale forces required to move them only just as slowly as the space shuttle yet nuclear weapons are a plausible threat to them according to the science officer. By your reasoning, these ships should not be able to survive their own feats of acceleration, power generation and logistics and yet we know they do because they do it on screen.

 

We can infer that in order to achieve thousand gee accelerations they must have X degree of power output and their weapons will be similar.

 

* Why? Because for our own civilization, it is actually easier to harness energy for destruction than it is for productive uses like propulsion.

 

Violently destroying a planet requires Y -tons of firepower.

 

* And we are given no reason in the movies to assume that the properties of the Death Star's weaponry are unique and cannot be scaled downward for use on smaller platforms such as Star Destroyers.

 

Violently destroying asteroids (with guns too small be seen on screen no less) requires Z - tons of firepower.

 

* And we know they have bigger guns and if they were able to control forces similar to those involved in their accelerations and proportionate to the Death Star, then the total value of the firepower gets a lot bigger.

 

Two books had around 30 pages of mostly illustrations to lay out the principles of how Star Wars tech works for ships and vehicles. The same author was a consultant on Into the Worlds of the Original Trilogy, again mostly illustrations. There have been hundreds of hours of Star Trek and we still don't have a clear idea of how their technology works or even what order of magnitude their properties are in real world units due to a whole lot of absence of clear explanations of the topic (the only attempt, the Tech Manuals, to lay it out in a complete way having been dismissed as utterly non canon because *parts* of them are inaccurate) and a lot of conflicting examples. Star Wars debaters took what could have been conflicting examples (lack of explosive cataclysms when ships take off for example) and fit them into the theory. Some required more or less mental gymnastics but generally less than it would to hammer out a whole new theory of how everything works.

 

Mean while when the issue is raised in Star Trek about 400 GW particle beams and nukes being declared a relevant threat by Spock, no one wants to take a stab at squaring this with the notion of gigaton power outputs for the E-D or terraton phasers due to nadion multiplication. I'm assuming from the lack of clarification in the OP that the author did intend for phasers to literally hit with the force of petatons against all targets rather than the differing performances against different materials. In which case, the theory needs a lot of work because I don't know how you get these radically conflicting examples to fit it.

 

Expecting one side to show their work, put effort into explaining possible conflicts and the other to be allowed to cherry pick their evidence rather than explain all of it, that would be a double standard. Good thing we don't indulge in those. And I'm not saying Khas wouldn't have gone on to explain how the other stuff works but this thread only went 1 page without an implicit complaint another universe's technology and fanbase so I don't think that's the direction this thread was headed in the first place. If I'm wrong, then someone please take the thread in that direction. Let us not waste time covering very, very, very well trod ground again. The ICS thread has hundreds of posts in it where I'm pretty sure we will find our arguments and counter arguments stated, debated and repeated at least two or three times. Think there's something new to say, take it there.

[scvn2812 504]

You realize the irony in that statement, don't you? This is something that's been rattling around in my head for a while, and at the risk of dragging Star Wars into a thread that really is strictly a Star Trek matter. I also want to make clear that the following isn't a dig at Brian or Curtis. I have the utmost respect for their work. I'm simply shedding light on what appears to be a double standard by some in the VS community.

 

What you described is exactly what we're expected to do with the ICS. Now, I haven't changed my position. At least until Lucasfilm outright contradicts those firepower figures in a TCW episode or a subsequent movie, I still accept them. But this is the issue. We are expected to accept the ships generate X amount of power and have X amount of firepower based on extrapolation of acceleration. The lack of secondary effects from that kind of acceleration? Not important. The lack of any visual support for multi gigaton beam weapons? Not important. Mystery reactors that beat E=MC2 like a redheaded stepchild and somehow generate stellar level power with very limited fuel sources and without obliterating the ship from the inside out? Not important. Ships that can supposedly take stellar level energy bolts but can get creamed by a slow moving asteroid? Not important. It's just something we have to keep in mind. In any of these series, contradictions abound. It's not simply a matter of finding ways for such and such franchise to come out on top, but all explanations have to be explored, preconceptions challenged and angles examined. Khas is thinking outside the box, and that's extremely important. He brought up an interesting point of view and a direction that may not have been considered before.

 

You do realize that I can turn this around (again) for Star Trek? No matter how realistically pessimistic we get about it, its still flat out absurd. A civilization able to manufacture antimatter on a scale large enough to have reactors of arbitrary power, said ships can endure M/AM explosions in said reactors, dozen and two hundred kiloton starships have moved themselves in and out of planetary atmospheres without visible cataclysm from unleashing nuclear scale forces required to move them only just as slowly as the space shuttle yet nuclear weapons are a plausible threat to them according to the science officer. By your reasoning, these ships should not be able to survive their own feats of acceleration, power generation and logistics and yet we know they do because they do it on screen.

 

We can infer that in order to achieve thousand gee accelerations they must have X degree of power output and their weapons will be similar.

 

* Why? Because for our own civilization, it is actually easier to harness energy for destruction than it is for productive uses like propulsion.

 

Violently destroying a planet requires Y -tons of firepower.

 

* And we are given no reason in the movies to assume that the properties of the Death Star's weaponry are unique and cannot be scaled downward for use on smaller platforms such as Star Destroyers.

 

Violently destroying asteroids (with guns too small be seen on screen no less) requires Z - tons of firepower.

 

* And we know they have bigger guns and if they were able to control forces similar to those involved in their accelerations and proportionate to the Death Star, then the total value of the firepower gets a lot bigger.

 

Two books had around 30 pages of mostly illustrations to lay out the principles of how Star Wars tech works for ships and vehicles. The same author was a consultant on Into the Worlds of the Original Trilogy, again mostly illustrations. There have been hundreds of hours of Star Trek and we still don't have a clear idea of how their technology works or even what order of magnitude their properties are in real world units due to a whole lot of absence of clear explanations of the topic (the only attempt, the Tech Manuals, to lay it out in a complete way having been dismissed as utterly non canon because *parts* of them are inaccurate) and a lot of conflicting examples. Star Wars debaters took what could have been conflicting examples (lack of explosive cataclysms when ships take off for example) and fit them into the theory. Some required more or less mental gymnastics but generally less than it would to hammer out a whole new theory of how everything works.

 

To expect every answer to every puzzle in universe to be found in 3 books of mostly artwork is absurd. If Star Trek can't answer all of our questions in hundreds of hours, why expect all the answers to be found in 3 cross section books?

 

Mean while when the issue is raised in Star Trek about 400 GW particle beams and nukes being declared a relevant threat by Spock, no one wants to take a stab at squaring this with the notion of gigaton power outputs for the E-D or terraton phasers due to nadion multiplication. I'm assuming from the lack of clarification in the OP that the author did intend for phasers to literally hit with the force of petatons against all targets rather than the differing performances against different materials. In which case, the theory needs a lot of work because I don't know how you get these radically conflicting examples to fit it.

 

Expecting one side to show their work, put effort into explaining possible conflicts and the other to be allowed to cherry pick their evidence rather than explain all of it, that would be a double standard. Good thing we don't indulge in those. And I'm not saying Khas wouldn't have gone on to explain how the other stuff works but this thread only went 1 page without an implicit complaint another universe's technology and fanbase so I don't think that's the direction this thread was headed in the first place. If I'm wrong, then someone please take the thread in that direction. Let us not waste time covering very, very, very well trod ground again. The ICS thread has hundreds of posts in it where I'm pretty sure we will find our arguments and counter arguments stated, debated and repeated at least two or three times. Think there's something new to say, take it there.