Star Trek vs. Star Wars

The most popular debate on the Sci-Fi subforum. Over the course of time many threads have been created to debate this topic, but the most popular and main thread is the Star Wars vs Star Trek, the thread that has always been on our minds... thread.

The Debaters

Many debaters have participated in this event but there are certain members who are more persistent than others.

Star Trek

antaran_1979

The amount of images and screen captures provided by antaran_1979 has been invaluable. His debating style has always been level headed and factual and has never lowered his standards even against the more provocative members. Antar_1979 has also provided several well thought out mathematical models early in his arrival and continues to discuss the particulars of the debate at current.

Kittamaru

A volatile debator for the Pro-Trek supporters. Sometimes considered a fan boy but correctable in his dealing with others. Kittamaru and TWScott have probably kept the debate going longer than expected between each other. There are many pages of back and forth insults most of which belong to Kittamaru.

It is to be noted that TWScott did much to provoke Kittamaru, often using direct insults and personal attacks to bait him. Kittamaru has, since then, apparently chosen to simply ignore TWScott and focus on the debate. His debating style has greatly improved as a result.

Saquist

Not the most stable individual in the Star Trek vs. Star Wars thread, yet he has provided the most incontrovertible evidence favoring superior Star Trek firepower over Star Wars. He also inspired the Film Contradiction Model. His early comparisons first revealed the falacy of Star Wars supporter claims that Star Wars fighter defense could absorb multi megaton blast. The early debates with TWSCOTT, SIAN and Saquist were highly contentious. Howerever it should be noted that Saquist appears to more corrective and has never used vulgar expletives in his post. He has been known to even propperly correct wrong supportors on the Trek side of the issues.

Saquist dislikes using too much science to justify Star Wars movie scenes under the premise that it is fantasy and not reality. He proposes that direct comparisons are more important and denounces Mike Wong's (Pro Star Wars) and G2k's (Robert Anderson, aka Darkstar Pro Trek) use of estimations of firepower to draw effective conclusions.

Ent-B

Main article: USS Enterprise-B

mars13

An early nemesis of TWScott. While he brought up many good points aswell as bad he was a constant target of TWScott during a time where TWScott was more abrasive and insulting. Mars13 has not appeared in sometime now but has returned once to thread to say hello.

Star Wars

SkywalkerJedi

Appears to wield some ineffectual arguments, giving very little canon reference.

TW Scott

Main article: TW Scott

If any member has a problem in this debate, it's him. The pro-Wars debater has the most bias of all the members who participate in this debate. (Which is rather ironic considering his knowledge of the Star Trek universe and his claim that is is a Star Trek fan. Any rational individual would think that he would be the most perceptive debater of all. However, this is not the case.)

It should be noted that when either someone disproves his claims or reveals his dark web of contradictions, he ignores their statements. This has happened on a number of occations apparently. [1][2][3]

It would also appear that TW Scott modifies quotes to serve his own interests. [4]

The ISD Bridge Impact

This part of the debate was based whether the bridge tower of an Imperial Star Destroyer was destroyed when an asteroid impacted with it.

Here is one of TW's claims:

Originally Posted By TW Scott

"The problem is if you ask Lucas now he'd say what does it look like. At worst it looks like the bridge tower was shorn off. However if it is indeed the Avenger then it most certainly was not destroyed or even damaged. Supposing the worst for the SW side, we still have a ship that has lost NONE of it's offenseive capability, just the targeting radar and some sensitive sanners, as well as some comms equipment, and command crew. In a fleet engagement the vessel would still be a threat."

(This post was in response to this [5])

Later Ent-B responded to this:

Originally Posted By USS Enterprise-B

Originally Posted By TW Scott "The problem is if you ask Lucas now he'd say what does it look like. At worst it looks like the bridge tower was shorn off. However if it is indeed the Avenger then it most certainly was not destroyed or even damaged."

"It wasn't the Avenger.

Originally Posted By TW Scott "Supposing the worst for the SW side, we still have a ship that has lost NONE of it's offenseive capability, just the targeting radar and some sensitive sanners, as well as some comms equipment, and command crew. In a fleet engagement the vessel would still be a threat."

Um "NO F*CKING LOST OFFENSIVE CAPABILITY!?!" Targeting scanners!?! Command crew!?! Listen to yourself. That's worse than taking out an ST ship's bridge."

It should be realized that he never replied to this post.

The Debate

Canon

A continual point of contention is what is considered admissible to the debate, or what is the canon of the respective universes.

Star Trek

This is fairly straight forward for Star Trek, where paramount has clearly stated that only the live action TV series and Movies are to be considered true, with the exception of the animated series episode Yesteryear. This means that no novels, video games, technical manuals, or fanon speculation are to be admitted as evidence.

Star Wars

Star Wars canon is a much more murky subject. LucasFilms and it's subsidiaries have established a multi-tiered canon structure where Moves, novels, video games and comic books are all established as separate levels of canon. This has lead to a few competing reinterpretations.

Parallel Universes Model

Usual stance of Pro-Trek debaters, this interpretation states that the Movies, and EU exist in parallel universes and do not interact with one another. This interpretation seems to be backed up by various quotes by George Lucas

Contradiction Model

Usual stance of Pro-Wars debaters, this interpretation states that the EU is true unless it is directly contradicted by the movies. This interpretation seems to be backed by Lucaslisencing and the holocron.

However, as proven by the diagram below, this model can be used by Trek debaters as well.

http://www.imagehosting.com/out.php/i1759175_eu.JPG

An image showing how anything after Episode VI contradicts the film timeline

Completest Model

This is rarely used, it states the the EU is all true.

Star Trek Firepower

The 'Q-Who' Phaser Strike

The strongest evidence for firepower for the Pro Trek supporters occured in Star Trek: The Next Generation [Q-Who]. The Enterprise (NCC-1701 D) makes first contact with the Borg. An encounter forced by the being known as Q. Most of the Enterprise's offenses are impotent against the Borg defenses with the exception of a brief phaser strike. According to Worf's report the Cube suffered 20% damage to their ship.

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/2457/320x240qw6.jpg"

While there is no canon dimensioning for the Borg Cube, there are estimates supported by visuals that the Cube is some 3040 meters on each side. This figure was supplied by http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/size-annotations.htm. The craters visible in the surface of the Borg Cube are large enough for a Galaxy Class starship. Borg vessels are constructed by Tritanium a substance which is 21 times harder than Diamond.

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5416/270pxstqwhoof0.jpg

Pro Star Wars supporters such as TWSCOTT and Prince James have made note of the apparent loose construction nature of the Cube's exterior and the cavernous open spaces of the interior of the vessel and have claimed in several post this reduces the amount of vaporized material to be considered. However Saquist rebuffed these unsupported claims by offering the Borg Scout ship as an example of the density of Tritanium and Borg construction. This small vessel no more than 5 x 5 x 5 meters was seen in TNG Episode "I Borg".

http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/7095/borgscoutfg8.jpg

In the Episode Data reports a similar Borg Scout ship have a mass of 2.5 million metric tons, a substantial mass for a vessel far smaller than the Intrepid Class Starship at 344 meters. Pro Star Wars supporters propose that the mass of a 40 meter side asteroid exceeds the amount of debris destroyed from the Borg vessel. Using a comparative proportional mathematical equation

The Phaser vs. The Light Turbo Laser

The weapons are very different the phaser uses nadion particles to disrupt atomic bonds and the Light Turbo Laser (Anti Fighter Turbo Laser) appears to merely use caloric methods or raw heat in the form of some sort of plasma. Yet, a comparison of the results of each shows the phaser destroyed an area ranging from 240 meters to 400 meters across the Borg Cube in one blast, and average of 101 million meteric tonnes. The 40 meter Iron/Nickel asteroid vaporize in ESB would have an estimated mass of 2.3 million meteric tonnes as just a solid sphere of iron. According to EU source the asteroid was in fact Nickel and Iron, thus the 2.3 million million meteric tonnes is highly optimistic.

4.42 Trillion Meteric Tonnes vs. 2.3 Million Meteric Tonnes

There are two estimates of the Borg Cubes Mass. The first is based on the Intrepid's 700,000 MT versus it's volume. The second is based on the Borg Scout Ship's 2.5 million tonnes.

Based on the Intrepid Class Thus the Mass Vaporized by Enterprise: 247,361,098.8594 MT( Hundred Million Metric Tonnes)

Based on the Borg Scout Ship Thus the Mass Vaporized by Enterprise: 4,423,417,167,872 MT ( Trillion Metric Tonnes

Type X Phaser Disentigration Voyager/Cube comparison

207.16319770730232922695779804662 Times the Turbo Laser

207 Times

Type X Phaser Disentigration Borg Scout/Borg Cube Comparison

3,704,581.0740459500132364756594604 Times the Turbo Laser

3.7 million Times

The phaser proves to be times more effective than the Anti-Fighter Turbo Laser as a low end estimate. The Galaxy Class Starship is equiped with Type X phasers. It should be noted that two other Federation starships have shown a greater fireower than the Galaxy Class starship. The Defiant Class starship destroys it's targets some 20 times faster than the Galaxy Class. The Prometheus Class starship displayed a highly effective phaser against Romulan War Birds and Nebula Class starships penetrating shields and hull in seconds instead of minutes.

Set Phasers to Drill

Inheritance and Legacy (TNG)

here are the caps from "Inheritance" http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/6920/01hn9.jpg http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/1977/02vv6.jpg

they wanna minimise the seismic stress wile they are drilling. they reconfingured the phasers to emit the most phocused beam possible. the first phaser blast will be aprox 19s in duration. the actual drilling lasts less then 16s. the firs 6s they drill but no data is displayed. at 5.8 s Data sais they are 2km away from the pocket. his Mother sais another 5s should do it. after aproximatly 6s they reach the pocket. the beam lasts another 4s, probably to raise the temperature of the core.

this indicates that modifications for drilling most likely involve narrow focusing to avoid cave-ins. allso we know from previous episodes that no phae that at full power the phasers can fire 4.5s in duration before the banks need to be recharged. this implies that the phasers in "Inheritance" fired at 24% intensity. the setting for "Legacy" was probably lower, but the beam was less focused too.

the main ventral phaser array apears 6.9m wide. if we presume no beam disipitation (highly focused beam), the "Inheritance" leads to conclusion that E-D can drill a 7m wide whole at a rate of 2km in under 6s. or 333.33m per second. this can allso be translated to 48 cylindrical pieces of rock long 6.9m with a diameter of 6.9m. this is done by a setting of about 24%. to make this estemate more comparable to SW, they turn a 69m spherical asteroid of solid rock into nothing each second and they fire for 19s in continuation. this is the apsolute minimum. there is no way to tell that the hole is as wide as the beam. Geordy sais that they will fire as focused as possible but as we see in "Legacy" the previos modification allowed them to drill a hole 25 times wider than the beam. they fire for 14s and drill trough 1600m of solid granite. this gives us 114m per second of depth for a 172m wide hole. or a 252m wide sphere of granite every second for 14s into allmost nothing (we do see some dust but it may be enviromental). if this was a lower setting, seing how they could fire indefinitly then the hole in "Inheritance" was most likely wider then 6.9m, but probably less wide then in "Legacy". if they were firing full phasers ..... well we jsut need to look at he Borg cube in Q-Who to see the effects.

Legacy http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/8365/12uv6.jpg http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1871/13qm9.jpg http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/9241/14kd3.jpg http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/355/15rk4.jpg

originally posted by antaran_1971 (needs to be cleaned up for encyclopedic style at some point)

'The Die is a Cast' Planetary Bombardment

Many members believe that Star Trek ships have superior fire power because of the fact that in a the DS9 episode, 'The Die is a Cast', Star Trek ships can destroy planets with ease.

Originally Posted By Hellblade8

"Lets see, in The Die is cast, we saw that in four seconds, they obliterated 30% of the planetary crust. Now, this was a rapid fire strike, each ship firing multiple of shots. Now, assuming that in this case, each ship would need twice as long to reload for another barrage, that would give us 8+4=12.}} {{Now we take 30/20=1.5 and then we do 100/1.5= 66.6 and do 66.6*12= 800 seconds, or 13.33 minutes.

So in about 14 minutes give or take, a UFP ship can do what it takes the Empire an hour to do, with a vastly larger ship than the Defiant. This would make a UFP ship 7.142857143 times stronger than an Imperial one. Although, it might acutally be higher given that the Cardassian ships are much weaker than other ships, so the damage was likely 3% Romulan Warbirds, and .5% Cardassian warships. If you don't believe me, then watch DS9, the UFP fighters deal heavy damage to their ships.

So it would likely be about 6.66 minutes, or seven minutes (rounding), making UFP ships about 8.571428571 times stronger than Imperial ships."

(It should be noted that this is not the entire post, but had the key parts of the post extracted To view the entire post, click here [6])

It should be noted that the above statement is an upper levels calculation, but also note that the lower calculation for that episode was an hour for the crust, and four hours for the mantle. Why there is such a large difference in firepower in the episode is unknown, but either one provides evidence of significant weapons power focussed planetside.

Another thing that shoud be taken into consideration is that it takes 150 megajoules to vaporize someone. A typical hand phaser (type II and III) can vaporize someone with only 0.525 megawatts. It's also stated that a "small" phaser bank can be charged by a 4.2 gigawatt reactor. That means, that a UFP weapon can do 300x the level of damage it should normally do with their funky effects.

Other points of interest:

• The Vengeance Factor: Geordi informs his colleagues under fire that their hand phasers at setting 7 will cause the noranium carbide debris to sublimate at the required 2300 odd degrees. (TNG: The Vengeance Factor)

• A bomb blows off half the atmosphere off a planet. It is also noted that only an ounce of antimatter was enough to do so (although, they could have used other means to make it stronger, since this doesn't make much sense). (TOS: Obsession)

• Garak stated that the Defiant had enough firepower to reduce the surface of a Class M planet to a cinder. (Link DS9: Broken Link)

• According to Chief Obrian, a 90 isoton explosion is capable of destroying anything in 800 kilometers (isotons is something of the replacement for megatons, gigatons, and teratons). (DS9: A Time to Stand)

• It was stated that a 54 isoton bomb had enough power to destroy a small planet (likely Pluto sized), but it should be noted that Harry might have been using hyperbole, or otherwise exagerating. (VOY: The Omega Directive)

• Scorpion Part II: Photon Torpedoes with class-6 warheads have the explosive yield of 200 isotons. (VOY: Scorpion part II)

• Tricobalt weapons were deployed against the Caretaker array, with a yield of 20,000 teracochranes to vaporize the station. It should be noted that the starship Voyager is a length of 344m, and the Array is 4500m in diameter. According to regulations and specifications quoted by Seven of Nine in The Voyager Conspiracy, these devices are capable of rupturing subspace, and are therefore not usually part of a starship weapons complement. (VOY: Caretaker, VOY: The Voyager Conspiracy)

See Also Tricobalt Devices

See Also Teracochranes

Another instance is when the Enterprise-D was firing on a Borg Cube, the phaser fire created holes significantly larger than that of the asteroid that the ISD was firing upon in The Empire Strikes Back. It is a reasonable assumption that an average Cube is built of materials stronger than the average asteroid. (Upcoming section "The Borg")

Star Trek Shielding

Many Star Trek debaters say Star Trek ships have better sheilding than Star Wars ships. A quick visual example of strength in Starfleet shielding occurs in 'Scorpion', where Voyager survives both a planetary explosion and a weapons discharge from Species 8472 where Borg ships had not. It should be noted though that other factors, including timing, are probably considerations.

Perhaps one of the better features of Trek shielding (Starfleet and Borg in particular) is the flexibility of the technology. In a number of episodes, Starfleet shielding has proven to meet many high demands, for example Star Trek TNG: Best of Both Worlds, arguably the most memorable instance of shield remodulation, to defeat the superior Borg weapon tactics. By constantly changing the shield frequency, Enterprise-D continuously "faked out" Borg weapons.

The Star Trek Voyager series was even more demonstrative of Starfleet shielding, since Voyager's crew had to adapt to many unusual "non Alpha Quadrant" circumstances. An excellent example would be Seven of Nine's augmentation to the Delta Flyer's shields to make feasible a mission into an anomaly whose total energy output was 30 million terajoules. The shield augmentations were indeed for gravimetric sheer forces, however, considering that the anomaly had a total output of 30M TJ, the unspecified shield modifications are noteworthy. (VOY: One Small Step)

Raw shield strength remains a heated topic of discussion in the versus debate. However, Trek canon provides some examples of shield strength including:

• The shields of a Constitution Class starship can withstand 90 (TOS era) photon torpedos at once. (TOS: The Changeling) [7]

The traditional battle worthy shielding is not the only consideration. Starfleet vessels are also equipped with a structural integrity field (SIF), which can withstand stresses up to approximately 82 million kilodynes.

See Also kilodynes

Star Trek 'God Modes'

The Q Continuum

The Q Continuum is by Trek canon inhabited by beings with godlike powers. Among these include shapeshifting [8], instantaneous travel of indeterminate distance (all appearances of a Q member), time manipulation and traversal [9], near-immortality [10], near-invulnerability, in which it is displayed in VOY:Q and the Grey, in which it is stated only Q members can affect other Q, matter manipulation, an instance shown in the episode TNG:Q Who? in which Q causes the USS Enterprise-D to be displaced into the Delta Quadrant, being-state manipulation shown in TNG:Deja Q, where De Lancie's Q miniaturizes the Calamarain who threatened him, or in TNG:Hide and Q, where Riker's Q ages Wesley by 10 years and repairs LaForge's blindness. And of course bestowal of Q power onto mortals [11]. It should be noted that Q abilities have been demonstrated more than once - episodes listed are only one example of each.

Many pro-Wars debaters protest at arguing against the Q Continuum because of the godlike powers they display. Yet the more fervent pro-Wars debaters refuse to argue without ascended Jedi (the closest beings to the Q Continuum in the Star Wars universe). Further some of the more colorful Force abilities only appear in the EU, which renders them tenuous at best.

Trekkies involved in this debate have acquiesced that the Q Continuum may be overwhelming, however, for the interest of discussion, the Q Continuum has been included here.

The 29th Century Federation

This is thus far a no-contest win for the pro-Trek debaters; the canon existence of Starfleet and the Federation in the 29th century. Ignoring the fact that for the 29th century Federation to exist, it is logical that they have defeated attempts to overthrow the alliance, the Starfleet of that time has been stated to posess temporal technology, which they use to repair incursions in the timeline which would threaten the Federation of that time. (VOY:Future's End, VOY:Relativity).

Star Wars

Star Wars Firepower

The Empire Strikes Back Asteroid Vaporization

Computer models agree with fan supported sources which gauge the size of the Millenium Falcon at a little more than 40 meters long and thirty meters wide. The Star Wars supporters use the the Millenium Falcon to measure the size of the asteroids being vaporized around the ship as it flees an Imperial Star Destroyer. This serves to rate the power of the light turbo laser in Star Wars. (Note: Image posted does not show the Millenium Falcon) However it must be noted that no computer model can correctly gauge the true size of the vaporized asteroids with out the distance from the asteroid to the camera or another established fixed point in the scene. The Millenium Faclon's evasive path varies as much as a 150 meters making impossible to determine the true size of most of these asteroids.

http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/3431/astrmdlbltna1.jpg

40 meter Asteroid. Mass= Volume x Density

A Perfectly Spherical Asteroid 40 Asteroid Iron/Nickel Volume: 33,510.3216 m^3

Iron Portion: 1,044,784.8068448001 metric tonnes Nickel Portion: 149,254.97240640002 metric tonnes

Total/Actual Mass of 40 meter nickel/iron Asteroid: 1,194,039.77925120012 (1.19 million metric tonnes)

The Big Guns of the Imperial Star Destroyer

During the Opening scene of A New Hope the Imperial Star Destroyer chasing down the Rebel Blockade Runner fires a steady stream of laser fire but many of us are at a complete loss as to wear the weapons ports they came from. Often this is the same bolts that repel fighter attacks and apparently the Imperial Star Destroyer usually has no need to fire anything else.

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9930/43qv8yr6.jpg

As rare as the spawning of Giant Squid, Return of the Jedi actually caught the Imperial Star Destroyer above the Executor exchanging salvos against a Mon Calmari Cruiser. The effects were immediate. It's unknown where or not the destruction of the Star Destroyer came from extensive bombardment but we can tell after the shields were overwhelmed the next two salvos struck with considerable force causing internal damage, likely breaching the reactor and a large secondary explosion envelopes the destroyer.

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/1731/46mu6zj4.jpg http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/6308/48ch5sc3.jpg

---This is very Incorrect------------

References

• "Star Wars vs. Star Trek, the thread that has always been on our minds..." <http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=7435>

• "Star Trek vs. Star Wars" <http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=70958>

• Memory Alpha.org <http://memory-alpha.org/>

External Links

• Isoton