In which cases, they're seen to always be KE weapons. Ie, no actual warhead. How hard is it for you to get that through your thick skull? And second, the entire argument is simply a red herring: It is a bomb. It's designed to detonate. According to this, it never physically touched anything. In fact, it blows up a few km away from the tarrget. Therefore, how does it make any sense for you to pass it off as a KE weapon? Which is why you've just defeated your own argument. My argument isn't that it should be a bomb, but that it is a bomb. If they could fire it at near the speed of light, there's really no sort of warhead that they could stuff in that to make it anywhere near as useful as a solid slug. I never denied its ability to deal potential KE, I suggested something more reasonable however, like a few single digit gigatons and again, that's probably a bit optimistic. Your entire argument however, has been to assign a function to a weapon that is not apparent. I mean, for fuck's sake, UFP photon torpedoes can fire at around 2/3 the speed of light from Voyager and much more clearly near the speed of light for other ships with higher speeds. So why shouldn't I start claiming the same teratons now? Oh right, I'm sure you'd take issue with that, wouldn't you? http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3x1.html#kinetic So wait, it's okay when you want to appeal to real world physics for KE despite the fact that the nova cannon is pretty much a technobabble weapon, but when it doesn't act like it should when moving at that same speed...suddenly I'm being silly in expecting it to be realistic? Kind of hypocritical, don't you think? It is when you consider how hard it is to move something that large at 5,000km. Again, you're citing a rather vague source. I mean, by that logic, shouldn't I also source the grav torpedo from Voyager? The one that Kim said could destroy a planet? I mean, he wouldn't have said it if he wasn't being literal right? And even if we asssume that he's not being entirely accurate, we could still conclude that he meant just massive devistation all over the entire planet, right? Right? Oh no, I'm sure you'd take issue with that. But I guess when I do it to you, I'm just being a meanie. GW says that everything is canon, right down to the Dawn of War series. Also, for someone who wants to stick strictly to the games, you seemed to have ignored the fact that a solar flare is capable of knocking down a ship's void shields and dealing considerable damage. If they can toss out teratons of firepower, there's no reason why they can't survive without any sort of damage to their shielding. Done cherrypicking the evidence yet?
The argument that most people put out is that either one side won't understand the other or that it's cheating to take the other's side's technology, because then you're using their special abilities. In reality though, it does happen. However, in this case, each side will have some problems reverse engineering technology, save for maybe the Borg or the Tyranids. I thought that the OP basically had each universe teaming up? Meh, I don't mind. Honestly, aside from the Borg, it would take an incredibly absurd amount of time. Remember how it would take 75 for Voyager to get home? Ie, they had to map their way back to the Federation. Now imagine instead of just a trail of 75,000 LY, it's now including volume. It would literally take centuries for them to commit to war. I don't think I had assumed as such as an initial thing. Again, in reality, each side has their strengths and weaknesses. Most UFP level ST ships are simply more advanced than their 40k counterparts. On the other hand, if the Defiant is a set of guns strapped to an engine, 40k ships are fortressses with engines strapped on. They literally make up advanced capabilities with sheer volume. Their shields, while on the weaker side, can recharge fairly quickly and their massive bulk and armor help reduce the damage that does get through. The advantage in terms of navy power pound for pound is ST and I'd be willing to say that most higher end ST ships are going to beat the 40k variant simply from having stronger shields with stronger weapons. On the other hand, it isn't strong enough for it to be a battle where the Enterprise E literally runs through a fleet of them. Two, maybe three ships max. Now on the opposite side of this, 40k is going to win most ground engagements throughout the early battles of the war. Although starfleet weapons are more advanced, they're not designed to fire upon the higher settings simply because they're defensive in nature and Starfleet's distaste for violence. Which actually makes sense because in 40k, they have to focus more on ground combat than the ST powers do. Ground combat is rare; you only do it when you want something from the planet in ST. Otherwise, if you have a problem, you just bomb it. In 40k, your enemies are so unreasonably evil or xenophobic that there is no negotiations so you have to go planet side to either stop them from getting what they want or to evacuate the population.
I see you resort to insults when you fail to support your original contention. You were, quite simply, wrong in your statement. Keep trying: I haven't tried to "pass it off as a KE weapon". Again you fail. I have simply pointed out that your original contention was incorrect. No, your argument was that missiles aren't effective KE weapons. And we'll ignore the utter idiocy of having a bomb and relying on blast effects in a vacuum... I simply gave a reference for the KE worth of solid shot. Ooh! Like this whole thread you mean? Yet they move ships that are kilometres long at faster than light speeds... Then, as usual, GW is talking out of its collective arse. The sources (all canon according to GW) are mutually contradictory. Cherry picking? The game came first: anything after that (despite being declared canon) doesn't hold up against the game mechanics. Can't have it both ways...
That it isn't a KE weapon? No, it isn't. I've already proven that. Then why source materials that are KE weapons? No, it wasn't. There's very little reason to have a KE factor to a weapon if you intend to attach a warhead to it. Um, because they usually aren't. A KE missile is a different story, but then it's acting more like a guided cannon shell and not one with a warhead. And I did say that they can have formidable KE. Obviously if you shot me with a missile, even with the warhead disabled, I'd be fucked. However, that doesn't make it a high point KE weapon. Technobabble for the win. And? It isn't one to begin with. Your entire argument is a red herring. I never at one point challenged that a KE weapon would be useful. I've challenged the logic of a high end KE weapon when it has a warhead attached to it and is designed to mostly go boom. You're ignoring my point. by opening large portals to a hellish dimension. So you were talking out of your own ass when you tried to suggest that the game books were higher canon. Did you think I wouldn't have looked up their canon policy before debating this? I never said I wanted it both ways. I'm not going to infer that 4d6 equals something something. However, the fluff from the game books is just fine, as can methods of how they do combat. Ie, we know that suns pose a potential danger in the game via their solar flares, even so much that ships can suffer huge damage from them. There's nothing wrong with that, but at the same time, GW doesn't hold any canon above the other, so aside from basic materials (ie, clear cut stuff about the races), we shouldn't hold it over anything else. Especially when we have vague material that doesn't even make sense in context of the rule books if we take it literally.
Wow, you can't even read what YOU wrote. You claimed that a missile couldn't, by virtue of being a missile have significant KE values. That's where you're wrong. Because your claim was that missiles weren't (and couldn't be) viable KE weapons. Try to read what you actually wrote...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! No you, claimed the contrary: Keep trying. What you did claim was that a missile wasn't, and couldn't be, a KE weapon. Still wrong. Despite whatever GW claim the game must be the primary source and the books directly contradict the games. Yet you want the game AND the books to be canon when they are contradictory...
I already told you that it could. My point is that a missile, to which I refer one that goes 'boom', will not rely on KE, so the idea of teratons is absolutely absurd. KE missiles are not really what you think of when you say missiles. You're playing with semantics now. Try to read what you actually wrote...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! No you, claimed the contrary: Try learning to read: My point was that it is not going to have a massive KE impact. That's because it's designed to go boom before it reaches the target, as we saw in the Warriors of Ultramar quote. I also notice that you ignored when I later said something along the lines 'of course it's going to have a KE impact, it's moving pretty fast'. If I was going to claim that it would have absolutely no KE impact, why would I saw it was moving at 5,000 km/s? No, my point was purely for the point of where the bulk of the punch comes from and it isn't KE. It's designed purely to detonate within proximity of the target. Says who? You? And? Star Trek contradicts itself from episode to episode, series to series. That doesn't mean you take one above all in other to get a clear view. If that was true, Trek ships would be able to cross the entire galaxy in a short time given some of the vague comments by the Enterprise crew. Same here. The quote you've cited is incredibly vague, it gives us little idea of what the author meant. However, when we get something more solid, it should be taken over the game books because it's been quantified by something that isn't vague. So let's see if I can get this straight; you started an argument about something that was nitpicky, despite the fact that you claim to not dispute my claim and you don't like my sources because you think that the game books are superior, even when GW says otherwise. So...what is your argument?
Ah, nova cannons. The literature is very clear that nova cannons fire big explosive shells that are able to destroy multiple ships at once. You don't usually try to actually hit any specific ship, you just aim it at the enemy fleet and have it detonate once it gets close. Of course, if you actually do hit a specific ship (or planet) with the shell then your target is pretty much f*cked, unless it's a very large ship that's fully shielded; and even then, the ship will probably be pretty messed up. There is general disagreement about the nature of the shell. Sometimes it's described as a big thermonuclear shell, sometimes as a plasma shell, and sometimes as a device that makes a funky space-warping vortex of destruction. With the latter sort of shell, you might not want to actually impact a target, since you might just smash the device that makes the vortex. Since the BFG rule book says that the tech in the Imperial Navy varies greatly depending on the tech of the world that built the ship, it's not really surprising that there would be different versions of the nova cannon, or that they would fire projectiles at different speeds. I don't recall the exact numbers, but there are descriptions of nova cannon shells doing extraordinary damage to stuff in vacuum that's hundreds of km or more away from the blast point. Given that, you're probably looking at an explosive shell of hideous, overwhelming destructive power, what with the inverse square law and all...
Considering you proved that you were an ass in the other thread, I will say what I want and call it canon, because you clearly can't stand Star Trek losing, even though it goes W40k > SW > Halo > Star Trek in terms of power. W40k does teratons, end of goddamn story, and just because you don't like that it doesn't mean you can say otherwise. You deny BFG's near FTL nova cannon and take a LOWER CANON source such as Ultramarines novel, which just shows what you want and don't want to be canon, so please kindly shut the fuck up.
So you changed your mind and acknowledge your initial statement was incorrect. Powered. Guided. Homing. What's "playing with semantics" about that? And, as I have pointed out in those links: even today we have missiles that match tank gun shot for KE. Says a reading of the rules compared to the books. Says the results of a game compared to the stories in the novels. No, I pointed out that you had made a false claim. Again, no. Not dispute your claim? You made an erroneous statement. Wrong again (you're good at this). I stated that the games, having come first, must be the primary source and that any contradictions (of which there are many) need resolving - it can't ALL be taken as canon because the claimed canon is self contradictory.
Alright, enough of this circular shit. I was not refering to KE missiles. Throughout my posts I've refered to missiles that are designed with detonators. That is the context in which I was speaking in. I said that therefore, it is highly unlikely that a missile will have any sort of massive KE compard to the actual warhead because in most instances (not all), you want to make your missile as light as possible to reduce on the amount of energy needed to launch it and padd in more bomb. Does that mean that the Nova cannon wouldn't have a significant KE effect? No, it's moving pretty god damn fast. Does that mean missiles designed specifically for KE damage won't have a significant KE effect? No, though I do apologize for being vague on that subject. My point is that the Nova Cannon was not designed to impact with the target. Therefore, it makes little sense to make it heavier for a KE impact or faster for a KE impact if it isn't going to hit. That is my position and for whatever it's worth, I'm sorry about the confusion. Now, do you have a problem with the above conclusions? But they're all the same rank. Again, I refer you to my comparison of ST TOS and the later series. Now, I can understand where if you have a specific issue with something and you can difinitively prove that something doesn't add up, say maybe someone says there has to be quadrillions of inhabited planets in the IoM, but the 5th edition book says a million, then yeah, I'll take the book over it. But the quote you provided is incredibly vague and somewhat hyperbolish and you're taking it as a literal, fact worthy statement. You need to realize that when a writer puts something down like that on paper, he may not be intending it to be literal. Sometimes he is, I won't argue that, but it's really hard to tell if they are without the author saying it himself. And honestly, I could really care less. As long as you're not some yahoo claiming 100 teratons or some stupid shit like that, it really doesn't bother me how fast you put it as.
No, you made a general statement that was false. That, also, is wrong. Typical examples: SS-N-22: Warhead energy 1339MJ, KE 1361MJ Ratio ~1:1 Kh-22: Warhead energy 3766MJ KE 3593MJ Ratio ~1:1 Kh-15: Warhead energy 628MJ KE 1780MJ Ratio ~1:3 RIM-66: Warhead energy 259MJ KE 468MJ Ratio ~1:2 Those ratios are explosive power to KE. What does that do for your contention? The reason that explosive warheads are used is because of "shit targeting" (i.e. you can afford to miss) or secondary effects. That makes sense, although we're still back to the general futility of blast effects in vacuum. One more failure of the imagination on the part of GW writing staff - but I've told them how crap they are more than once. That's why I claim the rules are "more" canon than the novels - the rules are written to be used, i.e. taken literally and followed, the novels are the, for want of a better word, "propaganda" written after the battles... I have offered a couple of times to do an analysis of the actual rules (to get real-world figures) - I'm busy writing for a different manufacturer at the moment, but when I get time... For example the main guns on a battleship have a maximum range of ~60,000 km or 0.2 light-seconds. I have a nasty feeling that when I've finished it's not going to be anywhere near teratons - despite what the novels claim... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Again, I really can't help but think you're nitpicking about this whole thing. I admit I don't have much in the way of military experience, so my knowledge of weapons is fairly limited, but from my understanding, the projectile of a nova cannon is a traditional missile and not typically designed for KE power. Again though, at even the lower end speed (if that's what you want to call my claim), it's still a great deal of KE. Then I stand corrected. Um...that's not what the Nova Cannon is designed for. Mind you, they do have shit aiming with that thing if a man has to manually target it. You've told them? I do wish to hear this story. And yes, they can be rather unimaginative. No doubt ricery will blow a gasket seeing that. Not sure I agree with that, but I'll try and work it out with you. I suppose I shouldn't fault you though. Perhaps I spent too much time at Spacebattles, since I used to use a similar method for another fantasy setting. I would be interested to see those. The novels claim teratons? It's more like the fanboys taking a rather 'artistic' few sentences and presenting them as the Fist of God. I apologize for my attitude, I think I've been dealing with ricery and George1 too long. And Prophet wasn't of any help. Gigatons, teratons, petatons, the lot of it is trash.
Possibly - but then nit-picking is part of the rules. I.e. it either says what it means or it doesn't (another thing I've pulled them up on Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!) In a way it is - it's designed to take out a target without the bother of actually being accurate enough to hit it - compare the RIM-66 as an anti-aircraft weapon, i.e. the blast warhead is what kills the target because the missile isn't accurate enough to actually hit the aircraft with the Starstreak - so accurate it puts 1 to 3 KE penetrators directly into the aircraft (at Mach 5!) Hell yes. Usually once a year at minimum, or for longer and in great detail when our local wargames club goes to GW HQ so the younger (i.e. Warhammer fans) members can get discounts. How about when the first edition came out (still called Rogue Trader in those days) I wrote a six page letter to Rick Priestley (the original writer) pointing out the errors. And then I told him in person about more errors at the Osprey World Championships convention a year later... The UK wargaming scene is pretty much an everybody knows everybody thing after the first couple of shows. And I'm the guy behind some of the smaller firms... One of the funnier ones was the time me and a mate called in to one of their shops because he wanted some paint and the manager told my mate to pull up a chair and try learning how to paint properly in the class they were running at the time. My mate: Have you seen the latest issue of White Dwarf? Manager: Got a copy here sir, interestingly on the subject of painting, it's got the results of the Golden Demon. That's the big painting competition we hold once a year. My mate: Have you actually looked at the photograph of the guy who collected third prize? Manager (looking at photo, then at my mate, then the photo): Would you like to show the rest of us how to paint, sir? I'll make a separate post. Ah, that could be my mistake - I haven't read any of the 40K novels (and was under the impression the teraton figures came from there), I enjoyed a couple of the fantasy novels, but, let's face it, some of the 40K novels are written by "real" SF writers but they do so under a pseudonym so that they won't lose any credibility. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! No probs. The entire subject gets heated. Likewise I apologise for any offence to you.
Granted. Well, I could argue that due to the generalize understanding of the term 'missile', I was entirely accurate.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Kind of like how Russia's earlier nukes were designed to create a big boom since their aim is about as accurate as Saxton's SW figures? Honestly, their shit is overpriced. Those kids have to be selling drugs on the side. Well, yes, their shit is rather inaccurate. I can't believe they actually wrote about a missile with 122x 5 gigaton warheads that apparently ships carry hundreds of to destroy space hulks. I can only pray to god that they meant 12x 5 gigaton warheads, because that there was some stupid shit. At least they wrote it out. I was actually told that I had to come up with proof that some of their smaller ships would literally have to strap them to the outside of their hulls. Granted, I really shouldn't talk given that Star Trek has done some stupid shit too, Spock's Brain being one rather curious acid trip. I would be happy to see that. I haven't read more than one, which wasn't that impressive (but I hear it was a sub-par series anyway...), but yes, the teraton figures are absolute bunk. The problem is that people are taking what a writer puts down as paper as a literal analysis of what is happening. As an aspiring writer, I can tell you that this is not the case. We write what sounds good when it comes to stuff like that. You can't really make 'x by x 12 kt bomb produced an x explosion and shockwave for x time and distance' without it becoming boring. Think of it as you will, like the bible. There is a great deal of modern interpretation that people take to the extreme end without realizing that much more moderate explinations fit just as well, if that makes sense. They also take terms like 'vaporize' as literal, even when it really just means 'there was fire and pieces went flying'. No offense taken. Sci-fi/fantasy debates are really not worth getting this worked up about. And besides, I've responded to the likes of ricery and George1, anything you post couldn't possibly offend me.
It's not so much the price, although last year at one show some of their staff actually complained to another manufacturer that they (the other manufacturer) should raise their prices so that GW didn't look so expensive Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!, it's their attitude: the rules are the rules and if it's not in the rules you can't play it. So no non-GW figures (I know a guy who was refused entry to a game because he had a a couple of (still very nice) non-GW figures in his army. Shit, I met a kid who was refused entry to the shop because his army was painted in non-GW paint. They have a big thing about getting (UK at least) wargames clubs to sign up as GW-affiliated, and give discount. But, and this is a very big but: if you sign up you are not allowed to play non-GW games. And then there's the "let's re-write the rules every couple of years, and make the old edition non-official so you can't play them in any competitions", and bring out very expensive figures that you need to complete your army. At one point there was talk (I don't keep up so it may be in force now) of making the actual cash price equivalent to the the points cost. So a figure that was, say 200 points, would actually cost twice as much (despite being no larger or more detailed) as a 100 point figure. Now that is one reason I do my best to deflect starting gamers away from GW.
It's actually somewhat expensive here compared to other models. Granted, I know that they're a bit higher quality in some cases, but compared to say, D&D, they're incredibly expensive. That's...really kind of dumb. I can't honestly see why they'd care. ...That is absolutely disgusting. Ah, the prime of douchebaggery. So, despite the fact that they secured a group that would be interested in playing their game, they have to suck them dry too? That would piss me off. Would also piss me off. ...So you're basically buying the best armies? I can see why.:bugeye: They're not too popular here in the states, but they do have a few stores around. It's basically where the upper class people drop off their kids to be babysat or where older nerds gather after dark. Mind you, the staff here in America did seem a bit friendly, but I always did find some of their rules...rather restrictive.
Sorry for necromancy,but here is something against the phaser. Phaser is an ergonomic nightmare in every respect. No safety or trigger guard, no sights, is exceedingly difficult and painful to aim, the shape of its handgrip forces you to either hold your wrist in an uncomfortable position or hold it far too low to sight down its barrel, also the clip is hidden beneath a panel in the underside of the handle or body (like batteries in a remote control), so you can visualize the difficulty of changing it. A Soldier would have to turn it upside down, and use his other hand in order to open the carefully hidden panel and then replace the clip. The idea of doing this during the heat of battle is absolutely insane; it would entail taking the weapon away from the aimed position and partially disassembling it! Real-life weapons and training techniques are carefully designed to minimize such disruptions to the soldier’s concentration in battle. Anyone who has even a basic clue about the use of firearms, knows that ergonomics comes as one of the highest pantheons of weapons design. Onto the matter of firepower itself it seems that an in-depth observation demonstrates that Phasers are nowhere near as powerful as the first glance of the untrained and hyperbolic eye suggests. 1) First let us analyse the known efficiency of Federation phase weapons. The Phaser is not a direct energy transfer weapon (Lasers, kinetic energy weapons, plasma weapons, chemical explosive weapons, etc) as the latter generally release their energy in an indiscriminate manner, in fact a Phaser presents none of the known characteristics of direct energy transfer; the most prominent of which is collateral energy. In fact official literature states that “the basic phaser mechanism remains the strong nuclear force liberation method found in the nadion effect, and it also states that “almost no classical thermal or other unwanted EM effects are present in the discharge beam.” The Star Trek official technical literature is clearly in agreement that the basic mechanism of phaser operation is not thermal or electromagnetic in nature. This relates once again to the official Star Trek literature which states that the matter/anti-matter annihilation in Federation technology is not 100% efficient (Somehow they overlooked such a major flaw); in fact 85% of the Phaser inefficiently turns into pions, so instead of producing wasted thermal and electromagnetic energy you have a case in which much of the subatomic mass is lost to the atmosphere. Taking the 74% conversion efficiency from the DS9 technical manual and ignoring the pions/neutrino problem you get at most 34% effectiveness from a handheld Phaser model. 2) Inherently this relates back to the mechanics of the Phaser itself. To explain the behaviour of phasers, they must fire special “phaser particles” (Nadion radiation), which can be verified by the previous source. These particles disintegrate atoms into a shower of neutrinos, therefore a small portion of the mass must transform into new nadion particles (probably with slightly less energy than the original particle, since the chain reactions don’t go on indefinitely beyond the parameters of the host). Low-energy phaser bursts seem to have very different effects from high-energy phaser particles: below the nucleus disruption force threshold, they seem to be capable of causing a variety of effects ranging from simple heating to electrical shock effects for stunning a target. The particles must have mass because phaser beams are known to propagate at distinctly sublight speeds in certain situations (particularly hand phaser beams), and they appear to be very short-lived, hence their apparent inability to propagate through gases (where the large inter-atomic spacing apparently causes enough of a delay to prevent continuation of a chain reaction), or across the gaps between a victim’s shoes and the ground (Not even the contact areas between a flat shoe and the carpet are unaffected). This suggests that a phaser beam incorporates some sort of containment or suspension field to keep the particles from decaying- perhaps it is this field (possibly related to subspace?) which accounts for the ability of phasers to be effective against shields in spite of the absence of matter for the reaction. What most here have failed to notice is that phasers act independently of the mass of the target. The importance of this fact cannot be overstated on any scientific basis. In “The Vengeance Factor” we actually saw Riker increase the power setting on his hand phaser to maximum, before using it to disintegrate a diminutive female humanoid, probably no more than 50 kg in mass. However, we know that hand phasers on maximum setting can also disintegrate large adult male humanoids, in excess of 80 kg in mass. In both cases, there is just enough energy to disintegrate the entire body, and there is no excess energy to damage the ground under the victim’s feet, or spill over to damage other solid objects in the victim’s vicinity. This can only make sense if the energy for this reaction somehow comes from the victim’s mass, so that the reaction continues until it runs out of mass but does not continue afterwards. Otherwise, if the energy all comes from the phaser, there should either be a deficit of energy when shooting at large targets, or a surplus of energy when shooting at small targets. Therefore, we know that the phaser reaction most likely transforms matter into neutrinos, and that it must occur in a chain reaction which feeds off the victim’s mass. But what fact have I already stated in regards to neutrino reactions? They don’t scale up in density. Thus carbon based life forms should be easy to disintegrate because they are dominated by hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen (atomic numbers 1, 6, and 8 respectively), and light elements like this are probably very susceptible to a neutrino chain reaction. Silicates and silicon-based life forms should be more difficult to disintegrate. This is substantiated by what we saw in the episode “Devil in the Dark”, when a silicon based life form proved to be more resistant to phaser fire than a carbon based life form. We have also seen that high alloy density body armour (Around the thickness of a Flak Jacket) is extremely resistant to phasers, as we can tell from “Way of the Warrior”, in which repeated phaser blasts did only minor cosmetic damage to plated armour at disintegration setting. Therefore, it is quite obvious that the material composition and density of the target has an enormous effect on the effectiveness of hand phasers. Since we already know that phasers operate on some sort of chain reaction, and that they must derive much of their energy from the target itself, this is not a surprise. The pattern appears to favour atoms with very high nucleon counts, such as heavy metals. Apparently, the higher the atomic number, the less susceptible an element is to the effects of the Phaser. This is also consistent with “Devil in the Dark”, since silicon has a higher atomic number than carbon (14 as opposed to 6). Now before you argue this (Despite official literature stating otherwise), how do you explain these characteristics? A) Phasers at maximum power make a human being “disappear” in a flash of light, without debris or gas clouds. People can stand right next to a person being disintegrated and not be affected. B) Phaser disintegrations occur slowly, taking a significant amount of time even after the phaser beam stops: anywhere from one to two seconds. C) Maximum-power phasers disintegrate a human body in its entirety, regardless of mass, and no excess energy ever spills into the environment. D) Phasers can heat rocks until they become luminescent, allowing away-teams to keep themselves warm. E) Phasers can shatter large amounts of rock, knocking very large boulders loose and causing explosive reactions. F) Phasers are ineffective against heavy armour (they have historically only been effective against light silicates). 3) Once again this is demonstrated by the fact that packing crates and other light metals are resistant to Phaser fire, even the walls of the Enterprise herself remain immune throughout fire fights, demonstrating only small electrical and thermal reactions to beam impacts. In fact the DS9 Technical Manual states that 2.4 terajoules of energy is required to vaporize a cubic metre of tritanium (The alloy used in the construction of ships), yet a handheld Phaser requires the continuous application of a highly concentrated beam (Similar to a cutting torch) over a matter of minutes to heat, melt and remove a rectangular section of starship plating. This suggests a beam far weaker than 2.4 terajoules, which is indicative of a second upper limit of Phaser power. 4) According to the technical manuals (Pg 19), the Federation cannot construct a 600m long ship which won’t sag like Joan Rivers’ wrinkled tits in Earth gravity, even during Warp Speed a “structural integrity field” is required to survive faster than light travel. In the Star Wars universe a 19km Star Destroyer was stored beneath a mountain could escape the gravity well of an Earth sized planet with ease (Which goes down to Star Destroyer, Victory class, Acclamator), remain stable at speeds millions of times faster than Warp and survive multiple gigaton blasts to the structure (A Heavy Turbolaser blast is 3,125 times more powerful than the max theoretical output of a Photon Torpedo). They could build a city twice the size of San Francisco and suspend it above the gravity well of a Jupiter sized planet. Jupiter, that’s a gravitational field strength in the upper atmosphere of 24.66Nkg^-1, more than twice that of Earth. The superior structural integrity of the materials used in the Star Wars universe can sustain stresses that the Federation cannot even fathom in their comparatively primitive construction methods (The Death Star is ample proof of this). In lieu of this, it is certainly viable that a 2.1 mega joule laser could damage the hull of the Enterprise. 5) Whilst destroying rock seems impressive, the energy required for uncoupling or shattering a 10m diameter boulder (With a volume of 500m squared) is only one ton of explosive power. Which is nowhere even near the scale of rock destroyed in the Trek series. In fact it took a heavy mounted Phaser weapon to bore a hole through a boulder that was only over two meters in diameter. 6) Now according to the Star Trek Next Generation Technical Manual, the optimum output of the Main Phaser array of the Enterprise-D is measured at 3.6 gigawatts (Approximately 5.1 megawatts per emitter). Obviously this is representative of Federation Capital Class ship based weaponry rather than the infantry level small arms such as the Type-II Phaser, but it certainly gives us an impression of an upper level limit to work with. This of course is substantiated by the TNG episode “Conundrum” where a laser (Not a Phaser – but a direct energy weapon) damages the hull of the Enterprise-D whilst being described as a mere 2.1 mega joule weapon. Although it may seem a tempting solution to suggest that hand held Phasers are far more powerful than their ship mounted equivalents, it is fallacious to do so for several obvious reasons that should not have to be clarified for the sake of all that is intelligent. 7) Once again, according to the DS9 technical manual, the battery/clip (It is unique for utilizing an assault rifle-esqe cartridge) storage capacity of a Type-III phaser (Also known as a phaser rifle, which is the most powerful hand-held weapon carried aboard Federation starships) is 67.5 terajoules. Now before you say to yourself “Hey, that’s greater in value than the Main Phaser Array!” there are a few points that must be remembered: A) 67.5 terajoules is the max “theoretical” amount of energy that can be stored. Anyone who understands even the basics of how potential storage systems work knows that no battery is 100% efficient, thus it is unlikely to utilize the total sum of energy in the conversion process. If anything, the larger Phaser arrays are probably more efficient in the conversion process due to a mechanism compatible with scaled systems, thus requiring less input. B) The reactor of the entire vessel has an output of only 4 billion gigawatts , thus demanding greater levels of efficiency for capital weapons. Hand held Phasers and their clips/batteries could quite likely be charged over a prolonged period of time C) The clip has to displace and lose this energy over multiple varying levels of shots (During “First Contact”, crew members are never seen reloading or carrying spare clips even during extended engagements, suggesting their capacity to be quite high). Phaser can be scaled in power according to the demand of the user; stun shots require only small amounts of energy, whilst disintegration shots take up vastly larger amounts. Thus the depletion of energy is never as uniform as conventional magazines. Also the issue with something like a wide-beam phaser is similar to the “inverse square law”, although the formula will be different, because that rule applies to non-directional energy releases, like bombs. In that case, if you double the distance from the bomb, the target takes one quarter as much energy from it. Triple the distance, one-ninth of the energy. Expand as needed. A cone-shaped beam from a phaser won’t drop in power as quickly as that, but it will drop nevertheless. In practice, the best we’ve seen a wide-beam phaser do is stun a group of people at a range of less than ten meters. In actual battle situations, Federation personnel invariably use only narrow beams, so we can reasonably conclude that wide beams aren’t that useful. D) Efficiency. As stated previously, Phasers are far from 100% efficient, in fact the greater majority of inputted energy into each burst is lost to the environment. Due to the inevitable prospect of energy lost through repeated use, the total amount that reaches a target is far less than that required to generate the Phaser burst. E) According to the DS9 TM, a Phaser can be set to overload and explode violently (Killing anyone nearby) if the battery input of the charged phase burst reaches 9 terajoules. So whilst discharging over 60 terajoules of energy in a single burst may seem to be a tempting resolution to any conflict, exceeding the material limit of the container by a significant amount causes the firearm to erupt. This of course all refers to the Type-III Phaser, which is the more powerful variant of the Phaser firearm model; in fact the magazine of said firearm is a lot larger than the entirety of the Type-II Phaser itself. This ultimately suggests that it contains far less energy and is nowhere near as powerful as a result due to the Phaser mechanics conversion method. In conclusion we must remember that given a system with an initial energy state (A), final energy state (B), and energy input (C), how do you think you determine the energy input? Note that you cannot simply infer or assume energy state (B); you must measure it to attain a measurable result. Ultimately the Phaser proves to be an effective weapon against specific organisms due to the physical mechanism of the Phaser beam itself, unfortunately (As witnessed) the effectiveness of said beam greatly diminishes as you scale up the target itself due to the fact that the Phaser is not a direct energy weapon in latent terms. Evidence states that it’s actually a form of mass reactive radiation, which whilst potent against weaker atomic bonds, proves to be terrible against denser materials; in fact hand-held Phasers only very rarely overcome denser alloys given plot specific reasoning (Such as connecting the Phaser to the reactor of the ship itself). Against the Borg. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how the idea spread that the Borg become godlike, invincible and immune to a weapon once they figure out what it is. While it is true that the Borg seem to be able to resist Federation weapons quite well once they figure out what they are, there is no indication that this means they are completely immune to any and all weapons once they figure out what they are. Obviously, this is just another example of the Star Trek fan “superhero” mentality, as applied to another Star Trek concept. I am guessing that the myth spread because the Borg were seemingly impervious to the attacks of a single Federation starship in “Q Who?”. However, the clash between the scientific mentality and the superhero mentality again rears its ugly head. Rather than describe the ability to resist the weapons of a single Federation starship as a lower limit, the fans have instead decided that it is proof of godlike omnipotence! Why worry about limits when you can simply assume that “adaptation” is a “special power” and that they can adapt to anything? The most stunning example of this nonsense is the recurring trekkie claim that a Borg cube could shake off a Nova Cannon blast once a previous cube had been destroyed, because it would have “transmitted enough information to the collective to make the other cubes immune.” If you can read and understand the various multi-syllable words in this paragraph, then I am sure that you can see how obviously unscientific and over simplistic the “superhero Borg” mentality is. This myth is clearly refuted by the canon films and episodes. In STFC, we see that although a Borg cube can become seemingly impervious to the weapons of a single Federation starship, it cannot withstand the massed attack of dozens of Federation starships. This demonstrates that Borg “adapted shield” lower limits are somewhere above the firepower of a GCS and below the massed firepower of a fleet containing dozens of Federation starships. We can also see Borg cubes being blasted into fragments by Species 8472 bio-ships and destroyed by simple planetary debris in “Scorpion”. And of course, we all know that Borg drones are helpless against any sort of physical attack, whether it’s the claws of Species 8472, the bullets of Picard’s tommy-gun in STFC, a well-thrown elbow, or one of Worf’s various blades. The fact is it is physically impossible, even within the realms of Star Trek technobabble, to simply shrug off or adapt to firepower that is exponentially greater than your entire fleet combined. Where do they even draw the energy from for such a feat? Or the raw material to repair severe structural damage? Sorry, the Borg are nowhere as grand as most like to claim, and will most likely serve as a minor nuisance at best.
