Star Wars vs Star Trek

[Kittamaru]

The point still stands - trek ships can, and have, targeted missiles and torpedoes and blown them out of space long before being struck by them. They can also simply teleport the warhead out, putt he missile in transporter stasis, etc... or just counter-detonate it with a "proximity detonation" photon...

[TW Scott]

now now, the cloud is clear enough to see the SSD behind it. that tower is bygone.

Okay, I will concede that the tower may have been destroyed. Though this is not clear as in veiwing the scene is super slo-mo on my DVD copie the cloud had not visually dissipated wenough to actully see the SSD throwugh where the bridge tower should have been. For sake of argument I will concede this however I will point out this.

Now that you've seen the pretty pictures, let's crunch some numbers. Let's suppose a 70 metre wide asteroid strikes a ship while moving at roughly 1 km/s (as all long-time Star Wars vs Star Trek people know, this is similar to the asteroid which hit an ISD bridge tower in TESB). This is considered a benchmark for an ISD's resistance to physical impacts, albeit somewhat over-conservative. Remember that all the ships had already sustained damage beforehand (from prior asteroid impacts, and perhaps also from the Battle of Hoth and a near-collision with two other Star Destroyers), the shields may have been down to permit the holo-transmission, and neither the bridge tower or its shield generators would be as robust as the main hull and its defense systems. As a slightly off-topic exercise, ask yourself what this incident tells us about the structural strength of the bridge tower (hint: does the asteroid pulverize against the tower's surface, penetrate deeply inside, or fly right through and out the other side?)

In any case, given nickel-iron composition and roughly 7000 kg/m³ density, this asteroid would have roughly 1.25 million tons mass, therefore its momentum would be 1.25E12 kg·m/s and its kinetic energy would be 6.25E14 J (roughly 150 kilotons). We might leap to the conclusion that a Star Destroyer's shields must be limited to 150 kilotons for any weapon regardless of whether it possesses mass or not (assuming its bridge shields were, in fact, up at the time despite the holo-transmission which normally requires shields to be lowered), but this conclusion is oversimplistic and wrong. Knowing what we know about collision physics, we know that the shields must apply enough reaction force to reduce the asteroid's velocity to zero before impact. From another scene in ROTJ where a stricken fighter explodes against an ISD bridge tower's shields, they appear to be less than 10 metres away from the hull. This would give them less than 0.02 seconds to stop the asteroid, and the reaction force would be at least 6.25E13 N (note that we are ignoring the fact that no shield interaction was visible in the asteroid impact, so we are humouring the common Trekkie belief that the shields were up). This defines the physical stress applied to the shield generator's mounts, and stress causes structural failure.

Now, let us consider an equivalent turbolaser blast (again, speaking from a structural perspective). We know that turbolaser bolts do not arc measurably downward in gravity even over distances where it should be obvious (eg- the ground battle at Hoth, the space battles in low orbit over Endor and Tatooine), so they appear to be massless (and the SW2ICS provides official confirmation of this interpretation). Moreover, we know (from the TESB asteroid vapourization scene) that a long turbolaser bolt takes roughly 2 frames at 24 fps (0.08 seconds) to impart its energy to the target. Since the time duration is 0.08 seconds instead of 0.02 seconds, it needs 4 times as much momentum as the asteroid (ie- 5E12 kg·m/s) in order to subject the bridge tower to the same stresses. Therefore, since the momentum of a massless particle is U/c, this means that its energy yield would have to be 1.5E21 J, or 350 gigatons. In short, you would need to hit an already-damaged ISD's bridge tower with a 350 gigaton laser or turbolaser blast in order to cause the same physical impact damage we saw in TESB (assuming its shields are up, otherwise the sheer energy transfer would overwhelm the ship's armour regardless of the physical impact).

All of this is well known physics.

I might also note the Wong was very conservative in his estimate. The ISD was moving in excess of 1.6 km per second itself and the asteroid was easily moving that fast as well. Even with the angle of impact this would mean a relative speed of 2000+ meters per second or double his calculations.

Also note that the impact physically destoryed the asteroid in question upon contact. The asteroid was pulverized on the surface.. If the shields were down like is suggested by the images then the hull alone was capable of taking a blow of well over 300 kiloton on arguably the weakest part of the ship. If the shields were up as trekkies insist then that means shields that can resist nearly 1200 kilotons of physical force and probably more as the vessels had been in the field for several days.

Here is the page that details everything and yes i have checked his calculations over and done some research.

[Kittamaru]

Scott, you have to remember - these Jem Hadar ships are a strange breed. From the start, the phased polaron beams cut thru Alpha Quadrent shields like they didn't exist. Thus why, many times, federation fleets went in sans-shields... instead, they dumped that extra power into weapons.

The oddessy was an elder Galaxy class going by it's registry number if I remember correctly... so that doesn't help it's case any. The fact that they brought back MIRANDA and CONSTELLATION class starships shows just how bad a predicament the Federation was in with all this jibbajabba! Once they were able to modify their shields to resist the phased polaron beams, however, things QUICKLY turned to Federation favor.

Don't blow a singular instance out of proportion. And don't forget the payload of those "bugships" - they have a fair bit o antimatter on board and, given that the secondary explosions are what destroyed the oddessy, it's safe to say that went up in smoke!

[Kittamaru]

One other thing to mention - the fact that the Enterprise-E has easily withstood impacts similar to this to much smaller (eg, pylon and nacelle) areas of the hull says something.

Then again, I don't like wong's 1km/s statement... that seems absurd given the speed those bugships normally go... in the dogfight with the Defiant, they were pulling some seriously quirky moves that'd make an F-22 pilot sick to his stomach!

[antaran_1979]

Okay, I will concede that the tower may have been destroyed. Though this is not clear as in veiwing the scene is super slo-mo on my DVD copie the cloud had not visually dissipated wenough to actully see the SSD throwugh where the bridge tower should have been. For sake of argument I will concede this however I will point out this.



All of this is well known physics.

I might also note the Wong was very conservative in his estimate. The ISD was moving in excess of 1.6 km per second itself and the asteroid was easily moving that fast as well. Even with the angle of impact this would mean a relative speed of 2000+ meters per second or double his calculations.

Also note that the impact physically destoryed the asteroid in question upon contact. The asteroid was pulverized on the surface.. If the shields were down like is suggested by the images then the hull alone was capable of taking a blow of well over 300 kiloton on arguably the weakest part of the ship. If the shields were up as trekkies insist then that means shields that can resist nearly 1200 kilotons of physical force and probably more as the vessels had been in the field for several days.

Here is the page that details everything and yes i have checked his calculations over and done some research.

i like some of those calculations. actually i like them. what i tend to disagee with in this case is the asumption that a TL would transfer its energy in a kinetic manner. from what i've seen on screen, most of the damage is not kinetic. allso Wong's presumption that TL bolts are massless contradicts with the plasma theory. plasma is not massless. and even i agree that at least a part of those bolts has plasma origin. but that figure of 300+ kt impact energy of that asteroid coincides with my latest estemates on the HTL bolts (few pages back). in essence my predicions estemate the HTLs as able to blast a 100m asteroid into tiny bits, something equivalent of a 500kt to 1mt blast. one of those caused catastrophic damage to an ISD2. so if 300kt is enough to blast the tower it makes sence for a 500+ impact in the base of the tower to be more dangerous.

now for the details.
1. i doubt that ship had particle shields operational at that time. as the man said there is no visible reaction.
2. the fact both the asteroid and the tower got reduced to melted debries (at best) brings up some interesting questions. i doubt the material used for ISD construcion is self inciderating so something else must have caused that big bang. two things come to my mind.first, some back-up power generator is located there, near the impact point and it underwent a critical meltdown when the asteroid hit it. second, the power transfer of the ISD involves some volatile supstance (similar to EPS systems on UFP ships), so the asteroid menaged to hit a major power junction, that resulted in a massive energy outburst which destroyed both objects.

[SkywalkerJedi]

Once again you have no proof of this.

If ISDs have missiles, why don't they ever use them?

Why do you think it's called Anti-Capital ship missile. They have limited amout of missiles ( about couple hundered ) besides heavy turbolaser is stronger.

[Kittamaru]

Then the missiles are moot point Skywalker... if they are weaker, slower, and less accurate than the heavy TL's... why bother with them at all?

[SkywalkerJedi]

They are faster and more accurate but less powerful.

[Saquist]

sorry.

It's no big thing Skywalker.

Star Wars proponents also fail to acknowledge that an asteroid impact destroyed an entire ISD bridge tower in ESB...despite even more visual proof in the revised version of the movie;.

Yes that is infintely true. Being able to see though a ship is called cloak...
If we're able to see through the cloud where the Bridge tower was..then clearly it's been destroyed.

The explosion was likely caused by the power generators for the shields...or likely..The Hull was just to thin to take the direct hit of a kinetic force traveling at that speed.

[Kittamaru]

Wait wait wait... so a concussion missile is FASTER than a TurboLaser Bolt?

???

Am I the only one that sees a problem with that? Unless those are HYPERSPACE missiles... in which case they can't physically hit their target...

[SkywalkerJedi]

It's no big thing Skywalker.

Thank you.

Yes that is infintely true. Being able to see though a ship is called cloak...
If we're able to see through the cloud where the Bridge tower was..then clearly it's been destroyed.

The explosion was likely caused by the power generators for the shields...or likely..The Hull was just to thin to take the direct hit of a kinetic force traveling at that speed

If you are talking about the Astroid impact, no .IF it is the SSD it is yes. When you saw the hologram disapper, it is captian Needa's, Needa's ship is Avenger and both Needa and Avenger are seen later chasing the Falcon, so if the bridge is destroyed then Needa would of died and the ship would of been destroyed. My theory about the explodsion is that the explodsion is caused by the impact with the shields, Star Wars shields are not a round bubble around the ship, it is like this ( I don't know how to explain it, sorry )

It is just covering the hull, so it can still impact but not destroy the bridge deflectors.

[SkywalkerJedi]

Wait wait wait... so a concussion missile is FASTER than a TurboLaser Bolt?

???

Am I the only one that sees a problem with that? Unless those are HYPERSPACE missiles... in which case they can't physically hit their target...

Turbolasers are slower then the speed of light, if it is Celetrais it is faster then a phaser. Concussion missiles are faster and more convensional.

[SkywalkerJedi]

Here is some info on SW shields
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Deflector_shield

[SkywalkerJedi]

Star Wars can timr travel too, I got an explaination for it. SW have special shields to pervent it, so I persume that if they turned it off they can go forwar in time.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Relativistic_shield
(Note: HoloNet News is canon because it is Lucasfilm licienced.)

[Saquist]

I don't think it was Captain Needa's ship struck by the asteroid though.
From what I've seen there doesn't seem to be any indication from Star Wars that Capital ships work particle shields.

I think they use ray shields only.

[TW Scott]

i like some of those calculations. actually i like them. what i tend to disagee with in this case is the asumption that a TL would transfer its energy in a kinetic manner. from what i've seen on screen, most of the damage is not kinetic. allso Wong's presumption that TL bolts are massless contradicts with the plasma theory. plasma is not massless. and even i agree that at least a part of those bolts has plasma origin. but that figure of 300+ kt impact energy of that asteroid coincides with my latest estemates on the HTL bolts (few pages back). in essence my predicions estemate the HTLs as able to blast a 100m asteroid into tiny bits, something equivalent of a 500kt to 1mt blast. one of those caused catastrophic damage to an ISD2. so if 300kt is enough to blast the tower it makes sence for a 500+ impact in the base of the tower to be more dangerous.

Small problems in your theory. First of all it is mentioned several times in Sta Wars novelization and novels that the Blaster and Turbolaser bolts are indeed massless. Second despite them beeing massless everytime we seem them hit something the object in question either moves or is vaporized so quickly as to not appear to move. Finally the asteropids is TESB are vaporized as film evidence and novelization actually shows. It takes far more than one megatons to vaporize a 100 meter radius asteroid.

now for the details.
1. i doubt that ship had particle shields operational at that time. as the man said there is no visible reaction.
2. the fact both the asteroid and the tower got reduced to melted debries (at best) brings up some interesting questions. i doubt the material used for ISD construcion is self inciderating so something else must have caused that big bang. two things come to my mind.first, some back-up power generator is located there, near the impact point and it underwent a critical meltdown when the asteroid hit it. second, the power transfer of the ISD involves some volatile supstance (similar to EPS systems on UFP ships), so the asteroid menaged to hit a major power junction, that resulted in a massive energy outburst which destroyed both objects.

First of all partical shields run just micro milimeters from the hull. Also the explosion of the asteroid would have simply covered up any shield interaction

Second. since the asteroid violently exploded/vaporized it is possible should the bridge tower have been vaporized that the speeds in question were much higher than we suggest. Also all the ablove equations do not take into account the mass of the ISD which would have factored into the energy as well.

Finally it is entirely possible that the ISD bridge tower is constructed much like the ones on Aircraft carriers, Basically it was simply shorn off by such a massive impact leaving the bulk of the ship undamaged. In this case it could be retrieved and field repairs could have had it in working order again.

[TW Scott]

Scott, you have to remember - these Jem Hadar ships are a strange breed. From the start, the phased polaron beams cut thru Alpha Quadrent shields like they didn't exist. Thus why, many times, federation fleets went in sans-shields... instead, they dumped that extra power into weapons.

The oddessy was an elder Galaxy class going by it's registry number if I remember correctly... so that doesn't help it's case any. The fact that they brought back MIRANDA and CONSTELLATION class starships shows just how bad a predicament the Federation was in with all this jibbajabba! Once they were able to modify their shields to resist the phased polaron beams, however, things QUICKLY turned to Federation favor.

Don't blow a singular instance out of proportion. And don't forget the payload of those "bugships" - they have a fair bit o antimatter on board and, given that the secondary explosions are what destroyed the oddessy, it's safe to say that went up in smoke!

First of all the Oddessy's shields were in fact up as they had just learned about the dangers of the polaron beams in THAT battle. So that is one myth destroyed.

Second the Oddessy was clearly so heavily damaged by the impact alone that she was crippled the moment the fighter made it's impact. Especially with the warop nacelle so heavy damage by shrapnel

Finally even after the shields were modified the Jem H'dar suicide attacks would destroy whole vessels in one run. Several times the fighter flew through Klingon and federation ships with absolutely no decelleration. They didn't explode inside the target vessels but actully exited the opposite side before the enemy ship would explode.

It's not jibber-jabber, it's taking all the evidence and weighing it.

[TW Scott]

One other thing to mention - the fact that the Enterprise-E has easily withstood impacts similar to this to much smaller (eg, pylon and nacelle) areas of the hull says something.

Then again, I don't like wong's 1km/s statement... that seems absurd given the speed those bugships normally go... in the dogfight with the Defiant, they were pulling some seriously quirky moves that'd make an F-22 pilot sick to his stomach!

But in that scene it is clearly going only 1 km/s. I doesn;t matter what it can do, it matters what it is doing that moment.

[antaran_1979]

Small problems in your theory.
1.First of all it is mentioned several times in Sta Wars novelization and novels that the Blaster and Turbolaser bolts are indeed massless.
2.Second despite them beeing massless everytime we seem them hit something the object in question either moves or is vaporized so quickly as to not appear to move. Finally the asteropids is TESB are vaporized as film evidence and novelization actually shows. It takes far more than one megatons to vaporize a 100 meter radius asteroid.



3.First of all particle shields run just micro milimeters from the hull. Also the explosion of the asteroid would have simply covered up any shield interaction

4.Second. since the asteroid violently exploded/vaporized it is possible should the bridge tower have been vaporized that the spedds in question were much higher than we suggest. Also all the ablove quations do not take inot account the mass of the ISD which would have factored into the energy as well.

5.Finally it is entirely possible that the ISD bridge tower is constructed much like the ones on Aircraft carriers, Basically it was simply shorn off by such a massive impact leacing the bulk of the ship undamaged. In this case it could be retrieved and feild repairs could have had it in working order again.

1. if they are massless then they are not plasma. it is as simple as that.

2 and 4. the asteroids were not vaporized (as in turned to vapor-gasious stat of matter), you saw the caps, you've seen the movies. and the asteroid collision suports this. the efect we see when the asteroid hits that tower is much closer to a rapid transition of state. we do not see this when they shoot at them. instead of rapid expansion those asteroids slowly drift away from the center, and there is no evidence of super-heated material present (a nececery condition for a solid to be turned to vapor).

3. this actually goes against you. i was prepeared to accept the fact that shields (particle) were allready down from previous impacts, and that this asteroid gave the finishing blow. but if you wan't the ISD to be weaker then i claim it to be, that is your choice. i'll stick with my presumption that the impact was on bare hull.

4. the speeds and masses involved are not relevant. what is relevant is the relative speed diference. from the cadar we are given the ISD is practically motionless. so it matterrs not if the ship was fast and the asteroid slow. what we see is the relative speed that initiated the impact. second, the mass of teh ISD is allso irelevant, just as the mass of the Earth is irelevent when calculating the impact energy of the metheor. we are interested on the efect the impact has on that mass. if we like to see what happenes to the metheor then we set the equasion the other way around. the Earth is allso moving, but what matters is not that velocity but the relative velocity of the impact.

5. it is allso possible that it shifted out of this universe to avoid destruction. but there is nothing on-screen to implicate that,

[antaran_1979]

First of all the Oddessy's shields were in fact up as they had just learned about the dangers of the polaron beams in THAT battle. So that is one myth destroyed.

Second the Oddessy was clearly so heavily damaged by the impact alone that she was crippled the moment the fighter made it's impact. Especially with the warop nacelle so heavy damage by shrapnel

Finally even after the shields were modified the Jem H'dar suicide attacks would destroy whole vessels in one run. Several times the fighter flew through Klingon and federation ships with absolutely no decelleration. They didn't explode inside the target vessels but actully exited the opposite side before the enemy ship would explode.

It's not jibber-jabber, it's taking all the evidence and weighing it.

not entirely acurate. when they discovered their shields were useless the captain ordered the transfer of all power from the shields to the weapon systems.

this particular suicide run was aimed at the antimatter pods. what we should notice is that JH attack ships were still shielded when they rammed the GCS.