Star Wars vs Star Trek

[Kittamaru]

Antaran, they explain in the movie why they couldn't do it.


The Reman warbird Scimitar was designed by the best and brightest of the REMANS, not Romulans. It was, as Picard said, a Predator. Dual warp cores, a Thalaron generator, Thalaron Cloak, Primary and Secondary shields, and dozens upon dozens of photon torpedo tubes and disruptor arrays. It was meant for one purpose - to kill.

It makes sense it's hull wouldn't have been as strong as the Enterprise - The Big-E has armor plating to aid the shields and SIF in defending the ship, where as the Scimitar relied on dual layers of shielding.

They were tracking firing patterns, but at the same time they had to get a bearing. If the Scimitar fired a volley, moved, waited, and fired another volley, they'd have no bearing on which to attack.

Also, once the Big-E had the Scimitar on the ropes, you saw how fiercely Schinzon came after them... even though he wanted Picard alive.

Also - remember that larger romulan ships (like the Valdore class and D'Deredix classes of new times) CAN cloak with shields up. The reason smaller ships couldn't is due to the sheer amount of energy needed to do so.

Even in TOS - the Romulan ship was able to power a plasma torpedo launcher while cloaked... but that was all it could do

[TW Scott]

Only one problem - in Survivors it was a fake entity created by a being that had absolute control over matter and energy. Of course the shields went down - the guy controlling the creature stripped the shields of their energy. He'd do the same to the Death Star, Coruscant, and every ship in all of the Inner Rim if he so desired...

Actually the Dwoud admitted to being a being that can manipulate matter and energy so that all reality seems an illusion. His fake wife was REAL in every respect and could even be beamed up by the Enterprise when Uxbridge didn;t even know the ship was there. So obviously she must have exisited in some material form.

[TW Scott]

of course they aren't as manuveral as your proton torpedoes... photon torpedoes move millions of times FASTER and high speed manuvers take time... simply physics! Something Star Wars never even TRIED to adhere to!

Star Wars has adhered to the laws of physics much more closely that Star Trek has.

For instance:

Inertia Dampers: In Star Trek they completely nullify the inertia of a vessel in all regardless. Meaning the vessel has no tendency to stay in motion or stay still. Star Wars Inertia dampers make maneuverigna craft easier as it relieves some inertia, but not all.

As for the torpedoes. Every screen shot of a Photon torpedo travelling at sublight it is travelling just faster than the Star tyrek vessels. meaning they are doing roughly the same speed and Star wars vessels or less. Meanwhile the proton torpedoes were shown to me MUCH faster than the fighters that fired them.

[TW Scott]

I see... then I leave you to your idiocy. Great Wong has been disproven by his own posse of fans time and again... he even resorted to re-targeting a link from DarkStar's site to a PORNOGRAPHIC PAGE... that should say something about his maturity.

An unsubstantiated accusation that Darkstar has not taken even a moment to prove. Hell, he hasn't even reported it to any legal authority. In factn the claim seems nothing more than an ad hominem attack with no merit.

If you really, truly need me to bring in the other supporting facts (including facts that state, plain as day, the firepower ratings of ISD's of various types and show their acceleration frame by frame by using the actual MODEL used on screen) then perhaps I will... though it'd be faster for you to go back and re-read the last 300 pages or so. We've been through this time and again... and time and again the fan-wank Wong spouts over and over is disproven.

Actually none of the stuff Wong, Saxton or any of the EU books has claimed regarding the firepower of SW has been disproven by the movies. In fact the movies support all these claims again and again.

If an ISD had the kind of firepower Wong likes to think it does, asteroid belts wouldn't be an issue of any sort, small moons could be obliterated in a few shots, and entire solarsystems could be slagged in a matter of hours.

First of all 200 gigatons could be fired at our mone all day and all you would create is new craters. Just becuase you don't understand the physics in question does not mean they are invalid.

Sadly, that doesn't happen... it cannot happen. It is stated in script in the movies... ultimate cannon. Don't like it? Argue with Lucas and have him change his script. Till then, keep reading your comics because I'm ignoring anything else you post till you at least attempt to provide proof of your claims!

Actually considering that everything in the movies supports the very information we've been informing you of, we're not the ones with a problem.

[Kittamaru]

Actually the Dwoud admitted to being a being that can manipulate matter and energy so that all reality seems an illusion. His fake wife was REAL in every respect and could even be beamed up by the Enterprise when Uxbridge didn;t even know the ship was there. So obviously she must have exisited in some material form.

That's... my point. He could control matter and energy completely...

For example - if Q didn't want the Ent-D's shields up, he could SPIT on them and make them fail... because he has that kind of power...

[Kittamaru]

Star Wars has adhered to the laws of physics much more closely that Star Trek has.

For instance:

Inertia Dampers: In Star Trek they completely nullify the inertia of a vessel in all regardless. Meaning the vessel has no tendency to stay in motion or stay still. Star Wars Inertia dampers make maneuverigna craft easier as it relieves some inertia, but not all.

As for the torpedoes. Every screen shot of a Photon torpedo travelling at sublight it is travelling just faster than the Star tyrek vessels. meaning they are doing roughly the same speed and Star wars vessels or less. Meanwhile the proton torpedoes were shown to me MUCH faster than the fighters that fired them.

No... Inertial Dampeners in Star Trek simply make sure the crew isn't turned to liquid by the instantaneous acceleration from zero to four million times the speed of light...

And of course Photon torpedoes normally only travel "just faster" than a launching ship in a running fight... running fights are at high relativistic speeds. In sub-light fights (at ranges exceeding hundreds of KM) it takes a short time for them to travel, but not long.

Photon Torpedoes are like the Torpedoes of modern submarine warfare... Proton Torpedoes are like the Phoenix A2A missile...

[Kittamaru]

An unsubstantiated accusation that Darkstar has not taken even a moment to prove. Hell, he hasn't even reported it to any legal authority. In factn the claim seems nothing more than an ad hominem attack with no merit.

Actually, he never made the acusation. I did... a few HUNDRED pages ago... and proved it. With multiple sites, quotes, and images, as well as with my own math.

Actually none of the stuff Wong, Saxton or any of the EU books has claimed regarding the firepower of SW has been disproven by the movies. In fact the movies support all these claims again and again.

No, it's all disproven. By the simple fact that every shot doesn't vaporize copious amounts of material.

First of all 200 gigatons could be fired at our mone all day and all you would create is new craters. Just becuase you don't understand the physics in question does not mean they are invalid.

Maybe 200 gigatons... but not 2.4 Teratons as Wong likes to claim at times

Actually considering that everything in the movies supports the very information we've been informing you of, we're not the ones with a problem.

Yes, you are... because you you like to bend reality to your own will.

[TW Scott]

That's... my point. He could control matter and energy completely...

For example - if Q didn't want the Ent-D's shields up, he could SPIT on them and make them fail... because he has that kind of power...

He has not shown that level of power in truth. The only actions Q has been shown to do is time dilation, teleportation, replication, and telekinesis. In fact he has shown no ability that the Enterprise D itself doesn't have he just does it on a larger scale.

Uxebridge however showed the ability to create a living breathing being that thought for itself. The only reason he feared Diana dsicovering his wife was a frausd is she would not pick all those other incidental memories that Uxebridge himself could not possibly know to implant in there.

[TW Scott]

No... Inertial Dampeners in Star Trek simply make sure the crew isn't turned to liquid by the instantaneous acceleration from zero to four million times the speed of light...

Actually, no. Inertail dampers completely negate the inertia of star trek vessels. Especailly when paired with mass lighteners After all Warp travel has no inertial effect on the ship as basically it is a trick where you make a bubble of space appear not to move when in fact it is. Without inertial dampers you could still go warp 9 however dropping out of it and being at any speed in impulse would have negative effects.

And of course Photon torpedoes normally only travel "just faster" than a launching ship in a running fight... running fights are at high relativistic speeds. In sub-light fights (at ranges exceeding hundreds of KM) it takes a short time for them to travel, but not long.

Unfortunately as we have seen time and time again a running fight between vessels is done well within 100km and at speeds approaching 3.5km a second. Only rarely is a fight larger, and those are fleet battles or once in a blue moon duels.

Photon Torpedoes are like the Torpedoes of modern submarine warfare... Proton Torpedoes are like the Phoenix A2A missile...

Actually proton torpedoes are more like the modern cruise missile except maller than a Javelin Missile.

[TW Scott]

An unsubstantiated accusation that Darkstar has not taken even a moment to prove. Hell, he hasn't even reported it to any legal authority. In factn the claim seems nothing more than an ad hominem attack with no merit.

Actually, he never made the acusation. I did... a few HUNDRED pages ago... and proved it. With multiple sites, quotes, and images, as well as with my own math.

First of all your math is so flawed you thought that ~1.1 joules per gram is enough to vaporize and iron/nickel asteroid. So obviously there are errors there on your part. Your images were occasionally mislaid and when they weren't they did not display what you thought they did. Finally you have not proven that Wong hacked Darkstars site at all.


Actually none of the stuff Wong, Saxton or any of the EU books has claimed regarding the firepower of SW has been disproven by the movies. In fact the movies support all these claims again and again.

No, it's all disproven. By the simple fact that every shot doesn't vaporize copious amounts of material.

Yet in watching Empire Strikes Back we see exactly what you want displayed. Sorry that Star Wars ships have feasible explanations on why their ship hulls do not vaporize as quickly as ice under an Oxyacetlyne torch.

First of all 200 gigatons could be fired at our moon all day and all you would create is new craters. Just becuase you don't understand the physics in question does not mean they are invalid.

Maybe 200 gigatons... but not 2.4 Teratons as Wong likes to claim at times

the Yucatan pennisula was hit with ~12 teraton impact in the TK event. Our planet did not so much as wobble. The crater in the Yucatan is a few kilometers across. To a planetary body the blast is inconsequential. Much like a beta particle hitting your body. On the local level it is wicked but on a system wide check it's just not all that problematic.

BTW he clames 200 gigatons for each Heavy Turbolaser. 2.4 teratons is more like the complete firepower of an entire Star Destroyer in once second.

Though you must admit the Death Star must be capable of supplying the energy to blow apart a planet and then some.

Actually considering that everything in the movies supports the very information we've been informing you of, we're not the ones with a problem.

Yes, you are... because you you like to bend reality to your own will.Yes, you are... because you you like to bend reality to your own will.

We're not bending reality, we are observing a scinec fiction movie and using what we know of physics to explain it.

Format
The original points by me.
Response by Kittamaru
Counterresponse by me

[Saquist]

need you guys be reminded that it takes over 3 thousand photon torps to equal just one shot from an Acclamators Turbolaser turret and have an accurate range more than 90 million kilometers (where as a photorp has a max range of 200,000km but only when fired at high warp) and your ships have a 15% accuracy rating from less than 10km away from each other. also Quantum torpedoes are only twice the strength of Photon torps at MOST.

90 Million kilometers huh. Well I'm sure they could fire from that range but would they actually hit anything? You say accurate...
You do realize that 90,000,000 km is about 10mil short of Mars at it's aphelion? In other words you're saying turbolaser is fast enough to hit a target from Mars to Earth without any tracking ability and traveling considerably lesser than the speed of light (as Star Wars appologist prove the turbo laser isn't a laser)

No my friend that doesn't make any sense at all. Where ever you got those numbers from (SCOTT) give them back and say no to bad numbers.

at 90 million km it would take light about 5 mins to reach Mars...Light.... Turbo lasers are much much slower. I'm sorry your numbers are useless.

Voyager stated that Proton based weapons would be truly lethal, guess what, we have Proton torpedoes by the truckload.

It said no such thing. You're refering to the Proton burst Voyager attempted to use to stablize it's store of Anti matter in "Deadlock".
I'm not going to address this one any further but to say...You're reaching.

Star Trek obviously goes by the "Many Worlds" variation of time travel, Time Paradoxes are not an issue since different time lines do not affect one another, when a change is made in the timestream, it essentially creates a new timeline, this timeline is seperate and has no effect. for example, someone uses the Krenim temporal weapon on you, they see you disapear, you see them disapear as well, Time Travel is only useful for escaping to a time frame that you would prefer not protecting a timeline or changing it, since you cannot change your own timeline, just make a new one. another example, the future in "Endgame" still exists as an alternate timeline, as well as thousands of others that were breifly seen in the episode where worf was crossing from timeline to timeline, such as one where the Borg had invaded and the Enterprise crew (led by a wounded riker) were the few survivors of the federation.

Inteligent. But I remind you Trek has no real position on Timeline hopping or the termination of Timelines...

Correction:
Star Fleet in the future does remove or eliminate abberant timelines.
Year of Hell also showed how that particular commander scanned for trace elements while they remained outside the time line. It's really a funky trek thing.

Borg ships never use evasive maneuvers regardless of the enemy, they are always slow and ponderous unless actively CHASING their target, the Borg would simply not be a problem for the Empire.

Unless the Empire matches the firepower of the Galaxy then they're lost to the Borg. We've proven that much on the thread. Trek definitely has the superior fire power.

Turbolasers, Blasters and Lightsabers are particle based weapons, they have no frequency and thus the Borg cannot adapt to them, besides, who needs anything more than a 20th century machine gun when dealing with drones? I'll tell you who, nobody, oh also, Federation shields are vulnerable to Particle based weaponry.

All energy has a frequency and amplitude. Even particle weapons use energy.
(The anti Borg Bullets Fallacy: Ignored)
Lack of logical and evident demonstration

The Imperials have extremely advanced targeting systems, but even more advanced Electronic warfare and jamming, hence the common use of Manual Targeting, the moment a federation ship gets even close to a Star Destroyer it would be as if they just flew into a mutara nebula from all the interference (if the star destroyer has it's ECM jamming active) the shields may or may not be affected however.

You're assuming Subspace and Hyperspace are the same.
The prefixes say other wise. So far your argument seems ill conceived.

Transporters can be nullified with so much as a weak inhibitor field that the imperials could easily have running all along inside their ships, or

Yes. Your first logical statement. However they'd need to be able to detect the transport beam and know what frequency to block.

cattered with tractor beams.

Hmmm. I don't think we've seen that.

Imperials can detect cloaked ships without any problems, and even phase cloaks are affected by gravity.

Trek cloaks and Star Wars cloaks are differnt. The latter being highly imperfect not even alowing the cloaked ship to see. You're on shakey ground. You can't prove this. You're making confidence statements back and forth..

And no...Phase Cloaks aren't affected by gravity. Or at least they don't have to follow that rule. A sufficient phase variance can remove that as well.

Impulse Engines are a type of Ion Engine, they produce Ion trails
Phasers have no explained difference from real world Lasers, their unexplained chain reaction however is unknown in it's source.

Impulse engines are "Field Propulsion Drives"
They have been for a long time. Note. FPD's may emit Ion's but they are not proppeled by Ion's.

Ion drives are Chemical Propulsion. They create thrust by using proppelant.

How do you tell one from the other?
Simple. Chemical propulsion requires retrofire in the opposing direction for deceleration. Meaning you have to turn your ship around to slow you down or go in the opposite direction.

Two ships in Trek have been noted as not needing to come about to reverse course. Enterprise D Episode "Relics" and Enterprise A: Star Trek The Undiscovered Country.

Starships have Impulse driver coils. The IMF reactors create a spatial wave that only pushes on those coils, nothing else. The coils can change orientation and the wave will move the ship in another direction without turning the ship's orientation.

in ground warfare the Federation are even more screwed than in space, they have no LAVs, no Tanks, no Artillery, not even any support weapons and their grenades and mortars are about as effective as firecrackers (nor the battle to the strong and what you leave behind) they can't hit worth crap even if the target is within 5 meters (nor the battle to the strong, st nemesis, nearly every firefight ever seen in star trek) in fact, Stormtroopers get their shots closer to the target when they miss intentionally than the heroes of star trek do when they miss while shooting to kill,

script writing...you can plug on about that. It's hardly technical right?
Sorry If I had to ignore the rest of your post. I didn't really feel like getting into the whole pissing match.

[Kittamaru]

He has not shown that level of power in truth. The only actions Q has been shown to do is time dilation, teleportation, replication, and telekinesis. In fact he has shown no ability that the Enterprise D itself doesn't have he just does it on a larger scale.

Uxebridge however showed the ability to create a living breathing being that thought for itself. The only reason he feared Diana dsicovering his wife was a frausd is she would not pick all those other incidental memories that Uxebridge himself could not possibly know to implant in there.

And the fact that he can randomly give people Q's powers, randomly kill people then bring them back, is immune to anything but a Q's weapon, etc... yeah, that's not important?

And Uxbridge not only created the being... and his "wife", he created the spot they lived in, everything...

[Kittamaru]

Actually, no. Inertail dampers completely negate the inertia of star trek vessels. Especailly when paired with mass lighteners After all Warp travel has no inertial effect on the ship as basically it is a trick where you make a bubble of space appear not to move when in fact it is. Without inertial dampers you could still go warp 9 however dropping out of it and being at any speed in impulse would have negative effects.



Unfortunately as we have seen time and time again a running fight between vessels is done well within 100km and at speeds approaching 3.5km a second. Only rarely is a fight larger, and those are fleet battles or once in a blue moon duels.

because the federation prefers diplomacy over fighting... and most of their enemies use weapons that degrade rapidly at a distance. Notebly Disruptors, which both the Romulans and Klingons use. However, we have seen them destroy things with Photon torpedoes at vast distances.


Actually proton torpedoes are more like the modern cruise missile except maller than a Javelin Missile.

Uh, no. A modern cruise missile (like the Tomahawk), while extremely manuverable and accurate, is incredibly difficult to spoof and can deliver a payload capable of either destroying a single building, razing a runway, or nuking an entire city.

bah

[Kittamaru]

Scott, I'll tell ya what - when I get the chance I'll talk to a few of the Physics professors at my university and ask them. For a baseline comparison, though...

If you wanted to vaporize the Earth, using PURE ENERGY, here is what you'd need:

Blown up by matter/antimatter reaction

You will need: 2,500,000,000,000 tons of antimatter

Antimatter - the most explosive substance possible - can be manufactured in small quantities using any large particle accelerator, but this will take some considerable time to produce the required amounts. If you can create the appropriate machinery, it may be possible - and much easier - simply to "flip" 2.5 trillion tons of matter through a fourth dimension, turning it all to antimatter at once.

Method: This method involves detonating a bomb so big that it blasts the Earth to pieces.

How hard is that?

The gravitational binding energy of a planet of mass M and radius R is - if you do the lengthy calculations - given by the formula E=(3/5)GM^2/R. For Earth, that works out to roughly 224,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules. The Sun takes nearly a WEEK to output that much energy. Think about THAT.

To liberate that much energy requires the complete annihilation of around 2,500,000,000,000 tonnes of antimatter. That's assuming zero energy loss to heat and radiation, which is unlikely to be the case in reality: You'll probably need to up the dose by at least a factor of ten. Once you've generated your antimatter, probably in space, just launch it en masse towards Earth. The resulting release of energy (obeying Einstein's famous mass-energy equation, E=mc^2) should be sufficient to split the Earth into a thousand pieces.

Earth's final resting place: A second asteroid belt around the Sun.

Earliest feasible completion date: AD 2500. Of course, if it does prove possible to manufacture antimatter in the sufficiently large quantities you require - which is not necessarily the case - then smaller antimatter bombs will be around long before then.


224,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules.

Eg, 2.24x10^32 joules...

Do you know how much that is?

Here's an example: 2.24x10^12 is only 2.24 TERAJOULES We're at more than DOUBLE the power of that. We're PASSED the YottaJoules measure by a factor of SIX.

That is with ZERO energy loss...

Now, assuming a 25% energy loss due to heat and radiation... which is still quite low. For something this big, assume another factor of TEN. So 2.24x10^42 joules... there isn't a classification for that. No, I'm not joking... there just ISN'T ONE.

So right now we can quite safely say, even is Alderran was 1/4 the size of Earth... the DS didn't do it's duty via pure energy. Period. So, a safe bet would be it involved matching the resonance frequency of the planet or, an even better bet - it simply disolved the molecular bonds. Which would mean, surprise surprise, it acted something as a phaser...

Surprise surprise...

[TW Scott]

And the fact that he can randomly give people Q's powers, randomly kill people then bring them back, is immune to anything but a Q's weapon, etc... yeah, that's not important?

He has not randomly killed anyone. In fact he has gone so far as to completely avoided killing.
He has lent his powers, but that is more akin to lending someone technology.
Finally he has shown no immunity to any weapon at all.

And Uxbridge not only created the being... and his "wife", he created the spot they lived in, everything...

Which begs the point of why if he manipulates matter and energy so effortlessly would he use a trick to lower the shields and possibly alert Picard to his unuasual nature rather than simply batter them doen in a controlled fashion so that nobody is the wiser.

[TW Scott]

Unfortunately as we have seen time and time again a running fight between vessels is done well within 100km and at speeds approaching 3.5km a second. Only rarely is a fight larger, and those are fleet battles or once in a blue moon duels.

because the federation prefers diplomacy over fighting... and most of their enemies use weapons that degrade rapidly at a distance. Notebly Disruptors, which both the Romulans and Klingons use. However, we have seen them destroy things with Photon torpedoes at vast distances.

okay so you are admitting the main armaments of vessels dissipates rapidly and is low power so vessels must fight in very close. So this long range sniping with phasers is BS. As for Photons at a distance, we have seen them destroy ships with metastable reactors. An ion cannon could do that via shuting containment down. Photons have shown a distinct lack of destructive capability.


Actually proton torpedoes are more like the modern cruise missile except maller than a Javelin Missile.

Uh, no. A modern cruise missile (like the Tomahawk), while extremely manuverable and accurate, is incredibly difficult to spoof and can deliver a payload capable of either destroying a single building, razing a runway, or nuking an entire city. ”

So in other words a Proton Torpedo is exactly like a scifi version of a cruise missile. Every time we have seen them used it is in the fashion you speak of. Meanwhile Photons are almost aking to semiguided cannonballs.

[TW Scott]

Scott, I'll tell ya what - when I get the chance I'll talk to a few of the Physics professors at my university and ask them. For a baseline comparison, though...

If you wanted to vaporize the Earth, using PURE ENERGY, here is what you'd need:

Blown up by matter/antimatter reaction

You will need: 2,500,000,000,000 tons of antimatter

Antimatter - the most explosive substance possible - can be manufactured in small quantities using any large particle accelerator, but this will take some considerable time to produce the required amounts. If you can create the appropriate machinery, it may be possible - and much easier - simply to "flip" 2.5 trillion tons of matter through a fourth dimension, turning it all to antimatter at once.

Method: This method involves detonating a bomb so big that it blasts the Earth to pieces.

How hard is that?

The gravitational binding energy of a planet of mass M and radius R is - if you do the lengthy calculations - given by the formula E=(3/5)GM^2/R. For Earth, that works out to roughly 224,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules. The Sun takes nearly a WEEK to output that much energy. Think about THAT.

To liberate that much energy requires the complete annihilation of around 2,500,000,000,000 tonnes of antimatter. That's assuming zero energy loss to heat and radiation, which is unlikely to be the case in reality: You'll probably need to up the dose by at least a factor of ten. Once you've generated your antimatter, probably in space, just launch it en masse towards Earth. The resulting release of energy (obeying Einstein's famous mass-energy equation, E=mc^2) should be sufficient to split the Earth into a thousand pieces.

Earth's final resting place: A second asteroid belt around the Sun.

Earliest feasible completion date: AD 2500. Of course, if it does prove possible to manufacture antimatter in the sufficiently large quantities you require - which is not necessarily the case - then smaller antimatter bombs will be around long before then.


224,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules.

Eg, 2.24x10^32 joules...

Do you know how much that is?

Here's an example: 2.24x10^12 is only 2.24 TERAJOULES We're at more than DOUBLE the power of that. We're PASSED the YottaJoules measure by a factor of SIX.

That is with ZERO energy loss...

Now, assuming a 25% energy loss due to heat and radiation... which is still quite low. For something this big, assume another factor of TEN. So 2.24x10^42 joules... there isn't a classification for that. No, I'm not joking... there just ISN'T ONE.

So right now we can quite safely say, even is Alderran was 1/4 the size of Earth... the DS didn't do it's duty via pure energy. Period. So, a safe bet would be it involved matching the resonance frequency of the planet or, an even better bet - it simply disolved the molecular bonds. Which would mean, surprise surprise, it acted something as a phaser...

Surprise surprise...

Actually, the problem here is that Alderaan was 40% earths size but still had .8g or was 80% of our mass. Meaning much denser than Earth was. Another problem is that disolving the molecular bonds of planet would take THOUSANDS of times the energy needed to break gravitational binding energy. Plus you'd still have to provide the energy to break gravitational energy. So your proposing at the Deaht Star was 1001 x as powerful as they claim.

[Kittamaru]

He has not randomly killed anyone. In fact he has gone so far as to completely avoided killing.
He has lent his powers, but that is more akin to lending someone technology.
Finally he has shown no immunity to any weapon at all.



Which begs the point of why if he manipulates matter and energy so effortlessly would he use a trick to lower the shields and possibly alert Picard to his unuasual nature rather than simply batter them doen in a controlled fashion so that nobody is the wiser.

Uh... okay

1) When we first met Q, he killed Tasha, then brought her back to life...
2) He has given multiple people his power... and they quickly understand it even though if it was tech that would be impossible...?
3) He has shown immunity to starship level weapons... (Encounter at Farpoint)

And the manipulation trick is simple - he stated in the episode he REFUSED to directly harm people after what he did.

[Kittamaru]

So in other words a Proton Torpedo is exactly like a scifi version of a cruise missile. Every time we have seen them used it is in the fashion you speak of. Meanwhile Photons are almost aking to semiguided cannonballs.

No... you have it backwards.

We have seen Photons do everything from courier bodies (no damage potential) to obliterate starships (high potential) and everythign in between...

Meanwhile we only ever see Protons either have zero effect (shields stopped them) or obliterate the ship they impact... nothing in between. And that's not for the torpedo's abilities... it's the defenses of the ship in question.

[Kittamaru]

Actually, the problem here is that Alderaan was 40% earths size but still had .8g or was 80% of our mass. Meaning much denser than Earth was. Another problem is that disolving the molecular bonds of planet would take THOUSANDS of times the energy needed to break gravitational binding energy. Plus you'd still have to provide the energy to break gravitational energy. So your proposing at the Deaht Star was 1001 x as powerful as they claim.

Which, is obviously impossible as, if it could GENERATE that kind of power... why could it only move that slowly... or why didn't they give it total shield coverage... and other such questions.

Obviously it didn't do it's job through sheer energetic output.