Star Wars vs Star Trek

Thank you, Azron Stoma!

It's just too bad they won't listen.

BTW the special armor you are thinking of is the alligned crystal armor on the Suncrusher, theorhetically indestructable under any circumstances.

 

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Wow, Scott, I see you know how to make an alt account.

And in case that really IS another person stupid enough to say such blather...

Azron, the effect in Voyager would have been to disperse a destructive nanite cloud across an entire system. it's not the size of the bang, it's what you do with it.

Proton Torpedoes are like large IED's... Photon Torpedoes are like satchel charges. Even IF the Proton torp had more explosive power, it's detonation is (as shown in the movies) quite radial. Photon torpedoes have been shown able to effect a targeted area on a ship, blow the whole thing to hell, or impact it and not even detonate, but track it!

 

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Let me correct you here Azron...

Again - obviously star wars is more POPULAR than star trek... it's because morons like TW Scotch can make sense of Star Wars. It goes something like this:

OOOOOH! PRETTY EXPLOSIONS! YAAAAY!

And then they watch star trek that actually, you know, HAS a continuuing plot point, and go.

What? No explosions? No massive planet sized ships able to be taken down by a plot device of a thermal exhaust port that would honestly do NOTHING to cool down a ship of that size? BOOOO! THIS SUCKS!


And that, my friend, proves my final point:

Trekkies are better than Warsies for one simply reasons. Trekies have the brains... Warsies have ... the loud mouths?

 

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"Untrue, but then you already know this. Please try to prove your "3k photon torps to one shot from the TurboLaser" theory... we have already proven the output of both weapons, and the Photon Torp comes out FAR ahead."

despite the fact that Medium Turbolasers are 200 gigaton worth at normal levels, and can have their power output expanded nearly 100x over (attack of the clones ICS and Revenge of the Sith ICS), vs 64 MAX theoretical yield on a photorp, even though the photorps on screen only display a yield 10% of that such as with Riker's statement that it would take most of their torpedoes to destroy a 5km by 8km asteroid in "Pegasus" that's somewhere around 200 torpedoes to do the job of One Seismic charge, and voyager scattering a brittle asteroid by hitting it in the center hub an asteroid which could be easily chipped by hand.

"It most certainly was noticed... do you know what that torpedo did?"

blanketed a massive area with something other than it's primary detonation that wouldn't be of any concern, not terribly impressive

"Uh, when did they mention that? Maybe POLARON based weapons..."

in the voyager episode "Scientific Method"


"Obviously not as the Time-Ships like the Incursion use temporal Shielding to protect themselves of the changes in the timeline... it's even stated, quite simply, in the episodes the Incursion is seen."

obviously the temporal shielding is to ensure that they are not sucked into the same timeline as their enemy, temporal wakes, backwash and so forth can really be a nasty thing. course then again Star trek is notorious for it's inconsistencies, such as the Borg not being interested in organics and having themselves born, using complex table surgery to assimilate in a VERY rare case, to suddenly becoming Cyber Zombie space vampires complete with queen, that try to assimilate everyone just cause they can. and Ferengi turning from vicious energy whip snapping, data overpowering, worf phaser dodging (though once again Federation officers are horrid shots, and if it wasn't for the times when they used better designed guns, I would have been willing to blame it on the horribly, mind numbingly excruciatingly badly designed hand Phasers of TNG.) into complete cowards where the idea of a ferengi soldier or warrior is either laughable or insulting due to the sheer racism that permeates star trek.


"That's... the point. Except the Borg are the Federation style of the Empire. Big, mean, scary... but the lil guys can win via tactics (reminds me of Rebels vs Empire... hm...)"

so you can't prove me wrong so you simply resort to an ad hominem attack because god help you if you actually agree, congrats.

"No, no, and no. If they were PARTICLE weapons, then the PARTICLE shields and ENERGY shieldsd would be the same... obviously they aren't. And it was a holographic bullet if you remember..."

you don't seem to understand obviously, Particle weapons such as plasma weapons and so forth are not kinetic, but are still particle based, and we noticed the Ray shields trapping Obi Wan and Anakin, if Ray Shields only stopped energy then they would simply be able to walk through them.

Federation shields are vulnerable to Particle based weaponry, it has been stated many times on screen.

holographic technology gives it's physicality through forcefields, the safety protocols ensure the forcefields won't be active when a bullet or sharp object is traveling at a dangerous speed or proximity, Forcefields are physical, thus a holographic lethal bullet is still a kinetic weapon, and not an energy weapon

"Uh huh... and yet the fucking Falcon LANDED on an ISD without it knowing... yeah, real advanced targeting systems. Oh, and the fact they can't hit X-wings doing high mach values... REAL accurate there. And even if they did manage to somehow jam the subspace targeting, VISUAL TARGETING (yes, trek ships have VISUAL targeting sensors), and the other types... uh, betazeds anyone? Simply find a weak mind on the ship and aim that a way..."

There have been many times where a shuttle or even organism hides in a sensor blind spot on a federation ship, the enterprise included.
X-wings have ECM jamming, as I stated before Torpedoes fired from a distance can be intercepted easily, Ysalamiri can stop any psionic ability, and Betazoids can't really do anything aside from read thoughts and feelings, they have never shown the ability to use any form of "mind trick".

also watch DS9, during the dominion and klingon war, 15% accuracy when firing from far less than 10km away. Sacrifice of angels, what you leave behind, the list goes on and on.

"Mhm... only one problem. Star Wars has no idea WTF transporters are... so how would they begin to defeat them? And an ISD can barely detect a large ship in an asteroid field... how'd they find a cloaked one with ZERO emissions?"

you don't need emissions, cloaked ships still have mass and thus affect and are affected by gravity. there are tons of races that have no idea wtf transpoerters are, and can defeat them easily, I could defeat a transporter lock just by standing next to some power lines.

"Uh... no... you have those reversed mate.

The Ent-D could achieve .8c at maximum impulse... and it was a SLOW ship. The Ent-E can, in theory, achieve .95c on it's impulse drive, though it risks damaging subspace doing so. And no, Imperial ships have ZERO acceleration... like, really... have you even watched the movies?"

Imperial ships are massive, so their speed is far higher than you might think, also the statements are still canon, the Enterprise can only accelerate around 1000g, while every ship in Star wars can accelerate by at least 2000g with most FAR higher. the Impulse engine stats put the speed limit there, in all technicality, there is no speed limit in space except for 1c 0.8c is a rough estimate of how close to C you can get before the theory of relativity kicks in, it may be 0.95

"Uh... he didn't look up what MIGHT work... he looked up what didn't work. Kind of a good thing. However, Imperial officers have little knowledge of... well, anything... except that if they fail, Vader would likely KILL THEM."

there are many very intelligent Imperial officers, Veers, Piet, Baast, and of course Thrawn, there are a few incompetent ones, Ozzel, Needa. the use of that tactic also inspired awe with the rest of the crew when it was used by another ship.

"Uh... no, no and no.

"Phasers reaction is based on the Nadion particle... if you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up yourself. Impulse Engines aren't Ion based... what makes you think that?"

Impulse engines can be traced with their Ion Trails, they leave Ion emissions.

they say Phasers have phase coherence and frequency coherence, so do Lasers

"Actually, if it was that little hand phaser (the type 2) it only goes up to lvl 8. The larger ones (that have the curved handle) go up to I believe 16. The rifles and I-Mod and other fun weapons go even higher... which, obviously, makes sense. Then again, an Imperial blaster bolt was only able to just singe the Princess's shirt... a Phaser would have VAPORIZED her."

The I-Mod is only from star trek elite force, so it's completely non-canon, Phasers and Blasters in terms of tissue damage is the energy weapon equivalent of a Hollow point and Armour Piercing round in many ways, the Blaster bolt caused considerably more damage than just a "singed shirt" it just hit a non vital area of her body and cauterized the wound. hand Blasters take anything from grapefruit sized chunks out of walls, to even torso sized chunks or more, spraying superheated debris and smoke from the blast (effectively turning it into a fragmentation grenade) Incapacitation is better than a kill, you kill someone you remove them from the war, you Incapacitate someone you remove them from the battle, but you also put a strain on their resources and manpower, Landmines are designed to incapacitate more than kill for that exact reason.

it was a Type 2 phaser, predating the curved handle (which only slightly improves the "weapon"'s horrid design) the tiny one only capable of going up to setting 8 is the Type 1, and the rifles are not stronger, just capable of more shots, and have a tricorder built in, the assault phaser rifles, which have such mind blowing innovations such as trigger guards and sights (which they had not had for centuries) is actually LESS powerful than the standard Type 3, but it fires in bolts, granted, these bolts fire around the same speed as the Phaser beams, which Blaster bolts fire much, much faster bolts than phasers do.

Uhm... buh? Support Weapons? THEY BRING ENTIRE FUCKING STARSHIPS INTO THE ATMOSPHERE. The Interpid, Akira, Defiant, Norway, Sabre, and other such ships are designed to be as useful IN the atmosphere as OUT OF IT. Then there are shuttles, fighters, ground combat vehicles (like the one in Nemesis)... an AT AT would simply be picked up by a tractor beam and tossed aside. And Trek OFFICERS (not soldiers) aim FAR better than IMPERIAL STORMTROOPERS who miss at POINT BLANK RANGE.

really? in spite the fact that Worf and Riker can't hit a strutting Reman as he walks around a corridor close enough to spit. and when have we seen Stormtroopers miss at point blank when shooting to kill? also where were those starship support in Nor the Battle to the strong and the siege of ar 558? it's a very foolish way of thinking to rely on air/space superiority whenever you engage hostiles on the ground.

Uh... lol? Just, lol.

only because you are under false assumptions. the Ewoks overpowered Chewie, Han, Luke and so forth, and even planned on EATING THEM INCLUDING R2D2, yeah fuzzy MAN EATING teddy bears with incredible strength.

"Yes, multiple times. In TOS, TNG, and Voyager... both on Stun and Kill settings... if you want to see it, look it up yourself."

tell me which episodes and I will.

"And Blaster Bolts have no effect on trees, dirt, or packing crates. Phasers at least give an explanation - targeting software that, on a miss, doesn't dipsense the full power of the shot to help reduce collateral damage. What's your reason for blasters hm? Oh, and that Battle Droid Army would fall to something we can produce now... called an EMP."

EMP is a decent weapon I suppose, but EMP shielding does exist. Blaster Bolts have a considerable effect on trees, dirt and things far stronger than packing crates,

"Only one problem - Star Wars neutronium exists on a moon in a form Han Solo was able to PICK UP. Star Trek neutronium is SO INCREDIBLY DENSE it can only exist in a gravity well as potent as that of a NEUTRON STAR... so either HAN is fucking SuperMan, or Wars neutronium isn't Phaser proof. Take yer pick."

actually the answer is neither, since even packing crates are phaser proof, and the Neutronium han picked up is an interesting variant. even if the Neutronium in star wars and star trek is different, the fact that they can handle fire on their hull armour in the hundreds of Terratons for prolonged engagements while Federation ships can't handle hundreds of megatons even with their shields up to full (they also take critical damage and system failures, casualties and so forth despite having their shields up),

Uh, we're not assuming they would. That's the scenario - ALL of Star Trek (including Borg, Q, 8472, etc) vs ALL of Wars (rebels, empire, vong, etc)...

even if the scenario was the Imperials invading the Milky way, conquest is not necessarily military, nor is it fighting all the enemies at once, besides, even if they were, the Imperials would still win.

Too bad an ISD would fall to a single Type 12 shuttlecraft... as proven by the calculations of shield power vs phaser power.

so, you are saying that 3.6gw of energy can trump shields that can stop 70 trillion GW... unless you completely disregard official canon and have come up with your own laughably trek biased "calculations" because the official source material disagrees with you and clearly shows Wars tech to be more powerful.

"They didn't use them because their shields didn't protect against the weapons of the Dominion... so they kept them safe and used them as a trump card (example - Galaxy X class) once they managed to modulate the shields in a way to provide protection. Where as the Empire throws it out there even knowing it'd probably be lost."

really, despite them using their shields against the dominion in every battle, talking about shield percentages and so forth, and since they never brought out any "trump card" even after the Breen attacked earth or they met the massive Dominion blockade of Cardassia prime. The Galaxy X even if it was to be built in this timeline, there's no telling how long it would take to develop even one, Picard's future time was at least a decade AFTER the dominion war would be, do Worf, Beverly, Laforge, Riker or Picard look anywhere near as old as they did in "All good things" during the dominion war?

"Funny that you thought you had a point mate."

I do, but apparently your skull is too thick to realize the truth.

"Only one problem - those books are secondary cannon. The movies are primary cannon. If the movies dispute it, then the movies overrule it. The movies show Wars weapons as barely able to crater the ground... where as Starship phasers can, at minimum setting, burrow kilometers into the ground with absolute ZERO cosmetic and collateral damage..."

the movies show wars ships vapourizing nickel iron asteroids within split seconds, remember, the size of a blast has nothing to do with a weapon's yield, but the area of effect, we have never seen Turbolasers hitting ground targets in the movies anyhow.
also, i already stated the ICS and ITOSW get their figures FROM the movies, and are used as reference books by ILM themselves.

"And the proof of this is...?"

check with paramount yourself if you wish

and as for your final "point" I am a trekkie and a warsie, for the longest time I wasn't sure which side would win, but the evidence is clear from the ICS and on screen. if you try and dispute the ICS as admissible evidence, than you are a fool who is just trying to avoid the facts, constantly stating how Wars is more popular and thus that's the reason, ignoring even the possibility that the power of Star Wars is PART of why ti's more popular, it's less pretentious but then again so is a Nazi sipping a double moca late cappucino in a starbucks while writing avant guard poetry on a Macbook compared to Star Trek.

the reason most warsies, especially those with a scientific or engineering background hate star trek is because of how badly star trek butchers science and engineering, making their crew out to be complete and utter idiots with no common sense relying only on technobabel instead of using simpler, easier methods to solve problems. While Star Wars, Babylon 5 and practically every other sci-fi series is ironically more realistic in practicality whilst never claiming to be scientifically sound.

so basically, you keep saying "Star wars is more popular" but, in order to somehow help your self esteem, you say "oh well the fact that it's more popular just means more people who are complete idiots are interested in it" which is circular reasoning btw, since of course when you increase the number of people interested in a series there are going to be more idiots and bandwagon jumpers. but and i'm sure for the longest time another "comforting" 'belief' is that star trek is somehow superior in every way, especially technology wise, and when the facts are shown that prove otherwise, you refuse to change your beliefs in face of the facts, and then begin to come up with your own little "calculations" and pet theories, and disregard any of the evidence that proves otherwise as being somehow "inadmissible" mostly because you don't understand how it all works.

i'm not defending wars simply to be a "warsie" i'm defending it against ignorance, but then again, some people, such as yourself, are completely immune to logic, the vulcans must truly fear you.

 

*chuckles* You really are a scott clone aren't you my dear dumby... ah well, what a shame that you should suck the precious oxygen out of our atmosphere that our slowly depleting plantlife works so hard to replenish. You are not worthy of it.

 

I'm going to sow some seeds of truth into this pathetic "argument"

Proof of Phaser dominance:

1. Force-users could resist the stun setting.

There is no evidence in support of that contention. We do know, however, that people with high midichlorian counts don't have a natural resistance to being blaster-stunned . . . note Leia (twin of Luke) getting dropped by Stormtroopers in ANH. The best evidence in support of the resistance idea would be that Qui-Gon somehow managed to avoid suffering severe burns on his hand when cutting through a Trade Federation ship's door in TPM, though we do not learn how. However, that is not the same as being hit by a stun beam or any other weapon, and we know from AoTC that Force-users are not impervious to weapons fire that gets past the lightsabre.

1a. Energy absorption is a known Force skill. See Vader absorbing Han's blaster bolts in TESB.

Han's shots against Vader were not absorbed, as the reflected hits to the wall and the scorch-marks thereon demonstrate. Besides reason, we also have the report of the canon novelization:

In that instant, he cleared his blaster from its holster, aimed it directly at the figure in black, and began to pump laser bolts Vader's way.

But the man who may have been the fastest draw in the galaxy was not fast enough to surprise Vader. Before those bolts zipped halfway across the table, the Dark Lord had lifted a gauntlet-protected hand and effortlessly deflected them so they exploded against the wall in a harmless spray of flying white shards.
(TESB, ch. 11)

Thus, the only clear example of energy absorption we've seen in Star Wars is when Yoda absorbed Dooku's "Force lightning" in Attack of the Clones, and Palpatine's in Revenge of the Sith. However, suggesting that Force-users can absorb any energy because they can absorb Force energy is absurd.

2. There is no evidence of a wide-beam kill setting.

On the contrary:

1. "Frame of Mind"[TNG6] . . . Riker sets his phaser to maximum (setting 16), on a wide field, and comments that it should destroy half the building. (Yes, this was while Riker was mind-tripping, but Troi makes it clear that his mind was latching on to real-life elements to keep him sane during the neuro-somatic procedure. In short, there is no reason to assume that Riker's understanding of phasers was affected.)

2. "The Enemy Within"[TOS1] . . . Sulu's heating of the rocks to glowing with multiple short triple-beam bursts would, based on the heating effect, be more than sufficient to kill someone.

3. "Homefront"[DS9-4] . . . phasers on a widebeam setting could have their power setting altered. (This is seen with the small wall-mount units in tests with Odo, which were in the low threes. The final setting chosen was 3.5.)

3a. "The Vengeance Factor"[TNG3] . . . setting 7 is known to be able to produce temperatures in excess of 2,300 degrees. Even if we assume that, for some odd reason, Data suddenly decided to use Fahrenheit instead of Celsius, that would be sufficient to melt most rock.

4. "Cathexis"[VOY1] . . . Later in the episode, after the widebeam stun blast I show a picture of above, Tuvok (inhabited by some alien mind during the entire episode) threatens to fire on the bridge crew once again, this time saying: "this phaser is on wide-beam dispersal and set to kill". No one contradicted him, and the alien clearly knew everything Tuvok knew, from ship operations to the nerve pinch.

Thus, there is plenty of evidence in favor of wide-beam kill settings, both via direct statement and logical inference.

Disproving the usefulness of stormtrooper armor:

It has been suggested that stormtrooper armor is a profound advantage for the everpresent soldiers of the Empire, despite the apparent ease of their dispatch. Claims for the armor include the idea that it renders the wearer virtually impervious to projectile weapons, and according to StarDestroyer.Net's Mike Wong:

"it affords the wearer complete protection from a wide variety of threats, such as extreme temperature variations, the vacuum of space (albeit only briefly), radiogenic fallout, nerve gases, and biological agents." (italics mine)

Further, it's claimed that the helmets contain sensors and advanced communications, augmenting the trooper's perceptions and the capabilities of the squad as a whole. Let us consider these various claims.
I. Helmets and Information

The basic idea here is that the helmet contains a scanning suite (a la Geordi's visor, which carried broad spectrum EM information to his brain, in ST:TNG). This would allow the wearer a complete grasp of his surroundings well beyond what can be seen in the visual spectrum, presumably communicated by some advanced display screen, direct retinal projection, or what-have-you. One might also expect it to offer the Empire extremely good battle management techniques by allowing realtime communication of visual and audio tactical and intelligence data up and down the chain of command, or to comrades.

Unfortunately, there are far too many contrary pieces of evidence, even just from a quick perusal of ANH.
A. Communications

Orders and intel appear to be verbally-reported affairs:

- The trooper who found a piece of R2 or 3PO on Tatooine held up the item into the field of view of his commander. "Look sir, droids!"
- The lead trooper headed for Docking Bay 94 verbally instructed his men to load their weapons, and upon arrival verbal orders to stop the ship and to fire on Han were given. Han's attention seemed to be drawn by the comments, suggesting that these were indeed orders spoken right out loud and not via radio . . . though it is also possible he saw the movement of the white-armored troopers out of his peripheral vision.
- "TK-421, why aren't you at your post?" That not only shows verbal communication from above, but also demonstrates that there is no central monitoring of trooper activity (as if via transmission of helmet cameras, a la "Aliens" or "Predator II").
- "Give me regular reports, please," says one trooper to the two left behind in the area of the tractor beam power tap controls.
- We hear verbally-communicated reports of where the Death Star security forces think the escaping Rebels may be, and that they believe them to have split up.
- "Close the blast doors!" and "Open the blast doors!" Again, no monitoring of what any trooper might be seeing, such as a video feed of the Rebels who hopped through the closing doors.

In short, there doesn't seem to be any particularly impressive battle management technique afforded by the helmets or armor. Like a police officer with a walkie-talkie, all we get are line-of-sight visual communications, and audio via direct conversation or radio transmissions. We get a good description of how the latter operates in the ANH novelization's first chapter, regarding the trooper who found Leia:

"Within the armor his head turned slightly, directing his voice to the tiny condenser microphone. "Here she is," he called to those behind him. "Set for stun forc—"
He never finished the sentence, just as he would never receive the hoped-for commendation. Once his attention turned from the girl to his communicator her shivering vanished with startling speed. The energy pistol she had held out of sight behind her came up and around as she burst from her hiding place."

B. Sensory Effects

There's no evidence of scanning technology in the helmet:

- As the stormtroopers search Leia's ship, they don't notice her until she's standing in an exposed position right in front of them, and the leader looks right at her. And, as seen in the quote above, he doesn't detect her pistol until she brings it out from behind her.
- As Vader boards Leia's cruiser, a stormtrooper is seen appearing to check for signs of life on a fallen comrade, holding his head and seeming to check for a pulse.
- While searching for the droids, stormtroopers manually checked whether doors were locked, and did not detect the droids standing right behind such a door.
- Stormtroopers walked around the captured Falcon looking for anyone aboard, unable to detect Han and company beneath a floor panel, or any trace of them having been within the cockpit or corridors minutes beforehand. A separate scanning crew with a large pallet of bulky equipment was called in to scan the vessel.
- Of course, there's Luke's comment about being unable to see a thing in the helmet, though he was able to walk around and navigate. To be fair, it probably wasn't designed for non-clones, but it would seem to indicate a lack of any advanced sensor display techniques. He simply found it hard to see.
- Kenobi distracts the two troopers at the tractor beam power tap with a mind trick of a sound, but even after this is complete they don't notice him running past:


Note the angles, either of the right-hand trooper's head or of the direction he would be looking in order to face the left trooper. It's clear that Kenobi's movement should've been quite visible out of his peripheral vision, and even moreso since Kenobi's exit route is as well-lit as the portal behind the troopers . . . his dark cloak would've served only as a source of contrast. Nonetheless, neither Kenobi, nor his movement, nor his lifesigns were picked up by the troopers.
- Lest we forget one of the more famous stormtrooper moments:


(Bonk)

C. Counterevidence

On the other hand, we can attempt to locate some more hopeful data:

1. Vader's helmet in Episode III seems to have some sort of Terminator-esque augmented reality system. Two small screens over the interior of the eyepieces cover his eyes, apparently replacing what he sees with a red-hued grayscale representation. The novelization describes the display as "optical sensors [that] integrate light and shadow into a hideous simulacrum of the world".

The helmet is apparently capable of producing 3-D data given its dual displays, and there appears to be text overlay suggesting that further information about the environment is provided (though, to be fair, this could merely be an indicator of the life-support conditions within the suit). We might presume that the unit has some sort of night-vision augmentation.

Vader's control of the device was apparently limited. In RoTS we see the helmet representation turn on and for a moment it is transparent, but Vader seemingly can't make this happen at will given his apparent inability to see Luke "with my own eyes" in RoTJ. Also, there are three connection points on the inside of the screens that produce a halo around them, vaguely similar to what happens when you press your finger against an LCD monitor. Unless these are merely a 'start-up artifact' that will disappear shortly after the helmet is engaged, then apparently Vader always has floating glows just above and below the center of his field of vision.

In any case, there is no evidence for such a display system being in use on stormtrooper helmets. Indeed, the colorful decorations on clonetrooper armor from the end of the Clone Wars would seem to argue against any grayscale displays in that era, at least. Further, it seems unlikely that the red and blue Imperial Navy rank insignia would feature such coloration if in fact the stormtroopers couldn't see it, though I suppose there could be plausible reasons why they wouldn't need to. And finally, the idea that stormtroopers would be unable to discern different bolt colorings would seem to be not just odd, but actually dangerous.

2. During the firefight in cellblock AA-23, stormtrooper accuracy did not seem terribly affected by the intervening smoke as it appeared. Of course, since they were consistently missing, this proves nothing either way.

3. The only known advantage of the helmets comes in the transparent material used in the eye-coverings. Besides the expectation that these would be hard to break and would thus make for good 'safety glasses' to protect the eyes, we learn in Chapter 18 of the Episode III novelization that the material as seen in clonetrooper helmets is polarized to help minimize glare, much like many modern sunglasses (1,2). Presumably this carried over into later stormtrooper helmets.
D. Summary

In short, there is no evidence for augmented sensory capability on the part of stormtroopers that would be more effective than wearing polarized sunglasses, and both visual evidence and direct statements suggest that, if anything, stormtroopers will have lessened perceptual capabilities . . . especially when it comes to low-hanging objects. Even if they had a "hideous simulacrum" system similar to the one in Vader's helmet, then they are limited to a simple grayscale display that deletes color information and evidently does not tie in to any other system . . . i.e. no gun feedback to help with aim, no command and control based on seeing what the trooper sees, et cetera.

In a word: useless.
II. Armor Protection - Kinetic

In Return of the Jedi, we get to see prime examples of the utility of stormtrooper armor. We already knew it didn't allow the wearer to withstand the concussion and shrapnel of an exploding Death Star wall panel, but this film demonstrates many more weaknesses. Blunt impacts, such as those produced by hefty rocks, clubs, and collisions, all serve to neutralize stormtroopers, with the armor seeming to provide no protection.

Disturbingly, however, it seems that the metal armor can also be pierced by primitive arrows, in staggering contrast to the claim of complete protection against projectile weapons.

Ewok bow & arrow


Arrow sticking out of a trooper's back




Some claim that the arrow seen above must have hit higher than it appears, through the softer black bodysuit material below the helmet but above the 'backpack'. Others have gone so far as to try to draw in the arrow above the black semi-circle!

Others claim that the backpack itself, though made of rigid material, is not genuine stormtrooper armor. Or, in the alternate version, that the above fellow is merely a scout trooper, and therefore could not be expected to have on real trooper armor.

Both of those similar ideas are based on the assumption that stormtrooper armor would be superior. As you can see below, there is no reason for such an assumption:

Stormtroopers kicked from a log by Ewoks

Stormtroopers hitting the ground a few feet below


Observe the cracked shoulder armor

Note that the Ewoks did not strike the shoulder armor. Note that neither troop fell directly onto that shoulder. What cracked it? Rolling? The Ewok sticks?

Whatever it was, it should be apparent that stormtrooper armor provides very little protection against kinetic impact.
III. Armor Protection - Other

"Other" covers everything else. There are, of course, numerous examples of blaster shots penetrating the armor. Here, we'll examine the notion of "complete protection" against temperature, vacuum, and threats from nuclear, biological, or chemical (N/B/C) agents. Despite the wide array of claimed protections, the presentation of the counterevidence requires few words:


The above shots are of Luke wearing stormtrooper armor, and then preparing to remove his helmet. In both, you can clearly see his neck and jaw. Direct exposure of the skin and exposure to unfiltered air hardly constitutes "complete protection" against temperature or N/B/C threats, and there's certainly nothing to stop a vacuum's effects.

Some might suggest that Luke either didn't know how to use the stormtrooper suit (neglecting to activate some autoseal) or didn't put all of the suit on (leaving off, in this case, some sort of sealing headgear) However, if either of those were the case, then why is it that professional stormtroopers show the same exposed skin as faux stormtroopers?

One clear example of this is from The Empire Strikes Back, as originally reported by several StarWars.com forum posters. In TESB, two stormtroopers return Han from his torture session. When dropping his agonized body on the floor, however, there is what one might call a "wardrobe malfunction".

Han's arms catch the bottom rear of the helmets as he falls. The left trooper turns his head and then body to follow through with the motion, almost losing his balance in the process. However, the trooper on the right is not quite so lucky with his helmet, which twists out of place and almost comes off. Hence the amusing "curious puppy" look he wears in that last image.

As the right-hand side trooper turns away, his neck, jaw, ear, and quite a bit of his cheek become visible. The shots below show closer, contrast-enhanced views of the turn-away sequence from the Cinemax HD version, with the skin most readily visible on the early shots before the trooper walks into shadow and we lose our armor-reflected light:



Another incident occurs in RoTJ. A stormtrooper, part of what the Emperor describes as a "legion of my best troops", gets hit by an Ewok bola weapon. As he falls backward we get an excellent view up the helmet:

Clearly, then, even the best stormtroopers go into battle without N/B/C protection. Further, we get confirmation that scout troopers are similarly-protected. The scout below is yelling to his comrade . . . note the scout's chin, more easily visible since, unlike stormtrooper helmets, there's less chin coverage:

As a result of all of this, it is clear that, whether you're Luke Skywalker or TK-421, you're exposed to the open air.

Federation ground combat is well covered here... please read it before you spout more nonsense...
Trek Ground Combat


Proof that Trek has better acceleration... this is just a small snippet of this excerpt Here

The fastest ship in Star Wars has, at sublight speeds, a maximum upper limit value for straight-line acceleration of about 210 m/s², or about 21.5g. She can reverse her engines for a rearward acceleration of about 90 m/s², or about 9.2g.

Pretty impressive for a ship described in chapter ten of the TESB novelisation as having ion engines.

However, compared to Star Trek vessels, this is quite poor acceleration indeed. Compare this to, for instance, the refit Enterprise in ST:TMP, which went from Earth to Jupiter in 1.8 hours. The distance from Earth to Jupiter is quite variable over their respective orbits, but I decided to try narrowing it down a bit. According to the excellent space simulation program Celestia, the example date of July 4, 2271 gives us a distance of 4.773 AU from Earth to Jupiter, or over 714,000,000 kilometers (about .66 light-hours). That's an average speed of 110,191,481.5m/s. Assuming a constant acceleration over those 1.8 hours (and thus the lowest possible acceleration value), the ship would have had to reach a final speed of 220,382,963 m/s (0.73512c), assuming a start from zero. That would be, then, a constant acceleration of just over 34,000 m/s², or over 3,460g. That is 161 times the Falcon's demonstrated plasma-flinging "afterburn" acceleration.

Proof that Trek shields withstand impacts better than wars shields can be seen (with definitive screenshots) here

 

Now, read thru the entire site I keep linking to. He does a pretty good job despite what Wong and his cohorts say. PLEASE tell me you are smart enough to know Wong is full of shit. Even other Star Wars supporters know it and say it!

 

2. "The Jem'Hadar"[DS9-2]: The destruction of the Odyssey by Jem'Hadar kamikaze is unaccompanied by any shield effect. Earlier in the battle, though, we saw Captain Keogh divert shield power when they proved useless in this first encounter with Dominion polaron beams, rendering the unfortunate lack of shields unsurprising. The shields were not up. As Sisko puts it, the Jem'Hadar were just trying to show the Federation how far they were willing to go.

This proves the Federation did not use Shields in at least some PORTION of the Dom Wars

 

Finally... look thru here:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWbta.html

Those are good caps of the Asteroid scene.

 

Finally... Trek weapons and power generation...

Deep Space Nine uses the old Cardassian reactors to produce power. Were all six reactors functional, the station could produce 790 terawatts of power . . . however, considering the disrepair of the power generation components, only four reactors are fully functional with one as backup (see DS9TM, section 5.0) . . . this implies that the station normally produces some 525 terawatts of power.

The fusion reactors use focused pulse-wave laser detonators, 29 per reactor, to induce fusion in the deuterium pellets. The detonators converge 26.1 GJ of energy on a pellet, at a normal frequency of 12 times per second, though the rate can go as high as 83 times per second.

To find the power of these lasers, we should first divide 26.1 GJ by the 29 laser detonators. Doing so, we find that each detonator is capable of producing .9 GJ, or some 900 MJ.

To find the power of these lasers, we must attempt to determine how often they can produce .9 GJ on target. Of course, we have this . . . normal is 12, peak is 83.

Thus the effective sustainable "firepower" of these engineering lasers is as follows:

Normal: .9 GJ/.083333s = 10.8 GW

Peak: .9 GJ/.012048s = 74.7 GW

This is just one of 29 per reactor . . . one of 116 normally operating on the station. Using even my highest estimates of turbolaser sustained firepower, the simple *engineering* lasers of a rickety old Cardassian station are far superior to the sustained firepower of a Star Destroyer's turbolasers, and even the entire Star Destroyer.

And yet, UVD would have us believe that the tactical phasers aboard a starship, or even aboard DS9, are less powerful than a turbolaser. If phasers were so powerless against targets, why would they be used? Why not rip out some focused pulse-wave laser detonators from the station's reactors and put them on DS9's defense sails? The answer must be that phasers are capable of delivering far more bang for the buck than these little engineering lasers, be it against shield or hull. Otherwise, simple engineering lasers would be the tactical weapon of choice, instead of phasers.

 

if you want to allow tech manuals into this, fine.

How about we play a little game?

Let us assume that the asteroids from the TESB asteroid-popping scene were 10.75 meters in diameter. Let us assume that they had a density of 6000 kg/m^3 (less than iron, but far more than most asteroids we've studied, and also far more dense than most rock types).

This gives us an asteroid volume of 650m^3, roughly. At the density described, the weight of such an object would mass 3.9 million kilograms . . . pretty impressive.

It would take something like 4.2 GJ to destroy this asteroid in a manner consistent with the asteroid-popping scene (see my Asteroid commentary for more data here).

It just so happens that, according to the Star Trek:TNG Technical Manual, a simple hand phaser, on maximum setting, is capable of a similar feat . . . up to 650 m^3 of rock/ore of 6000 kg/m^3 is "explosively uncoupled" per .28 second discharge. (Even the timing is the same . . . observation of the impact time of a turbolaser bolt shows the ISD turbolaser bolts to take .225 - .3 seconds to make a complete impact.)

Thus, we find that a Type II hand phaser is capable, in a single shot, of causing 4.2 GJ of damage to a target of such specifications. This, for a device limited to .01 MW (10 kW) directed energy. (as per TM p.123 . . . though, in pure 'joulage', 4.2 GJ is only a tiny fraction of the 45000 GJ phaser battery capacity.)

 

Okay, so in your universe it takes only a little thousand joules to vaporize a kilogram of material? You do realize you are alloting just a touch more than one joule per gram of material. Or roughly one quarter of a calorie per gram. Your number would heat the average Iron-Nickle asteroid of that weight less than .6 degrees. Which means you must think that a .6 degree temperature change would cause asteroid vaporization. You probably see your mistake now, I would bet.


In Survivors the Enterprise was seriously threatned by a 400 gigawat weapon fired in half second bursts. Now yes it was created by an energy and matter manipulating being, but the Captain and Crew EXPECTED a 400 gigawat weapon to be an extreme hazard. In fact it was considered far SUPERIOR to what they could retaliate with. So there goes your 45,000 GJ Phaser Capacitor.

 

Actually it is not an alternate account. I do not need to resort to such games. Azron is simply a well educated poster.

And that ninite was only effective against one particular species. However it did not cover a whole system but rather a small area several dozen kilometers across.

However a photon torpedo has shown minimal abilities to do it's job. It is not even maneuverable in space making wide arcing curves that waste fuel and time. Meanwhile Proton torpedoes show the ability to make a 90 degree turn at full speed. When Protons were fired on the exhaust port and missed, the blast was visible and tangible several kilometers away as the firing X-wing almost ran inot the edge of the fireball. If that pilot had fired them at the same distance Luke had later we are talking an impact on the port 20km away from the x-wings position.

 

thank you Mr Scott,

I see Kittamaru is a Darkstar fan, aka Robert Scott Anderson, aka scooter, Aka "The Last Bastion of Trek"

I prefer Stardestroyer.net and mrpoesmorgue.com Michael Wong is an actual Engineer, Darkstar who runs the laughably incompetent st-v-sw.net has no scientific background whatsoever and his "calculations" show it.

for a more accurate albeit a bit more in-your-face type of debunking of your little friend Darkstar's theory check out The "Asteroids and Aholes" portion under "Weapons of Mass Destruction" it is particularly enlightening considering your little linky-poo, if somewhat merciless.

you need to learn, like Darkstar, that the size of a blast is completely irrelevant to it's yield when energy and particle beam weapons are concerned, and just because we don't See anything that's obviously a gargantuan blast does not mean that it does not carry the force of one, remember the Yamatto cannon from starcraft? A turbolaser is like that, the force of 200 gigatons in a very small area, the movies do not contradict the ICS, no matter how much you might like to think so, so Kittamaru has only Darkstar's "work" to back up on, we have Michael Wong, Wayne Poe, and even Curtis Saxton on our side Mr Scott, an Engineer (Wong) an Astrophysicist (Saxton) and a guy with a brain and one helluva sense of humour (Poe, Last Bastion is hilarious and true),

then there are all the times when Kittamaru's mentor Darkstar got shot down by a Lucasfilm or Paramount exec when trying to get them to say something that would support his side, but they wind up always against him (in terms of what the facts say, regardless of weither or not they consider him a total madman like everyone at somethingawful.com though there are a number of Paramount and Lucas people who are aware of his antics.),

he even went so far as to debate with the WRITER OF AN EU BOOK ABOUT THE BOOK ITSELF as if he somehow had a better insight than the guy who wrote the thing, and his beleif that his personal definition of the Canon rules of Evidence somehow overrides that of Lucasfilm or Paramount.

 

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...

 

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!

 

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.

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.

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.

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!

 

Also, since when did the size of the blast mean anything? I'm talking about the size of the area of material destroyed... in three shots the Ent-D vaporized more M^3 of material than the entire asteroid vaporization scene in Star Wars... an that's comparing random jumbles of metal, rock, and ice to battle-designed, high-density armor plating! Tell me, what SHOULD be denser... especially given the density of a little Borg Scout!

 

YES. CONGRATULATIONS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN AND PEOPLE IN BETWEEN YOU HAVE MADE THIS POINTLESS AND UTTERLY EXAGGERATED DEBATE TO SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY PAGES.

Give yourselves a pat on the back, you've earned it.

 

that's what is so anoying about Nemesis actually. doing max warp with full shields, full weapons and cloacked???? it spits in the face of everything we use to know about ST. and that ship was not especially durable eighter as shown in the ramming scene. how did it menage to cope with all the stress factors? and why did they no track its firing patterns and exhaust trails? there is a small million of ways even today's tech can cope with the tactics Shinzon used. he basicly did not stop shoting, which makes him very vulnarable to the "invisible man in the snow" tactics. meh, that movie suckes!