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Yeah, I didn't declare that it would be impossible to make some kind of breaking mechanism and install it into a torpedo. It'd just be harder than installing a different tracking system. Besides, in ST:6 they only needed one torpedo to kill the BoP. You'd need way more than one photon torp to do destroy an Imperial ship, so you can't really just modify one torpedo and have a kill shot. Like BeRzErKeR said, you'd need to redesign the torpedo, mass produce them, and then distribute them. Not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination.

ChrisWWII wrote:Yeah, I didn't declare that it would be impossible to make some kind of breaking mechanism and install it into a torpedo. It'd just be harder than installing a different tracking system. Besides, in ST:6 they only needed one torpedo to kill the BoP. You'd need way more than one photon torp to do destroy an Imperial ship, so you can't really just modify one torpedo and have a kill shot. Like BeRzErKeR said, you'd need to redesign the torpedo, mass produce them, and then distribute them. Not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination.

An Intrepid-class ship doesn't carry the material to fabricate casings for these torpedoes, and needs planetary raw materials to make new ones.
While it is noted that smaller starship classes (like Voyager ) need planetary resources to make new torpedoes, it is posible that the larger classes (galaxy-class / sovereign-class) carry
some of these materials, giving an armada the ability to make at least a limited number (as soon as they get the specifications from the crew that designed them), until
more can be produced at a planetary facility.

In addition, firing the torpedo at warp (but slow relative speed) would most likely only require a reprogramming of the targeting/launching, and not a redesign.
Although this may be hard to target.

Wait Doesn't the Imperium have a massive super weapon that they never use unless if they need it? Like the Exteriminus, not the Exterminatas But a different more powerful weapon that was banned. Not the life eater virus but something that could destroy entire systems. Ah what was it ah yes sending the Ship into self destruct which is basically a miniaturize dark hole except more deadly and nothing can escape it (reference Battle for Macarrage, Imperial Captail Ship self destructed destorying the entire tyranid fleet.). Then another weapon, which i can't remember.
I'm sorry but the Federation could not take on a Emperor Class Ship. These things can devastate Armada's Without even trying. The Imperium has faced races of humans that were pretty technologically sound. They were more advanced but they don't have one thing Astrates and Psychic Powers. The Imperium would win land combat hands down. But the Imperium has more ships, More firepower, Better shielding, and more Devasting counter manvoures. (horrible Spelling yes I know).

But the Federation could have a chance if they could somehow teleport into the engine room and place a charge in the core room. Which is next to impossible and only race that can are the Eldar.

Asherian Command wrote:
But the Federation could have a chance if they could somehow teleport into the engine room and place a charge in the core room. Which is next to impossible and only race that can are the Eldar.

The federation can teleport photon torpedoes and rig them to explode when the transport completes. So if they can transport past the imperial shields, the imperial ships have a problem.

How can they bypass the Machine Spirit?

Accersitus wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:
But the Federation could have a chance if they could somehow teleport into the engine room and place a charge in the core room. Which is next to impossible and only race that can are the Eldar.

The federation can teleport photon torpedoes and rig them to explode when the transport completes. So if they can transport past the imperial shields, the imperial ships have a problem.

The problem with that is that there has been demonstrated instances when Federation transporters are blocked by things as simple as high density metals, odd minerals and the like. Adamantium is no doubt incredibly dense, and the ability of the Federation to penetrate the armor with its transporters is doubtful. Not to mention, in order to transport, the ships would need to drop their shields, and as we have seen countless times in the series....once the shields are dropped Federation ships are incredibly vulnerable to physical attacks. One good hit on the nacelles and boom goes the ship.

Yep I have to say that the Federation may have all this great Tech. But Against the Imperial Warmachine, nothing can beat the Imperium. Except itself!

Accersitus wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:
But the Federation could have a chance if they could somehow teleport into the engine room and place a charge in the core room. Which is next to impossible and only race that can are the Eldar.

The federation can teleport photon torpedoes and rig them to explode when the transport completes. So if they can transport past the imperial shields, the imperial ships have a problem.

Shields block transporters.

Yeah for the Federation.

Does the individual pseudo-science really matter? Even if the Federation could destroy 10,000 ships for every one they lost, they would still run out of doodz before the Imperium.

General: Federation shields block transporters (and only then if you dont know the frequency of the shields), you cannot assume the same about Void Shields.

ChrisWWII wrote:Right now I honestly don't have time to fully reply to your post, Nosferatu, but once I get home I will type up a full reply. However, if you look a couple posts above you, you'll see that I did respond to frazzled's argument.

#

Yes, your argument starts "this never happens", when shown it happens you then change your argument to "well, then X never happens"

At what point are you going to concede that your assumptions arent true?

ChrisWWII wrote:Alright, I read the link to Memory Alpha, and it specifically says there is no conversion from isoton to real world metrics. We don't know what an isoton IS. Is it 1000 tons? A million? What? I don't know, and I doubt you do either. If you do have a proper metric conversion from isotons to real world tons, please enlighten me. Right now, the only conversion we have is that a photon torp has a yield of 25 isotons, and the description of a photon warhead results in 64 megatons. However, other uses of isotons contradict this, so we have no idea what an isoton really is.

Yet you consistently mention the strength of adamantium as a reasno why the IoM ships would be ok - despite having *no* figures whatsoever. Tritanium has a known figure for hardness.

In addition 690gigatons seems to be the explosion size, not 64 megatons.

ChrisWWII wrote:I never said that warp travel puts you in another dimension,

Except you seem to think that objects in warp cannot interact with other objects- when that is false.

ChrisWWII wrote:I merely acknowledged that in the series it seems that ships do not interact with objects outside their warp bubble.

Steering. You also have the advantage that anything small enough to not disrupt the warp bubble is then "slowed" to your relative frame.

The theory of warp travel does not make you "phased" or any other such nonsense: you interact as normal. You would not pass through the ship. That argument is false.

ChrisWWII wrote:Any interactions we've observed occurring involve objects leaving the warp bubble, and entering real space. I was not trying to make a strawman, I was just basing off my previous argument, and I will concede that Federation torpedoes have the capability to drop out of warp speeds. However, I will not concede that the use of this tactic is a viable strategy. If it was, then we would see Federation ships flying about in warp, dropping torpedoes to hit enemy ships or installations and crippling them. This is definitely a course of action the Federation would pursue IF it could pursue it.

They use phasers to take down shileds, and torps to damage ships. That is the reason - fed shields are incredibly resistant to matter/antimatter reactions (as there is no matter to increase the damage) but not directed energy.

Again, you assume one situation makes another one comparable - when IoM vs ST is incredibly different.

It IS a viable strategy as I have demonstrated a logical, consistent series of reasons why - unless you can come up with a reason why it wouldnt work (other thaqn your ever changing demands on "proof", which changes every time proof is offfered) it remains a viable strategy.

In essence your argument is now: I dont think it should work, despite having no evidence for my position.

ChrisWWII wrote:I know, 'I believe' is not proof. I was explaining to frazzled that the fact that an Imperial torpedo passes through void shields does not equal a Federation photon torpedo passing through void shields as there are major canonical differences between the two weapons. I was also pointing out that Imperial weapons batteries include missile launchers, and those missiles are intercepted by void shields. The nature of a photon torpedo seems to tie more closely to those weapons than to an Imperial torpedo, and as such there exists a major possibility that a photo torp will be intercepted by Imperial shields.

There have been many reasons why this can be altered or stopped. In addition - so what if the first volley gets stopped? They will analyse the reason why (remember, they have sensors which can determine what happens in the centre of stars. Spotting what happens to an object a few hundred k km away isnt anywhere near as difficult) and adapt.

Its what the federation does.

And it does this while being entirely safe from counter attack.

ChrisWWII wrote:I admit we have seen ships both traveling at warp firing at each other using weapons like photon torpedoes.

So your absolute "it never happens" is incorrect? Who'd have thought!

ChrisWWII wrote: However, we have not seen large scale battles being fought at warp.

See above - your firing rate is limited, you cannot use phasers to strip shields, it is difficult to engage at warp vs warp, etc.

HOWEVR that is an *entirely* different situation to Warp vs Sublight. Entirely.

The two instances you have cited show that warp to sublight battle is not only possible but effective, and add to that the D7 strafing run attack - blows your argument against apart.

ChrisWWII wrote:There is a major difference between a Klingon BoP strafing the Enterprise at warp speeds and entire fleets engaging each other at warp. All major space battles we've observed in Star Trek have occured at sublight speeds. I dont believe I ever called it impossible to conduct battles at warp. I just believe the fact that the Federation chooses to drop to sublight to engage in pitched battle suggests that there is some kind of issue in conducting FTL only battles.

FtL vs FTL: agreed.

However, at what point, fighting IoM, would the battle be FTL?

You have yet to address this crucial point - your line of argument is irrelevant as it does not deal with the situation at hand

ChrisWWII wrote:If you recall, I pointed out that in TNG:The Battle, the Enterprise (which has FTL sensors) did not use them to counter the PM by locking onto the Stargazer to track its movement. Instead, they had to reconfigure their sensors to track the compression of deep space gasses in order to track the Stargazer. This implies some major problems in using FTL sensors in battle, and thus ST FTL sensors are not necessarily combat effective.

Irrelevan,t for the 9th time. Please state why a comparison of FTL vs FTL is important? Espeecially when the *defending ship* [i.e., the position the IoM ship would be in] has better sensors than the IoM have and still couldnt "win"?

Actually address it this time without making the bald statement about combat effectiveness - as your definition of combat effectiveness relates to an entirely different problem than the one being discussed.

A ship WITH FTL sensors managed to successfully use warp speed to attack a ship not moving at warp speed

1) The ST ship has FTL sensors and warp
2) The IoM ship does not have FTL sensors or warp drive.

1) is the stargazer, 2) is the Ferengi ship. The Ferengi ship DOES have warp, so its not entirely comparable - however the advantage the PM gives you isnt affected by this.

Answer this directly: 1) defeats 2) every time, due to PM and light speed limitations. Explain how this is not the case - note, at NO POINT can you discuss FTL vs FTL, as it is not relevant to this discussion.

The ONLY relevant line of argument you are allowed to go down is FTL vs c-speed sensors.

ChrisWWII wrote:Yes, I concede that IoM ships are not as manuverable as Fed ships. But why do you assume a Federation fleet can fly around at warp speeds firing torpedoes without question when we have never seen the Federation utilize this tactic?

As above, shields. And it HAS been used, so it CAN be used. Prior to the Dominiion attacks they didnt use minefields - so does that mean minefields arent possible ever? No, it means they adapted their tactics to the situaiton, and came up with some new technology to exploit a weakness.

ChrisWWII wrote:I agree with you. Picard and other Federation officers are not idiots, and are rather good tacticians. Why would they ignore a tactic that would allow them to reduce casualties? The obvious answer is that they don't use the tactic because it's simply not available to them. Federation ships have to drop out of warp, perhaps PM to point blank range, and do all the damage they can before they are overun by superior Imperial numbers and firepower.

See above. You are seeing the engagement, and not the battle. You are normally on a time limit measure in mninutes or hours, hence you have to attack as fast and as hard as possible. Not a time limit in days.

You also ignore precedent and canon by saying the tactic is not available - it IS available, but (and this is using occams razor correctly) it is not the BEST tactic at that time.

You assume nullity (not available) I assume not-best (available but suboptimal) - mine is simpler.

Your last sentence is false.

ChrisWWII wrote:Yes, I know they regularly miss small targets, and I'm pretty sure the miss rate will drop dramatically when faced with an Imperial battleship. However, your argument was that the Federation could precisely hit the engine block of an Imperial vessel which is a much smaller target. Aditionally, please remember that Khan caught Kirk ridiculously off guard. The Imperials would not be caught half as off guard as Kirk was.

The engine sections of IoM ships are often referred to as being 1/5th or more of the ship length. 1KM. Torpedoes can be fired to hit targets on ships that are smaller than half the engine size in toto, and then aimed to hit parts of the ship even smaller than that.

And whther he caught Kirk "of guard" is irrelevant - you were asking for proof of how accurate the torpedoes could be. I give you definitive proof of it, and you then dismiss it as "well kirk was of guard"

Irrelevant.

Please now find some facts to backl up your opinion that they could not hit a 1km section of a ship. To do this you would have to show that torpedoes miss every trek ship, every time, as every trek ship (not including delta quadrant stuff, for now) is less than 1KM long.

ChrisWWII wrote:I get the scifi concept of warp drive. The warp drive enables a vessel to violate the c speed limit by compressing space in front of the vessel and expanding it behind, essentially moving the universe around the ship instead of the ship itself. I have also conceded your point about the ability of Federation ships to fire out of their warp bubble, but I still hold fast that there must be something that makes doing so ineffective, as we have never seen the Federation preform such a manuver even when it would grant them a great advantage.

So your argument boils dow n to: I dont like it so it cant work?

That is all i am getting out of this. You have been shown capability, tactical advantage, and motive. Your response is "but it cant work!!"

ChrisWWII wrote:Nosferatu, please show me an example of fleet level FTL combat in Star Trek. I admit there has been ship on ship FTL combat, but never fleet level FTL combat. Until you can explain why that happens, and why the Federation would be able to use Fleet level FTL combat against the Imperium, we have to assume that a Federation fleet has no choice but to drop to sublight speeds to engage in a fleet battle.

No you cannot assume that. You are trying to compare apples to a small country cottage.

FTL vs FTL is not the situation here - the siutuation here is FTL vs non-FTL, against a target you cannot hurt with phasers (assuming the energy levels of IoM ships are correct, and that pahsers dont simply ignore void shields, which is possible) but CAN hurt with pho-/quan-torps. A target that is so massive and so lumbering that it cannot effectively change its relative position faster than you can zip round it. Using a manouver that is KNOWN TO WORK.

Got it now?

The argument is not FTL vs FTL: your attempts to drag it that direction are not going to work.

Wow, you people are really getting caught up with this. I browsed the last 5 pages or so, and it's the same thing over and over. "FTL FTW!" "Nuh uh!" "Yeah huh!" "Nuh uh!" "Yeah huh!" "My dad could beat up your dad!" "My mom could beat up yours!"


Anyway, for what it's worth, I just saw an '87 episode that mentioned this Picard Maneuver, and such a short jump didn't render the Stargazer invisible, but rather made it appear to be in two places at the same time. Now with crappy Star Trek ships that can only target one thing at a time this was an issue, as the enemy Ferengi (sp?) ship fired on the wrong one, but again, IoM has thousands and thousands of ships for every one of the Federation's. They could literally flood the entire sector with hot death.

If for the purpose of this exercise we're assuming every Federation captain involved has a Kirk/Picard/Enterprise-level captains and crews, then the IoM is throwing all of its resources into the fight, and pitting their Fleet Creed-equivalents and other "tactical geniuses" against the Federation.

There is no doubt that the Federation is smarter, and at least has better sensor technology, but IoM has bigger guns, bigger shields and an incalculable number advantage. It'd be like the fight between Riddick and the Lord Marshal. The Lord Marshal flitting around and getting in good hits on Riddick, until finally he gets caught between a rock and a hard place, and goes squish.

ChrisWWII wrote:

Alright, I didn't see that point, but even then.....why don't we see this in large scale fleet battles? It seems to me if one fleet can strafe another with impunity the casualty conscience UFP would do this instead of fighting costly battles like they've been forced to. There must be some kind of limitation that makes the employment of warp strafing ineffective in large scale fleet battles, otherwise we would see it done much more often.

Because its TV. Its all about the cool visuals.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ChrisWWII wrote:Accersitus: It's not as easy as it sounds. To slow down in space the photon torp would need some kind of retro firing thruster, and would have to begin this long enough before impact to pass through the shields. Sure, the Federation could do it eventually, but the problem I see is that in ST6, the only modification made was changing what the photon torp homed in on. CHanging the entire flight characteristics of the weapon is an entirely different matter.

Actually his theory is a pretty good one, and kind of floats with Dune and Star Wars shields. fast moving ordance gets blocked, slower moving flows through. I'd proffer thats a fair point on the UFP torpedoes. They'd have to take down the void shields.

Then again if the orks and Tau can take down void shields, thats not exactly difficult


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Necroman wrote:

Accersitus wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:
But the Federation could have a chance if they could somehow teleport into the engine room and place a charge in the core room. Which is next to impossible and only race that can are the Eldar.

The federation can teleport photon torpedoes and rig them to explode when the transport completes. So if they can transport past the imperial shields, the imperial ships have a problem.

Shields block transporters.

Yes ST shields block transporters. I'd proffer the same for void shields. (and vice versa you can't teleport onto a shielded ship in BFG IIRC).

nosferatu1001 wrote:General: Federation shields block transporters (and only then if you dont know the frequency of the shields), you cannot assume the same about Void Shields.

ChrisWWII wrote:Right now I honestly don't have time to fully reply to your post, Nosferatu, but once I get home I will type up a full reply. However, if you look a couple posts above you, you'll see that I did respond to frazzled's argument.

#

Yes, your argument starts "this never happens", when shown it happens you then change your argument to "well, then X never happens"

At what point are you going to concede that your assumptions arent true?

ChrisWWII wrote:Alright, I read the link to Memory Alpha, and it specifically says there is no conversion from isoton to real world metrics. We don't know what an isoton IS. Is it 1000 tons? A million? What? I don't know, and I doubt you do either. If you do have a proper metric conversion from isotons to real world tons, please enlighten me. Right now, the only conversion we have is that a photon torp has a yield of 25 isotons, and the description of a photon warhead results in 64 megatons. However, other uses of isotons contradict this, so we have no idea what an isoton really is.

Yet you consistently mention the strength of adamantium as a reasno why the IoM ships would be ok - despite having *no* figures whatsoever. Tritanium has a known figure for hardness.

In addition 690gigatons seems to be the explosion size, not 64 megatons.

ChrisWWII wrote:I never said that warp travel puts you in another dimension,

Except you seem to think that objects in warp cannot interact with other objects- when that is false.

ChrisWWII wrote:I merely acknowledged that in the series it seems that ships do not interact with objects outside their warp bubble.

Steering. You also have the advantage that anything small enough to not disrupt the warp bubble is then "slowed" to your relative frame.

The theory of warp travel does not make you "phased" or any other such nonsense: you interact as normal. You would not pass through the ship. That argument is false.

ChrisWWII wrote:Any interactions we've observed occurring involve objects leaving the warp bubble, and entering real space. I was not trying to make a strawman, I was just basing off my previous argument, and I will concede that Federation torpedoes have the capability to drop out of warp speeds. However, I will not concede that the use of this tactic is a viable strategy. If it was, then we would see Federation ships flying about in warp, dropping torpedoes to hit enemy ships or installations and crippling them. This is definitely a course of action the Federation would pursue IF it could pursue it.

They use phasers to take down shileds, and torps to damage ships. That is the reason - fed shields are incredibly resistant to matter/antimatter reactions (as there is no matter to increase the damage) but not directed energy.

Again, you assume one situation makes another one comparable - when IoM vs ST is incredibly different.

It IS a viable strategy as I have demonstrated a logical, consistent series of reasons why - unless you can come up with a reason why it wouldnt work (other thaqn your ever changing demands on "proof", which changes every time proof is offfered) it remains a viable strategy.

In essence your argument is now: I dont think it should work, despite having no evidence for my position.

ChrisWWII wrote:I know, 'I believe' is not proof. I was explaining to frazzled that the fact that an Imperial torpedo passes through void shields does not equal a Federation photon torpedo passing through void shields as there are major canonical differences between the two weapons. I was also pointing out that Imperial weapons batteries include missile launchers, and those missiles are intercepted by void shields. The nature of a photon torpedo seems to tie more closely to those weapons than to an Imperial torpedo, and as such there exists a major possibility that a photo torp will be intercepted by Imperial shields.

There have been many reasons why this can be altered or stopped. In addition - so what if the first volley gets stopped? They will analyse the reason why (remember, they have sensors which can determine what happens in the centre of stars. Spotting what happens to an object a few hundred k km away isnt anywhere near as difficult) and adapt.

Its what the federation does.

And it does this while being entirely safe from counter attack.

ChrisWWII wrote:I admit we have seen ships both traveling at warp firing at each other using weapons like photon torpedoes.

So your absolute "it never happens" is incorrect? Who'd have thought!

ChrisWWII wrote: However, we have not seen large scale battles being fought at warp.

See above - your firing rate is limited, you cannot use phasers to strip shields, it is difficult to engage at warp vs warp, etc.

HOWEVR that is an *entirely* different situation to Warp vs Sublight. Entirely.

The two instances you have cited show that warp to sublight battle is not only possible but effective, and add to that the D7 strafing run attack - blows your argument against apart.

ChrisWWII wrote:There is a major difference between a Klingon BoP strafing the Enterprise at warp speeds and entire fleets engaging each other at warp. All major space battles we've observed in Star Trek have occured at sublight speeds. I dont believe I ever called it impossible to conduct battles at warp. I just believe the fact that the Federation chooses to drop to sublight to engage in pitched battle suggests that there is some kind of issue in conducting FTL only battles.

FtL vs FTL: agreed.

However, at what point, fighting IoM, would the battle be FTL?

You have yet to address this crucial point - your line of argument is irrelevant as it does not deal with the situation at hand

ChrisWWII wrote:If you recall, I pointed out that in TNG:The Battle, the Enterprise (which has FTL sensors) did not use them to counter the PM by locking onto the Stargazer to track its movement. Instead, they had to reconfigure their sensors to track the compression of deep space gasses in order to track the Stargazer. This implies some major problems in using FTL sensors in battle, and thus ST FTL sensors are not necessarily combat effective.

Irrelevan,t for the 9th time. Please state why a comparison of FTL vs FTL is important? Espeecially when the *defending ship* [i.e., the position the IoM ship would be in] has better sensors than the IoM have and still couldnt "win"?

Actually address it this time without making the bald statement about combat effectiveness - as your definition of combat effectiveness relates to an entirely different problem than the one being discussed.

A ship WITH FTL sensors managed to successfully use warp speed to attack a ship not moving at warp speed

1) The ST ship has FTL sensors and warp
2) The IoM ship does not have FTL sensors or warp drive.

1) is the stargazer, 2) is the Ferengi ship. The Ferengi ship DOES have warp, so its not entirely comparable - however the advantage the PM gives you isnt affected by this.

Answer this directly: 1) defeats 2) every time, due to PM and light speed limitations. Explain how this is not the case - note, at NO POINT can you discuss FTL vs FTL, as it is not relevant to this discussion.

The ONLY relevant line of argument you are allowed to go down is FTL vs c-speed sensors.

ChrisWWII wrote:Yes, I concede that IoM ships are not as manuverable as Fed ships. But why do you assume a Federation fleet can fly around at warp speeds firing torpedoes without question when we have never seen the Federation utilize this tactic?

As above, shields. And it HAS been used, so it CAN be used. Prior to the Dominiion attacks they didnt use minefields - so does that mean minefields arent possible ever? No, it means they adapted their tactics to the situaiton, and came up with some new technology to exploit a weakness.

ChrisWWII wrote:I agree with you. Picard and other Federation officers are not idiots, and are rather good tacticians. Why would they ignore a tactic that would allow them to reduce casualties? The obvious answer is that they don't use the tactic because it's simply not available to them. Federation ships have to drop out of warp, perhaps PM to point blank range, and do all the damage they can before they are overun by superior Imperial numbers and firepower.

See above. You are seeing the engagement, and not the battle. You are normally on a time limit measure in mninutes or hours, hence you have to attack as fast and as hard as possible. Not a time limit in days.

You also ignore precedent and canon by saying the tactic is not available - it IS available, but (and this is using occams razor correctly) it is not the BEST tactic at that time.

You assume nullity (not available) I assume not-best (available but suboptimal) - mine is simpler.

Your last sentence is false.

ChrisWWII wrote:Yes, I know they regularly miss small targets, and I'm pretty sure the miss rate will drop dramatically when faced with an Imperial battleship. However, your argument was that the Federation could precisely hit the engine block of an Imperial vessel which is a much smaller target. Aditionally, please remember that Khan caught Kirk ridiculously off guard. The Imperials would not be caught half as off guard as Kirk was.

The engine sections of IoM ships are often referred to as being 1/5th or more of the ship length. 1KM. Torpedoes can be fired to hit targets on ships that are smaller than half the engine size in toto, and then aimed to hit parts of the ship even smaller than that.

And whther he caught Kirk "of guard" is irrelevant - you were asking for proof of how accurate the torpedoes could be. I give you definitive proof of it, and you then dismiss it as "well kirk was of guard"

Irrelevant.

Please now find some facts to backl up your opinion that they could not hit a 1km section of a ship. To do this you would have to show that torpedoes miss every trek ship, every time, as every trek ship (not including delta quadrant stuff, for now) is less than 1KM long.

ChrisWWII wrote:I get the scifi concept of warp drive. The warp drive enables a vessel to violate the c speed limit by compressing space in front of the vessel and expanding it behind, essentially moving the universe around the ship instead of the ship itself. I have also conceded your point about the ability of Federation ships to fire out of their warp bubble, but I still hold fast that there must be something that makes doing so ineffective, as we have never seen the Federation preform such a manuver even when it would grant them a great advantage.

So your argument boils dow n to: I dont like it so it cant work?

That is all i am getting out of this. You have been shown capability, tactical advantage, and motive. Your response is "but it cant work!!"

ChrisWWII wrote:Nosferatu, please show me an example of fleet level FTL combat in Star Trek. I admit there has been ship on ship FTL combat, but never fleet level FTL combat. Until you can explain why that happens, and why the Federation would be able to use Fleet level FTL combat against the Imperium, we have to assume that a Federation fleet has no choice but to drop to sublight speeds to engage in a fleet battle.

No you cannot assume that. You are trying to compare apples to a small country cottage.

FTL vs FTL is not the situation here - the siutuation here is FTL vs non-FTL, against a target you cannot hurt with phasers (assuming the energy levels of IoM ships are correct, and that pahsers dont simply ignore void shields, which is possible) but CAN hurt with pho-/quan-torps. A target that is so massive and so lumbering that it cannot effectively change its relative position faster than you can zip round it. Using a manouver that is KNOWN TO WORK.

Got it now?

The argument is not FTL vs FTL: your attempts to drag it that direction are not going to work.

You know, it was kinda fun before you got all snarky. Seriously, all ChrisWWII is trying to do is debate your points. As far as I have read, he has not done so in an aggressive manner, so I don't see what you're getting so worked up about.
My final point before I begin debating about the Star Wars thread is that who wins will be highly dependant on whose perspective we are viewing the war from. If it's being handled by the writers of Star Trek, OF COURSE the federation will win; they're the main characters, and besides, they'll just come up with some unreasonably complex solution to their problems and save the day. If it's being handled by GW, on the other hand, then the almighty powers of numbers and Grimdark overwhelm the innocent, naive Feds before they can say "What's a Daemon?"
As you can see, it's all down to perspective.
Sorry the post wasn't more technical, but to be honest I don't know all that much about Trek capabilities, so there was always a limit to what I could contest.

Chris keeps redefining "proof", however...which is the problem.

In a neutral context the ST universe always comes up with something to make them win - not so much the Imperium. In fact while the UFP shows progression (peace with klingons, etc) the IoM is entirely about regression - every planet it loses to chaos is a dead planet, for example.

And IoM has yet to overwhelm the Tau - the IoM just doesnt seem to be able to react quickly enough to new threats to simply crush them with numbers.

Gag me with a spoon...

Your'e kidding right? 12 Pages of this??

Kirk is on the Federations side. 'Nuff said

End of discussion. No more. lol /jk

Well, these conversations inevitably turn ugly, as some people are just waaay too invested in their fantasy world of choice.

But speaking of technology, why are we assuming the Federation is lightyears beyond the Imperium? In understanding/scientific technique, certainly, but if we consider the timelines, a lot of the technology used by the Imperium had literally tens of thousands of years of advancement. From the books, a lot of the Dark Age technology (like the Castigator, for example, who makes the Borg look like fluffy bunnies) is incredibly advanced.

And yes, in the last 10,000 years or so, the Imperium is not at that level of technical understanding, although I think the depth of their ignorance is vastly overstated. From Rogue Trader we can see that some incredibly advanced technology is pretty commonplace on the more advanced planets. And all the ritual and pomp may look silly, but it's simply ritualized maintenance that has kept these machines working for millennia (think Japanese tea ceremony, all you really need for tea is to throw some water in a pot and boil it, but they add like 400 steps to the process for the funsies of it).

Then there's the beauty of the STC, in that the most advanced technology can be operated and maintained by the most backward people. It's the same approach taken by the AK-47, or perhaps Apple (especially in the apparently mandated worship and reverence of Steve Jobs, er I mean Omnissiah ) , in that all these technologies, no matter how advanced, are essentially an appliance: you just turn it on, and it works. You don't need to know how an AK-47 is constructed and functions internally to learn in 10 minutes to assemble one and blow someone's face off.


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akira5665 wrote:Gag me with a spoon...

Your'e kidding right? 12 Pages of this??

Kirk is on the Federations side. 'Nuff said

End of discussion. No more. lol /jk

Fair enough. Creed outflanks a Titan into Kirk's pants. "Uh...oh!"

Omegus - the Federation has significant advances (a reliable FTL travel system being one of them) compared to the imperium and, more importantly they *know how stuff works*

The Mechanicus has a vast amount of techology it has no clue how works - and they dont WANT to know the "how" for a lot, as that can be seen as blasphemous.

The STCs are there to create copies of machines, as they dontknow how to build them any longer.

ChrisWWII wrote:2. I'm currently trying to find the analysis done on stardestroyer.net that supports that assumption, and once I find it I will happily link it to you. But assuming your analysis of one mine ever 1/4 of a km is correct, we see that they deployed only one layer of mines, so there would be no further mines to exploit damage to the armor done by the first pass. Not to mention, the Imperial ships wouldn't be backing through the minefield. They'd be charging through with their heavily armored prows, which are described as being hundreds of meters thick. Even a single mine detonation would not penetrate this armor.

We'll have to agree to disagree. You are basing your arguements on "because it wasn't done, it can't be done" and the "the way it was done can't be modified", where as I'm contending that there is no solid proof that there is something stopping them from reusing this inovation, nor is there any reason the technology can't be modified by combining it with other technology in canon other than the writers did not wish to pursue that path (as it makes for boring TV) or didn't see it. It's not like I'm using some BS Trek solution like rerouting the secondary EPS through the main deflector to initiate an inverse nadion pulse which would overload the IoM's void shields. The UFP is all about thinking outside the box and coming up with solutions that combine existing technology to solve their problems, as such, IMO adapting an existing technology for wider use doesn't seem that huge a stretch to me.

I think you are hanging too much on the superdurable hull argument. Since the resistive properties of Adamantium hull is not quantified, the "invincible armour" argument it can't be refutted or proven. To argue against it is a pointless endeavour.

keezus: I know you're not using USS Make Sh*t Up style arguments. But to both you and frazzled I'd like to say that I think were analyzing ST from different directions.I'm looking at it with a suspension of disbelief mindset, viewing the episodes as if they were historical records or something. in that case, there are no writers reducing capability for better tv. the Feds have what they have.

now, keezus. The reasons I'm naysaying ur argument is that there are lots of times when such a minefield would be useful., but the Feds don't use it in those situations. That implies some kind of off screen reason why they don't use the minefield. It'd be like you were an alien watching a tv show about ww2. Towards the end, the Germans start using all these super weapons, but! But just because we saw them launch those v2s and other tjings, doesn't mean they can do it on a much much larger scale. Logistical reasons among others prevent that, but you as a viewer wouldn't see that.ion if that metaphor explains my position, but Ill gladly make another one if you'd like.

Nosferatu: sorry, but I only had a short time this morning b4 I left for the day. I'll be responding Shortly

It's too bad the humans in star trek are such pussies when it comes to certain technologies.
If they had been more aggressive, we might have had the Star Trek augment vs Imperial Space marine
argument instead of trying to compare different energy weapons, teleportation, FTL drives, sensors, shields.....

The star trek augmented humans were developed in the late 20th century (superior humans, rather large
starships, and a world war in 1993 )

These Augments were five times stronger than the average person, their lung efficiency was fifty percent better than normal, their heart muscles were twice as strong, they possessed remarkable agility, and their intelligence was double that of a normal Human.

Would be interesting to see what they could have done with another 400 years of research on the subject.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Omegus - the Federation has significant advances (a reliable FTL travel system being one of them) compared to the imperium and, more importantly they *know how stuff works*

Again with the FTL stuff.

A few hundred years of advancement from present time < 20+ thousand years of advancement from present time. If we were talking about the height of the Golden/Dark Age of Technology, the Federation wouldn't last a nanosecond. While by comparison the current Imperium is but a pale shadow, a good bit of that technology still persists and a lot of it is still capable of being reproduced.

The Mechanicus has a vast amount of techology it has no clue how works - and they dont WANT to know the "how" for a lot, as that can be seen as blasphemous.

They are far more aware then you give them credit for, if you've ever read any Dan Abnett book or even the original Rogue Trader book. They venerate the machines, but you bet they take them apart and figure out what everything does as best they can. The higher ranks of the Adeptus, as they slowly become more machine than man, certainly have quite a bit of insight into how all their various implants and modifications and yes, INVENTIONS, work (although usually they are not so much inventions, as a modification of an existing idea that spends a few hundred years in a committee before being approved or have the innovator executed in some horrific manner).

The STCs are there to create copies of machines, as they dontknow how to build them any longer.

Obviously they know how to build them, because they are building (and repairing) stuff all the time and even occasionally introduce variations on the standard template. In any case, the STC renders their level of understanding of the inner workings of the technology utterly moot. That's the whole point of the STC. The stuff works, and they know enough to operate, replicate and service them. You don't need to know how to construct a vortex missile when all you have to do is point it at the enemy and press the button that says "make bad man go away".

And then there is this crucial element:

Accersitus wrote:the humans in star trek are such pussies

SO in other words in less than 200 years from now they have reliable FTL travel (something the imperium still hasnt got), matter replication technology (ditto), reliable AM reactors, interia supression, and FTL radio.

I have reaad almost every dan abnett book, and probably own about half his output. I love the guy. However ify ou DO read them you will gain the opposite impression - they do not understand the technology, they venerate it.

and you do not need to understand how something works in order to repair it with a modular replacement. thats kind of the point. Evidence of repair /= evidence of understanding.

Also, "taking them apart" is definite tech heresy - as you destroy the machine spirit. Certainly you anger it.

And your point neatly coincides with mine: they know how to, slowly an d carefully, slightly *vary* their technology.

ST knows how to take leaps into the unknown, seemingly as a matter of course. Hell, a school kid created a sentient race of nanoscale organisms, for a science project!

[ok yes, he was Wes, who as it turns out is the next evolution of humans. or something. But still ]

From "Slaves to Darkness": According to [the Mechanicus] teachings, knowledge is the supreme manifestation of divinity, and all creatures and artefacts that embody knowledge are holy because of it. ... A man's worth is only the sum of his knowledge - his body is simply an organic machine capable of preserving intellect. In the Cult's tenets, life itself is of no intrinsic value."

Certainly doesn't sound like they are just a bunch of idiots putting pegs in holes from instructions. How else would they be able to consistently, reliably, and individually vary their various implants, create cybernetic organisms, etc.? The Imperium has something BETTER than FTL travel (in that it is much faster). It can be risky if the Navigator dies or Geller fields fail, but warp speed is just as risky if one of the engines suddenly blows up or some aliens start fething with them in transit (random godlike aliens == predations of daemons for the sake of argument). As far as Abnett, in the Eisenhorn AND Grey Knight books there were several examples of Tech priests who were very knowledgeable AND quite innovative (and no, I'm not talking about the flesh-obsessed Dark ones).

Wesley is bs, and I think anyone who likes Star Trek can confess to that. Oh, and "Simpsons did it". Most of Star Trek's "leaps into unknown" are also random events they don't really understand, whether by barreling into some freak space storm, or stumbling across a wormhole, or being messed around with Q or some other godlike being, or Wesley having a wet dream while snoozing on an engineering console, etc.

And again, the level of their understanding of the technology is an academic point and irrelevant. If you have a device that can fold time and space and create a rift that sucks everything into a literal hell, and you can operate it, you don't really need to know the full details of how and why it works. You don't need to be a gunsmith to excise someone's chest cavity with a hollow-point.

Now, referring to the debate of the last few pages, I agree with you that Star Trek ships can indeed fight at warp speed. While the Picard maneuver doesn't really apply as it is more sublight chicanery, every series with only TNG being somewhat of an exception gave us plenty of examples of warp speed battles. In the original series, they did that stuff all the time, and only in Wrath of Khan was there a serious skirmish at sublight speed because he managed to get right up in their grill. TNG didn't have many examples, but that was I think mostly budget issues and there was always some contrivance to get the baddies nose to nose with Picard 'n friends. The producers have stated any number of times in various interviews and conventions that the original concept of combat at incredible speeds and incredible distances was abandoned because close-rank ship-to-ship battles were "moar exciting for the fans".

And still we have examples from TNG where they used torpedoes at warp speed; I can think of "Encounter at Farpoint", "New Ground", and "Best of Both Worlds". In Voyager, they used both torpedoes and phasers in "Message in a Bottle", "Non Sequitur", "Flashback" and a whole other bunch of episodes I'm failing to recall.

However, in all these cases they were fighting ships that were matching their speed at warp speed. Only in the original series are there a few examples of combat between ships moving at different warp speeds, and then that concept was abandoned for the other series. So it's a tough call whether the relativistic bubble would interfere with firing at something outside of said bubble.

Regardless, even assuming the Trek ships could perform warp speed strafing runs with impunity, there are simply not enough ships and their weapons are not powerful enough to destroy the enormous Imperial ships fast enough. If the Imperials couldn't track the ships (also questionable, psykers may be able to do it), they would simply target the immovable Earth, and the Federation fleet would be like a swarm of gnats trying to stop a stampede of dinosaurs. They simply would not be able to destroy the advancing armada fast enough to prevent even just one getting through the blockade, and unleashing exterminatus or even a drop pod assault. Star Trek ground capabilities are so pathetic, a single Space Marine squad could probably single-handedly annihilate all life on the planet given time (especially if they are Brothers of the Snake marines, then it would probably only take one).

Thats what I would say is correct. I concur with your ideas. But I still think one squad could not handle it. Probably an entire company. Not 5 guys. Unless they were Elites of the 1st Company. Because laspistols have been known to kill Marines!

Well, you can't really apply game stats to this. Any armor that has a 33% failure rate regardless of the penetrative ability of the weapon firing at it is a pretty useless hunk of junk.

But yes, I suppose I was being somewhat facetious and certainly a bit hyperbolic. Then again, a Marine is said to be equivalent to a 1000 fighting men? And Romulans (I think) fully expected to be able to conquer Vulkan with 5000 troops. So there you go. And if you've ever read Brothers of the Snake, you too would think it a distinct possibility.

heres just some information that might help with the debate:
just some info on the iom ship capabilities:

Sensors and sublight speeds:

The Saint Omnibus page 886
'Astropathicae report parameters verified. Perturbation reads at warp modulus eleven two nine nine seven, nine AU out, tracking cogents, Concordance estimated at ninety-three minutes. Awaiting confirmation"

As you can see the Iom fleet parked in orbit on arround Hereden detects in real time a chas fleet arriving some 9 aus in distance away thats roughly 74.85 light minutes away or 1,346,380,836.219 km away this again is a real times sensor feed.

Beyond which we know that 40k space battles take place across hundreds of thousnads of Km to a million Km, again they receive live real time sensors information in regards to theses again this range easily make thier sensors ranghing from light seconds to light minuts in range.

So to answer the question yes Iom vessels have ftl sensors and wqill be capable of detecting startrek vessels traveling at pretty much any speed they travel. so no No Picard manuever. * though we will relate to that in a moment*

JUst to touch on the combat ranges as well trek combat ranges normally are in the 10k Km with maximum photon torp and phaser ranges as quoting out as 40k. 40k space combat considers 10k kms as point blank range where teleports normally occur boarding parties etc happen. normal weapons ranges is 60 - 80k kms with weapons extending out to 150k kms and 300k km with fighters, bombers and torps having even further ranges.

As far as the supposed warp combat speed fo trek the only time wee see any 24th century trek battle with something faster then impluse speeds is the famous picard manuever. Every other combat we see is at impulse speeds. Impulse is again just factors of true light speed from the various trek cannon.
nOw on to 40k combats speeds:

The Saint Omnibus page 887
Its vast engines cycling up to one tenth power, the frigate Berengaria moved away from Herodor, prowling forward into the interplanetary gulf.
*Snip ship description*
"We have broken orbit and are advancing to the advised modulus," Captain Sodak said quietly standing in the actuality sphere of the Berengaria's bridge.

FRom here we see a fleet go from an orbit to engage the chaos fleet 9 AU's away. FRom text we see the ships launching fighters 42 minutes later.

The Saint Omnibus page 889
*Just after emergence* The fighter screen broke around him, spreading wide and zipping like tiny silver reef fish along the lengths of the ponderous new arrivals *Remember, fighters point of view, and transport ships*
The Saint Omnibus page 893
There was nothing to see. The starfield at this speed was a striated blur and the warp perturbation that preceded a re-entry was visible only on the instruments.
The Saint Omnibus page 893
For the second time in less than an hour, space tore open. The reality fissure leapt and crackled like a luminous cephalopod, lashing tendrils of warp energy into real space that twisted out, fizzled and faded. Non-baryonic light flared brilliantly through the tear, backlighting the arriving ships. Monumental silhouettes, they were shot forward into real space.
They did not slow down. They were moving at cruise speed. Attack Speed.
The Saint Omnibus page 894
Four ships, one of them very large. And they were moving. Point seven five light at least, cutting straight towards Herodor

*note thes e source quotes provides by Inquisitor Ryan at spacebattles.com

As you can see the ships go from a dead orbit and accelerate to thier attack speed which again is 3/4 the speed of light. we Know that the IOm vessels intercepted the chaos fleet some 93 minutes later which again support combat speed of 3/4 the speed of light. again given the 9 au distance this supports the close to light speed capabilties of the IOm vessels. again these speeds would easily be the equal to the TRek impulse speeds.

As you can see there will be no trek ships zipping arround damaging iom vessels to slow and ponderious to catch them. both trek and Iom vessels will be traveling at relative speeds to each other.

As far as FTL speeds anyone that things trek is fast is just refusing to admit the obvious. IOm ships can travel as speeds in the 540k warp that make trek speeds look like they are crawling. we know from VOY that it would have taken the ship and normal top fed speed 75 years to return to earth. A 40k vessel can travel this distance in a few months on average the far end of the delta quad. without the worm hole would have taken again 70 some od light years per TNG and DS9. Again IOM vessels would travel this in months. Again 40k ftl is far superior to trek in all but possibly short jaunts.
As far as scale: the IOm has over a million worlds spread out over the galaxy normally their is approximatly 50 - 75 ships per 200 or so planets as standard with hundreds of crusading fleets. This gives the IOM well over 250,000 to 375,000 ships not counting Adeptus Asteres vessels, mechnicius vessel arebitors, sob and inquisiton ships and crusade fleets.

Remember their is only 150 planets in the federation and 100s colony planets. with a few thousand naval vessels. the federation is 8000 ly across
Remember the numbers above the iom can attack every planet that the feds have with a fleet of 100 vessels amd still have over half of their fleet held in reserve. they could due this as a simultanious attack all within a days time span.

as for Populations and production capabilities the iom has 32,000 hive world alone that each have populations of hundreds of billions. With and Undefined number of forger world and shipyards. The vast majority of world are considered modern world with population of 10 billion plus with what would be considered tech level above what you see in your average trek planet.
As for productions capabilities we have a feral world *again a stone age world* produce enough materials in a 10 year span to creeate a lunar class cruiser.
the Iom does have the tech to build new ships, tanks, guns, titans etc.

Now we come to the teleportation tech TRek teleports have issues teleporting through dense material and has never been able to teleport through trek shields.
IOM shields block necron teleportation which is simular to trek teleportation but more reliable. As well as extradimensions teleportation in the form of the geller fields. IOM teleportation travels through the warp and would not be stops by trek shields as they have no means to protect them selves from extra dimensional teleportation.

And finally we have fire power:

TRek weapons are rate from their own manual sources as being any where from 30 - 70 megatons per torps and phasers. We know that the galaxy class ship normally can only take a few barrages of such weapons before they fail, rough the equivalent of a few hundred megatons. Once the shield fail trek weapons usually destroy the target ship with one or 2 more weapon volleys. with roughly a 40k km max range and normal ranges of 10k km.

IOm weapons have do tripple digit gigton damage to double digit teraton level damage with space hulk supplying us with a solid figure of torpedo power being 610 gtons in damage. Again these weapons commenly range out to 60k - 80kn km on average with 10k being point blank range. 40k shields can absorb this firepower level of tripple digit gton and low level tton before they fail. After that the IOM vessel then have dozens of M thick Admantite armor which is actually normally able to absorb more damage then their shields are. We have quotes of those same 610 gtpn torps exploding inside crusiers and the cruisers still beng able to continue combat. More dominating is that weapon barrages are said to fill 10ks worth of space with a variety of fire power in attempts to damage opposing vessels causing huge field 10s of thousands of km in diameter with tripple digit gton damage. Weapons like the Nova cannon and bombarment cannons fire shells that move at close to the speed of light. The are the size of 50 m buildings thats when calced does pton level damage at point of impact and has a radius of affect the size of small moons that causes tton level damage.

The Picard manuever at best will damage the paint job of the IOm vessel.
The feds are in a no win situation they are out numbered out gunned to such a degree that its not funny. here is a picture that is famous when ever you have 40k v trek debates:

I'm going to copy and paste that post into word in case I ever come across this argument again.

Omegus wrote:I'm going to copy and paste that post into word in case I ever come across this argument again.

Hopefully cleaning up my typos

1)Picard calls Q, The federation wins.

2)Picard lures Borg into battle with IoM. Federation wins.

3)Kirk hacks and reprograms the Machine Spirit because he doesn't beliece in no-win scenarios. Federation wins.


Why does Federation always win? Because Roddenberry and co are better writers than GW could ever hope to get. Abnett is fine, but he is no Roddenberry.