Normandy SR2 (Mass Effect) vs. Deep Space Nine

[Leliel]

After completing Mass Effect 1, I've grown sufficiently enamored of 2 that I want to show my affection for the series on this board the only way I know how-making a Versus Thread.

Now, I've seen The Next Generation and the Original Series, and know enough to understand that the crew of the Normandy fighting the Enterprise would only result in either ship limping back home if Shepard has enough Charm/Intimidate to convince them to surrender after turning the engineering section into a work of abstract sculpture (maybe before then, in TNG-a Paragon could simply convince Picard of their noble intentions despite a crew that all desperately needs psychiatric treatment, or a Renegade could threaten to torture Troi via having said crew think very hard about their lives-Jack's general vicinity alone could send her hyperventilating). Completely different power levels, and Shepard's team are considered badasses by the rest of the setting (and this is the place where the peaceful Blue-Skinned Space Babes are capable of killing you with their minds).

Deep Space Nine, on the other hand, has Sisko.

Okay, they have a shapeshifiter on staff, they lord over a space station and associated fleet, but mostly Sisko.

So, if Q decides to have a little fun and pit the crew of the Normandy SR2 against DS9 for the sake of "understanding how different humans could be", who would come out victorious?

[Axolotl]

I don't really see how the normandy could possibly hope to compete. DS 9 is a space station that has successfully repeled attacks by a whole armada of warlike aliens. The Normandy on the other hand is a light ship designed for inserting a special forces group without being detected. In a straight-up fight it's screwed even before you account for the Federation massive tech advantage.

[Leliel]

I don't really see how the normandy could possibly hope to compete. DS 9 is a space station that has successfully repeled attacks by a whole armada of warlike aliens. The Normandy on the other hand is a light ship designed for inserting a special forces group without being detected. In a straight-up fight it's screwed even before you account for the Federation massive tech advantage.

...I wasn't just talking about the ship. It's also a battle of crews.

And really, the Normandy SR2 is the ship that took down a base built by Reapers, and came out fine...even if you don't upgrade it.

That's why I pit it against DS9, to give Starfleet a fighting chance.

[Grif]

...I wasn't just talking about the ship. It's also a battle of crews.

And really, the Normandy SR2 is the ship that took down a base built by Reapers, and came out fine...even if you don't upgrade it.

That's why I pit it against DS9, to give Starfleet a fighting chance.

Mate, you need to play the game again. They took down a Collector's Ship... barely if you didn't upgrade. (I don't consider having a gaping hole in your ship to be fine.) A little easier if you did take the upgrades. But in the end,they still crashed onto the base rather unceremoniously. Commander Shepard was the one who blew the base up, not the Normandy.

Also, DS9 has two different versions if I recall. One with pre-Dominion War armaments, basically obsolete Cardassian weaponry and post-Dominion War weaponry, after the Federation heavily fortified it. Which is it going to be?

[Axolotl]

...I wasn't just talking about the ship. It's also a battle of crews.

And really, the Normandy SR2 is the ship that took down a base built by Reapers, and came out fine...even if you don't upgrade it.

That's why I pit it against DS9, to give Starfleet a fighting chance.If they aren't in their ships then what enviroment are they in?

[Leliel]

If they aren't in their ships then what enviroment are they in?

Deep Space Nine.

That way both crews can get their full advantage.

How Shep and Co. got on DS9 is where the space combat bit comes in.

[Axolotl]

Deep Space Nine.

That way both crews can get their full advantage.

How Shep and Co. got on DS9 is where the space combat bit comes in.If you mean they start inside DS9 then Shepard has a fighting chance. The tech difference isn't as big (but the Federation still has the advantage) and Shep's team is on average better soldiers. Assuming the Prophets don't help Sisko then it just depends on if they can disable DS9 before anyone can raise an alarm, which they could probably do, the only peson who would pose serious problems would be Odo since there isn't much they could do to huirt him but they could possibly take him out using biotics.

If you mean they start outside DS9 on the Normandy then no they don't stand a snowball in hell's chance. Yes the crew is badass but the tech dissparity is just too large, it doesn't matter who's crewing it they can't overcome the difference.

[Tavar]

Okay, this really isn't a contest if outside the ship. The Federation uses anti-matter torpedoes, and ship-to-ship capable phasers(essentially, improved version of a Laser). In addition, if the opponent lacks shields, they can do utterly nasty things with the transporter. The idea that the Normandy(either version) could take on a Galaxy class ship and win...:smallbiggrin:

Inside, well, there are again very nasty things doable with transporters. Plus, it's not clear how effective their armor is going to be against phasers, though I don't think their shields would work at all.

[Fan]

Okay, this really isn't a contest if outside the ship. The Federation uses anti-matter torpedoes, and ship-to-ship capable phasers(essentially, improved version of a Laser). In addition, if the opponent lacks shields, they can do utterly nasty things with the transporter. The idea that the Normandy(either version) could take on a Galaxy class ship and win...:smallbiggrin:

Inside, well, there are again very nasty things doable with transporters. Plus, it's not clear how effective their armor is going to be against phasers, though I don't think their shields would work at all.

Not to be.. weird or anything.

The Normandy does have shields in the form of a Biotic Barrier, and a Kinetic Barrier.. essentially have 2 shields on top of armor.

Also, all of the ammo in Mass Effect is fired using a small mass effect field which propels the bullets towards it's target at faster than light speeds.

Not saying it helps, just that the tech isn't that far apart aside from transporter deals.

[chiasaur11]

If you mean they start inside DS9 then Shepard has a fighting chance. The tech difference isn't as big (but the Federation still has the advantage) and Shep's team is on average better soldiers. Assuming the Prophets don't help Sisko then it just depends on if they can disable DS9 before anyone can raise an alarm, which they could probably do, the only peson who would pose serious problems would be Odo since there isn't much they could do to huirt him but they could possibly take him out using biotics.

If you mean they start outside DS9 on the Normandy then no they don't stand a snowball in hell's chance. Yes the crew is badass but the tech dissparity is just too large, it doesn't matter who's crewing it they can't overcome the difference.

Gonna disagree. Immensely.

Sure, straight up slugfest isn't the Normandy's skillset. But it's got stealth systems, heavy armor (which has been shown to be massively useful against Trek ships, as much as you might pretend Voyager never happened), and, importantly, range advantages. All of that lets it stand a chance in a slugfest.

But the most important bit? EDI. Remote shutdown of all defense systems for long enough to get Shepard and her team in? Yeah, she could swing that.

And then Shepard's team is on DS9. And then Shepard wins.

Because, here's the thing. Starfleet has incredibly few dedicated military units in its history. MACOs (which is something you never want Shepard near in general) and the Hazard teams, which were introduced years after DS9. The second group proved man portable shields work against phasers, meaning anyone who shoots Shep doesn't get a one shot kill. Meanwhile, that idiot doesn't have armor or shields, so Shepard explodes his or her head in one of a thousand ways.

And that's assuming it comes down to a gunfight. It won't.

Because Shepard has just the crew to shut down any problems before that.

The galaxy's best thief. A living supercomputer with the galaxy's best multitasking skills. The top engineer from a species where you can fix a fuel regulator issue years before going to first base. The top assassin alive, who can disappear into the shadows without a trace.

Any one of those would be an episode's worth of "there's nothing we can do!"

All together, and Shepard controls the station without firing a shot.

And, again, if it comes to a fight, Shepard has guns that can kill the federation guys much better than they can kill her, and a crew of trained soldiers, natural born killers, and a couple killing machines.

Oh, and if her side has prep time, it's all over. Dr. Mordin Solus, galaxy's foremost bioweapon expert. Humans, a species he knows fairly well, and a lot of species that are genetically oh-so-close.

It wouldn't be pretty.

(And even if Odo is immune to incendiary rounds, as is likely, biotics work on a molecular level. Warp bombs would do him in like anyone else.)

[Tavar]

Not to be.. weird or anything.

The Normandy does have shields in the form of a Biotic Barrier, and a Kinetic Barrier.. essentially have 2 shields on top of armor.

Also, all of the ammo in Mass Effect is fired using a small mass effect field which propels the bullets towards it's target at faster than light speeds.

Not saying it helps, just that the tech isn't that far apart aside from transporter deals.

Okay, this is wrong on many levels. Mass Effect's bullets are not Faster than light. They're C-fractional at best, and those seemed to be reserved for the stronger, ship board weapons.

Secondly, Mass Effects Shields =/= Star Fleet's Shields. Mass Effect's shields are Kinetic Barriers, which explicitly provide almost no protection against light based attacks. Hence, you know, Lasers going right through them. Star Trek's shields protect against both direct kinetic energy and Electromagnetic radiation. Yes, they are both called shields, but they aren't the same, nor do they provide the same amount or type of protection.

Also, source that they have 2 types of shields? Everything I can find suggests that they only have one: the Kinetic Barrier.

[Tiki Snakes]

This may help discussions (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Normandy_SR-2)

Generally, I'm undecided overall. Though it seems simple enough to say that in a straight up station vs ship shootout, the normandy won't have the advantage, the trick is whether there will be one.

Likewise, the Station Security might be able to slow Sheperd and co's team down if they get on-board, but it won't be pretty or likely to succeed. Biotics and tech skills, along with some pretty nasty toys mean that it would be a very bad day for DS9.

But the only likely outcome is Sisko and Sheperd, teams in tow, kicking seven shades out of Q. You know it makes sense.

[Axolotl]

Gonna disagree. Immensely.

Sure, straight up slugfest isn't the Normandy's skillset. But it's got stealth systems,Ones that are vastly worse than the stealth systems that are on the ship that the DS9 crew have.


heavy armor (which has been shown to be massively useful against Trek ships, as much as you might pretend Voyager never happened), They don't even have heavy armour for their setting, and yes one type of armour that was made by a society vastly more advanced than the one Mass Effect is set in.


and, importantly, range advantages. All of that lets it stand a chance in a slugfest.What range advantages?


But the most important bit? EDI. Remote shutdown of all defense systems for long enough to get Shepard and her team in? Yeah, she could swing that.What? EDI is just an AI, it's not some sort of god that can just magically defeat any enemy tech.



The galaxy's best thief. A living supercomputer with the galaxy's best multitasking skills. The top engineer from a species where you can fix a fuel regulator issue years before going to first base. The top assassin alive, who can disappear into the shadows without a trace.All badass to be sure, but they aren't going to be able to disable DS9's defences in a timescale less than "weeks" unless they have outside help. The only way they can win is a firefight hoping the alarms system doesn't kick in a seal them off. Now if they're on the station they have a fair chance of doing this. But it isn't an instawin.


Any one of those would be an episode's worth of "there's nothing we can do!"No. Any one fitting those descriptions from the Star Trek setting would be a episode of problems (problems which the DS9 crew never had to save scum to get past I'd note, although admittedly that's a bit meta) but there's a big difference between one raised with Federation tech and one raised with Citadel tech.


And, again, if it comes to a fight, Shepard has guns that can kill the federation guys much better than they can kill her, and a crew of trained soldiers, natural born killers, and a couple killing machines.While the Federation only has several war heros, a genetically enigneered supermanand a messiah on their side. Yes Shepard would probably win in the end but it wouldn't be a cakewalk.


Oh, and if her side has prep time, it's all over. Dr. Mordin Solus, galaxy's foremost bioweapon expert. Humans, a species he knows fairly well, and a lot of species that are genetically oh-so-close.

It wouldn't be pretty.If only there was someone on DS9 who was a genius with large ammounts of experience with engineered viruses.


This is like pitting a trireme against an aircraft carrier. Even if the trireme has Alexander, Archimedes and all the heroes of Troy the gap in just too big for it to pose a threat.

[SoC175]

And really, the Normandy SR2 is the ship that took down a base built by Reapers, and came out fine...even if you don't upgrade it.The sad truth is that ME2 made the collectors look totally not threatening.

They sacked some undefended minor colonies, that were created in a region that was specifically declared to be outside of alliance navy protection. And they were driven off by the very first of these fleeting colonies that had a small defense system operating.

Their greatest military victory was destroying a frigate (the smallest class of warships) in a surprise attack. Later the same collector warship got it's ***kick by a frigate that was prepared for a fight.

Really? What are these clowns supposed to do if they encounter a force of several frigates? And what about the more powerful classes of warships like cruisers (a single cruiser is said to be capable of destroying multiple frigates), carriers or dreadnoughts?

Given their pitiful track record in the game, I could only shake the head whenever the characters talked as if Earth was doomed if I didn't stop them.

Would have made a great end sequence: The entire collectors fleet jumping into Sol-System only to be totally demolished by a couple of cruiser while the dreadnought don't even bother to leave the docks.

[mangosta71]

Ones that are vastly worse than the stealth systems that are on the ship that the DS9 crew have.
How exactly is cloaking in the ST universe superior to the Normandy's stealth system? Because it turns the ship invisible to visual scans, too? Guess what - none of the targeting computations rely on visual scans. Distances and speeds are both too great for visual data to be useful.

What range advantages?
Against an immobile target? Weapons in ME keep going until they hit something. The Normandy can sit a light year away and unload all of its weaponry, then just hide until it hits. It's not like the space station can move out of the way. Any return fire would be easily evaded because the Normandy isn't immobile.

What? EDI is just an AI, it's not some sort of god that can just magically defeat any enemy tech.
There is no AI in the ST universe. EDI is something that nobody has ever dealt with. She's smart enough to play along with the systems on DS9, allowing commands to go through while she learns the pathways, and then shut everything down hard when the time comes. Or, probably more devastating, reroute orders so that the security teams walk into ambushes.

All badass to be sure, but they aren't going to be able to disable DS9's defences in a timescale less than "weeks" unless they have outside help. The only way they can win is a firefight hoping the alarms system doesn't kick in a seal them off. Now if they're on the station they have a fair chance of doing this. But it isn't an instawin.
Or EDI just leaves the food and water distribution systems locked down until everyone onboard is dead. So, 3 days. At most.

If only there was someone on DS9 who was a genius with large ammounts of experience with engineered viruses.
Again, nothing in the ST universe even compares to the complexity of the genophage. And even if Bashir could figure it out and synthesize a cure, he would need time to do so. If Mordin comes in with a genetic plague ready to go, and he just releases it into the air cycling system, by the time the symptoms start to show up (they'll have no idea that anything is wrong before that point) it will be too late to save the majority of the crew.

[Trixie]

Okay, this really isn't a contest if outside the ship. The Federation uses anti-matter torpedoes, and ship-to-ship capable phasers(essentially, improved version of a Laser). In addition, if the opponent lacks shields, they can do utterly nasty things with the transporter. The idea that the Normandy(either version) could take on a Galaxy class ship and win...:smallbiggrin:

Normandy took on Sovereign. They won, and Normandy II is vastly more powerful. One torpedo to unarmored bridge (conveniently located on top of the saucer) from ambush and there's no one left alive to direct the fight.

As for anti-matter torpedoes, that doesn't make them better. At all. This only changes way of magazining the energy. Only yield counts. Aren't Fed Torps megaton-grade, making them little better than nukes of 1960? :smallconfused:


If you mean they start inside DS9 then Shepard has a fighting chance. The tech difference isn't as big (but the Federation still has the advantage) and Shep's team is on average better soldiers.

Um... Pardon? What better tech? :smallconfused:

ST has pajamas and hard to aim shaver-like phasers, ME has actual armor with force fields and weapons firing razor-sharp blades at c-fractional speed. Not to mention actual soldiers between rifle butt and trigger guard :smalltongue:

[Eldritch Knight]

There is no AI in the ST universe. EDI is something that nobody has ever dealt with. She's smart enough to play along with the systems on DS9, allowing commands to go through while she learns the pathways, and then shut everything down hard when the time comes. Or, probably more devastating, reroute orders so that the security teams walk into ambushes.


No AI? What does that make Data, Lore, The EMH, and Moriarty?

I am sure many other examples could be given, as well.

[Liffguard]

Ship-to-ship? Normandy gets toasted. Kinetic barriers only work against solid projectiles, so no protection there. Normandy has to worry about heat build-up, which Trek ships apparently don't. I assume phasers travel at light speed? If so, then Trek has the range and targeting advantage since even the upgraded Normandy's thanix cannons are only a small fraction of C. Most importantly however, the Normandy has some fairly explicit capabilities and limitations whereas all Trek ships are effectively magic. No matter what the Normandy does, all the Trek engineer has to do is reverse the neutron flow polarity through the secondary fusion deflection binary pulse array to generate a subspace flux anti-electromatter field and everything will be ok again.

Man-to-man? The Normandy's suicide squad definitely take this one. Heavy ablative armour (which would be very useful against phasers). A wide variety of accurate, rapid-firing weapons (with sights even!). Training and experience in FIBUA squad tactics. Biotics and disruptive tech abilities. No Trek ship or station has ever shown any soldiers with anything close to the same armour, weapons, training or abilities.

[Ekul]

No AI? What does that make Data, Lore, The EMH, and Moriarty?

I am sure many other examples could be given, as well.

I think he meant the shipboard AIs are nowhere near as complex and "smart" as EDI. Compare the Doctor with EDI and Data with Legion, the Mass Effect versions generally are technologically superior. (Although let me say that I love all four characters, and the Doctor's probably in my top 3 favorite Star Trek characters.)

In a fight between EDI and Moriarty, there'd be no question. EDI would win. Moriarty and Data have nowhere near the hacking capability of either.

[Trixie]

No AI? What does that make Data, Lore

Singular pieces of tech no one was able to understand, not even Borg. EMH was held in such contempt by actual doctors (ST VIII) that they kept him turned off, permanently, the only good/comparable example was upgraded with XXIX century tech. And, when Data locked systems of Enterprise with cipher (ST VIII), not even Borg were able to unlock it. EDI is far smarter than Data (no problems with emotions, for example), and dedicated hacking AI to boot, he can lock anything he can touch even tighter, making Flagship of the Starfleet tin box floating helplessly :smalltongue:

[Reverent-One]

I don't know if we can say self-awareness automatically translates into better at hacking and the like, they're really seperate things. Otherwise we can say that modern day earth in the Tron universe has more advanced programs than the star trek universe, since the programs are at least self-aware.

[Joran]

How exactly is cloaking in the ST universe superior to the Normandy's stealth system? Because it turns the ship invisible to visual scans, too? Guess what - none of the targeting computations rely on visual scans. Distances and speeds are both too great for visual data to be useful.



Well, in Trek, visible = detectable. Blame the medium. There's also a cloaking device in Star Trek that lets you go THROUGH material objects... But anyway, the Collectors didn't seem to have much difficulty in detecting Normandy I.



Against an immobile target? Weapons in ME keep going until they hit something. The Normandy can sit a light year away and unload all of its weaponry, then just hide until it hits. It's not like the space station can move out of the way. Any return fire would be easily evaded because the Normandy isn't immobile.


Err... First off, it'll take more than a year for the projectile to get to DS9, since all ME weapons are sub-light. Second, a dumb projectile firing over a light year away is going to miss, unless you're the luckiest son of a gun in the Universe. Minor gravitational effects add up to a HUGE miss. You're aiming for a really small target from a very long distance.

The Normandy II can't even travel at FTL "cloaked". Their sensors are inhibited by the speed of light. Their weapons, more importantly, are limited by the speed of light. Star Trek ships can travel FTL at will, detect ships at FTL, and can fire their weapons at FTL.


Normandy took on Sovereign. They won, and Normandy II is vastly more powerful. One torpedo to unarmored bridge (conveniently located on top of the saucer) from ambush and there's no one left alive to direct the fight.

As for anti-matter torpedoes, that doesn't make them better. At all. This only changes way of magazining the energy. Only yield counts. Aren't Fed Torps megaton-grade, making them little better than nukes of 1960? :smallconfused:


Star Trek torpedo yields are measured in "isotons". Yes, I know, translated it means one-ton, but they gave up on using real world units because they didn't want to get their math wrong.

Err... Normandy had the entire Fifth Fleet behind it. It's not like the Normandy I took on Sovereign all by itself. This was also after Sovereign took a beating from the Citadel defense fleet and the largest freakin' ship in the entire galaxy.

Once Shepard and company board DS9, it's a fairer fight. However, transporter use gives the defense a huge mobility advantage, along with the security forcefields that DS9 can put up to impede movement. Also, internal sensors will allow the DS9 crew to track the exact location and movement of the boarding party, so it's not as cut and dry as it seems.

Unless of course the Mass Effect people slap some omni-gel on the doors and open them up.

P.S. As stated before by Liffguard, Mass Effect is generally good about making its physics work or believeable. Star Trek operates on magic and a ton of hand-waving.

[chiasaur11]

Also, in reference to Bashir being genetically modified:

So is Miranda. And Shepard. And Kaiden. And Ash. And Jack. And Jacob. Probably Zaeed and Kasumi too, but that's less certain.

Maybe not to the same extent in some cases, but a package of soldier boosts is standard. All alliance marines are made faster, stronger, and smarter as a signing bonus.

[Joran]

Again, nothing in the ST universe even compares to the complexity of the genophage. And even if Bashir could figure it out and synthesize a cure, he would need time to do so. If Mordin comes in with a genetic plague ready to go, and he just releases it into the air cycling system, by the time the symptoms start to show up (they'll have no idea that anything is wrong before that point) it will be too late to save the majority of the crew.

Ooh... There's been a couple really terrible diseases in Star Trek. The one that strikes me is The Quickening.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Quickening

Basically, genetically engineered disease that doesn't kill its victims quickly, but instead causes very painful death and infects down through to the next generation. The really, evil thing the Dominion did was make it worse when exposed to EM radiation... So kiss that technology good-bye.

[Axolotl]

How exactly is cloaking in the ST universe superior to the Normandy's stealth system? Because it turns the ship invisible to visual scans, too? Guess what - none of the targeting computations rely on visual scans. Distances and speeds are both too great for visual data to be useful.ST detection methods (and therefore their cloaking that protects from said measures) does not work on visual identification. Hell the only stealth the Normandy has is not venting heat, now that's good stuff against the ME universe especially when inside a solar system. ST however has pseudoscience scanners working on principles that ME guys do't even know about nevermind can try and counteract.


Against an immobile target? Weapons in ME keep going until they hit something. The Normandy can sit a light year away and unload all of its weaponry, then just hide until it hits. And how do they accurately target at that distance? Also the weapons the Normandy has don't travel at light speed so they'd have to wait over a year for anything to happen. Which would give the DS9 crew plenty of time to use any of their FTL ships to deal with the problem. Also it can't hide in deep space and since it can't travel FTL the Normandy would be a sitting duck.



It's not like the space station can move out of the way. Any return fire would be easily evaded because the Normandy isn't immobile.But it is immobile in comparison. It can't go FTL unlike everything DS9 is built to deal with and has access to.


There is no AI in the ST universe. EDI is something that nobody has ever dealt with.You've never seen Star Trek have you? Evil AI is one of the most regular plots ever. Hell an AI was one of the main characters in TNG and another one was a main character in Voyager.


She's smart enough to play along with the systems on DS9, allowing commands to go through while she learns the pathways, and then shut everything down hard when the time comes. Or, probably more devastating, reroute orders so that the security teams walk into ambushes.What? First how is EDI even going to access these systems? Also AI takes over DS9 security is a plot they used, it was a minor anoyance that they stopped quickly.


Or EDI just leaves the food and water distribution systems locked down until everyone onboard is dead. So, 3 days. At most.But it can't access those systems, or any systems. for that matter. They've been able to repel hackers who actually have used ST computers before.



Again, nothing in the ST universe even compares to the complexity of the genophage.The anti-changeling one springs to mind. Or the one the Dominion used to crush a race that resisted them.

[QUPTE]And even if Bashir could figure it out and synthesize a cure, he would need time to do so. If Mordin comes in with a genetic plague ready to go, and he just releases it into the air cycling system, by the time the symptoms start to show up[/QUOTE]And they deploy it how?


(they'll have no idea that anything is wrong before that point)What about the medical scanners that are designed to counter viral infections?


it will be too late to save the majority of the crew.Well the human crew that is, welll the ones that aren't augmented, well the ones that don't have magic. So you've killed an engineer basically, well done.




Normandy took on Sovereign. They won, and Normandy II is vastly more powerful. One torpedo to unarmored bridge (conveniently located on top of the saucer) from ambush and there's no one left alive to direct the fight.The alliance fleet took on Sovereign and won. Besides which, the Reapers are distinctly worse than the Federation when it comes down to tech we've actually seen. Yes they claim to be too advanced to need a motivation but against the Federation they'd be a fairly minor threat overall.




Um... Pardon? What better tech? :smallconfused:You know the teleporters, Faster than Light systems, the Force Fields, the Matter Replicators, Universal Translators and that's not counting the things they have access to but don't use for one reason or another.


ST has pajamas and hard to aim shaver-like phasers, ME has actual armor with force fields and weapons firing razor-sharp blades at c-fractional speed. Not to mention actual soldiers between rifle butt and trigger guard :smalltongue:Yes the Mass Effect people have more military styled aesthetics than the Federation. This is not because they're more advanced.

[Joran]

What? First how is EDI even going to access these systems? Also AI takes over DS9 security is a plot they used, it was a minor anoyance that they stopped quickly.

But it can't access those systems, or any systems. for that matter. They've been able to repel hackers who actually have used ST computers before.


This is a good point. Starfleet communications operate on subspace transmissions. I doubt EDI will suddenly be able to transmit information on a device that don't exist using science she doesn't understand.

Now, if they can get onboard, the Federation ship consoles seem built to allow hacking... Just slap some omni-gel on it, and you're golden.



Also it can't hide in deep space and since it can't travel FTL the Normandy would be a sitting duck.


Well, to be fair, Normandy can go FTL. The problem is that it can't be stealthed when going FTL and it can't fire weapons... which is a problem if you're fighting a foe that CAN go FTL and CAN fire weapons.

[Tiki Snakes]

This is a good point. Starfleet communications operate on subspace transmissions. I doubt EDI will suddenly be able to transmit information on a device that don't exist using science she doesn't understand.

She seemed to have little trouble hacking the systems of the practically mythical collectors, to be fair, which has to be a pretty analogous situation.

[Axolotl]

Well, to be fair, Normandy can go FTL. The problem is that it can't be stealthed when going FTL and it can't fire weapons... which is a problem if you're fighting a foe that CAN go FTL and CAN fire weapons.I thought they neede one of those mass relays to go FTL?

[Hawriel]

skipped ahead a little.

Another poster made a good point about the how the shield systems are different.

Normandy's 'stealth' system is not a cloaking devise. Normandy traps its own eat and energy emissions so IR scanners do not pick it up. It might have a raidar absorbent skin similar to the B2. This would work with its curved hull to nullify raidar waves. If you look out a window you still see it. I know space is big bla bla. However the ship still needs to get close enough to DS9 to board. It will be spotted.

In order for Normandy to fire its weapons it has to have a sencor lock. That is active sencors need to be activly sending out a signal for the weapons firing computer to creat a firing solution. Federation sensors with detect this immediatly. Federation sencorse will be able to count how many crew are on Normandy, different species, and biotic energy waves.

EDI gets boned.

Sure EDI might be able to do somthing. It's not like the Federation ever came across a species of aliens who are mostly computers with the express goal of assimalating every thing.

Last but not least.

Worf declokes with Defiant with in transporter and weapons range of Normandy.

[Joran]

She seemed to have little trouble hacking the systems of the practically mythical collectors, to be fair, which has to be a pretty analogous situation.

She was built using the same technology, so it's not quite analogous. She's Reaper tech.


I thought they neede one of those mass relays to go FTL?

Well, mass relays to go someplace really, really far; for normal system to system travel, they have normal FTL.

However, traveling at FTL makes you light up like a Christmas tree apparently.

[chiasaur11]

Ooh... There's been a couple really terrible diseases in Star Trek. The one that strikes me is The Quickening.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Quickening

Basically, genetically engineered disease that doesn't kill its victims quickly, but instead causes very painful death and infects down through to the next generation. The really, evil thing the Dominion did was make it worse when exposed to EM radiation... So kiss that technology good-bye.

Man, Mordin would be insulted if you compared that to his work.

Really insulted. Not for the moral bit, as much as he likes his ethics, but for the skill level.

Anybody can make an incredibly nasty hereditary disease. The EM thing also seems within standard council capabilities.

Mordin engineered a revision of the genophage that:

1) Was impossible to detect.
2) Didn't kill. Didn't cause harm. It just kept the population dead steady to a very specific ratio
3) Kept up with the amazing Krogan capability for regeneration.

And, on top of all that, he had to make it entirely backwards compatible with the original genophage project. Which was more than a millennium old, and, presumably, didn't leave many notes.

Making something like The Quickening would be a walk in the park, in comparison.

Oh, and a lot of the Starfleet argument seems to be "They're more advanced!", which, even if we grant it a priori, takes a rather one dimensional view of technology.

It takes all of human development, all potential development in the future, and assumes direct linear progress. I.E., if the feddies have the Alliance licked in, say, sensors, they can run circles around them in AI, firing range, ect, even with the numbers might suggest something in the other direction. Frankly, that's nonsense.

Look at history for five minutes, and it's smashed flat. A lot of cultures never invented the wheel, and managed advanced agriculture. We lost out on atomic space ships and gained modern information technology instead. The list goes on and on.

To its immense credit, Mass Effect nods in this direction. Krogans have great weapon designers (managed to get to the atom bomb stage. More than once.), but their medical stuff is poor, and their agriculture is pathetic. Quarians are brilliant at AI, but their medical tech isn't up to Salarian standards.

Trek has banned genetic engineering, cyborging, and such for centuries, their ground troops are a joke, and their computers still more or less work off a sixties idea of the whole field.

Mass Effect is more modern in its nerdity, so that stuff is more of a focus. In exchange, they cut some of the more obviously impossible trek tech. It's really good Drywall sci-fi (looks hard until you start pounding on it), but that sacrifices teleporters and "sensors".

[Xondoure]

I thought they neede one of those mass relays to go FTL?

No those are for greater distances they can travel at ftl speeds without mass relays but they can't jump across the entire galaxy without them.

Now I haven't seen a whole lot of Star Trek but from what I can recall the scale of the ships is huge. To the point where to the Enterprize the Normandy wouldn't look much bigger than a cat or something. And I can only imagine DS9 would be bigger than that. Which gives them a bit of a problem targeting the normandy as its small and agile enough to avoid there attacks provided EDI is on hand to detect where the shots will be fired. Plus she's pretty nasty once she gets into your computers and Trek security is a joke at best. I'd say its a fair bet that with planning Shepard could find a way to board the DS9 and once he's there… He wouldn't even need his whole squad just a three man team would be enough.

[Joran]

Now I haven't seen a whole lot of Star Trek but from what I can recall the scale of the ships is huge. To the point where to the Enterprize the Normandy wouldn't look much bigger than a cat or something. And I can only imagine DS9 would be bigger than that. Which gives them a bit of a problem targeting the normandy as its small and agile enough to avoid there attacks provided EDI is on hand to detect where the shots will be fired. Plus she's pretty nasty once she gets into your computers and Trek security is a joke at best. I'd say its a fair bet that with planning Shepard could find a way to board the DS9 and once he's there… He wouldn't even need his whole squad just a three man team would be enough.

Uhh... The Normandy is much more sizeable than a Runabout (which is basically a flying studio apartment) or a Shuttlecraft and Star Trek weapons have ZERO problem hitting them.

We've already addressed EDI hacking. If she can communicate, maybe she has a shot. Before they get into radio range, any starship will destroy her completely.

Remember, EDI was tremendous successful because she was designed to fight what she was fight. She was made of the same technology that she was counter-acting.

[Hands_Of_Blue]

Against an immobile target? Weapons in ME keep going until they hit something. The Normandy can sit a light year away and unload all of its weaponry, then just hide until it hits. It's not like the space station can move out of the way. Any return fire would be easily evaded because the Normandy isn't immobile. Deep Space Nine can move. It's even a plot point in the first episode that they have to leave Bajor to go protect the newly discovered wormhole.

[mangosta71]

a dumb projectile firing over a light year away is going to miss, unless you're the luckiest son of a gun in the Universe. Minor gravitational effects add up to a HUGE miss. You're aiming for a really small target from a very long distance.
Gravitational effects are pretty simple and predictable in terms of astrophysics. Easy enough to calculate that a guy with nothing but a piece of paper and a sliderule figured out where Neptune was before it was discovered. I'm pretty sure that EDI can account for them.

In order for Normandy to fire its weapons it has to have a sencor lock.
To hit a huge, stationary target? No, all they need are coordinates.

Well, to be fair, Normandy can go FTL. The problem is that it can't be stealthed when going FTL and it can't fire weapons... which is a problem if you're fighting a foe that CAN go FTL and CAN fire weapons.
I don't recall ever seeing a ST ship firing while traveling FTL. They always slow down to sublight for combat. Which makes sense - if they fire a (sublight speed) photon torpedo, or even a (light speed) phaser, if they're going faster than the weapon it will hit their own ship.

[Joran]

Oh, and a lot of the Starfleet argument seems to be "They're more advanced!", which, even if we grant it a priori, takes a rather one dimensional view of technology.

It takes all of human development, all potential development in the future, and assumes direct linear progress. I.E., if the feddies have the Alliance licked in, say, sensors, they can run circles around them in AI, firing range, ect, even with the numbers might suggest something in the other direction. Frankly, that's nonsense.

Look at history for five minutes, and it's smashed flat. A lot of cultures never invented the wheel, and managed advanced agriculture. We lost out on atomic space ships and gained modern information technology instead. The list goes on and on.

To its immense credit, Mass Effect nods in this direction. Krogans have great weapon designers (managed to get to the atom bomb stage. More than once.), but their medical stuff is poor, and their agriculture is pathetic. Quarians are brilliant at AI, but their medical tech isn't up to Salarian standards.

Trek has banned genetic engineering, cyborging, and such for centuries, their ground troops are a joke, and their computers still more or less work off a sixties idea of the whole field.

Mass Effect is more modern in its nerdity, so that stuff is more of a focus. In exchange, they cut some of the more obviously impossible trek tech. It's really good Drywall sci-fi (looks hard until you start pounding on it), but that sacrifices teleporters and "sensors".

Yes, I agree Star Trek tech is far ahead of what Mass Effect tech is, because Mass Effect actually cares about the science and background and Star Trek uses mostly handwaves and whatever is convenient for the plot.

[lesser_minion]

I think this might actually be up in the air. It really comes down to the initial scenario, although I believe that the 'fair' setups slightly favour the Normandy.

Transporters: Don't make a difference. Since absolutely everything that exists interferes with transporters, it isn't even reasonable to expect the Normandy to have trouble with them.

Sensors: Federation sensors might run on magic pseudoscience, but they depend on the same pseudoscience being applicable to their target in order to find anything. The Normandy has no reason to ever be in a position where it can be seen by DS9's "mundane" sensor suites.

Weapons: While Star Trek weapons are absolutely incapable of locking on to something without the target noticing, the same is not true of Mass Effect weapons. There's no mention of any "sensor lock" being needed.

Moreover, evidence from the Trek shows strongly implies that none of the defensive technologies employed in the Trek universe would offer any protection whatsoever against javelins or thanix cannon.

The Normandy is well protected from Trek-style torpedoes (which aren't designed to contend with point defences since, for whatever reason, such things aren't in use in the 24th century), and could make itself difficult to hit with phasers -- more so, I believe, than a Federation ship could manage or be expected to deal with (note that phasers are particle beams -- they are quite literally just a weaker version of the weapon that the Collector Cruisers unsuccessfully tries to use against the Normandy SR-2).

Faster-than-light: The Normandy's FTL capabilities are a major improvement over the Federation's in terms of endurance, and I'm pretty sure the Normandy can compete on speed as well.

As for firing at FTL... Star Trek vessels are limited to photon torpedoes, to which the Normandy is effectively invulnerable anyway.

[Joran]

Gravitational effects are pretty simple and predictable in terms of astrophysics. Easy enough to calculate that a guy with nothing but a piece of paper and a sliderule figured out where Neptune was before it was discovered. I'm pretty sure that EDI can account for them.

To hit a huge, stationary target? No, all they need are coordinates.

I don't recall ever seeing a ST ship firing while traveling FTL. They always slow down to sublight for combat. Which makes sense - if they fire a (sublight speed) photon torpedo, or even a (light speed) phaser, if they're going faster than the weapon it will hit their own ship.

Uhh... Photon and Quantum torpedoes are FTL; they're fired at warp constantly.

Minor gravitational effects add up over a year. Considering the projectile being fired is a dumb round and has no navigational features, it's ridiculously hard to hit a target as small as DS9 from that range. The sizes in relation are GIGANTIC.

You're basically trying to hit a flea with a sniper rifle from China.



Moreover, evidence from the Trek shows strongly implies that none of the defensive technologies employed in the Trek universe would offer any protection whatsoever against javelins or thanix cannon. The Normandy is well protected from Trek-style torpedoes (which aren't designed to contend with point defences), and would be exceedingly difficult to hit with phasers (and, while Mass Effect shields don't help with particle beams -- which is what phasers are -- Mass Effect armour can be useful).


Most recent Star Trek movie shows the phasers on a 100 year old ship being used as a point defense system, but that's kind of cheating.

Anyway, Normandy's Point Defense systems can't counter photon and quantum torpedoes BECAUSE THEY'RE FTL. You can't hit what you can't see. Seriously, Normandy's sensors are RADAR!

Right... I forgot one more thing about DS9's defenses. THE SELF-REPLICATING, CLOAKING MINEFIELD.

[Fan]

Yes, I agree Star Trek tech is far ahead of what Mass Effect tech is, because Mass Effect actually cares about the science and background and Star Trek uses mostly handwaves and whatever is convenient for the plot.

With no offense meant towards Star Trek, this is true. Mass Effect actually makes sense, and their only vaugely magical stuff is well.. actual magic, as opposed to it being "sufficiently advanced technology" they have reasonable explanations for everything, and their military's act competently.

[lesser_minion]

Anyway, Normandy's Point Defense systems can't counter photon and quantum torpedoes BECAUSE THEY'RE FTL.

Not in the shows they aren't. A photon or quantum torpedo can be fired by a ship travelling at FTL, but they're shown to be slower than phaser beams -- which themselves are slower than light.

There are some sources that suggest that they can attain FTL speeds, but none that are actually corroborated by anything in the shows or films. The only reasonable conclusion here is that torpedoes are of no use in starship combat when used in such a way.

[Joran]

No, they aren't. A photon or quantum torpedo can be fired by a ship travelling at FTL, but they're shown to be slower than phaser beams -- which themselves are slower than light.

Star Trek ships descend to sublight when they want to scrap because their weapons don't have the range or the speed to be particularly useful otherwise.

In Star Trek, ships frequently fire weapons at warp against other ships that are traveling at warp. Ergo, the torpedoes must travel at warp.

According to the Memory-Alpha/Technical Manual page, they apparently travel at sub-light when fired at sub-light speeds but otherwise travel at warp.

More importantly, photon torpedoes HAVE SHIELDS. Shields that can survive entry into a sun.

[Xondoure]

Uhh... Photon and Quantum torpedoes are FTL; they're fired at warp constantly.

Minor gravitational effects add up over a year. Considering the projectile being fired is a dumb round and has no navigational features, it's ridiculously hard to hit a target as small as DS9 from that range. The sizes in relation are GIGANTIC.

You're basically trying to hit a flea with a sniper rifle from China.



Most recent Star Trek movie shows the phasers on a 100 year old ship being used as a point defense system, but that's kind of cheating.

Anyway, Normandy's Point Defense systems can't counter photon and quantum torpedoes BECAUSE THEY'RE FTL. You can't hit what you can't see. Seriously, Normandy's sensors are RADAR!

Right... I forgot one more thing about DS9's defenses. THE SELF-REPLICATING, CLOAKING MINEFIELD.


Except that a bullet can't reach that far and in space it can. So if you have a target on a fixed trajecotry and a good enough comprehension of mathematics its possible. Mind you as soon as DS9 is aware of the attack they can take measures to stop it so I don't think thats the fight but it is possible.

Again I'm going to point towards how much of a joke Star Trek security is, its pretty much a running gag that ships are boarded and hacked with apparent ease by everyone and there mother. EDI is smart and would be able to calculate the odds and find a way to get the crew of the Normandy onto the base, and if her calculations fail Joker throws everything off by being a super pilot. And as soon as Shepard is on the base you might as well go home. Legion, Edi, and Tali are more than enough to overcome Trek security technologically and biotics are not something you want to deal with outside of game mode. (cutscene power Jack rips through four heavy mechs without breaking a sweat and is fully capable of ripping the normandy to shreds if she wanted to.

[Seraph]

There is no AI in the ST universe.

http://media.arstechnica.com/journals/apple.media/thumb/250/250/data_laugh.old.jpg

now, that said, let's be honest here. The Normandy, ultimately, has no way of winning this fight. Its primary weapons are disruptor torpedoes and the Thanix Cannons.

The disruptor torpedoes are fairly nasty, all things considered, but they're also explicitly described as being slow. so slow, in fact, that they have to be used on an up-close-and-personal basis because they can be easily shot down by any sort of halfway-competent point defense system. coupled with the fact that they work more on gravitational disruption than raw force, I rather doubt that they'd be of much help here, as even if they didn't get shot down they'd just impact against DS9's shields, which are used to steady volleys of 40 MT warheads.

The Thanix Cannon is somewhat more formidable, being a jet of molten dense metal fired at a fraction of the speed of light. however, it explicitly can only fire once every five seconds, has no turret aiming (entire ship has to point at the target), and I doubt the Normandy has enough liquid uranium on board to keep steady fire of that thing. moreover, because of its limited aiming ability, the Normandy is going to have to either fly right at DS9 (makes it an easy target) or drift sideways while it fires (also makes it an easy target).

Shepard taking a ground team onto DS9 is a non-issue, because they have no way of getting aboard without docking, and they'll have no way of docking while the shields are up. their "stealth" is probably completely useless, as I doubt ST sensors work by detecting anything as mundane as IR signatures, especially since they can detect targets at lightyear distances. EDI is also a non-issue, as ST communications work on an entirely different principle.

[Axolotl]

Oh, and a lot of the Starfleet argument seems to be "They're more advanced!", which, even if we grant it a priori, takes a rather one dimensional view of technology.What do the Mass Effect races have that's better than the Federation has?


Mass Effect is more modern in its nerdity, so that stuff is more of a focus. In exchange, they cut some of the more obviously impossible trek tech. It's really good Drywall sci-fi (looks hard until you start pounding on it), but that sacrifices teleporters and "sensors".Which makes the tech on Star Trek better surely?


With no offense meant towards Star Trek, this is true. Mass Effect actually makes sense, and their only vaugely magical stuff is well.. actual magic, as opposed to it being "sufficiently advanced technology" they have reasonable explanations for everything, and their military's act competently.Mass Effect never paid more than lip service to making sense. Sure they dressed alot up in hard SF terms but honestly when you've added in Blue Space Lesbians as a major part of the setting trying to be realistic just comes of a silly. And then there's that thrice damned "Shoot in space and you'll hit somone" speech. And their military does not act compotently, which is whya rag-tag group of adventurers led by a loose cannon swpecial forces guy is literally the only thing stopping an invasion of giant robot monsters.

[Joran]

Except that a bullet can't reach that far and in space it can. So if you have a target on a fixed trajecotry and a good enough comprehension of mathematics its possible. Mind you as soon as DS9 is aware of the attack they can take measures to stop it so I don't think thats the fight but it is possible.


Sorry, I got the distances wrong.

To hit DS9, a target one mile wide, from a distance of 6 TRILLION miles, would be like shooting a flea from the Moon to the Earth. These are GIGANTIC distances.

The math is easy. All the variables that you'd have to take into account and being able to launch a projectile with that much precision is astronomically hard.

Never mind that sensors would pick up the projectile anyway and then use a tractor beam to move it. Also, never mind that Normandy doesn't even have the mass drivers you suggest they use.

[Xondoure]

Sorry, I got the distances wrong.

To hit DS9, a target one mile wide, from a distance of 6 TRILLION miles, would be like shooting a flea from the Moon to the Earth. These are GIGANTIC distances.

The math is easy. All the variables that you'd have to take into account and being able to launch a projectile with that much precision is astronomically hard. Never mind that sensors would pick up the projectile anyway and then use a tractor beam to move it.

Yeah the sensors are a problem, but as Legion said "We think at the speed of light" Not impossible for a Geth, or Edi, its what makes AI so dangerous. So yeah calculations are doable, but it wouldn't do any good.

I'm not disputing that the DS9 is a formidable enemy with nigh impossible to penetrate defenses against invading spacecraft, but from what I remember of Star Trek firewalls are all but nonexistent and if Edi can buy them enough time to board, DS9 is so very screwed.

[Seraph]

if Edi can buy them enough time to board, DS9 is so very screwed.

see, this is the thing. this is the thing that isn't going to happen. because EDI cannot hack into DS9 without a link into their network, and she will not achieve a link into their network, because they do not use a compatible communication system. The normandy cannot hack DS9 any more than you can hack a cellphone call with a semaphore tower. They can't rush DS9 and dock because the shields will stop them cold, and I seriously doubt that the Normandy can dish out enough punishment to bring down the shields before they themselves get blown to hell.

[lesser_minion]

In Star Trek, ships frequently fire weapons at warp against other ships that are traveling at warp. Ergo, the torpedoes must travel at warp.

No, they don't. On any of those points -- ships do not 'frequently' engage each other while travelling at warp speeds, and it is entirely normal for ships to slow to sublight speeds prior to fighting. The one incident I'm aware of where a ship did fire torpedoes in anger while travelling at warp, its target was not another ship. Or even moving unpredictably.

I see no evidence that leads me to believe that Star Trek "FTL torpedoes" are a threat to the Normandy.

As for torpedoes having shields... given how much weaker those shields are than the shields typically fitted to Star Trek "capital ships", I again see no reason why that would change the conclusion that the Normandy is protected against torpedoes.

And that's putting aside the fact that "photon torpedoes have shields" has never been substantiated by anything in any Star Trek series.


Which makes the tech on Star Trek better surely?

No. Treknology is fancier, but that doesn't make it inherently superior. Mass Effect computers and shields are far better than Star Trek's (Star Trek vessels require specialised equipment to protect them from debris when travelling at FTL -- Mass Effect barriers already do the same thing with no difficulty whatsoever).

Mass Effect technology is also, as a rule, far more reliable. Star Trek's transporters, in particular, are so unreliable that we can take it as a given that they won't actually have any effect on this scenario.

[Xondoure]

see, this is the thing. this is the thing that isn't going to happen. because EDI cannot hack into DS9 without a link into their network, and she will not achieve a link into their network, because they do not use a compatible communication system. The normandy cannot hack DS9 any more than you can hack a cellphone call with a semaphore tower. They can't rush DS9 and dock because the shields will stop them cold, and I seriously doubt that the Normandy can dish out enough punishment to bring down the shields before they themselves get blown to hell.

The problem with this analogy is that Mass Effect computer tech is arguably more advanced than Trek computer tech not less but along different lines. Now while it might take Edi a bit to understand the new system I have no doubt she could do it, the trick would be giving her time to understand it outside of a life threatening scenario.

Also the Mordin argument is pretty strong, his mastery over genetics is akin to a sculptor with clay.

[Ekul]

The Federation has the prime directive, which means they aren't allowed to interact with pre-warp civilizations.

The Normandy isn't warp capable. As a Spectre, Shepard can circumvent any laws he wishes, like firing first, or disabling ships before they become threats.

I always hate these questions because you have to be operating under the assumption that both sides are under some arbitrary rule where the other must die and nothing else matters. What possible reason could Shepard have for attacking the Federation? And the Federation has all sorts of red tape around attacking and communicating with foreign unidentified ships. Information and thought process is everything. For example, does the Normandy know about subspace? And if they do, do they know that it's actually quite possible to damage it enough to make warp travel and transporters useless?

There may be other factors: If Shepard needs compatibility and doesn't mind using force, he can just dock onto an unprepared civilian ship and have EDI learn the communications network. The civilian ship gives EDI access to DS9. Boom, there you go.

If they can do that, the weaknesses that Shepard faces will become apparent to him as he does a little research into DS9s files before launching the attack.

[Grif]

What do the Mass Effect races have that's better than the Federation has?

Which makes the tech on Star Trek better surely?

Mass Effect never paid more than lip service to making sense. Sure they dressed alot up in hard SF terms but honestly when you've added in Blue Space Lesbians as a major part of the setting trying to be realistic just comes of a silly. And then there's that thrice damned "Shoot in space and you'll hit somone" speech. And their military does not act compotently, which is whya rag-tag group of adventurers led by a loose cannon swpecial forces guy is literally the only thing stopping an invasion of giant robot monsters.

Yes, clearly Star Trek paid more than lip service to making sense, with all them ground troops running around with awkward phasers and all that. :smallconfused:

The ME military may not act as competently as our real-life counterpart, but they're a damn sight better than what Star Trek has shown over the course of DS9 and TNG. (Not counting Voy). They actually use military tactics there.

Also on the communication problem? I think it is not inconceivable DS9 would actually try to hail the Normandy to work out a peace. I mean they are Star Trek after all. They always do that. :smallbiggrin: EDI could gather information on how they communicate through that.

[Axolotl]

The problem with this analogy is that Mass Effect computer tech is arguably more advanced than Trek computer tech not less but along different lines. Now while it might take Edi a bit to understand the new system I have no doubt she could do it, the trick would be giving her time to understand it outside of a life threatening scenario.But it's not just about how advanced it is. They operate on fundementally different principles. As has already been pointed out, ST computers use subspace to comunicate, which is something the Normandy simply has no way to access.


Also the Mordin argument is pretty strong, his mastery over genetics is akin to a sculptor with clay.If we're just breaking out the superpowers here I'd point out Sisko has a race of time-traveling magical aliens looking after him. Looking at it makes it seem silly and I want to say that it made sense in the show but it really didn't.

[wayfare]

Yeah the sensors are a problem, but as Legion said "We think at the speed of light" Not impossible for a Geth, or Edi, its what makes AI so dangerous. So yeah calculations are doable, but it wouldn't do any good.

I'm not disputing that the DS9 is a formidable enemy with nigh impossible to penetrate defenses against invading spacecraft, but from what I remember of Star Trek firewalls are all but nonexistent and if Edi can buy them enough time to board, DS9 is so very screwed.

If Shep gets on DS9, i think its a fair fight. Forget EDI, if Legion and Tali get on DS9, that station is out of Federation Control.

Now, in terms of soldiering, Shep and Co have the clear advantage, In terms of weaponry...its a bit tough.

Mass effect weaponry can be physical or partly physical/partly energy. Purely physical rounds should strike railgun force, and I'm certain that should be enough to take on any crew portable shielding that starfleet might have (I am not certain that they do -- I know the Borg do).

Federation weaponry will easily go through shields (Mass Effect shields/barriers do not protect against energy based attacks). However, Mass Effect armor might be able to to take a few hits before actually being burned through.

Mass Effect characters have the edge on stealth, can spawn allies (via combat drones) relentlessly, have long range AoE attacks, can knock people down and tear them up with warp and singularity.

[Seraph]

No, they don't. On any of those points -- ships do not 'frequently' engage each other while travelling at warp speeds, and it is entirely normal for ships to slow to sublight speeds prior to fighting. The one significant incident where a ship did fire torpedoes in anger while travelling at warp, its target was not another ship.


And that's putting aside the fact that "photon torpedoes have shields" has never been substantiated by anything in any Star Trek series.

Voyager engaged in warp speed fights on multiple occasions. Photon Torpedoes are described as having "sustainer engines," which means that if they're fired at warp, they stay at warp.


photon torpedoes have been fired into stars before, and their sheilds were specifically stated to be enough to keep it undamaged until it reached the core. also, why do you think they glow? or, for that matter, can penetrate enemy shields if they're the same shield frequency?


The problem with this analogy is that Mass Effect computer tech is arguably more advanced than Trek computer tech not less but along different lines. Now while it might take Edi a bit to understand the new system I have no doubt she could do it, the trick would be giving her time to understand it outside of a life threatening scenario.

no, you don't get it. you don't get it at all. this is not something as simple as writing a new software driver or adding a line of code, the Normandy literally does not have the technology aboard to receive or transmit subspace signals.
EDI may be impressive, but she cannot discover an entirely new branch of communications science, design, fabricate, and install a subspace transmitter within the space of a battle.

[Ekul]

Also on the communication problem? I think it is not inconceivable DS9 would actually try to hail the Normandy to work out a peace. I mean they are Star Trek after all. They always do that. :smallbiggrin: EDI could gather information on how they communicate through that.

Exactly! The Federation would get along great with [paragon] Shepard! They might frown at the genetic engineering and militaristic background, but his record speaks for itself.

I wonder what would happen if Quark met a Volus...

[Tavar]

Normandy took on Sovereign. They won, and Normandy II is vastly more powerful. One torpedo to unarmored bridge (conveniently located on top of the saucer) from ambush and there's no one left alive to direct the fight.
Show me the image where the Normandy is the sole, or even the primary combatant in the fight, and I'll agree with you. Luckily, I seem to have played the game, and no such scene exists; an entire fleet is pounding on Sovereign in addition to the Normandy, a fleet that also includes dreadnoughts.


As for anti-matter torpedoes, that doesn't make them better. At all. This only changes way of magazining the energy. Only yield counts. Aren't Fed Torps megaton-grade, making them little better than nukes of 1960? :smallconfused:
Depends on the source. Some equivalences also place them at about 690 gigatons.

The truth is that the isoton has no know equivalency.


Um... Pardon? What better tech? :smallconfused:

ST has pajamas and hard to aim shaver-like phasers, ME has actual armor with force fields and weapons firing razor-sharp blades at c-fractional speed. Not to mention actual soldiers between rifle butt and trigger guard :smalltongue:
So, because soldiers around the year 1000 AD used armor, they're superior to soldiers from the year 1940? In other words, armor only matters if the weapons can be stopped by it. Star Fleet seems to feel that it can't, at least at it's current tech level.

Also, no, they don't have force fields. They have kinetic barriers. As in, they stop kinetic objects. Now, what kind of weapons don't the Federation use? Weapons that fire kinetic projectiles. Instead, they have stuff that just disintegrates the target.



How exactly is cloaking in the ST universe superior to the Normandy's stealth system? Because it turns the ship invisible to visual scans, too? Guess what - none of the targeting computations rely on visual scans. Distances and speeds are both too great for visual data to be useful.
It also makes the target invisible to subspace scanners, and doesn't have endurance limits. So, looks much superior.

Also, I'd note that the Normandy's system has failed at least once; against the collectors.


Against an immobile target? Weapons in ME keep going until they hit something. The Normandy can sit a light year away and unload all of its weaponry, then just hide until it hits. It's not like the space station can move out of the way. Any return fire would be easily evaded because the Normandy isn't immobile.
Shields, as well as shooting down the projectiles. They'd be visible long before the hit impact, after all.

There is no AI in the ST universe. EDI is something that nobody has ever dealt with. She's smart enough to play along with the systems on DS9, allowing commands to go through while she learns the pathways, and then shut everything down hard when the time comes. Or, probably more devastating, reroute orders so that the security teams walk into ambushes.
False. There are AI, though they are uncommon(which seems to be the position in both universes). I'd question how EDI get's access, though. Most people don't just download anything.

Again, nothing in the ST universe even compares to the complexity of the genophage. And even if Bashir could figure it out and synthesize a cure, he would need time to do so. If Mordin comes in with a genetic plague ready to go, and he just releases it into the air cycling system, by the time the symptoms start to show up (they'll have no idea that anything is wrong before that point) it will be too late to save the majority of the crew.
Are you sure about this? Honestly, while it is a very dangerous and impressive piece of work, but it's not clear how much information Mordin was able to get from his predecessors, plus he had a significant amount of time to come up with it.

And, when Data locked systems of Enterprise with cipher (ST VIII), not even Borg were able to unlock it. EDI is far smarter than Data (no problems with emotions, for example), and dedicated hacking AI to boot, he can lock anything he can touch even tighter, making Flagship of the Starfleet tin box floating helplessly :smalltongue:
Clarify where having emotions makes one smarter.


Transporters: Don't make a difference. Since absolutely everything that exists interferes with transporters, it isn't even reasonable to expect the Normandy to have trouble with them.
Not really true. There are many cases where it doesn't work, yes, but most of those come down to a couple factors. One, Star Trek Shields block it, but not always(especially, it seems, the rotational effect is a weak point). Since the Normmandy isn't equipped with such shields, this isn't an issue. Certain types of radiation could also block it, though, especially prevalent in this regard are the dampening fields. This may or may not cause problems, though for the 'fair' challenge it certainly would, as the invaders have several things that distinguish them.

Sensors: Federation sensors might run on magic pseudoscience, but they depend on the same pseudoscience being applicable to their target in order to find anything. The Normandy has no reason to ever be in a position where it can be seen by DS9's "mundane" sensor suites.
Source for this? I would note that the senors appear to have, at minimum, a range of one parsec.

Weapons: While Star Trek weapons are absolutely incapable of locking on to something without the target noticing, the same is not true of Mass Effect weapons. There's no mention of any "sensor lock" being needed.
What about that whole clip of the instructor yelling about how you don't fire until sensors tell you it's okay, and newton is king in space?

Moreover, evidence from the Trek shows strongly implies that none of the defensive technologies employed in the Trek universe would offer any protection whatsoever against javelins or thanix cannon.
Oh? Why is this?


The Normandy is well protected from Trek-style torpedoes (which aren't designed to contend with point defences since, for whatever reason, such things aren't in use in the 24th century), and could make itself difficult to hit with phasers -- more so, I believe, than a Federation ship could manage or be expected to deal with (note that phasers are particle beams -- they are quite literally just a weaker version of the weapon that the Collector Cruisers unsuccessfully tries to use against the Normandy SR-2).
Well, torpedoes can be shielded, and are apparently quite fast.

How would it become difficult to hit? Also, note that their are several differences between phasers and the collectors particle beam. The might be about as similar as an historical cannon and a kinetic accelerator. We don't really know, and unless it's shown how the Collector's weapon failed, I'm not sure how we can begin to guess.

Faster-than-light: The Normandy's FTL capabilities are a major improvement over the Federation's in terms of endurance, and I'm pretty sure the Normandy can compete on speed as well.
What is this I don't even....

The Mass Effect relays are better, yes. But the fastest speed the Normandy itself could make would be about 12 light years a day, and can operate for about 50 hours. This, by the way, appears to be about 200 times faster than the speed of light. It also corresponds to about Warp 5 for the Federation. And they can keep that up quite a bit longer than 50 hours.



As for firing at FTL... Star Trek vessels are limited to photon torpedoes, to which the Normandy is effectively invulnerable anyway.
Quote to back up that the Normandy can track and fire at faster than light projectiles...oh wait. They can't, because their sensors are specifically limited to slower than light.

With no offense meant towards Star Trek, this is true. Mass Effect actually makes sense, and their only vaugely magical stuff is well.. actual magic, as opposed to it being "sufficiently advanced technology" they have reasonable explanations for everything, and their military's act competently.
Yes, Star Trek is softer science. But, if you're doing a vs. it's considered poor form to simply disregard advantages simply because they aren't really explained.

I will say that, if confined both to the hand weapons/standard, mass effect would likely win.

[Flickerdart]

It seems to me that nobody in Trek would be able to do a damn thing about biotics. Liara, Jack and Morinth or Samara would be able to wreak havoc pretty much unopposed. Remember that one episode in Voyager where Old Kes started tearing the ship apart? Now imaging that with four or five people, and also they all have guns and top-notch commando training.

[Axolotl]

Yes, clearly Star Trek paid more than lip service to making sense, with all them ground troops running around with awkward phasers and all that. :smallconfused:

The ME military may not act as competently as our real-life counterpart, but they're a damn sight better than what Star Trek has shown over the course of DS9 and TNG. (Not counting Voy). They actually use military tactics there.Hey don't put words in my mouth. I never claimed Star Trek was vaguely realistic. My point was Star Trek never pretended to be realistic it was fairly open about being just high adventure crossed with a utopian fantasy with lots of unsubtle moralising thrown in. My issue was that Mass Effect sometimes seemed to forget you were killing evil lizard people using magical powers in your quest to defeat the robotic alien space squids and the game would start pretending it's setting made a lick of sense. I'll freely admit it's more real than Star Trek but that isn't saying much.

[wayfare]

It seems to me that nobody in Trek would be able to do a damn thing about biotics. Liara, Jack and Morinth or Samara would be able to wreak havoc pretty much unopposed. Remember that one episode in Voyager where Old Kes started tearing the ship apart? Now imaging that with four or five people, and also they all have guns and top-notch commando training.

Yeah, in a battle of the crews, tech and biotics really tear Trek folks up

[Xondoure]

I'd say Tech pseudo science works both ways, it works because it works but you can't say that EDI for example wouldn't be able to thwart it because it doesn't make any sense. At some point their tech comes down to programs, if she can gain access to the DS9's systems she can shut off the sensors long enough to get a team on board. Again I'd say Trek security fails more often than it succeeds which is not the case with EDI.

[Joran]

No, they don't. On any of those points -- ships do not 'frequently' engage each other while travelling at warp speeds, and it is entirely normal for ships to slow to sublight speeds prior to fighting. The one incident I'm aware of where a ship did fire torpedoes in anger while travelling at warp, its target was not another ship. Or even moving unpredictably.

I see no evidence that leads me to believe that Star Trek "FTL torpedoes" are a threat to the Normandy.

As for torpedoes having shields... given how much weaker those shields are than the shields typically fitted to Star Trek "capital ships", I again see no reason why that would change the conclusion that the Normandy is protected against torpedoes.

And that's putting aside the fact that "photon torpedoes have shields" has never been substantiated by anything in any Star Trek series.


Photon torpedoes having shields: http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Half_a_Life_%28episode%29

The Doctor who modified the torpedoes mentions that he modified the navigation program (not anything else) and "the shields are holding".

The torpedo survives long enough to get to the core of a sun. I'm pretty sure point defense lasers can't generate that much energy.

I found a video of the Prometheus from Voyager firing Phasers (of all weapons) at warp (with the streaking stars and everything)... I'm really not sure what to think about that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33BWYTRddkU

I could have sworn that phasers couldn't be fired at warp...

[Anteros]

see, this is the thing. this is the thing that isn't going to happen. because EDI cannot hack into DS9 without a link into their network, and she will not achieve a link into their network, because they do not use a compatible communication system. The normandy cannot hack DS9 any more than you can hack a cellphone call with a semaphore tower. They can't rush DS9 and dock because the shields will stop them cold, and I seriously doubt that the Normandy can dish out enough punishment to bring down the shields before
they themselves get blown to hell.

I don't really understand the trekkie logic here. It seems to be varying between "they get hacked all the time, so they know how to deal with it!" And "you can't hack star trek stuff! Is unpossible!" Which isn't all that consistent.

As to the kinetic shield arguments...I'll just note that the shields in the game DO routinely stop non-kinetic attacks.

Lastly, what's to stop shep and crew from jacking some other federation ship and coming abourd? Or any of a million other non-direct methods.

[Joran]

I don't really understand the trekkie logic here. It seems to be varying between "they get hacked all the time, so they know how to deal with it!" And "you can't hack star trek stuff! Is unpossible!" Which isn't all that consistent.



Well, the simple one is "EDI can't communicate therefore it's null and void". Mass Effect uses laser communications, Star Trek uses subspace. The limitations of Mass Effect communications technology makes hacking useless since being in laser range means that Normandy has gone past photon torpedo range a long time ago. Flashing light at a starship probably won't work since they won't know how to decode the communication.

Radio waves might work, but same issue as before.



Lastly, what's to stop shep and crew from jacking some other federation ship and coming abourd? Or any of a million other non-direct methods.

Wasn't part of the setup.

[Xondoure]

Well, the simple one is "EDI can't communicate therefore it's null and void". Mass Effect uses laser communications, Star Trek uses subspace. The limitations of Mass Effect communications technology makes hacking useless since being in laser range means that Normandy has gone past photon torpedo range a long time ago.



Wasn't part of the setup.

A lot of underestimating Joker seems to be going on here. You think its easy to bank in a vacuum? It isn't. :smalltongue:

[Joran]

A lot of underestimating Joker seems to be going on here. You think its easy to bank in a vacuum? It isn't. :smalltongue:

Besides, everyone keeps mentioning EDI with hacking. That's wrong! They just need to slap some omni-gel on it and suddenly it's unlocked!

Actually, I wonder if they can retrofit the Thanix cannon to fire omni-gel...

[lesser_minion]

photon torpedoes have been fired into stars before, and their shields were specifically stated to be enough to keep it undamaged until it reached the core. also, why do you think they glow? or, for that matter, can penetrate enemy shields if they're the same shield frequency?


And yet those shields must be weaker than those installed on a capital-scale ship. Such as the Enterprise, which couldn't last more than a couple of minutes inside a star even with special Plot Device shields that were specially optimised for that scenario.

These torpedoes cannot be taken as representative of the normal capabilities of a Star Trek torpedo.

As for "shield frequencies", we're talking about a specific weakness of Star Trek shields.


Shields, as well as shooting down the projectiles. They'd be visible long before the hit impact, after all.

There is no evidence that DS9 weapons have that capability. As for shields, what we've seen so far implies that Mass Effect weaponry is far more powerful than Star Trek shields ever have to deal with.

On top of that, they are an unusual technology -- Star Trek's shields have a tendency to fail when confronted with anything new, which includes all of the Normandy's ship to ship weapons.


Depends on the source. Some equivalences also place them at about 690 gigatons.

The truth is that the isoton has no know equivalency.

When a Star Trek ship explodes, it's because of some side effect to being damaged. A photon torpedo can make a pretty big hole, but it won't tear its target apart -- IIRC, Ambassador class vessels were designed to be able to survive a full volley of photon torpedoes at maximum yield and remain in one piece, even unshielded.

The torpedoes that took out the Enterprise-D depended on a "critical hit" -- what actually killed the ship was a warp core breach.

The torpedo that killed Sovereign -- a far larger target -- blasted it directly into chunky salsa.

I don't think there's anything you can really conclude from this besides "Mass Effect weaponry is far more destructive than Star Trek weaponry".


Not really true. There are many cases where it doesn't work, yes, but most of those come down to a couple factors. One, Star Trek Shields block it, but not always(especially, it seems, the rotational effect is a weak point). Since the Normmandy isn't equipped with such shields, this isn't an issue.

Given the frequency with which Star Trek transporters fail, and the premise of the scenario (which involves nigh-omnipotent beings), there is no reason to expect transporters to play a role here, even if the Normandy wasn't able to block them -- which, given the way Mass Effect fields can interfere with each other, doesn't strike me as a reasonable assumption.


What about that whole clip of the instructor yelling about how you don't fire until sensors tell you it's okay, and newton is king in space?

This does not describe a technical limitation of ME technology, nor does it substantiate the claim that active scanning is necessary to prepare a firing solution.

And it certainly doesn't describe the primary consideration of someone who is actively trying to not die as opposed to someone who is merely practising with the weapons in question.


Photon torpedoes having shields: http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Half_a_Life_%28episode%29

The Doctor who modified the torpedoes mentions that he modified the navigation program (not anything else) and "the shields are holding".

And since this is worse than the performance of the Enterprise herself, when using shields specially designed and modified for operating inside stars, I see no reason to believe that this somehow 'proves' that the Normandy's GARDIAN lasers wouldn't protect it.


I found a video of the Prometheus from Voyager firing Phasers (of all weapons) at warp (with the streaking stars and everything)... I'm really not sure what to think about that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33BWYTRddkU

I could have sworn that phasers couldn't be fired at warp...

The explanation given in TMP is that they'd introduced phasers that draw power from the warp core instead of having independent power supplies. Given that the Prometheus has different design goals, and that it clearly has redundant warp cores anyway, it's understandable.

However, it's one of those special cases that don't really establish much precedent.


What is this I don't even....

The Mass Effect relays are better, yes. But the fastest speed the Normandy itself could make would be about 12 light years a day, and can operate for about 50 hours. This, by the way, appears to be about 200 times faster than the speed of light. It also corresponds to about Warp 5 for the Federation. And they can keep that up quite a bit longer than 50 hours.

Not sure where you got that figure, but 12 light years a day is about 4500 times the speed of light. IIRC, a GCS can sustain somewhere around 1700 times the speed of light for a few minutes.

[Tavar]

And yet those shields must be weaker than those installed on a capital-scale ship. Such as the Enterprise, which couldn't last more than a couple of minutes inside a star even with special Plot Device shields that were specially optimised for that scenario.

These torpedoes cannot be taken as representative of the normal capabilities of a Star Trek torpedo.

As for "shield frequencies", we're talking about a specific weakness of Star Trek shields.
Uh...the torpedo didn't need to stay inside the star, it simply needed to go to a point and explode. It's perfectly possibly for that to have taken less than a minute.



There is no evidence that DS9 weapons have that capability. As for shields, what we've seen so far implies that Mass Effect weaponry is far more powerful than Star Trek shields ever have to deal with.
Proof?

On top of that, they are an unusual technology -- Star Trek's shields have a tendency to fail when confronted with anything new, which includes all of the Normandy's ship to ship weapons.
Except this isn't some new, exotic type of weapon. It's a mass accelerator.

Plus, the Normandy has the exact same tract record. Sure, it's only happened once, but it's only been in that situation once.



When a Star Trek ship explodes, it's because of some side effect to being damaged. A photon torpedo can make a pretty big hole, but it won't tear its target apart -- IIRC, Ambassador class vessels were designed to be able to survive a full volley of photon torpedoes at maximum yield and remain in one piece, even unshielded.

The torpedoes that took out the Enterprise-D depended on a "critical hit" -- what actually killed the ship was a warp core breach.

The torpedo that killed Sovereign -- a far larger target -- blasted it directly into chunky salsa.

I don't think there's anything you can really conclude from this besides "Mass Effect weaponry is far more destructive than Star Trek weaponry".
I could conclude that you totally fan-wanking the Normandy, and don't know what you're talking about.

The shot that killed Soverign was after a long bombardment, and even then we aren't sure what exactly caused the explosion. It looks as if the shot finally managed to core him, and then an explosion destroyed him, after the shot passed through. That speaks to me of secondary explosions, results of the same kind of critical hits that you speak of regarding Star Trek.

In addition, what relevance does the ships surviving have to do with how much energy their weapons put out? All that means(unless given specific numbers to how much damage they can take) is that their weapons were insufficient to overpower the ship.

It's like being told that, after putting a piece of metal in a furnace, it melted. You don't assume then that the metal simply has a low melting point. All you can really gather is that the furnace's temperature was higher than the metal's melting point towards the end.



Given the frequency with which Star Trek transporters fail, and the premise of the scenario (which involves nigh-omnipotent beings), there is no reason to expect transporters to play a role here, even if the Normandy wasn't able to block them -- which, given the way Mass Effect fields can interfere with each other, doesn't strike me as a reasonable assumption.
Why? Mass Effect fields are simple manipulations of gravity. Why would this influence Transporters?

Also, please don't say because either the omnipotent beings or because transporters always fail. They fail because of a reason. Therefore, unless the Normandy has one of the reasons it would fail, then it wouldn't fail.



This does not describe a technical limitation of ME technology, nor does it substantiate the claim that active scanning is necessary to prepare a firing solution.

And it certainly doesn't describe the primary consideration of someone who is actively trying to not die as opposed to someone who is merely practising with the weapons in question.
Uh...no. It specifically says they don't fire until the computers have a lock.

Well, they can, but they don't have an assurance of hitting the target, there fore they wait. After all, each shot wastes resources, and time. The latter of which is especially precious in a battle.

[Seraph]

There is no evidence that DS9 weapons have that capability. As for shields, what we've seen so far implies that Mass Effect weaponry is far more powerful than Star Trek shields ever have to deal with.

you sir, fail logic utterly. the only way one could say as much would be if ME weapons were used against a target with shield technology equivalent to ST, which they never have. the average estimate for a photon torpedo yield is something on the scale of 40 megatons, which is vastly more than the majority of weapons in Mass Effect.

[Fan]

you sir, fail logic utterly. the only way one could say as much would be if ME weapons were used against a target with shield technology equivalent to ST, which they never have. the average estimate for a photon torpedo yield is something on the scale of 40 megatons, which is vastly more than the majority of weapons in Mass Effect.

Actually, according to the codex on Mass Accelerator Guns, the main gun of a ship hits with the strength of a modern tactical nuclear bomb (by in game canon statements), and ships carry 26 of these broadside accelerators apiece for a total salvo weight of 78 slugs per side, firing once every two seconds.

And Kinetic Barriers can take this... so.

[lesser_minion]

I could conclude that you totally fan-wanking the Normandy, and don't know what you're talking about.

Not at all. I'm simply calling what I see, and that is that even though Star Trek appears to be set in a higher-technology universe with far greater capabilities than the Mass Effect series, this is nowhere near as clear-cut in favour of DS9 as it initially looks.

It really comes down to the circumstances -- what does Shep know about the Federation, and what does the Federation know about the Normandy?


The shot that killed Sovereign was after a long bombardment, and even then we aren't sure what exactly caused the explosion. It looks as if the shot finally managed to core him, and then an explosion destroyed him, after the shot passed through. That speaks to me of secondary explosions, results of the same kind of critical hits that you speak of regarding Star Trek.

It was after a long bombardment with no visible damage to Sovereign, during which it was implied that Sovereign's shields protected it in some way, presumably even from things that shields aren't normally effective against.


In addition, what relevance does the ships surviving have to do with how much energy their weapons put out? All that means(unless given specific numbers to how much damage they can take) is that their weapons were insufficient to overpower the ship.

I don't think there's really that much reliable evidence we can go on besides observations of how events are depicted.

What I will note is that the same ship that was destroyed by a disruptor torpedo was almost completely unscathed by colliding with another starship immediately beforehand.

Comparable events have occurred in Star Trek, and without exception, the result was catastrophic damage to one or both ships.


Why? Mass Effect fields are simple manipulations of gravity. Why would this influence Transporters?

Why would it not? If nothing else, biotics could be used to mess around with the endpoints of the transport.

Memory Alpha describes Star Trek shields as "creating a layer, or layers, of energetic distortion containing a high concentration of gravitons around the object to be protected". So... why can't "simple manipulations of gravity" influence transporters again?


Also, please don't say because either the omnipotent beings or because transporters always fail. They fail because of a reason. Therefore, unless the Normandy has one of the reasons it would fail, then it wouldn't fail.

Please don't impose artificial restrictions on other people's arguments. The premise here is that Q sets this up for his amusement. If transporters completely break the game, there is no amusement for Q. Ergo, the transporters will not completely break the game.


Uh...no. It specifically says they don't fire until the computers have a lock.

No, he says "You do not just wing it" and "you do not fire unless you have a firing solution". There is no evidence here that a ME ship needs to perform active scans in order to do such a thing.


you sir, fail logic utterly. the only way one could say as much would be if ME weapons were used against a target with shield technology equivalent to ST, which they never have.

I compared the effects of a photon torpedo on an (effectively) unshielded GCS with the effects of a disruptor torpedo on an unshielded Reaper.

I believe it's a fair comparison, despite not being exactly like-for-like. The Reapers might not hold everything together with tiny forcefields, but they do know a thing or two about building things to last.


The average estimate for a photon torpedo yield is something on the scale of 40 megatons, which is vastly more than the majority of weapons in Mass Effect.

And yet whether it's "40 megatons" or "690 gigatons", a photon torpedo still isn't all that impressive even against an unshielded target.

Memory-Alpha can quote whatever figures it likes -- they don't match what is shown on the screen. What we do see on screen in Mass Effect is a ship going through an event that would be guaranteed to kill it had this been Star Trek, then being destroyed by a single torpedo once its shields failed.

The torpedo yield you quote must be a lot smaller than you think (and, for that matter, TOS strongly implies that bog-standard nuclear missiles were a definite threat to starships).

[Seraph]

Actually, according to the codex on Mass Accelerator Guns, the main gun of a ship hits with the strength of a modern tactical nuclear bomb (by in game canon statements), and ships carry 26 of these broadside accelerators apiece for a total salvo weight of 78 slugs per side, firing once every two seconds.

a modern tactical nuclear missile only averages about 400 kilotons, with the really nasty ones topping out at around one Mt. these are tactical weapons, after all, they're meant to be used on the battlefield against troops, not against cities.

so, your average ME ship can deal out enough damage in two seconds to match two, two and a half photon torpedoes. and since they're broadside configured, only half of this will be aimed at one enemy, so let's make it one and a half. If all their shots hit.

not particularly impressive, since ST ships tend to fire photons in bursts of three to six at a time, and photon torpedoes can home in on targets.

[Joran]

The explanation given in TMP is that they'd introduced phasers that draw power from the warp core instead of having independent power supplies. Given that the Prometheus has different design goals, and that it clearly has redundant warp cores anyway, it's understandable.

However, it's one of those special cases that don't really establish much precedent.



TMP? Considering the standard Nebula-class starship ALSO FIRES phasers at warp, so it's not just Prometheus.

Another citation for photon torpedoes at warp: http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Q_Who_%28episode%29

The Enterprise-D fires torpedoes at maximum warp back at a Borg cube. I'm sorry, but it's demonstrably false that torpedoes can't be fired at warp.


When a Star Trek ship explodes, it's because of some side effect to being damaged. A photon torpedo can make a pretty big hole, but it won't tear its target apart -- IIRC, Ambassador class vessels were designed to be able to survive a full volley of photon torpedoes at maximum yield and remain in one piece, even unshielded.

No, I don't believe so. I do remember the Enterprise-D not firing a photon torpedo without shields because "When fired by a Galaxy-class starship without shields at a target in close range, a single photon detonation had a high probability of destroying the firing ship as well." Maybe the shields of the Ambassador-class starship is strong enough to survive a full-spread of torpedoes but a ship would take massive damage if hit unshielded with a photon torpedo.

Citation: http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Photon_torpedo

[Fan]

a modern tactical nuclear missile only averages about 400 kilotons, with the really nasty ones topping out at around one Mt. these are tactical weapons, after all, they're meant to be used on the battlefield against troops, not against cities.

so, your average ME ship can deal out enough damage in two seconds to match two, two and a half photon torpedoes. and since they're broadside configured, only half of this will be aimed at one enemy, so let's make it one and a half. If all their shots hit.

not particularly impressive, since ST ships tend to fire photons in bursts of three to six at a time, and photon torpedoes can home in on targets.

What. 3 and 6 at a time.

And how many torpedo's do you think a ship HAS? :smalleek:

[Seraph]

And how many torpedo's do you think a ship HAS? :smalleek:

at the tail end of DS9, Worf mentioned that the Defiant only had "approximately 80" torpedoes left. The context of the scene implies that this is a low number of torpedoes for the Defiant to have going into a fight, and the Defiant really isn't all that big compared to other ST ships or DS9 itself.

[Joran]

What. 3 and 6 at a time.

And how many torpedo's do you think a ship HAS? :smalleek:

Well, considering it's DS9... Let's see...

5000+ photon torpedoes.

With the Defiant, you have Quantum torpedoes which are even MORE powerful than photon torpedoes.

Oh and torpedoes seldom miss.

[Fan]

at the tail end of DS9, Worf mentioned that the Defiant only had "approximately 80" torpedoes left. The context of the scene implies that this is a low number of torpedoes for the Defiant to have going into a fight, and the Defiant really isn't all that big compared to other ST ships or DS9 itself.

Still Torpedo's are more powerful than Phasers themselves, and that proves that Normandy would be able to get in, considering the Thanix Cannons are more powerful than your traditional mass accelerator by an order of magnitude that is fairly massive if the beginning and end cut scenes are any indication.

[Seraph]

Still Torpedo's are more powerful than Phasers themselves, and that proves that Normandy would be able to get in, considering the Thanix Cannons are more powerful than your traditional mass accelerator by an order of magnitude that is fairly massive if the beginning and end cut scenes are any indication.


I already covered the Thanix cannons. they can only fire once every five seconds, and you have to point the whole ship at your target to fire them. good for an interception vehicle, not so much if you're trying to strafe a stationary shielded target that can blast your ship apart in a matter of seconds.

[Hands_Of_Blue]

And how many torpedo's do you think a ship HAS? :smalleek: Deep Space Nine has five thousand torpedos on hand, and fifty torpedo launchers. And something like seventy phaser arrays.

[chiasaur11]

No, he says "You do not just wing it" and "you do not fire unless you have a firing solution". There is no evidence here that a ME ship needs to perform active scans in order to do such a thing.

In fact, from the tone, it's pretty firm evidence to the contrary. The serviceman wouldn't need to be told not to eyeball it if the whole of firing was waiting for a computer to say "locked" and then being able to push the button.

It's a matter of accuracy, not ability. Shooting from the hip is possible, just a very, very bad idea normally. Still, if you had, I don't know, some kind of super-computer capable of millions of decisions a second, you could make the shot. Easily. And if you had a slide rule, a target moving on an easily mapped trajectory, paper and a pencil, you could aim the shot. No sensors needed.

Well! What were you doing there EDI, Legion, and numerous VIs?

Math? Huh.

[Fan]

I already covered the Thanix cannons. they can only fire once every five seconds, and you have to point the whole ship at your target to fire them. good for an interception vehicle, not so much if you're trying to strafe a stationary shielded target that can blast your ship apart in a matter of seconds.

Didn't we also say that EDI could at least give the systems a few seconds of pause?

I mean, EDI went toe to toe with an infinite hive mind that quite literally thought and acted a light speed and came out on top.

I don't think even Data could compete with that.

[Seraph]

Didn't we also say that EDI could at least give the systems a few seconds of pause?

I mean, EDI went toe to toe with an infinite hive mind that quite literally thought and acted a light speed and came out on top.

I don't think even Data could compete with that.

we already covered this. EDI can't mess with DS9's systems because the Normandy has no way of securing a data connection with DS9. their communication technology is completely incompatible.

[Fan]

we already covered this. EDI can't mess with DS9's systems because the Normandy has no way of securing a data connection with DS9. their communication technology is completely incompatible.

And...

A hyper advanced bio technological hive mind that had mutated beyond the ability for standard (read: thousands of years ahead of our own.) ships to communicate with, and she had to adapt subroutines in a language that she didn't know to interact with the systems within the span of seconds...

Doesn't apply to this.. how?

[Seraph]

And...

A hyper advanced bio technological hive mind that had mutated beyond the ability for standard (read: thousands of years ahead of our own.) ships to communicate with, and she had to adapt subroutines in a language that she didn't know to interact with the systems within the span of seconds...

Doesn't apply to this.. how?

why does nobody listen?

it doesn't matter how fast EDI can compute. it doesn't matter how fast she can write code. it doesn't matter how quickly she can understand a language. this is not a matter of processing.

to return to my earlier analogy, you can have the single fastest semaphore flag signaller in the world stand on top of a hill perfectly in line between two radio towers, but no matter how fast he waves those flags, he isn't going to do a damn thing to interrupt the radio signal. The Normandy has no way of detecting subspace communications, much less intercepting or sending them. they work on a branch of science that is completely foreign to their understanding of technology and is completely incompatible with their methods of communication.

[Hands_Of_Blue]

It's not just code, she would have to build a subspace radio.

[lesser_minion]

TMP? Considering the standard Nebula-class starship ALSO FIRES phasers at warp, so it's not just Prometheus.

Another citation for photon torpedoes at warp: http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Q_Who_%28episode%29

The Enterprise-D fires torpedoes at maximum warp back at a Borg cube. I'm sorry, but it's demonstrably false that torpedoes can't be fired at warp.

I didn't say that they "can't" fire torpedoes at warp, I said that it wasn't common or particularly effective. There are innumerable examples of starships not engaging each other at warp -- why not?

I even proposed a mechanism for why firing photon torpedoes might be less effective at warp (and it turns out that Memory Alpha agrees with the premise I assumed).


No, I don't believe so. I do remember the Enterprise-D not firing a photon torpedo without shields because "When fired by a Galaxy-class starship without shields at a target in close range, a single photon detonation had a high probability of destroying the firing ship as well." Maybe the shields of the Ambassador-class starship is strong enough to survive a full-spread of torpedoes but a ship would take massive damage if hit unshielded with a photon torpedo.

I would note that:

The Ambassador class heavily predates the GCS
This was considered exceptional.

Remember that in Star Trek, "destroy" means "heavily damage". As I already mentioned, it's mainly "critical hits" that kill off ships.


a modern tactical nuclear missile only averages about 400 kilotons, with the really nasty ones topping out at around one Mt. these are tactical weapons, after all, they're meant to be used on the battlefield against troops, not against cities.

A 22nd century nuclear warhead was a serious threat to a 23rd century Constitution Class starship. They never stated the yield, but how far do you want us to expect shield technology to advance, again?


so, your average ME ship can deal out enough damage in two seconds to match two, two and a half photon torpedoes. and since they're broadside configured, only half of this will be aimed at one enemy, so let's make it one and a half. If all their shots hit.

not particularly impressive, since ST ships tend to fire photons in bursts of three to six at a time, and photon torpedoes can home in on targets.

Yet those photon torpedoes are assigned numbers -- by, for the most part, people who don't know what the numbers mean, and people who do not speak with the voice of canon -- that far exceed their actual on-screen performance (putting aside for a moment the fact that the overall "destructiveness" of something is not solely dependent on how much energy it releases).

The ability to make sound waves that reach "1028 decibels" in a vacuum is rather impressive. But even though that's the quoted figure, it's not evidence of anything besides the fact that the writers have no clue what the numbers mean.

[Talya]

Man, Mordin would be insulted if you compared that to his work.

Really insulted. Not for the moral bit, as much as he likes his ethics, but for the skill level.

Anybody can make an incredibly nasty hereditary disease. The EM thing also seems within standard council capabilities.

Mordin engineered a revision of the genophage that:

1) Was impossible to detect.
2) Didn't kill. Didn't cause harm. It just kept the population dead steady to a very specific ratio
3) Kept up with the amazing Krogan capability for regeneration.

The phrasing you used here...had me hearing Mordin's voice as I read it. For a moment I could swear you were trying to talk like him. I was disappointed when I kept reading and Mordin's voice disappeared...

[Xondoure]

why does nobody listen?

it doesn't matter how fast EDI can compute. it doesn't matter how fast she can write code. it doesn't matter how quickly she can understand a language. this is not a matter of processing.

to return to my earlier analogy, you can have the single fastest semaphore flag signaller in the world stand on top of a hill perfectly in line between two radio towers, but no matter how fast he waves those flags, he isn't going to do a damn thing to interrupt the radio signal. The Normandy has no way of detecting subspace communications, much less intercepting or sending them. they work on a branch of science that is completely foreign to their understanding of technology and is completely incompatible with their methods of communication.

So what you're saying is that before the Normandy would stand a chance in hell of taking on the DS9 they would need to find someway to aquire a subspace radio that would gain them access to the DS9 base or at least shut off its primary means of defense long enough to allow them to take it out? Now where have we seen that (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Reaper_IFF) before?

[Ekul]

Like I said, anyone wanting to use EDI-beams-aboard-DS9 offensive method can do this: the Normandy, regardless of its effectiveness against DS9, can ambush a small civilian ship (which normally don't go above warp 5), steal some of its technology, and reverse engineer the subspace radio.

Both sides would be foolish to initiate the battle with no prior knowledge. Since the Normandy is the attacker in this situation (Since the Feds don't fire first and because they're stationary), they should be expected to find out more about their foe.

Any technology that Shepard finds out about merely takes a few thousand resources and very little time to create.

[Joran]

Yet those photon torpedoes are assigned numbers -- by, for the most part, people who don't know what the numbers mean, and people who do not speak with the voice of canon -- that far exceed their actual on-screen performance (putting aside for a moment the fact that the overall "destructiveness" of something is not solely dependent on how much energy it releases).

The ability to make sound waves that reach "1028 decibels" in a vacuum is rather impressive. But even though that's the quoted figure, it's not evidence of anything besides the fact that the writers have no clue what the numbers mean.

I hate this argument about what we see on the screen and trying to derive real world values from that. It's a fool's errand.

Using the same methodology, couches are suddenly bullet proof (they're not) and C4 causes fires (it doesn't). A car bomb in a movie looks and sounds absolutely nothing like a car bomb in real life. Likewise, an anti-matter explosion is going to look like nothing of what's on screen.

We know that IN DIALOGUE, a photon torpedo can level a city. I trust that dialogue, especially since the tech behind a photon torpedo is an anti-matter explosion, and we generally know how much energy that has.

Does that mean they got the numbers right? No, that's why they eventually resorted to made-up units like "iso-ton".


I didn't say that they "can't" fire torpedoes at warp, I said that it wasn't common or particularly effective. There are innumerable examples of starships not engaging each other at warp -- why not?

I even proposed a mechanism for why firing photon torpedoes might be less effective at warp (and it turns out that Memory Alpha agrees with the premise I assumed).

Rule of cool? Visual Technology limitations because they were using models back then? Lack of imagination from the writers?

Why do ships when they confront one another face bow to bow on the same plane within spitting distance?

I've watched every episode of Star Trek from TOS to VOY, and they've never stated that photon torpedoes lose power when fired at warp. Nothing in any of the series says something like "Fighting at warp is stupid and useless. Fight at impulse."

Logically, I think photon torpedoes should have the same yield both at warp and at sublight, because it never states that there's a difference.

[Xondoure]

I hate this argument about what we see on the screen and trying to derive real world values from that. It's a fool's errand.

Using the same methodology, couches are suddenly bullet proof (they're not) and C4 causes fires (it doesn't). A car bomb in a movie looks and sounds absolutely nothing like a car bomb in real life. Likewise, an anti-matter explosion is going to look like nothing of what's on screen.

We know that IN DIALOGUE, a photon torpedo can level a city. I trust that dialogue, especially since the tech behind a photon torpedo is an anti-matter explosion, and we generally know how much energy that has.

Does that mean they got the numbers right? No, that's why they eventually resorted to made-up units like "iso-ton".



Rule of cool? Visual Technology limitations because they were using models back then? Lack of imagination from the writers?

Why do ships when they confront one another face bow to bow on the same plane within spitting distance?

I've watched every episode of Star Trek from TOS to VOY, and they've never stated that photon torpedoes lose power when fired at warp. Nothing in any of the series says something like "Fighting at warp is stupid and useless. Fight at impulse."

Logically, I think photon torpedoes should have the same yield both at warp and at sublight, because it never states that there's a difference.

The real question is how accurate is jumping several lightyears just to shoot a torpedo going to be? Because they have to be in warp to fire warp torpedos yes? If warp against sublight was an option why don't they just do that in every fight?

Also in regards to the whole bullet proof sofa reasoning. How about real life > On screen > source books for basic stuff and On screen > source book > real life for things like biotics, magic, and isotons? It doesn't make sense but it has to work on screen for the plot to move forward, source books are just other peoples guesstimations with trek!science and real life well, it doesn't make sense.

[Executor]

Normandy.

Why?

Shepard.

[Joran]

The real question is how accurate is jumping several lightyears just to shoot a torpedo going to be? Because they have to be in warp to fire warp torpedos yes? If warp against sublight was an option why don't they just do that in every fight?

Also in regards to the whole bullet proof sofa reasoning. How about real life > On screen > source books for basic stuff and On screen > source book > real life for things like biotics, magic, and isotons? It doesn't make sense but it has to work on screen for the plot to move forward, source books are just other peoples guesstimations with trek!science and real life well, it doesn't make sense.

Torpedoes can be fired either at warp or at sub-light.

There's a contradiction between torpedo (on screen) vs. torpedo (in dialogue). They're both canon sources.

Real-life weighs in on the side of dialogue because we know in theory what a matter/anti-matter explosion should do. It's a humongous amount of energy, it will level a city. So, I'm more inclined to believe the dialogue (canon source) + what science tells me vs. a special effect technician.

[Xondoure]

Torpedoes can be fired either at warp or at sub-light.

There's a contradiction between torpedo (on screen) vs. torpedo (in dialogue). They're both canon sources.

Real-life weighs in on the side of dialogue because we know in theory what a matter/anti-matter explosion should do. It's a humongous amount of energy, it will level a city. So, I'm more inclined to believe the dialogue (canon source) + what science tells me vs. a special effect technician.

So why do they get fired at sublight? Honestly in all sublight confrontations they get fired at sublight so why would this fight be different?

[chiasaur11]

The phrasing you used here...had me hearing Mordin's voice as I read it. For a moment I could swear you were trying to talk like him. I was disappointed when I kept reading and Mordin's voice disappeared...

Apologies.

Will attempt greater consistency in future. Happy accidents best noticed, capitalized on.

However, experience somewhat traumatic.

Encountered fanfiction.

Amusing, terrifying in equal measure.

Featured hot pockets. Long story.

Talk more later.

[Grif]

Apologies.

Will attempt greater consistency in future. Happy accidents best noticed, capitalized on.

However, experience somewhat traumatic.

Encountered fanfiction.

Amusing, terrifying in equal measure.

Featured hot pockets. Long story.

Talk more later.

Goddamnit Mordin. When did you sign up for the forums?

As an aside, how many 'soldiers' or security officers you think DS9 have? The Normandy has a nominal marine complement of 11, yes? *snicker.* 11 commandos more like. (Don't recall seeing marines on the SR2 like I did in the SR1.)

[lesser_minion]

I hate this argument about what we see on the screen and trying to derive real world values from that. It's a fool's errand.

We don't try to derive real-world values, we try to derive comparisons. This is a versus thread. Pointless or not, that's exactly what you signed up for when you joined this argument.


Using the same methodology, couches are suddenly bullet proof (they're not) and C4 causes fires (it doesn't). A car bomb in a movie looks and sounds absolutely nothing like a car bomb in real life. Likewise, an anti-matter explosion is going to look like nothing of what's on screen.

If a sofa isn't bulletproof in the same film it's shown stopping bullets, that changes events (like whether or not the guy behind the sofa survives). It may be incorrect by our notions of how things should work, but we aren't in our world any more. And in that world, yes, car bombs look and sound like that, C4 does cause fires, and sofas stop bullets. The fact that they "shouldn't" work that way doesn't change the fact that they do.

Likewise, antimatter torpedoes don't actually do as much damage as you might expect. A photon torpedo's explosion might not work the same way that a real anti-matter explosion would (this depends on the amount of matter and antimatter present), but we aren't discussing a real world, and if a torpedo had the effects it was claimed to have, events shown on screen would have occurred differently. Ergo, it cannot be as effective as was claimed.

As for levelling cities... well, sure. We haven't seen it happen, but I don't have a problem with it. But you don't need 690 gigatons to wreck a city.

It's worth noting that every weapon used in Mass Effect against another ship is on the same scale as weapons that can be used against a city.


We know that IN DIALOGUE, a photon torpedo can level a city. I trust that dialogue, especially since the tech behind a photon torpedo is an anti-matter explosion, and we generally know how much energy that has.

Well, no we don't. The amount of energy an antimatter explosion has is a function of how much antimatter and matter was involved. It also doesn't necessarily tell us anything about how destructive the weapon is.


Rule of cool? Visual Technology limitations because they were using models back then? Lack of imagination from the writers?

Whatever it is, it has an effect on the way things play out in-universe. Hence, it has an effect on how things play out in this scenario.


I've watched every episode of Star Trek from TOS to VOY, and they've never stated that photon torpedoes lose power when fired at warp. Nothing in any of the series says something like "Fighting at warp is stupid and useless. Fight at impulse."

Why would they have to say it? If it was true in their universe, everyone there would already know it.


Logically, I think photon torpedoes should have the same yield both at warp and at sublight, because it never states that there's a difference.

We know that a torpedo uses its own payload to sustain warp speed. Logically, there is no reason to believe it would have the same yield at warp.

This of course assumes that the torpedo cannot be outrun by the Normandy, which doesn't have any of the subspace signatures that make FTL sensors possible in Star Trek, and is, according to Tavar's figures, capable of travelling twice as fast as any Federation vessel for over a hundred times as long.

[Parra]

So why do they get fired at sublight? Honestly in all sublight confrontations they get fired at sublight so why would this fight be different?

Torperdos fired while traveling at warp speed, 'leech' a little of the Warp Bubble around the ship and allows the torpedo to continue moving at Warp with its own, now seperate Warp Bubble.
If the ship is not at Warp, there is no Warp Bubble to 'leech' off and the torpedo continues at sublight speed.
The torpedo itself can not accelerate from sublight up to Warp speeds.

[SoC175]

The Normandy is not even considered a powerful ship in her own universe. It's a frigging frigate, the least powerful type of capital ships.

In ME2 it received some upgrades to it's combat capability which now place her somewhere between a frigate and a cruiser, but it's still a frigate and not even as powerful as a real cruiser.

[Leliel]

Normandy.

Why?

Shepard.

Why do you think I cited Sisko as an advantage?

Really, one of the main environmental threats is the two captains meeting causes an Awesome Event Horizon and ripping a hole in the space-time continnum to the Elemental Realm of Cool, at which point both sides will call it a draw so as to team up and fight the invading Cyborg Ninja Space Pirates.

[Xondoure]

Torperdos fired while traveling at warp speed, 'leech' a little of the Warp Bubble around the ship and allows the torpedo to continue moving at Warp with its own, now seperate Warp Bubble.
If the ship is not at Warp, there is no Warp Bubble to 'leech' off and the torpedo continues at sublight speed.
The torpedo itself can not accelerate from sublight up to Warp speeds.

So if that is true than the DS9 would have to accelarate to warp speed to fire at the Normandy, something made difficult by the fact that they are now in subspace speeding away at miles/second.

Its a sublight encounter so going off of Star Trek rules the torpedos are fired at sublight.

[The Glyphstone]

DS9 can move? At any speed, let alone warp speed?

[Grif]

DS9 can move? At any speed, let alone warp speed?

I point you to Episode 1-2 of Season 1 as well as another episode which involved Q for some reason.

It is implied to be very slow without technobabble though.

[Yora]

I would say a fully upgraded Normandy 2 might come close to reach the power of the Defiant. They are both in a similar size category with similar design philosophies.
But unless they get close to one with it's pants completely down, I don't hink the Normandy 2 has any chance to do serious damage to a Federation capital ship.

[Fan]

So if that is true than the DS9 would have to accelarate to warp speed to fire at the Normandy, something made difficult by the fact that they are now in subspace speeding away at miles/second.

Its a sublight encounter so going off of Star Trek rules the torpedos are fired at sublight.

I'm pretty sure that the Normandy has FTL without Mass Effect Drives, it's enough to go interstellar in minutes, but it eats up fuel pretty quickly, you just need the Mass Effect Relays to leap across the Galaxy in the same span of time.

[Yora]

Traveling to a couple of nearby stars should be easily doable in a radius of 10 light years.
But given the size of the galaxy, getting from one random star to another random star would on average be 50,000 light years, and the galaxy map in ME shows clusters all over the galaxy. So making a very rough guess, ME-relays are probably a thousand times faster than regular FTL engines. That could work with the way ME-reavel and FTL-travel is dealt with in the games.

[Xondoure]

I'm pretty sure that the Normandy has FTL without Mass Effect Drives, it's enough to go interstellar in minutes, but it eats up fuel pretty quickly, you just need the Mass Effect Relays to leap across the Galaxy in the same span of time.

Most definitely… but what does that have to do with my point?

[Fan]

So yeah, Mass Effect isn't behind in speed.. It's bullets and attacks do roughly the same amount of damage (in a single volley.), and the shields on the Normandy are designed to deal with things LIKE phasers (being hand crafted to deal with the collectors), and it's sensor / stealth equipment would thus LOGICALLY not be that far behind, and the Normandy being an experimental entirely custom ship that surpasses all standard military technology would thus be on par with Star Trek stealth technology.

Meaning, that yes, they do slip in undetected, and that they aren't so stupidly outclassed as people keep.. stating.

[Yora]

I think the technology is comparable.

But the Normandy is a really small ship. The standard military vessels in Star Trek are several size categories larger. The Enterprise is at the upper end of the scale, but has a crew of about 1000, while the Normandy is about 20.

[Joran]

I think the technology is comparable.

But the Normandy is a really small ship. The standard military vessels in Star Trek are several size categories larger. The Enterprise is at the upper end of the scale, but has a crew of about 1000, while the Normandy is about 20.

Never mind that DS9 is a heavily armed space station with over 5000 photon torpedoes, 70 phaser banks, a cloaked mindfield (albeit one over the wormhole entrance) and numerous runabouts and the Defiant. It successfully fought one Klingon battlefleet, so it's ridiculously powerful. We're talking one small ship versus a space station powerful enough to take on a fleet.

I wouldn't agree that the technology is comparable for ship to ship combat, but we're running into problems with basic baseline facts. Whether the Normandy II's stealth systems, which only sinks IR, would work against Starfleet sensors. Whether Normandy II can be detected in FTL by Starfleet FTL sensors, etc, etc.

Mass Effect dreadnoughts apparently engage at what is considered "EXTREME" range, which is ten of thousands of kilometers, which seems really short. Frigates like the Normandy II engage and much closer range, but I have no clue what the range of a photon torpedo is and can't get a straight answer.

[BadJuJu]

http://media.arstechnica.com/journals/apple.media/thumb/250/250/data_laugh.old.jpg

now, that said, let's be honest here. The Normandy, ultimately, has no way of winning this fight. Its primary weapons are disruptor torpedoes and the Thanix Cannons.

The disruptor torpedoes are fairly nasty, all things considered, but they're also explicitly described as being slow. so slow, in fact, that they have to be used on an up-close-and-personal basis because they can be easily shot down by any sort of halfway-competent point defense system. coupled with the fact that they work more on gravitational disruption than raw force, I rather doubt that they'd be of much help here, as even if they didn't get shot down they'd just impact against DS9's shields, which are used to steady volleys of 40 MT warheads.

The Thanix Cannon is somewhat more formidable, being a jet of molten dense metal fired at a fraction of the speed of light. however, it explicitly can only fire once every five seconds, has no turret aiming (entire ship has to point at the target), and I doubt the Normandy has enough liquid uranium on board to keep steady fire of that thing. moreover, because of its limited aiming ability, the Normandy is going to have to either fly right at DS9 (makes it an easy target) or drift sideways while it fires (also makes it an easy target).

Shepard taking a ground team onto DS9 is a non-issue, because they have no way of getting aboard without docking, and they'll have no way of docking while the shields are up. their "stealth" is probably completely useless, as I doubt ST sensors work by detecting anything as mundane as IR signatures, especially since they can detect targets at lightyear distances. EDI is also a non-issue, as ST communications work on an entirely different principle.

Just throw Legion from some distance away and have him bypass and let you in. Oh, I forgot...


Legion: "Geth do not infiltrate."

Well, its not his idea so...

Legion: "Geth do not intentionally infiltrate."

[Seraph]

So yeah, Mass Effect isn't behind in speed.. It's bullets and attacks do roughly the same amount of damage (in a single volley.)

no, we established that a ME capital ship does enough damage in one volley to match a third of the power behind a single burst from a single torpedo launcher. and the Normandy is by no means a capital ship.


and the shields on the Normandy are designed to deal with things LIKE phasers (being hand crafted to deal with the collectors),

the collector weapons are not at all like phasers. Collector particle beams are described as focused beams of radiation that work through brute force, phasers use special particles called nadions to disrupt the Strong Nuclear Force of whatever it hits.


and it's sensor / stealth equipment would thus LOGICALLY not be that far behind, and the Normandy being an experimental entirely custom ship that surpasses all standard military technology would thus be on par with Star Trek stealth technology.

for pity's sake, stop ignoring arguments that you don't like. ME stealth works purely on the basis of hiding a ships heat signature, nothing else. Star Trek uses some sort of subspace scanning, which is why they can get realtime scan results on objects lightyears away.

at least have the decency of understanding how mass effect technology works before you start making claims of its effectiveness.

[Xondoure]

Never mind that DS9 is a heavily armed space station with over 5000 photon torpedoes, 70 phaser banks, a cloaked mindfield (albeit one over the wormhole entrance) and numerous runabouts and the Defiant. It successfully fought one Klingon battlefleet, so it's ridiculously powerful. We're talking one small ship versus a space station powerful enough to take on a fleet.

I wouldn't agree that the technology is comparable for ship to ship combat, but we're running into problems with basic baseline facts. Whether the Normandy II's stealth systems, which only sinks IR, would work against Starfleet sensors. Whether Normandy II can be detected in FTL by Starfleet FTL sensors, etc, etc.

Mass Effect dreadnoughts apparently engage at what is considered "EXTREME" range, which is ten of thousands of kilometers, which seems really short. Frigates like the Normandy II engage and much closer range, but I have no clue what the range of a photon torpedo is and can't get a straight answer.

A spy might succeed infiltrating the walls of a city legions could not. Going up against an impossibly dangerous foe is the Normandy's bread and butter, and the team is smart enough to find a way through Trek level defences.

[Yora]

If you can track asteroids, you can track a ship in silent mode. The voyager has successfully detected a rusty pickup truck drifting through space, while speeding along at warp speed. Something the size of the Normandy would possibly be detected as an annomaly at long distance, but it would be detected.

Thinking of it, yes the normandy would probably be quite outclassed by a federation vessel of the same size outfitted for the same role. The main reason are deflector shields. Even shuttles can brush off two or three hits from capital ships without serious damage. And I don't think even Normandys super-lasers would reach that power, not to speak of the regular weapons.
And with FTL only shown between stars that are directly next to each other, Warp drives are probably a lot faster.

Normandy is equiped for dangerous missions against superior enemies, precisely to avoid any direct confrontation. In ME2, the engineers talk about the ships defences being designed to keep the ship in one piece as it makes a run or slips through enemy defenses. Being able to shot other ships to trash was never intended.
On the other hand, you have the Defiant, which was exactly build for huge mass battles and taking on vessels several times it's size.

[lesser_minion]

Yes, for the most part, the technology is comparable. The idea that the Normandy would be anything even resembling 'hosed' is not actually substantiated by what we know about both sides.

Subspace, in fact, is used in very similar ways to mass effect fields (for example, when moving the DS9, they reduce its mass by enclosing it in a "subspace bubble", and warp drive presumably operates on a similar principle).

No matter how many fan wikis try to tell you that a photon torpedo has a yield of 690 gigatons, that's not what is shown on screen -- and if a photon torpedo was like this, then events would occur differently in the shows.

As for engagement ranges... if you're engaging targets at anything past a light-second, there's a fair chance that you're being unreasonable. "Tens of thousands of kilometres" is pushing it as far as viable engagement ranges go for any non-FTL sensors -- and while Star Trek ships don't suffer from that limitation, they seem to make use of weapons that lack the range to take advantage of that.

[Fjolnir]

You modify a Runabout to carry proton/quantum torpedo launchers and boom you have a platform for FTL firing missiles. Also all the DS9 crew would end up doing is activating the INSANE Cardassian security protocols and watch as every replicator starts spawning disruptor turrets and all the bulkheads on the ship turn into security fields capable of killing a person while the life support system shifts from "breathable atmosphere" to "Deadly neurotoxin" and if everyone isn't pacified by that point, KABOOOM!!!

Also non federation weapons are not allowed on the ship, and that exception can be removed, activating anti weapon fields on all the docking rings as well as the promenade, making armed movement through the station difficult at best...

[Yora]

Given the holes phasers make after shields have failed, their output seems more to be in the tons. But even a single ton of TNT would probably create a much bigger bang than anything seen outside of warp core breaks.

(Just looked some things up out of interest, and apparently a 690 gigaton blast would be enough to kill all live in an area the size of the Netherlands or Virginia.)

[lesser_minion]

Given the holes phasers make after shields have failed, their output seems more to be in the tons. But even a single ton of TNT would probably create a much bigger bang than anything seen outside of warp core breaks.

I know nuclear weapons tend to have a much smaller bang when in space, and I'm pretty sure the same applies to antimatter. TNT would be a monumental waste of time in both Star Trek and Mass Effect (anything travelling over 3 km.s-1 will make a bigger bang than the same amount of TNT).

Also, how precisely does a Trek "anti-weapon field" neutralise a non Trek weapon exactly?

[Joran]

Yes, for the most part, the technology is comparable. The idea that the Normandy would be anything even resembling 'hosed' is not actually substantiated by what we know about both sides.

Subspace, in fact, is used in very similar ways to mass effect fields (for example, when moving the DS9, they reduce its mass by enclosing it in a "subspace bubble", and warp drive presumably operates on a similar principle).

No matter how many fan wikis try to tell you that a photon torpedo has a yield of 690 gigatons, that's not what is shown on screen -- and if a photon torpedo was like this, then events would occur differently in the shows.

The main advantage Star Trek has over Mass Effect is that the sensors and communications are much more advanced. Star Trek sensor arrays can detect objects from multiple light-years away. Mass Effect sensors have difficulty detecting things in systems and have a time lag inherent in them.

Everything Star Trek weapon-wise can be used at FTL. If the Defiant were to be aware of the limitations of the Normandy and fight intelligently (no mean feats), it could just strafe the ever-loving crap without the Normandy even knowing what was happening.

Also, the biggest weapon in Mass Effect is a mass driver on a dreadnought, which has an energy of 38 kilotons. Even the lowest energy estimates of a photon torpedo matches that.

[Seraph]

Yes, for the most part, the technology is comparable. The idea that the Normandy would be anything even resembling 'hosed' is not actually substantiated by what we know about both sides.

you keep saying this even though it's been repeatedly proven otherwise in this thread.

I think you need to take a break.

[lesser_minion]

you keep saying this even though it's been repeatedly proven otherwise in this thread.

I haven't seen a single shred of "proof", let alone "repeated proof". Only statements to the contrary and 'evidence' that was itself useless.

[Fan]

you keep saying this even though it's been repeatedly proven otherwise in this thread.

I think you need to take a break.

You're the one who's... ugh. Considering you have outright laughed at the arguments presented in thread, and your own mannerisms have amounted to "Lolno you wrong", on top of citing figures that directly contradict stated figures presented in story.. Mayhaps YOU Should be the one to take a break.

Nothing has be cited, OR proven on your end aside from figures that you have stated with no citation. Anyone can SAY anything, but you need some measure of proof to back it up.

Also. @Joran: Yes, but a Dreadnaught has 72 of those mass accelerators that fire every 2 seconds.

[Joran]

I haven't seen a single shred of "proof", let alone "repeated proof". Only statements to the contrary and 'evidence' that was itself useless.

The sensor issue is a massive issue. The inability to fight at FTL is also a massive issue.

Likewise, Star Trek has transporters and replicators which are used routinely.

Oddly enough Cloaking/Phasing technology on a large scale objects in Star Trek while those are available only on small scale objects in Mass Effect.



Also. @Joran: Yes, but a Dreadnaught has 72 of those mass accelerators that fire every 2 seconds.

Those are broadside guns. The Kilimanjaro-class only has one main gun (along its length) and that 38 kiloton yield is only given for that one main gun.

[Liffguard]

One advantage the Normandy does have is in FTL speed, though I'm not sure how useful that would be in a fight beyond running away if it goes tits-up. I don't know about the official Trek canon but if I remember correctly then Voyager was supposed to take 60 years on standard warp travel to get back home. Even if we assume a distance of one edge of the galaxy to the other (roughly 100,000 lightyears I think) then that works out as about 4.5 lightyears per day. Normandy is stated in the codex to have a cruising speed of about 12 lightyears per day, so just over 2.5 times faster.

[Yora]

Which brings us back to the age old problem "Sci-Fi writers have no sense of scale".
Since all numbers are really just pulled out of their noses, comparing them becomes rather futile in almost all cases.

[Fan]

The sensor issue is a massive issue. The inability to fight at FTL is also a massive issue.

Likewise, Star Trek has transporters and replicators which are used routinely.

Oddly enough Cloaking/Phasing technology on a large scale objects in Star Trek while those are available only on small scale objects in Mass Effect.



Those are broadside guns. The Kilimanjaro-class only has one main gun (along its length) and that 38 kiloton yield is only given for that one main gun.

That's.. not what the mass effect wiki tells me.

[Joran]

One advantage the Normandy does have is in FTL speed, though I'm not sure how useful that would be in a fight beyond running away if it goes tits-up. I don't know about the official Trek canon but if I remember correctly then Voyager was supposed to take 60 years on standard warp travel to get back home. Even if we assume a distance of one edge of the galaxy to the other (roughly 100,000 lightyears I think) then that works out as about 4.5 lightyears per day. Normandy is stated in the codex to have a cruising speed of about 12 lightyears per day, so just over 2.5 times faster.

Warp Factors are not consistent across Star Trek, but basically travel within the Galaxy is hard and takes a long time. Voyager could probably match Normandy in speed (assuming no mass relays), but the same issues of endurance impact it. Once again, same issue as before, the writers can't get the numbers straight, so they use a fictional unit. When they start using real units, it gets a bit silly, like Warp Factor 9.9 somehow being faster than Warp Factor 9.975...


That's.. not what the mass effect wiki tells me.

"Dreadnoughts range from 800 meters to one kilometer long, with a main gun of commensurate length. An 800-meter mass accelerator is capable of accelerating one twenty-kilogram slug to a velocity of 4025 km/s (1.3% the speed of light) every two seconds. Each slug has the kinetic energy of about 38 kilotons of TNT, about two and a half times the energy released by the fission weapon that destroyed Hiroshima."
Citation: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Dreadnought#Dreadnoughts

"The Alliance has two dreadnought classes currently in service, the older Everest class and the newer Kilimanjaro class. The Everest class is an 888-meter dreadnought with a main gun capable of accelerating a 20 kilogram slug to 1.3% the speed of light (4025 km/s) for a kinetic energy yield equivalent to 38 kilotons of TNT. The Kilimanjaro class is armed with 156 broadside mass accelerator cannons, 78 on each side. The broadside guns are each as long as 40% of the ship's width. "
Citation: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Alliance_Navy

[Fan]

Yes... the main gun is the mass accelerator gun.

Which they have 78 on each side of.

This is supported by the in game conversation mentioned earlier, by Mr. YOU DO NOT SHOOT IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A FIRING SOLUTION.

Also by the fact that having a 1 shot weapon as your main armament is dumb, and you should have the ability to put as much destructive power against your enemies as possible in as many places as possible.

[Joran]

Yes... the main gun is the mass accelerator gun.

Which they have 78 on each side of.

This is supported by the in game conversation mentioned earlier, by Mr. YOU DO NOT SHOOT IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A FIRING SOLUTION.

No, no read again.

"The Everest class is an 888-meter dreadnought with a main gun capable of accelerating a 20 kilogram slug to 1.3% the speed of light (4025 km/s) for a kinetic energy yield equivalent to 38 kilotons of TNT."

Note: "a" meaning singular.

"The Kilimanjaro class is armed with 156 broadside mass accelerator cannons, 78 on each side. The broadside guns are each as long as 40% of the ship's width."

Note: broadside.

You can probably fuzzy math how much power the broadside cannons have, but physics was never my strong suit.

[Fan]

No, no read again.

"The Everest class is an 888-meter dreadnought with a main gun capable of accelerating a 20 kilogram slug to 1.3% the speed of light (4025 km/s) for a kinetic energy yield equivalent to 38 kilotons of TNT."

Note: "a" meaning singular.

"The Kilimanjaro class is armed with 156 broadside mass accelerator cannons, 78 on each side. The broadside guns are each as long as 40% of the ship's width."

Note: broadside.

But.. those are the exact specs of the mass accelerator broadside given in that conversation.

It's the same gun. >_<

[Seraph]

I haven't seen a single shred of "proof", let alone "repeated proof". Only statements to the contrary and 'evidence' that was itself useless.

kid, just because you don't like an argument doesn't mean its invalid.

you have yet to prove that ANY weapon the Normandy has is even remotely capable of damaging star trek shields, because even the most powerful ship in the alliance navy can barely match a single volley of photon torpedoes with all of its weapons firing at once.

you have repeatedly ignored the fact that, no matter how powerful EDI may be, she has no way of establishing a connection to DS9 because she has no subspace radio.

you keep insisiting that ME stealth is in any way effective against star trek sensors, even though it works on a very basic principle and has been shown in universe to have been circumvented by aliens lacking ST's benefit of subspace or gravitational sensors.

{Scrubbed}

[Liffguard]

But.. those are the exact specs of the mass accelerator broadside given in that conversation.

It's the same gun. >_<

No, those are the specs of the main gun. The broadsides are 40% the length of the main gun. Assuming that muzzle velocity is directly proportional to rail length and the broadsides fire the same rounds then the yield of the broadsides is 5.8 kilotons.

[Joran]

But.. those are the exact specs of the mass accelerator broadside given in that conversation.

It's the same gun. >_<

Hey, I'm going by the wiki.

Also, looking at the video, the stats are given for the main gun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bloy8-7vrk

Edit: Ninjaed.

[Fan]

That's still.. A lot of firepower.

Also considering that the newer class would logically have higher yield weaponry.

[lesser_minion]

The sensor issue is a massive issue.

No, it is not. We covered this right at the start of the thread.

Most Star Trek sensors are dependent on properties that the Normandy does not have, such as a warp core. In particular, Star Trek ships detect FTL based on a "warp signature", something which a non-warp FTL drive would presumably not have.


The inability to fight at FTL is also a massive issue.

It is not, because no Star Trek vessel can actually engage the Normandy at FTL (the Normandy's FTL being faster and not having the side effects that Star Trek vessels use to detect FTL).


Likewise, Star Trek has transporters and replicators which are used routinely.

What amounts to teleportation technology exists in the Mass Effect universe, even though the Normandy itself does not use it.

Ships in TNG/DS9 era Trek can use transporters while at warp, but both ships must co-operate in order for the transport to be successful. Hence, any FTL at all is a viable counter to transporters.

Moreover, Star Trek shields -- which block transporters -- operate by manipulating 'gravitons' -- i.e. gravity. It's reasonable to assume that whatever principle allows Star Trek shields to block transporters would also allow Mass Effect Fields to do the same thing.

Again, this goes back to "it depends", not "the Normandy is hosed no matter what".


Oddly enough Cloaking/Phasing technology on a large scale objects in Star Trek while those are available only on small scale objects in Mass Effect.

Mass Relays are shown to 'phase' the objects being sent through them in the first Mass Effect. Oddly enough, every time a piece of 'phasing' technology featured in Star Trek, the way it went horribly wrong was a plot point (the Pegasus ended up entombed in an asteroid, and the Romulan attempt nearly crippled their ship and messed up their transporters in bizarre ways).


kid, just because you don't like an argument doesn't mean its invalid.

I've tried to answer every point put to me. Where I was wrong, I acknowledged the problem. I don't believe that any point that has been put to me refutes my conclusion.

Show me where I've made a factual error or error of logic and I will endeavour to correct it. I can't do much with non-specific claims.


you have yet to prove that ANY weapon the Normandy has is even remotely capable of damaging star trek shields, because even the most powerful ship in the alliance navy can barely match a single volley of photon torpedoes with all of its weapons firing at once.

I noted that:

Where events that can be compared between the two shows -- such as ship-to-ship collisions -- occur, the Mass Effect ships were better able to survive (Sovereign was undamaged. The ship it hit appeared to be disabled, but there was no evidence that the collision destroyed it).
The weapons used by Mass Effect vessels are more damaging to Mass Effect ships than Star Trek weapons are to Star Trek vessels -- even though the evidence we have implies Mass Effect ships to be more resilient.


There is no credible evidence here that your "690 gigaton" figure is anything but a gross exaggeration.


you have repeatedly ignored the fact that, no matter how powerful EDI may be, she has no way of establishing a connection to DS9 because she has no subspace radio.

I said absolutely nothing on the topic.

I didn't bring it up, because I don't think EDI could pull it off under the circumstances. However, the "fact" you accuse me of "ignoring" is, in fact, trivial to refute.

Sensors constitute an input device to DS9's computer systems, and if they can see the Normandy, the Normandy must be able to interact with them. Ergo, EDI could theoretically pull off a hack without employing subspace radio.

I don't think it's practical (which is why I didn't bring EDI's hacking abilities up), but it is possible.


you keep insisiting that ME stealth is in any way effective against star trek sensors, even though it works on a very basic principle and has been shown in universe to have been circumvented by aliens lacking ST's benefit of subspace or gravitational sensors.

I noted that Star Trek sensors are, for the most part, based on properties of Star Trek technologies. I said nothing about Mass Effect stealth, merely that it wouldn't be as easy to find the Normandy as it would be to find a ST ship.

I did say it was harder than it actually would be, but I conceded that point when I noticed the issue.

[Tavar]

No, it is not. We covered this right at the start of the thread.

Most Star Trek sensors are dependent on properties that the Normandy does not have, such as a warp core. In particular, Star Trek ships detect FTL based on a "warp signature", something which a non-warp FTL drive would presumably not have.

Source? Because, nothing suggests that it needs warp signatures to find ships. Plus, the sensors have real-time imaging capabilities out to at least 3.26 parsecs. Possibly more, but that's the bare minimum.


It is not, because no Star Trek vessel can actually engage the Normandy at FTL (the Normandy's FTL being faster and not having the side effects that Star Trek vessels use to detect FTL).

Wrong. Mass Effect's Top speed is about equivalent to 200 times lightspeed, or about warp 5. Notice that Star Fleet can go up to about Warp 9.5 easily.

Also, going this fast has several limitations for the Mass Effect ships. First off, they can only go for about 50 hours, and then need to vent. As opposed to the days Star Fleet vessels can go at high warp speeds. Also, Mass effect ships are pretty much blind if they do this, something not true of Star Fleet ships.

[Liffguard]

Wrong. Mass Effect's Top speed is about equivalent to 200 times lightspeed, or about warp 5. Notice that Star Fleet can go up to about Warp 9.5 easily.

Also, going this fast has several limitations for the Mass Effect ships. First off, they can only go for about 50 hours, and then need to vent. As opposed to the days Star Fleet vessels can go at high warp speeds. Also, Mass effect ships are pretty much blind if they do this, something not true of Star Fleet ships.

No, the Normandy can travel 12 lightyears a day, or 4380 lightyears a year, i.e. 4380 times lightspeed. As to what warp speed that translates to, I don't know. It doesn't seem like the Trek verse has an internally consistent measure of how fast each level of warp speed is. Voyager implied that it could cruise at about 4.5 lightyears a day or 1642 times lightspeed.

[Joran]

Mass Relays are shown to 'phase' the objects being sent through them in the first Mass Effect. Oddly enough, every time a piece of 'phasing' technology featured in Star Trek, the way it went horribly wrong was a plot point (the Pegasus ended up entombed in an asteroid, and the Romulan attempt nearly crippled their ship and messed up their transporters in bizarre ways).

But ship cloaking devices are still massively more powerful in Star Trek than in Mass Effect. Star Trek cloaking devices can be used at FTL and cloaks it visually.

The Teleportation/Replicator talk was about the technology levels of the two universes.

The directed energy weapons in the Star Trek universe are more powerful than Mass Effect and better at range. Several times, we've seen phasers used to strike objects from orbit, while Mass Effect lasers can't reach that far.

The missiles in Star Trek also are shielded, can travel at FTL, and should be on par with the most powerful of cannons from a dreadnought. The ones that the Defiant carry are even more powerful than the photon torpedoes.


Most Star Trek sensors are dependent on properties that the Normandy does not have, such as a warp core. In particular, Star Trek ships detect FTL based on a "warp signature", something which a non-warp FTL drive would presumably not have.

A Mass Effect ship traveling at FTL generates a large EM signature. I don't see anything that would prohibit long range sensors from detecting that in real-time.

[Liffguard]

A Mass Effect ship traveling at FTL generates a large EM signature. I don't see anything that would prohibit long range sensors from detecting that in real-time.

The obvious problem is that the Normandy's EM signature only propagates at lightspeed. I.e. it can only be used to tell where the Normandy at FTL was, not where it is.

[Rogue Shadows]

Starfleet's navigational shields, let alone anything else possessed by Starfleet, are the strongest things I have ever seen in any sci-fi setting. By the calculations I did up once, the basic deflector fields of a starship capable of travelling at around Warp 9 are nearly strong enough (though not quite) to stop the Death Star's planetkilling laser. This is before we get into the actual combat shields.

Seriously: in Trek, ships fly at hundreds of times the speed of light in real space, not in some kind of hyperspace. Think about what a single grain of sand could do to a planet if it was travelling at even twice the speed of light, and you begin to appreciate just how powerful Trek shields are.

Trek wins, hands-down, against any other sci-fi setting, based on this alone.

Also, transporters.


No, the Normandy can travel 12 lightyears a day, or 4380 lightyears a year, i.e. 4380 times lightspeed. As to what warp speed that translates to, I don't know. It doesn't seem like the Trek verse has an internally consistent measure of how fast each level of warp speed is. Voyager implied that it could cruise at about 4.5 lightyears a day or 1642 times lightspeed.

It travels at Speed of Plot, of course.

But seriously, by the TNG scale Warp 9 is approximately 1516.38 times the speed of light; while Warp 9.975 is somewhere between 1,554 - 1,721 times the speed of light.

Of course, at this value, Voyager should have been able to make the 70,000 lightyear trip from the Gamma quadrant back to Earth in about 33 days, not 70 years.

So, again: Speed of Plot.

[Fan]

But ship cloaking devices are still massively more powerful in Star Trek than in Mass Effect. Star Trek cloaking devices can be used at FTL and cloaks it visually.

This only matters because DS9 has the Defiant, which has a cloaking device.

The Teleportation/Replicator talk was about the technology levels of the two universes.

The directed energy weapons in the Star Trek universe are more powerful than Mass Effect and better at range. Several times, we've seen phasers used to strike objects from orbit, while Mass Effect lasers can't reach that far.

The missiles in Star Trek also are shielded, can travel at FTL, and should be on par with the most powerful of cannons from a dreadnought.



A Mass Effect ship traveling at FTL generates a large EM signature. I don't see anything that would prohibit long range sensors from detecting that in real-time.

That last part is a good point, I had forgotten about EM signatures.. I'll have to concede this, but before I do.. I have to say that Rogue Shadows is forgetting that they "Break the time barrier" and traverse through "Warp Space" to do their thing in Star Trek.

[Rogue Shadows]

That last part is a good point, I had forgotten about EM signatures.. I'll have to concede this, but before I do.. I have to say that Rogue Shadows is forgetting that they "Break the time barrier" and traverse through "Warp Space" to do their thing in Star Trek.

They do do this, but then again it has been shown in continuity that ships travelling at Warp speeds still can be torn apart by space flotsam and jetsam if they don't have a functioning nav shield.

So, even though the ships in Trek are sort of in some kind of subspace, they are also in real space.

"Breaking the time barrier" means that a warp ship can ignore relativity effects on their ships (i.e., time dialation).

So, again: Deep Space 9 can laugh off any attacks Normandy offers up.

[Fan]

They do do this, but then again it has been shown in continuity that ships travelling at Warp speeds still can be torn apart by space flotsam and jetsam if they don't have a functioning nav shield.

So, even though the ships in Trek are sort of in some kind of subspace, they are also in real space.

"Breaking the time barrier" means that a warp ship can ignore relativity effects on their ships (i.e., time dialation).

So, again: Deep Space 9 can laugh off any attacks Normandy offers up.

I don't really buy this as being anything more than "Writer Space Dust Oversight.".

[Illieas]

No, it is not. We covered this right at the start of the thread.

Most Star Trek sensors are dependent on properties that the Normandy does not have, such as a warp core. In particular, Star Trek ships detect FTL based on a "warp signature", something which a non-warp FTL drive would presumably not have.

1. incorrect ship sensors can a ton catch alot of things particles gases radiation life signatures.


2. the sensors on ship have been changed every which way that detect all kinds of radiation some known some unknown. star trek has the swiss army knife of sensors. that doesn't matter when...

3. when the normandy or any ship in the mass effect universe goes to FTL they blue shift. this in regular terms means they leaving a blue streak visible by simple ir sensors. the fact that star trek ship routinely have visual while chasing a ship in warp you can pretty much say that star trek ship have the ability to track and literally watch a object that is faster than light. this gives the adavantage of warp.

taken from me wiki
"Ships moving at FTL are visible at great distances, though their signature will only propagate at the speed of light. According to Engineer Adams, the SSV Normandy's stealth system does not work at FTL speeds because that blue-shifts the ship's emissions into frequencies too high to capture in the hull sinks"

4. picard maneuver
the fact that the normandy relies on IR. they can easily be fooled by this tactic. without the variable sensors that starfleet ships have this



It is not, because no Star Trek vessel can actually engage the Normandy at FTL (the Normandy's FTL being faster and not having the side effects that Star Trek vessels use to detect FTL).


incorrect star trek ships have an advanatge even if the normandy is faster (which we have no clue on). normandy can't shoot the weapons or literally see anything while in ftl. they also have a limit. star trek ship tend to last longer and so once they drop out they could easily do a drop in shoot run away move.






Mass Relays are shown to 'phase' the objects being sent through them in the first Mass Effect. Oddly enough, every time a piece of 'phasing' technology featured in Star Trek, the way it went horribly wrong was a plot point (the Pegasus ended up entombed in an asteroid, and the Romulan attempt nearly crippled their ship and messed up their transporters in bizarre ways).

mass relays do not phase. they send you extremely fast very quickly and if a piece of debris is in the way you can say bye bye to you.

[Joran]

The obvious problem is that the Normandy's EM signature only propagates at lightspeed. I.e. it can only be used to tell where the Normandy at FTL was, not where it is.

See, that would be true if Star Trek follows real world physics or even Mass Effect physics. Instead, it follows magic!

It definitely helps in TV since you can fire a torpedo into a sun, track it in real time, then watch the effects instantaneously. Otherwise, the crew gets to sit there for a couple minutes as they wait for the light to reach the ship.

[Rogue Shadows]

I don't really buy this as being anything more than "Writer Space Dust Oversight.".

In any discussion talking about a VS scenario involving Trek, you've got to do what you can to form a cohesive idea of Trek's capabilities. So here's what I go by:

Warp Factor (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Warp_factor)
Deflector Dish (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Deflector_dish)

It's not an oversight; in fact it's the opposite. The writers knew how much damage a few minute particles could do to a starship travelling faster than light, and so they came up with something to explain just how the ship survives.

[Fan]

In any discussion talking about a VS scenario involving Trek, you've got to do what you can to form a cohesive idea of Trek's capabilities. So here's what I go by:

Warp Factor (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Warp_factor)
Deflector Dish (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Deflector_dish)

It's not an oversight; in fact it's the opposite. The writers knew how much damage a few minute particles could do to a starship travelling faster than light, and so they came up with something to explain just how the ship survives.

Again, given how strong weapons are by other figures.

I don't buy this.

[Rogue Shadows]

Again, given how strong weapons are by other figures.

I don't buy this.

That is irrelevant. These are the values, culled from both official sources and actual Trek episodes, which are just as valid as their weapon values.

If they don't make sense, it's because Trek doesn't care too much about making sense. The ship has exactly as much power and protection as the Plot demands.

So in otherwords - between Normandy and DS9, the winner is whoever the writer wants to win.

But by the given values for warp speed, how warp works, and how powerful even basic navigational shields have to be given the previous two things, then from a purely objective standpoint, DS9 laughs at the Normandy's pitiful attempts to get past its shields.

[Anima]

I think Mass Effects ship weapons have a quite different problem.

According to Jo'Bril in the episode "Suspicions", the shuttles aboard the Enterprise-D had a maximum impulse velocity of approximately 2.5% of light speed – he specified that at ¾ impulse the shuttle would travel a distance of one million kilometers in approximately three minutes (approximately 12,400,000 miles per hour).


"The Everest class is an 888-meter dreadnought with a main gun capable of accelerating a 20 kilogram slug to 1.3% the speed of light (4025 km/s) for a kinetic energy yield equivalent to 38 kilotons of TNT."
A simple shuttle can outrun that.

[Fan]

That is irrelevant. These are the values, culled from both official sources and actual Trek episodes, which are just as valid as their weapon values.

If they don't make sense, it's because Trek doesn't care too much about making sense. The ship has exactly as much power and protection as the Plot demands.

So in otherwords - between Normandy and DS9, the winner is whoever the writer wants to win.

But by the given values for warp speed, how warp works, and how powerful even basic navigational shields have to be given the previous two things, then from a purely objective standpoint, DS9 laughs at the Normandy's pitiful attempts to get past its shields.

Again.. given how a few shots from their enemies weapons bring them down, and their figures are much lower (based on everything else from "Actual trek episodes') that isn't true.

I'm sorry, but there's just no way I can believe that.

[Rogue Shadows]

Again.. given how a few shots from their enemies weapons bring them down, and their figures are much lower (based on everything else from "Actual trek episodes') that isn't true.

I've always figured that weapons get past shields by "resonating" at the right frequency, rather than by sheer brute force. It's not about how powerful the weapons are, it's about whether or not they can hit the shields just right. More powerful weapons can resonate across more frequencies and so can get more of their energy through.

This would also sync up with the idea that shields modulate at a given frequency, and that modulating your weapons at that frequency can allow them to bypass the shields entirely (as seen in Star Trek: Generations).


I'm sorry, but there's just no way I can believe that.

Belief is irrelevant. These are the facts. They do not make sense, but there they are.

[lesser_minion]

But ship cloaking devices are still massively more powerful in Star Trek than in Mass Effect. Star Trek cloaking devices can be used at FTL and cloaks it visually.

There are, if I recall the films correctly, observable artefacts to the visual cloak.


A Mass Effect ship traveling at FTL generates a large EM signature. I don't see anything that would prohibit long range sensors from detecting that in real-time.

While I can't guess at exactly what a Star Trek sensor can and can't detect, I know that they are mixed -- a Star Trek sensor can't detect everything it could ever detect under any combination of circumstances.

A "large EM signature" is not what I'd expect a Star Trek ship to be able to detect at FTL.


Source? Because, nothing suggests that it needs warp signatures to find ships. Plus, the sensors have real-time imaging capabilities out to at least 3.26 parsecs. Possibly more, but that's the bare minimum.

"Long-range sensors" can apparently scan a radius of about 10 light years in a twenty-four hour period. I couldn't find any information on what they actually detect, but it seems fair to assume that they could find the Normandy. They're the only sensor I could find on Memory Alpha that seemed like it had a shot at usefully detect the Normandy well in advance, however, and I don't think there's much guarantee that they would do so.

In other words, I'll concede that Star Trek's "mundane" sensors are better than I thought. They still aren't even remotely as good as Seraph wants them to be.

You can find reference to 'warp signatures' in this (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Defiant_(episode)) episode. Apparently they aren't what I thought they were, so I'll concede that point.


Wrong. Mass Effect's Top speed is about equivalent to 200 times lightspeed, or about warp 5. Notice that Star Fleet can go up to about Warp 9.5 easily.

No, your maths is wrong. 12 light years per day is over 4000 times light speed -- more than twice the fastest speed a Federation ship has ever attained without plot devices.


Also, going this fast has several limitations for the Mass Effect ships. First off, they can only go for about 50 hours, and then need to vent. As opposed to the days Star Fleet vessels can go at high warp speeds.

Warp 8 was the cruising speed for most Federation starships, until it was discovered that this damaged subspace. According to Memory-Alpha, the maximum sustainable speed of the Enterprise was Warp 9.6, for twelve hours. This is slower than the Normandy, and far less sustainable.


1. incorrect ship sensors can a ton catch alot of things particles gases radiation life signatures.

2. the sensors on ship have been changed every which way that detect all kinds of radiation some known some unknown. star trek has the swiss army knife of sensors. that doesn't matter when...

We need to have some idea of the rough capabilities of the Star Trek sensors before we can decide this -- the only candidate for a sensor that would detect the Normandy without the Normandy detecting DS9, as far as I can tell, is the one I described above.

They are not magic all-knowing sensors, however -- they can and have been deceived in Star Trek, and assuming that they wouldn't be at least somewhat thrown by something they've never encountered before is silly.

The situation is exactly as I said it was when I first posted in this thread -- Star Trek sensors do not, by any means 'hose' the Normandy.


3. when the normandy or any ship in the mass effect universe goes to FTL they blue shift. this in regular terms means they leaving a blue streak visible by simple ir sensors. the fact that star trek ship routinely have visual while chasing a ship in warp you can pretty much say that star trek ship have the ability to track and literally watch a object that is faster than light. this gives the adavantage of warp.

The 'blue streak' is visible, but that doesn't really help -- again, light emitted 50 light years away will take 50 years to reach you.


taken from me wiki
"Ships moving at FTL are visible at great distances, though their signature will only propagate at the speed of light. According to Engineer Adams, the SSV Normandy's stealth system does not work at FTL speeds because that blue-shifts the ship's emissions into frequencies too high to capture in the hull sinks"

Finding where the Normandy was 50 years ago is decidedly unhelpful.


4. picard maneuver
the fact that the normandy relies on IR. they can easily be fooled by this tactic. without the variable sensors that starfleet ships have this

This is true and relevant. Does the Defiant crew know that the Normandy, using technology that is completely alien to them, lacks FTL sensors?

If they do, the deck was stacked in their behaviour by the scenario, which does nothing to disprove my point.

They could find out, maybe, but what would the situation be like once they do?


incorrect star trek ships have an advanatge even if the normandy is faster (which we have no clue on). normandy can't shoot the weapons or literally see anything while in ftl. they also have a limit. star trek ship tend to last longer and so once they drop out they could easily do a drop in shoot run away move.

We have figures for both. The Normandy can apparently go at 4000 times the speed of light for 50 hours, while a Galaxy Class Starship can seemingly go at less than half that for 12.

While Star Trek figures have been unreliable, I see no reason to distrust these ones.


mass relays do not phase. they send you extremely fast very quickly and if a piece of debris is in the way you can say bye bye to you.

Patently false. Remember when the Mako goes through the conduit (a mass relay) and ends up in the middle of the closed citadel?

Remember every single biotic charge Shepard uses in ME2? Remember every single biotic charge Tela Vasir uses?

[Fan]

I've always figured that weapons get past shields by "resonating" at the right frequency, rather than by sheer brute force. It's not about how powerful the weapons are, it's about whether or not they can hit the shields just right. More powerful weapons can resonate across more frequencies and so can get more of their energy through.

This would also sync up with the idea that shields modulate at a given frequency, and that modulating your weapons at that frequency can allow them to bypass the shields entirely (as seen in Star Trek: Generations).



Belief is irrelevant. These are the facts. They do not make sense, but there they are.

Belief is relevant, it's the difference between "writer wank", and "A believable setting with a credible story."

Statements like yours completely destroy any credibility that Star Trek had to me before this got mentioned, and honestly, I have some books to sell to people who can tolerate that level of poor writing consistency.

[Rogue Shadows]

There are, if I recall the films correctly, observable artefacts to the visual cloak.

There were in Star Trek V, but not by TNG's time, and besides which it's strongly believed by the Trek fanbase that everything except the camping scenes in Trek V were just a dream Kirk had while camping.

[Fan]

There were in Star Trek V, but not by TNG's time, and besides which it's strongly believed by the Trek fanbase that everything except the camping scenes in Trek V were just a dream Kirk had while camping.

Regardless of belief, those are the facts supported by the movie.

[Rogue Shadows]

Statements like yours completely destroy any credibility that Star Trek had to me before this got mentioned, and honestly, I have some books to sell to people who can tolerate that level of poor writing consistency.

Star Trek has never had any credibility in terms of how much what they say this episode meshes up with what they say in the very next episode. My statements didn't actually ruin its credibility because that credibility didn't exist in the first place.

Besides, I'm sure that if I was bored enough I could pick Mass Effect to pieces as well.


Regardless of belief, those are the facts supported by the movie.

True enough, but again, the visual artifacts aren't shown on every Trek ship from Kirk's era, and they were gone completely by Picard's era, so the counterpoint won't work with Defiant anyway.

[Axolotl]

Belief is relevant, it's the difference between "writer wank", and "A believable setting with a credible story."Neither Mass Effect nor Star Trek has ever had either a believeable setting or a credible story, they are both pulpish adventures in space with varying degrees of awareness of this.


Statements like yours completely destroy any credibility that Star Trek had to me before this got mentioned, and honestly, I have some books to sell to people who can tolerate that level of poor writing consistency.Wait, you expect a TV series that's lasted 43 years and has 726 episodes and 11 films, to be consistent? Because I have to tell you, that's not going to happen for wny franchise.

Of course this is they key problem with this thread, we have two setting neither of which are particularly consistent with themselves and trying to make then consitent with each other so we can compare them.

[lesser_minion]

True enough, but again, the visual artifacts aren't shown on every Trek ship from Kirk's era, and they were gone completely by Picard's era, so the counterpoint won't work with Defiant anyway.

I was merely pointing it out.

The cloak is counterable in the Trek universe, and by means that might be accessible to the Normandy, such as "antiproton beams".

This again comes down to what each side knows about the other -- i.e. how the scene was set beforehand, which is my entire point.

If the Federation starts off with full information about their opponents, they will win. Not because of superior technology, but because the scenario handed the win to them.

If both sides have full information about their opponents, then it's up in the air.

The same is true if both sides have minimal information about their opponents (Shep would certainly wait and gather more information, but it's up in the air whether or not she could pull that off).

And if the Normandy knows enough about the Federation, then it would have an advantage. Trek itself proves that you don't need Treknology to be problematic for the Federation -- and we've already shown that the Normandy's technology is not strictly inferior.

For future reference, warp drive works by offloading most of the ship's mass into subspace, at least as far as I could tell.

[SoC175]

If both sides have full information about their opponents, then it's up in the air. Which would mean that the ME universe is far superior to the ST universe, as one of their least ships can destroy one the other's most powerful stations.

If we assume both universes to be app. equal, there's now way the Normandy could be more than a nuisance, because otherwise their real warships should totally pwn the Federation.

[Rogue Shadows]

Which would mean that the ME universe is far superior to the ST universe, as one of their least ships can destroy one the other's most powerful stations.

That's yet to be concretely established. Again, Trek shields are ludicrously strong by all available evidence.


If we assume both universes to be app. equal, there's no way the Normandy could be more than a nuisance, because otherwise their real warships should totally pwn the Federation.

Why? I just want to take this time to remind you that the Federation has been in a constant state of expansion for more than two hundred years and has never lost a war against any of its neighbors, of which there's been more than a few - the Kzinti, the Tzenkethi, the Romulans, the Klingons, the Cardassians, the Sheliak, the Borg, the Dominion (though that was more of a group effort, I guess)...

[SoC175]

Why? Because the Normandy is of the smallest least powerful class of warships in the ME universe. If we assume that the Normandy has a sporting chance, than the real warships of the ME universe (which could easily trash the Normandy) would thus destroy all opposition. If a frigate can destroy DS9 and a cruiser can easily handle multiple frigates, then a cruiser could consequently easily destroy "several DS9s"

If both universes are assumed to be app. equal, then their capital ships could take on each other. However if a ME universe capital ship is required, the Normandy, as a ME universe frigate, is not sufficient.

[Rogue Shadows]

Because the Normandy is of the smallest least powerful class of warships in the ME universe. If we assume that the Normandy has a sporting chance, than the real warships of the ME universe (which could easily trash the Normandy) would thus destroy all opposition. If a frigate can destroy DS9 and a cruiser can easily handle multiple frigates, then a cruiser could consequently easily destroy "several DS9s"

But DS9 is a mining station that was later outfitted with weapons. It's not a dedicated fortress or warship. Note that it usually took deux ex machina to save it from a determined attack by an actual warship.

For that matter, the capability of Trek characters to pull Deus Ex Machinas from their behinds should be taken into account...

[Lamech]

"The Alliance has two dreadnought classes currently in service, the older Everest class and the newer Kilimanjaro class. The Everest class is an 888-meter dreadnought with a main gun capable of accelerating a 20 kilogram slug to 1.3% the speed of light (4025 km/s) for a kinetic energy yield equivalent to 38 kilotons of TNT. The Kilimanjaro class is armed with 156 broadside mass accelerator cannons, 78 on each side. The broadside guns are each as long as 40% of the ship's width. "
Citation: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Alliance_NavyOkay lets go back to this, that is roughly 3 megatons a combined shot. Even the low estimates of a photon torp are in the mega tons. So using the lowest estimates for the power of a photon torp a dreadnought is roughly on par with a ST capital ship launching a torpedo barrage. DS 9 would stomp a ST capital ship; it has done so several times.

So a dreadnought can not win a stand up fight. Can our Mass Effect team escape detection? Well unless they have some way of hiding their life signs from the magic sensors aboard DS9 that isn't happening. Seriously ST sensors can scan people down to the DNA from far away.

Can the Mass Effect team do something sneaky? Get aboard. Umm... no shields. No they can't pretend to be a normal ship, no warp core and other obvious issues.

So the unless the Normandy is significantly more powerful than a Dreadnought they don't have a prayer in a stand up fight. Unless they can counter the magic sensor tech of Star Trek they can't hide and fight. The DS9 has no way of catching the Normandy obviously, but unless the Normandy can survive indefinitely they do need to attack.

[lesser_minion]

Which would mean that the ME universe is far superior to the ST universe, as one of their least ships can destroy one the other's most powerful stations.

It would be a battle to see who adapts to the other side's oddities the fastest.

The transporter could cause serious problems for the Normandy if the Normandy didn't know about it. However, they have multiple options that could potentially stop it from working.

The cloaking device is, according to ST canon, vulnerable to "antiproton beams". The Normandy can handle antimatter (the scenario could conceivably make getting it a problem), so it might be able to implement such a thing.


If we assume both universes to be app. equal, there's now way the Normandy could be more than a nuisance, because otherwise their real warships should totally pwn the Federation.

We don't assume both universes to be approximately equal. Star Trek throws around bigger numbers for their weapons, but Mass Effect weapons are shown to be more destructive. The photon torpedo, if actually 690 gigatons, is using 99.9999% of that energy to achieve precisely nothing of value.

We have to guess. My guess, and one that I believe to be entirely reasonable, is that:

Mass Effect ships may be more resilient than Star Trek ships -- colliding with the Bozeman completely destroys the Enterprise. The Turian cruiser that Sovereign rams doesn't survive in any useful state, but I'm pretty sure it does remain in one piece.
Mass Effect weaponry is as damaging -- or even more damaging -- to Mass Effect ships than Star Trek weaponry is to Star Trek ships.


This doesn't prove anything conclusively -- it's an isolated event, and there are no other scenarios from which we can draw a comparison. However, it's the only reliable evidence we have from which a conclusion can be drawn, since we know for a fact that the figures given in Star Trek are not reliable.

It doesn't take 690 gigatons to destroy a city. Even 40 megatons is overkill. And an antimatter bomb would be less efficient in space than on the ground. So while I agree that a photon torpedo might be more energetic than mass accelerators, I don't think this actually makes it more powerful.

Energy is not all that matters when we're discussing the effectiveness of weapons.

[Tiki Snakes]

Okay lets go back to this, that is roughly 3 megatons a combined shot. Even the low estimates of a photon torp are in the mega tons. So using the lowest estimates for the power of a photon torp a dreadnought is roughly on par with a ST capital ship launching a torpedo barrage. DS 9 would stomp a ST capital ship; it has done so several times.

So a dreadnought can not win a stand up fight. Can our Mass Effect team escape detection? Well unless they have some way of hiding their life signs from the magic sensors aboard DS9 that isn't happening. Seriously ST sensors can scan people down to the DNA from far away.

Can the Mass Effect team do something sneaky? Get aboard. Umm... no shields. No they can't pretend to be a normal ship, no warp core and other obvious issues.

So the unless the Normandy is significantly more powerful than a Dreadnought they don't have a prayer in a stand up fight. Unless they can counter the magic sensor tech of Star Trek they can't hide and fight. The DS9 has no way of catching the Normandy obviously, but unless the Normandy can survive indefinitely they do need to attack.

An impossible situation, you suggest? Many possible mad shepherd plans.

As one suggestion out of many, they surrender. Ship is impounded, crew taken to the brig. Biotics promptly ignore the security of the brig, EDI stops pretending to be a non-sentient machine and the Tech users slap enough omnigel on anything that bleeps that they have the station eating out of their hands in no time. Sheperd regroups, takes a three man crew to punch through to Sisko and then the two bad-assess can get down to the inevitable next step of teaching Q a lesson for forcing them to go through all this.

[Fan]

Also in response to Star Trek being better than any Sci Fi Setting.. I have several (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EztAWwvfRao), direct (http://www.mangafox.com/manga/shin_getter_robo/v01/c009/21.html) contradictions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Lord) to that statement. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek)

[Lamech]

Also in response to Star Trek being better than any Sci Fi Setting.. I have several (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EztAWwvfRao), direct (http://www.mangafox.com/manga/shin_getter_robo/v01/c009/21.html) contradictions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Lord) to that statement. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek)I don't know about the second one (as in I don't know what that is), but the other three badly outclass any non-gods likes from ST. Assuming you go with the theory that the Q's are bluffing to some degree about omnipotence, the first might outclass even them. (Or might not come close. Never know.)

[Fan]

I don't know about the second one (as in I don't know what that is), but the other three badly outclass any non-gods likes from ST. Assuming you go with the theory that the Q's are bluffing to some degree about omnipotence, the first might outclass even them. (Or might not come close. Never know.)

Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann...

It destroys and recreates the universe with a single attack, and it is heavily implied that it can get even stronger than that. Spiral power being literally infinite.

Getter Emperor is so powerful that it doesn't even have to actually fight anything, it having an aura of radiation so powerful it destroys entire solar systems, and can crush the fabric of space time with it's bare hands..

Demonbane (the second one) grows to the size of a Universe like STTGL and fights Azathoth hand to hand, and at it's lowest level has hand guns that can blanket points in space with infinite pressure and heat that somehow contains itself.

And then the Time Lords and the Daleks don't need any explaination.

Point is, even by Rogue Shadows... completely silly interpretation.. ST is not the best Sci Fi setting, by a long shot.

[The Glyphstone]

If TTGL counts as 'science fiction' to even the slightest degree (note the requirement of 'science'), then the genre truly has fallen from its pedestal.:smallbiggrin:

[Rogue Shadows]

Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann...

It is the shounen anime, and is waaay more fantasy than sci-fi. Seriously, find actual science in it. This isn't fair. Even Trek uses actual science at some points.


Getter Emperor is so powerful that it doesn't even have to actually fight anything, it having an aura of radiation so powerful it destroys entire solar systems, and can crush the fabric of space time with it's bare hands..

I've never even heard of this.


Demonbane (the second one) grows to the size of a Universe like STTGL and fights Azathoth hand to hand, and at it's lowest level has hand guns that can blanket points in space with infinite pressure and heat that somehow contains itself.

I've never even heard of this, either.


And then the Time Lords and the Daleks don't need any explaination.

Well, both of them would be wiped out by the Q, but of course they'd take out the Federation. I don't know what you're getting at.


Point is, even by Rogue Shadows... completely silly interpretation.. ST is not the best Sci Fi setting, by a long shot.

When did I say this? Trek isn't even my favorite setting. Though I do like it...Enterprise, specifically, is my favorite Trek series, though not my favorite sci-fi TV show.

But I don't think I've ever said that Trek was the best, or even implied it...just that by all the numbers available to me, Trek shields are ludicrously strong.

[Fan]

If TTGL counts as 'science fiction' to even the slightest degree (note the requirement of 'science'), then the genre truly has fallen from its pedestal.:smallbiggrin:

Technically, Spiral Power is just an alternate power source that is (literally) interchangeable with electricity, and harvests a aura of biological energy that is emitted from a person directly proportionate to their level of manliness, and the spiral drives are just perfect energy to mass converters, and vice versa.:smallcool: And Lee-ron SAYS there is a science behind Spiral Power, it's just no one cares to listen.

Also Rogue.. Yes you did.



Starfleet's navigational shields, let alone anything else possessed by Starfleet, are the strongest things I have ever seen in any sci-fi setting. By the calculations I did up once, the basic deflector fields of a starship capable of travelling at around Warp 9 are nearly strong enough (though not quite) to stop the Death Star's planetkilling laser. This is before we get into the actual combat shields.

Seriously: in Trek, ships fly at hundreds of times the speed of light in real space, not in some kind of hyperspace. Think about what a single grain of sand could do to a planet if it was travelling at even twice the speed of light, and you begin to appreciate just how powerful Trek shields are.

Trek wins, hands-down, against any other sci-fi setting, based on this alone.

Also, transporters.

[Xondoure]

Which would mean that the ME universe is far superior to the ST universe, as one of their least ships can destroy one the other's most powerful stations.

If we assume both universes to be app. equal, there's now way the Normandy could be more than a nuisance, because otherwise their real warships should totally pwn the Federation.

Oh don't be ridiculous. Saying that Shepard wins doesn't immediately discount a Federation vs. Council war. It just means that Shepard wins. The Normandy could not obliterate DS9 on its own, but it could do what it was meant to do which is allow a skilled group of commandos to reach their destination. And then Shepard does his/her thing. Its not about firepower or anything like that, the Normandy is an infiltration ship with a very smart crew and as I've said before Trek security is pretty much a joke what with the system being hacked, the ships being boarded, and control being lost every other episode. The idea that the Normandy would be able to find a way past the ship defenses long enough to get Shepard on board is not that implausible and it doesn't automatically make the Federation worse than the Council cause its not like the council could stop Shepard either. (And they've tried)

[Rogue Shadows]

Also Rogue.. Yes you did.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that...

...well, I spoke a bit too soon. But certainly Trek ships are able to stand up to their usual competition in VS settings - the Galactic Empire (sans Death Star); the Peacekeepers; so forth and so on.

[The_JJ]

Also in response to Star Trek being better than any Sci Fi Setting.. I have several (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EztAWwvfRao), direct (http://www.mangafox.com/manga/shin_getter_robo/v01/c009/21.html) contradictions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Lord) to that statement. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek)

Culture. You don't **** with the Culture.

[Yora]

But DS9 is a mining station that was later outfitted with weapons. It's not a dedicated fortress or warship. Note that it usually took deux ex machina to save it from a determined attack by an actual warship.

For that matter, the capability of Trek characters to pull Deus Ex Machinas from their behinds should be taken into account...
It's just the deflector dishs!

[chiasaur11]

It's just the deflector dishs!

You know, if we're allowing the Trek crews their tendency to Techno the Techno and BAM, problem solved, that's dangerous precedent.

Because that means Shepard wins when DS9 manages to get a hailing frequency, and she picks the bright red option.

(On the list of "Can beat Trek", I'm tossing in X-Com and Durandal at the end of Marathon. For the latter, Durandal hijacked a precursor ship that can take on entire fleets for a practical joke, and for X-Com?

Beginning, Trek could take 'em. Cakewalk, if they made sure to crush the plucky little guy. But the thing about X-Com? The SF species best suited to taking them is, amusingly, the Turians or the Salarians. Quick, total victory, if you can pull it, is the right move. Otherwise, well, five years at the outside from five-minutes-in-the-future for '99 to FTL, psychic super soldiers, and anti-matter warheads. And the Federation is very bad at being brutal. Also, well, they might have to deal with later X-Com. When they have interdimensional combat craft, regenerating man portable shields, wrist mounted teleporters, and advanced biowarfare even ignoring the combat androids and psychics.

And that's the ground pounders. The fleet has very fast FTL, can travel through black holes, and, oh yeah, they have sun destroying missiles. And missiles that hop through shields. And weapons to hijack spaceships with psychic powers.)

[lesser_minion]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that...

Well, no, because your initial premise is wrong. Ships in Star Trek go to warp by projecting a 'subspace field' around themselves. Most of their mass is crammed into an alternate dimension where the problems with FTL conveniently don't apply.

It's worth adding that ships in Mass Effect are also entirely in real space when travelling at FTL, and while they do seem to 'phase' through solid matter when going through a mass relay, it's not clear that the same applies to their basic FTL drives.

Also, would you mind showing me how you derived the claim for the amount of energy involved in a collision at warp?

[Fan]

Well, no, because your initial premise is wrong. Ships in Star Trek go to warp by projecting a 'subspace field' around themselves. Most of their mass is crammed into an alternate dimension where the problems with FTL conveniently don't apply.

It's worth adding that ships in Mass Effect are also entirely in real space when travelling at FTL, and while they do seem to 'phase' through solid matter when going through a mass relay, it's not clear that the same applies to their basic FTL drives.

Also, would you mind showing me how you derived the claim for the amount of energy involved in a collision at warp?

Also a good point. Being wrapped in subspace would protect you from standard ftl problems.

[Rogue Shadows]

Well, no, because your initial premise is wrong. Ships in Star Trek go to warp by projecting a 'subspace field' around themselves. Most of their mass is crammed into an alternate dimension where the problems with FTL conveniently don't apply.

Yes, but they still have to worry about colliding with things at superluminal speeds; hence the deflector dish, which was my point. This comes up in several episodes; the most prominant one that sprinds to mind being "Year of Hell" from Voyager


It's worth adding that ships in Mass Effect are also entirely in real space when travelling at FTL, and while they do seem to 'phase' through solid matter when going through a mass relay, it's not clear that the same applies to their basic FTL drives.

I don't see a deflector dish...also since their "getting around" technology is derrived from the mass relay gates, it wouldn't surprise me if they just phase through things while travelling with their basic FTL drives as well.


Also, would you mind showing me how you derived the claim for the amount of energy involved in a collision at warp?

'kay.

Okay, so the calculation for the amount of energy released when something impacts something else is joules = 1/2 mass (velocity^2), right? Or in other words, J=.5m(v^2).

Let's use Warp 5, which is Trek's "speed limit" in the TNG era. Warp 5 is, according to the official (if often contradicted for sake of plot) scale (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Warp_factor), 213.75 times the speed of light. Speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 m/s, so 213.75 times this is 64,080,637,897.5 m/s. This gives us velocity.

Let's assume a 5 gram pebble. This gives us mass.

J = (.5 x 5)(64,080,637,897.5^2)
J = (2.5)(4.106328153350513 x10^21)
J = 1.026582038337628 x10^22

Or, if I remember my high school math correctly...10,265,820,383,376,280,000,000 joules of energy released by something 5 grams in weight colliding with something else at 213.75 times the speed of light. Ten sextillion joules and change.

For the record and comparison, the Death Star is estimated to have released about 2.2 x 10^32 joules of energy when it destroyed Alderaan.

It is a known fact that the deflector dish serves to deflect space dust, micrometeors, and other such things, to prevent them from hitting a Starfleet ship travelling at warp and causing catastrophic damage. Even if the subspace bubble projected around a starship were to reduce the effective speed of an object hitting a starship down to as low as, say, .9c (the speed of an effective railgun), that would still mean that a 5 gram object would release 1.819979236942056 x10^17 joules, or 181,997,923,694,205,600 joules (nearly one-hundred eighty two quintillion joules).

So, in otherwords...yeah. Trek ships are tough.

[Fan]

Again, I don't see this being mentioned by anyone in series in relation to space dust, nor do I see Warp having to worry about anything but gravity mentioned anywhere but that page.

Again, I don't see this as credible, it's like Incredible Crossections for Star Wars, and it quite clearly contradicts EVERYTHING else put up in the show.

[Rogue Shadows]

Again, I don't see this being mentioned by anyone in series in relation to space dust, nor do I see Warp having to worry about anything but gravity mentioned anywhere but that page.

Voyager episode "Year of Hell." The ship was nearly destroyed when their deflector dish partially failed for half a second while they were travelling at warp and passed through a micrometeorite storm, and half the crew died.

There are other examples, but I don't feel like digging when this is a known fact by any Trekkie.


Again, I don't see this as credible, it's like Incredible Crossections for Star Wars, and it quite clearly contradicts EVERYTHING else put up in the show.

Actually, no, it's perfectly in-line with the show: a ship without deflector shilds never travels using anything other than basic impulse (even that is dangerous - .25c is still fast), and repairing the deflector screens is always their number one priority.

If you're referring to the whole "but Trek weapons aren't nearly strong enough to penetrate that," go back and check out my theories concerning resonance frequencies, which match up perfectly with the show.

[Fan]

Voyager episode "Year of Hell." The ship was nearly destroyed when their deflector dish partially failed for half a second while they were travelling at warp and passed through a micrometeorite storm, and half the crew died.

There are other examples, but I don't feel like digging when this is a known fact by any Trekkie.



Actually, no, it's perfectly in-line with the show: a ship without deflector shilds never travels using anything other than basic impulse (even that is dangerous - .25c is still fast), and repairing the deflector screens is always their number one priority.

If you're referring to the whole "but Trek weapons aren't nearly strong enough to penetrate that," go back and check out my theories concerning resonance frequencies, which match up perfectly with the show.

There's also instances where they have difficulty blowing up meteors, and where "changing frequencies" fails to penetrate shields, and.. well. What about Quantum Torpedo's, and Photon Torpedo's? They never change frequency and they have a lower projected yield than phasers. =/

There are too many holes in that for it to be really accepted as anything other than well.. see Mangosta's post.

[mangosta71]

Even the low estimates of a photon torp are in the mega tons.
Those claims are preposterous based on what happens on screen all the time. A megaton detonation is enough to wipe out a few large cities. A ship in ST, even a big one like Enterprise, is at most the size of, say, 3 city blocks. Photon torpedoes pass through their shields effortlessly and detonate directly against the hull. Result? Small hole. If they packed the punch the fan-wank sources claim, there would be nothing left. Even when they strike unshielded targets, such as the climax of ST VI, it takes multiple hits to destroy a Klingon Bird of Prey (a ship substantially smaller than Enterprise).

Do shields in ST do anything against kinetic weapons? We see them stop phasers routinely - there's an obvious dissipation a short distance from the ship itself where the phaser strikes. But photon torpedoes bypass them entirely, even in situations where there's no way the opponent should know the shield resonance frequency, or whatever the "writers" are calling it this week.

Also, why exactly would nuclear/antimatter detonations be smaller in a vacuum? Neither depends on oxygen, or any other material than that included in the bomb itself, to explode. Seems to me that an antimatter explosion would actually be more devastating in a vacuum because the bomb isn't also reacting with the air around its target. Sure, there wouldn't be as much collateral damage, but the target itself...

[Rogue Shadows]

There's also instances where they have difficulty blowing up meteors, and where "changing frequencies" fails to penetrate shields, and.. well. What about Quantum Torpedo's, and Photon Torpedo's? They never change frequency and they have a lower projected yield than phasers. =/

Actually the torpedoes do change frequencies. Straight from Memory Alpha: (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Shield_frequency) "In 2371, Lursa and B'Etor were able to inflict severe damage on the USS Enterprise-D after learning its shield frequencies through modifications of Geordi La Forge's VISOR. They were then able to adjust their bird-of-prey's disruptors and torpedoes to pass through the Enterprise's shields. (Star Trek Generations)"

Emphasis mine, of course.

As for them worrying about asteroids, remember that those situations usually involved them travelling at impulse (significantly less than warp 1, even), and dealing with large asteroids which might be too much for the deflector fields.

Or something else, I don't know. Like I said, no one was ever trying to make Star Trek internally consistant. Everything depends upon Plot. But insofar as the official numbers are concerned, Trek shields are tough.

So we can either go with the official numbers; or we can assume that the shields of DS9 will be as strong as the Plot wants them to be. Your choice.

[Fan]

Actually the torpedoes do change frequencies. Straight from Memory Alpha: (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Shield_frequency) "In 2371, Lursa and B'Etor were able to inflict severe damage on the USS Enterprise-D after learning its shield frequencies through modifications of Geordi La Forge's VISOR. They were then able to adjust their bird-of-prey's disruptors and torpedoes to pass through the Enterprise's shields. (Star Trek Generations)"

Emphasis mine, of course.

As for them worrying about asteroids, remember that those situations usually involved them travelling at impulse (significantly less than warp 1, even), and dealing with large asteroids which might be too much for the deflector fields.

Um.. They weren't in warp, and it's space.

They can go around it.

It's not like it was a solar system sized chunk of rock, it was the size of Texas to be accurate.

There's also times where kinetic warheads have damaged the Enterprise (namely one of the episodes where they were dealing with a massively time accelerated civilization, and they hit it with nuclear missiles that did "17% shield damage.), so unless your figures are wrong (which they most likely are), then kinetic weaponry mostly by passes the shield frequency immunity deal, and the deflector dish, or we can assume the first ground to space missiles specifically without frequency changes (most likely in the LOW megaton range.) are enough to penetrate Trek Shields.

Again, by "official" figures, early trek shields can tank hits up into the megatons of firepower, that's still pretty tough.

[Joran]

"Long-range sensors" can apparently scan a radius of about 10 light years in a twenty-four hour period.

From the TOS era, sensors can detect out to a parsec instantaneously. But it's Star Trek, so sensors detect what the plot requires.


A "large EM signature" is not what I'd expect a Star Trek ship to be able to detect at FTL.

I would... Considering flying into a sun at warp or flying into a star that went supernova would be a really bad outcome. And if there's one thing that stars generate, it's a crapton of EM.


The cloak is counterable in the Trek universe, and by means that might be accessible to the Normandy, such as "antiproton beams".


Very rarely. Thomas Riker came up with a counter-measure to anti-proton beams, so there's a known solution in the Star Trek universe. Also, antimatter is hard to produce in the Mass Effect universe, but doesn't seem too difficult to produce in the Star Trek universe.

Also, all ships in Star Trek have a navigational deflector which apparently is a swiss army knife particle accelerator. There's no counter-part in the Mass Effect universe to shoot out antiprotons.



If the Federation starts off with full information about their opponents, they will win. Not because of superior technology, but because the scenario handed the win to them.


Well, superior technology in that they have FTL sensors and the capability to fight in FTL that Mass Effect does not.

The Federation is technologically more advanced than the humans of Mass Effect, end of story. Everything the humans of Mass Effect can do can be easily replicated by known Federation technology, except for traveling across the galaxy instantaneously. However, Mass Effect cannot do the following (we think):

Matter Replication
Matter Teleportation from orbit to ground and vice versa.
Time Travel (a huge one)
FTL Sensors that span light years
Visually Cloak and travel at FTL
Fire weapons at FTL

As an example, using all of that technology, the Federation created a cloaked, self-replicating minefield. Mass Effect can't come close to matching that achievement.

The only thing that can be up for dispute is whether the Federation weapons and shields are more powerful than equivalent Mass Effect weapons and shields.

P.S. If it comes down to small squad combat, then I think everybody agrees that Shepard and company would wipe the floor with anyone... and probably knock Worf unconscious.


Also, why exactly would nuclear/antimatter detonations be smaller in a vacuum? Neither depends on oxygen, or any other material than that included in the bomb itself, to explode. Seems to me that an antimatter explosion would actually be more devastating in a vacuum because the bomb isn't also reacting with the air around its target. Sure, there wouldn't be as much collateral damage, but the target itself...

I'm pretty sure a large amount of the destructive power of a nuclear weapon on Earth is because of the blast wave, which is basically air and other material moving. However, there's still a lot of energy in the form of radiation and heat.

[Rogue Shadows]

Um.. They weren't in warp, and it's space.

They can go around it.

It's not like it was a solar system sized chunk of rock, it was the size of Texas to be accurate.

So this arrives us back at the "it's as strong as the numbers suggest, OR it's as strong as the Plot demands - your choice" predicament.


There's also times where kinetic warheads have damaged the Enterprise (namely one of the episodes where they were dealing with a massively time accelerated civilization, and they hit it with nuclear missiles that did "17% shield damage.), so unless your figures are wrong (which they most likely are), then kinetic weaponry mostly by passes the shield frequency immunity deal, and the deflector dish, or we can assume the first ground to space missiles specifically without frequency changes (most likely in the LOW megaton range.) are enough to penetrate Trek Shields.

I remember that episode. Don't forget that those nuclear warheads, in addition to being nuclear warheads, were also travelling at significant speed due to the planet's own time acceleration (I think it was something like one second for us was four minutes for them?)

Also nukes all by themselves might resonate across enough frequencies to bypass the shields, again, this would be in line with what I suggested earlier.

But ultimately, it comes back to - "I have the official numbers. We can use them, or we can use the Plot, which is what the actual writers did. Your choice."

[Lamech]

Those claims are preposterous based on what happens on screen all the time. A megaton detonation is enough to wipe out a few large cities. A ship in ST, even a big one like Enterprise, is at most the size of, say, 3 city blocks. Photon torpedoes pass through their shields effortlessly and detonate directly against the hull. Result? Small hole. If they packed the punch the fan-wank sources claim, there would be nothing left. Even when they strike unshielded targets, such as the climax of ST VI, it takes multiple hits to destroy a Klingon Bird of Prey (a ship substantially smaller than Enterprise).Because they are made of magic space metal, and held together by force-fields? For comparison when targeting something like a planet about 30 ships in one volley remove 30% of a planets crust. These weapons also pack the punch to break through shields that can survive in a star. They are very clearly extremely powerful, yes the power is inconsistent, but the lowest estimates still leave it in the megaton range. The higher estimates for power leave those Dreadnoughts as a complete and utter joke.


Do shields in ST do anything against kinetic weapons? We see them stop phasers routinely - there's an obvious dissipation a short distance from the ship itself where the phaser strikes. But photon torpedoes bypass them entirely, even in situations where there's no way the opponent should know the shield resonance frequency, or whatever the "writers" are calling it this week.Yes, while rogue shadows calculations are silly (the engines all use physics defying principles so attempting to derive anything from them is silly)


Also, why exactly would nuclear/antimatter detonations be smaller in a vacuum? Neither depends on oxygen, or any other material than that included in the bomb itself, to explode. Seems to me that an antimatter explosion would actually be more devastating in a vacuum because the bomb isn't also reacting with the air around its target. Sure, there wouldn't be as much collateral damage, but the target itself...You heat the air to create a pressure shockwave. No air, no shockwave, no explosion.

[Rogue Shadows]

Yes, while rogue shadows calculations are silly (the engines all use physics defying principles so attempting to derive anything from them is silly)

Hey! ...basic math is all I got...

Well, anything above c is silly, anyway, since math breaks down at that point. But my calculation for joules at .9c is accurate.


You heat the air to create a pressure shockwave. No air, no shockwave, no explosion.

Indeed. Most of the threat of a nuclear explosion in space is from radiation, not concussive damage, and your basic shields should be able to deflect that anyway (after all, they can deflect cosmic radiation effortlessly). Still, should be pretty.

[Liffguard]

I don't see a deflector dish...also since their "getting around" technology is derrived from the mass relay gates, it wouldn't surprise me if they just phase through things while travelling with their basic FTL drives as well.

This is the case. An ME ship's integrated FTL system works in basically the same way as a Mass Relay, the differences being in efficiency and scale. A standard Mass Effect Drive projects a mass effect bubble around the ship allowing it to accelerate way past lightspeed. A Mass Relay works in effectively the same way but it projects a corridor across space rather than a bubble, and the field is much, much stronger.

[Hands_Of_Blue]

There's also times where kinetic warheads have damaged the Enterprise (namely one of the episodes where they were dealing with a massively time accelerated civilization, and they hit it with nuclear missiles that did "17% shield damage.), so unless your figures are wrong (which they most likely are), then kinetic weaponry mostly by passes the shield frequency immunity deal, and the deflector dish, or we can assume the first ground to space missiles specifically without frequency changes (most likely in the LOW megaton range.) are enough to penetrate Trek Shields.Are you talking about Blink of an Eye (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Blink_of_an_Eye)? Cause those were antimatter warheads, not just regular nuclear missles.

[Fan]

Are you talking about Blink of an Eye (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Blink_of_an_Eye)? Cause those were antimatter warheads, not just regular nuclear missles.

They got hit by regular nukes too.

Point is, that discounts the frequency theory as the people down there clearly wouldn't have known about frequencies, and due to the time stream wouldn't have been CAPABLE of figuring out the specific frequency.

[Hands_Of_Blue]

No, they didn't. They were hit by antimatter torpedos and one tricobalt device. No nukes.

And that episode was inconsistent just within itself, from how fast time traveled on the planet in contrast to normal space to the damage the planets' torpedos did. Since the first one apparently did 18% damage to the shields but then five minutes later one only did 5%, after Kim said they were getting more powerful each time.

[Fan]

No, they didn't. They were hit by antimatter torpedos and one tricobalt device. No nukes.

And that episode was inconsistent just within itself, from how fast time traveled on the planet in contrast to normal space to the damage the planets' torpedos did. Since the first one apparently did 18% damage to the shields but then five minutes later one only did 5%, after Kim said they were getting more powerful each time.

They still did damage without need of a frequency.

And I believe the differences were a "Direct hit" to a "Scathing blow".

[mangosta71]

You heat the air to create a pressure shockwave. No air, no shockwave, no explosion.
There's air inside the ship being hit, so there's still a huge shockwave being propagated within the ship itself. As with the antimatter warhead, there's less collateral damage, but the target itself takes the full force of the detonation.

[lesser_minion]

Okay, so the calculation for the amount of energy released when something impacts something else is joules = 1/2 mass (velocity^2), right? Or in other words, J=.5m(v^2).

Wrong. That's the equation that's taught in schools, but it's a gross oversimplification. Note how absolutely nothing in that equation precludes you from going faster than light.

The actual equation has an asymptote at the point where v = c. That's the mathematical side to the argument that you can't go faster than light.

The interesting bit is that the same equation actually predicts that the kinetic energy of an object will be negative if it actually is going faster than light.

It's not actually known how a hypothetical FTL object will behave, beyond that it would be travelling backwards in time. However, it's worth noting that any such things that exist at present do not interact with us in any way we can observe.

[GloatingSwine]

There's air inside the ship being hit, so there's still a huge shockwave being propagated within the ship itself. As with the antimatter warhead, there's less collateral damage, but the target itself takes the full force of the detonation.

Doesn't work like that unless the warhead initiates inside the ship. Most of the gamma radiation which would be the product of a M-AM initiation will be absorbed by the hull.

Also, for a warhead initiating even on the hull of the ship, at least 50% of the energy is wasted because it is radiated in the wrong direction. Photon/Quantum torpedoes as far as we have seen radiate energy evenly in all directions upon detonation. Only the portion of the energy which actually strikes the target vessel is relevant to the amount of damage it will take, and that energy is also reduced by the inverse square law. Even a few hundred metres distance can render even a large yield explosive relatively harmless in space.

[Rogue Shadows]

Wrong. That's the equation that's taught in schools, but it's a gross oversimplification.

It's also generally accurate enough for a casual conversation such as this, and it certainly does not negate the calculation I did for the joules of an object travelling at .9c, because even if I'm off by quintillions of joules, it's still unfathomable energy.

But, heck, give me the full equasion and I'll do a proper calculation. Until then, heck, let's look at basic impulse, which is .25c and involves travel in real space (no warp bubble messing with anything). .25c is 74,948,114.5 m/s. A 5 gram object hitting something at that speed releases 1.404304966776278 x10^16, or just over fourteen quintillion joules of energy. Yet the ships in Trek routinely travel at full impulse with no adverse effects as long as their basic navigational shields are up.


They still did damage without need of a frequency.

Damage to the ship? Or damage to the shields? This is an important distinction. Shields can be overcome without having the right frequency, it's just that it's more efficient to know the shield harmonics of the target vessel.

[lesser_minion]

It's also generally accurate enough for a casual conversation such as this, and it certainly does not negate the calculation I did for the joules of an object travelling at .9c, because even if I'm off by quintillions of joules, it's still unfathomable energy.

No, it is not. It depends on assumptions that are not valid in this situation.

The full equation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-energy_equivalence#Mass.E2.80.93velocity_relations hip), by the way, is also irrelevant. The fact that FTL travel is available in both universes proves that it doesn't apply in all situations. We know that Star Trek vessels are propelled by the same basic means whether travelling at FTL or sublight speeds.

All we can conclude is that these events are dangerous to Star Trek vessels.
We don't actually know how much energy is involved, only that it's much less than we might expect in our own world.

[mangosta71]

Doesn't work like that unless the warhead initiates inside the ship. Most of the gamma radiation which would be the product of a M-AM initiation will be absorbed by the hull.

Also, for a warhead initiating even on the hull of the ship, at least 50% of the energy is wasted because it is radiated in the wrong direction. Photon/Quantum torpedoes as far as we have seen radiate energy evenly in all directions upon detonation. Only the portion of the energy which actually strikes the target vessel is relevant to the amount of damage it will take.
Fine. So it's like a nuke hitting a mile away from a city rather than dead center. The city is still gone, even though only half the energy of the explosion hit it and the rest was released away from it.

Do you begin to see how preposterous the yield claims on ST weapons are yet?

[VanBuren]

The two ships meet in space. They do fight briefly, with the Normandy being unable to do any damage, but being too quick and mobile to take any either. Eventually EDI manages to decipher the communication protocols. Communication established, the hostilities soon cease.

Before long, the two crews are amiable and social with each other, bringing the best of their respective technologies and laughing about the misunderstanding before taking the time to genuinely appreciate how nobody is really trying to kill anybody right now because frankly it's about damn time.

Meanwhile, Shepard and Sisko drink together and become Bros. Eventually becoming board, then teaming up to go punch evil in the face.

Jacob gets left behind on the Normandy, because everyone forgets about him.

[Joran]

Before long, the two crews are amiable and social with each other, bringing the best of their respective technologies and laughing about the misunderstanding before taking the time to genuinely appreciate how nobody is really trying to kill anybody right now because frankly it's about damn time.

Meanwhile, Shepard and Sisko drink together and become Bros. Eventually becoming board, then teaming up to go punch evil in the face.

Jacob gets left behind on the Normandy, because everyone forgets about him.

Shepard and Sisko drink a beer and swap stories of terrifying, cybernetic threats to the Galaxy and how they punched that one really annoying guy in the face.

Worf compares battle scars with Grunt and tries to introduce prune juice to his diet.

Thane tells Garak how to kill your enemies. Garak tells Thane how to get two enemies to kill each other for you. They both swap fashion tips and Garak sews him a new suit.

EDI and Legion are disappointed that they managed to pick the ONE series that doesn't have a strong AI presence.

Kelly Chambers adds Cardassian, Klingon, Bajoran, Vulcan, Trill, Ferengi, and whatever species Morn is to her list. She's saddened that Odo rejects her, but assumes it's like Hanar. There is a sudden outbreak of scale-itch on DS9.

[Rogue Shadows]

No, it is not. It depends on assumptions that are not valid in this situation.

Even when travelling at subluminal speeds? What is it good for if it doesn't work no matter how fast you're travelling?


The full equation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-energy_equivalence#Mass.E2.80.93velocity_relations hip), by the way, is also irrelevant. The fact that FTL travel is available in both universes proves that it doesn't apply in all situations. We know that Star Trek vessels are propelled by the same basic means whether travelling at FTL or sublight speeds.

Actally the impulse engines are seperate from the warp nacelles, and while powered by the warp drive they don't actually use warp to move around. It's essentially an augmented fusion rocket (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Impulse_drive). An impulse drive, in other words, moves a starship around the same way we move rockets around: basic thrust, and while we don't know how to build a fusion rocket, we certainly know how one would behave.

So J=.5mv^2 should be accurate enough for conversational purposes, since all we have to assume is that it is possible for the ship to reach one-quarter the speed of light. Heck, at .25c, there isn't even any noticeable time dialation; that doesn't set in until you're at at least something like .9c.

So - once more, with feeling - starships in Starfleet can travel at .25c with no adverse effects because of their deflector fields, which are capable of deflecting away quintillions of joules of energy that would be released by an impact with even a small object at that speed.

I actually have brought this up before on another forum to explain why no one uses mass drivers in Trek: by necessity, even basic deflector fields would have to be enough to stop a kinetic energy weapon.


All we can conclude is that these events are dangerous to Star Trek vessels.
We don't actually know how much energy is involved, only that it's much less than we might expect in our own world.

You are mistaken.

[Lamech]

Actally the impulse engines are seperate from the warp nacelles, and while powered by the warp drive they don't actually use warp to move around. It's essentially an augmented fusion rocket (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Impulse_drive). An impulse drive, in other words, moves a starship around the same way we move rockets around: basic thrust, and while we don't know how to build a fusion rocket, we certainly know how one would behave.
Its also augmented by a "subspace field". Its clearly a physics defying engine. Among other things, don't the ships generally drift to a stop when power goes down?



Do you begin to see how preposterous the yield claims on ST weapons are yet? It would only be valid if they used the same building materials used today, and if they didn't use forcefields to reenforce the ship. Those assumptions are false, hence we are unable to say how much damage an unshielded ship should take.

[Rogue Shadows]

Its also augmented by a "subspace field". Its clearly a physics defying engine. Among other things, don't the ships generally drift to a stop when power goes down?

What subspace fields do is dependent entirely on, once again, Plot (funny how often that comes up, isn't it?). Memory Alpha's (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Subspace_field) article, however, explains them as basically improving a ship's inertial mass, insofar as it's relavent to this discussion. So it defies physics insofar as the massive things accelerate and turn easier than they should be able to at those speeds; it says nothing about impacts, however.

So, once more...all evidence suggests that an impulse drive just moves a ship through real space, and the subspace field makes this easier, but there is nothing suggesting that it somehow distorts what happens when an object collides with a ship at high speeds.

The deflector dish article (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Deflector_dish), however, covers that very topic in great detail.

Looking at Trek canon, it seems pretty clear that the writers intend the deflector dish and navigational shields to serve exactly the purpose I'm saying it does, and at this point you're just being contrary.


It would only be valid if they used the same building materials used today, and if they didn't use forcefields to reenforce the ship. Those assumptions are false, hence we are unable to say how much damage an unshielded ship should take.

A single torpedo is usually enough to destory a ship that has lost all shields. Take, for example, D destroying Lursa and B'Etor's Bird-of-Prey with only a single torpedo in Generations.

Though once more, this can vary according to demands of Plot.

[Hands_Of_Blue]

Actally the impulse engines are seperate from the warp nacelles, and while powered by the warp drive they don't actually use warp to move around. I'm pretty sure the impulse engines work off of fusion reactors and not the warp core, cause otherwise Federation ships would be completely boned instead of just mostly boned when they have to eject the warp core.

[Fan]

I'm pretty sure the impulse engines work off of fusion reactors and not the warp core, cause otherwise Federation ships would be completely boned instead of just mostly boned when they have to eject the warp core.

Actually, in the most recent JJ Abraham's movie, ejecting the warp core did prevent them from maintaining forward propulsion beyond their initial boost from the warp core, and to quote "They would have to drift along at these speeds till they found a warp capable civlization."

To which Kirk responded "Screw the rules, I'm Captain Kirk."

And proceeded to be just fine. =p

This is after they hid in the gas clouds of titan to hide from a ship hundreds of years more advanced in sensor technology than they were.:smalltongue:

So yeah, for things that disagree with those statements see: everything aside from that one article. :smalltongue:

Also year of hell wasn't them getting hit by space debri, it was a temporal disturbance that damaged Voyager.. not anything the deflector dish stopped.

In fact, I just watched the entire episode.. There was not even a MENTION of space debri, none of the casualties were caused by that, it was caused by a fleet of Krenim Battleships on their tail attacking them.

I'm going to call into question everything you've cited now Rogue Shadows..

[Rogue Shadows]

I'm pretty sure the impulse engines work off of fusion reactors and not the warp core, cause otherwise Federation ships would be completely boned instead of just mostly boned when they have to eject the warp core.

I don't even know. Like I said, Trek runs off of Plot.


Actually, in the most recent JJ Abraham's movie, ejecting the warp core did prevent them from maintaining forward propulsion beyond their initial boost from the warp core, and to quote "They would have to drift along at these speeds till they found a warp capable civlization."

I don't remember that scene. Are you quoting the book?


To which Kirk responded "Screw the rules, I'm Captain Kirk."

Or this one...


This is after they hid in the gas clouds of titan to hide from a ship hundreds of years more advanced in sensor technology than they were.:smalltongue:

Narada is just a mining vessel, piloted by miners, who are not precisely emotionally stable, even for Romulans. Also, remember that Trek XI doesn't seem to exist in the same universe as regular Trek, given the massive differences in how everything works. For example, Enterprise leaves Earth and arrives at Vulcan in a matter of minutes. Vulcan is located at Epsilon Eridani, a star system about 16.45 ly from Sol. This is much faster than any starship has been shown to travel before - even using the faster TNG scale, the journey should have taken about four days at warp 9.

Which is not to say that it's a bad movie - I enjoyed it - but it's not the same Trek.


Also year of hell wasn't them getting hit by space debri, it was a temporal disturbance that damaged Voyager.. not anything the deflector dish stopped.

In fact, I just watched the entire episode.. There was not even a MENTION of space debri, none of the casualties were caused by that, it was caused by a fleet of Krenim Battleships on their tail attacking them.

Year of Hell, Pt. II (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Year_of_Hell,_Part_II_(episode)). Day 180. Micrometorite shower. Causes a fire that burns Janeway badly. Nav shields were down so they couldn't stop it. And if I recall correctly they weren't even travelling very fast at the time, nor was the shower. Still, they were definitely travelling at impulse, meaning that a starship can still be subject to objects hitting it despite subspace fields, etc.

[Fan]

The ship had been badly damaged for WEEKS, and had been dogged throughout everything.

It's also safe to say that Engines weren't on AT ALL when that happened.

It says it right in the memory Alpha link. They didn't even have power for anything that wasn't life support.

Thus they weren't moving at ANY appreciable speed, let alone impulse.

Also again, sensors don't care about the sanity of their crew, and being paranoid means you scan obsessively... not less.

[Rogue Shadows]

The ship had been badly damaged for WEEKS, and had been dogged throughout everything.

And the micrometeorite shower ceased being a problem as soon as the navigational deflectors were restored. Do the math.


It's also safe to say that Engines weren't on AT ALL when that happened.

It says it right in the memory Alpha link.

It says the nacelles were down, not the engines. The impulse drive doesn't use the nacelles, it uses - funnily enough - the impulse engine.

Offhand, I don't know where they are on Voyager, but here's D's.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080821022137/memoryalpha/en/images/thumb/2/21/Galaxy_class_impulse_engines.jpg/180px-Galaxy_class_impulse_engines.jpg


Thus they weren't moving at ANY appreciable speed, let alone impulse.

This isn't established or suggested.

[Fan]

No.. If the ship doesn't have emergency power to do anything with, then I think they aren't operational. Emergency power implies a smaller secondary generator, or battery. That's generally how it works when primary power fails.

When you don't have emergency power.. you don't have engines. I'd count the trek's lucky that their life support is self supporting.

It IS suggested, because if they were going at impulse, they would've been able to get out of the micro meteorite shower. It's not like it was a solar system spanning deal, and the event lasted for more than 10 minutes, thus they didn't have power to the engines.

[Rogue Shadows]

No.. If the ship doesn't have emergency power to do anything with, then I think they aren't operational. Emergency power implies a smaller secondary generator, or battery. That's generally how it works when primary power fails.

When you don't have emergency power.. you don't have engines. I'd count the trek's lucky that their life support is self supporting.

That's not what happened in the episode itself:

On the bridge, Janeway, amidst the clanging and clattering of the meteroid shower hitting the hull, asks Torres if engines are available yet, to get them out of the shower's way. Torres answers that they are not and Kim reminds Janeway their navigational deflector is nonfunctional. She orders Tuvok to divert emergency power to it but is subsequently informed that the ship lost emergency power long ago.

The ship was running off of its main...whatever...and didn't have emergency power. The ship clearly had some power, though. How do I know this? Because comms worked and the lights were on.


It IS suggested, because if they were going at impulse, they would've been able to get out of the micro meteorite shower. It's not like it was a solar system spanning deal, and the event lasted for more than 10 minutes, thus they didn't have power to the engines.

You know that impulse is any speed slower than Warp 1, right? Specifically it's any speed slower than Warp 1 achieved using the impulse engine. If they were moving one kilometer a day using the impulse engine, they'd still be moving at impulse.

[Fan]

That's not what happened in the episode itself:

On the bridge, Janeway, amidst the clanging and clattering of the meteroid shower hitting the hull, asks Torres if engines are available yet, to get them out of the shower's way. Torres answers that they are not and Kim reminds Janeway their navigational deflector is nonfunctional. She orders Tuvok to divert emergency power to it but is subsequently informed that the ship lost emergency power long ago.

The ship was running off of its main...whatever...and didn't have emergency power. The ship clearly had some power, though. How do I know this? Because comms worked and the lights were on.



You know that impulse is any speed slower than Warp 1, right? Specifically it's any speed slower than Warp 1 achieved using the impulse engine. If they were moving one kilometer a day using the impulse engine, they'd still be moving at impulse.

Um.. It says right there

Janeway, amidst the clanging and clattering of the meteroid shower hitting the hull, asks Torres if engines are available yet, to get them out of the shower's way. Torres answers that they are not and Kim reminds Janeway their navigational deflector is nonfunctional.

Meaning engines WEREN'T Available. Like it says. In bold.

It is OUT RIGHT said.

How many times do I have to say something?

Engines were not even online at the time. They were not. It says it. They were unable to get the engines online at the time to move out of the way of a meteor shower.

[Rogue Shadows]

Um.. It says right there

Janeway, amidst the clanging and clattering of the meteroid shower hitting the hull, asks Torres if engines are available yet, to get them out of the shower's way. Torres answers that they are not and Kim reminds Janeway their navigational deflector is nonfunctional.

Meaning engines WEREN'T Available.

A problem here is that "engine" could refer to impule or the warp drive. In any event given that there's kind of no air resistance in space we don't know what speed they were travelling at, and indeed they'd be constantly accelerating. They could have been travelling at thousands of meters a second for all we know. That's pretty slow compared to their normal speed.


Engines were not even online at the time. They were not. It says it. They were unable to get the engines online at the time to move out of the way of a meteor shower.

And were helpless without their nav shields. Which means...?

[Fan]

A problem here is that "engine" could refer to impule or the warp drive. In any event given that there's kind of no air resistance in space we don't know what speed they were travelling at, and indeed they'd be constantly accelerating. They could have been travelling at thousands of meters a second for all we know. That's pretty slow compared to their normal speed.



And were helpless without their nav shields. Which means...?

They weren't able to get away, so we must assume they were stalled.

Otherwise the shower wouldn't have been a problem, there being literally infinite directions to escape to, if they had been going at ANY speed they could've gotten away rather than burn their most important crew member horribly.

Yet another wonderous property of space.

[Rogue Shadows]

Otherwise the shower wouldn't have been a problem, there being literally infinite directions to escape to, if they had been going at ANY speed they could've gotten away rather than burn their most important crew member horribly.

How big was the storm? I've actually just spent the past few...well, two minutes...trying to find a screen shot, but I can't seem to.

Remember that even a "small" micrometeorite storm could potentially be tens of millions of kilometers across.

Also, we don't have to assume they were stalled, we just have to assume that they couldn't maneuver. Remember that in a vacuum an object will continue to move forwards at an ever-accelerating rate unless something acts against it; they won't coast to a stop. Certainly they had enough power to leave the nebula they had been hiding in. Even assuming the engines gave out after leaving the nebula, they'd continue drifting forward at increasing speed.

[Fan]

If they were going at escape velocity from the nebula they just broke through they would've gotten through the micrometeorite storm in the time it took Janeway to get down to the deflector shield room.

And I have a screen shot, namely this one (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Micro-meteoroid_shower), which shows no forward propulsion, and the engines are dead.

Meaning yes, they were stalled.

This compounded with the supported statement of the fact that the engines were offline means, like I've said, upwards of thirteen times. Deflector shields do not work that way.

And again, this isn't a space where the only direction is forward. They could've merely gone UP, or DOWN, or ANY OTHER DIRECTION.

[Rogue Shadows]

If they were going at escape velocity from the nebula they just broke through they would've gotten through the micrometeorite storm in the time it took Janeway to get down to the deflector shield room.

Without knowing how fast they were travelling (escape velocity? To leave a cloud? They don't need to travel nearly that fast to leave a nebula), the density of the meteorite storm, etc, you can't say that with any kind of accuracy.


And I have a screen shot, namely this one (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Micro-meteoroid_shower), which shows no forward propulsion, and the engines are dead.

I was kind of hoping for a screen shot that shows the total size of the meteorite storm, rather than simply a close-up of Voyager inside of it.


Meaning yes, they were stalled.

Again, it's actually pretty difficult to stall in space. If they don't have any engines at all, then once they left the nebula, how did they stop?


This compounded with the supported statement of the fact that the engines were offline means, like I've said, upwards of thirteen times. Deflector shields do not work that way.

Not what the article says... (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Deflector_dish)


And again, this isn't a space where the only direction is forward. They could've merely gone UP, or DOWN, or ANY OTHER DIRECTION.

If their engines were cut, then no, they could only drift forward, since they wouldn't have any means of stopping their acceleration.

C'mon, man, didn't you ever watch Cowboy Bebop? There were like, two episodes where Bebop had completely run out of fuel, but no one aboard was worried because their inertia would still carry them to their destination, albeit at a slower rate because they couldn't apply any more juice to their acceleration.

You don't just "stall" in space, you need to stop yourself. It's way more likely that Voyager was indeed moving but we didn't have much of a point of reference, so it looked like it was moving slowly.

Given that they were neck-deep in nebula and yet were able to reach an area of space where the nebula couldn't even be seen in a period of about 20 days, I'd say that they were moving at at least a significant fraction of the speed of light, given that your typical nebula can be ten or twenty lightyears in diameter, or more.

Seriously, they're huge.

[Fan]

Without knowing how fast they were travelling (escape velocity? To leave a cloud? They don't need to travel nearly that fast to leave a nebula), the density of the meteorite storm, etc, you can't say that with any kind of accuracy.



I was kind of hoping for a screen shot that shows the total size of the meteorite storm, rather than simply a close-up of Voyager inside of it.



Again, it's actually pretty difficult to stall in space. If they don't have any engines at all, then once they left the nebula, how did they stop?



Not what the article says... (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Deflector_dish)



If their engines were cut, then no, they could only drift forward, since they wouldn't have any means of stopping their acceleration.

C'mon, man, didn't you ever watch Cowboy Bebop? There were like, two episodes where Bebop had completely run out of fuel, but no one aboard was worried because their inertia would still carry them to their destination, albeit at a slower rate because they couldn't apply any more juice to their acceleration.

You don't just "stall" in space, you need to stop yourself. It's way more likely that Voyager was indeed moving but we didn't have much of a point of reference, so it looked like it was moving slowly.

Given that they were neck-deep in nebula and yet were able to reach an area of space where the nebula couldn't even be seen in a period of about 20 days, I'd say that they were moving at at least a significant fraction of the speed of light, given that your typical nebula can be ten or twenty lightyears in diameter, or more.

Seriously, they're huge.

They broke out of the nebula, sustaining damage from a parting shot from the WARSHIPS that were unable to pursue farther due to their lack of proximity to the TIME SHIP which had altered the time stream to allow them to be more advanced.

Sorry, but no.

And the article is one of those "Quite clearly bullcrap" type of wiki articles, or at least your interpretation. We've already seen based on OTHER wiki articles that that wiki article is of questionable quality, and the article has NO CITATIONS of it's strength, and purpose. It's one of questionable quality that the wiki itself calls into question.

And again, my image shows it stalled. Thus.. it was stalled. Regardless of what you continue to willfully ignore.

[Liffguard]

Remember that in a vacuum an object will continue to move forwards at an ever-accelerating rate unless something acts against it

Uh, no. In a vacuum an object will continue at a constant velocity unless something acts on it. To accelerate there would have to be some force providing the acceleration.

[Rogue Shadows]

Uh, no. In a vacuum an object will continue at a constant velocity unless something acts on it. To accelerate there would have to be some force providing the acceleration.

Mmn, good point. To my credit it was something like 2 AM when I typed that up.

Still, an object doesn't stop, (unless acted against) which was my main point.


They broke out of the nebula, sustaining damage from a parting shot from the WARSHIPS that were unable to pursue farther due to their lack of proximity to the TIME SHIP which had altered the time stream to allow them to be more advanced.

How did this, in your strange little vision of how the universe works, make Voyager stop? Again, if those ships took out Voyager's engines as they were leaving the nebula, then they would continue to drift forward, not coast to a stop. That doesn't happen in space.

And again, they went from being neck-deep in nebula, to being in a region of space where the nebula couldn't even be seen anymore, in a matter of only a few of weeks. That means that without question they must have been moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light at least, unless the nebula was ludicrously small.

For the record, the smallest known nebula is 14,000 AU, or 2,094,370,189,800 kilometers, across, and most nebulae are much, much larger - usually several parsecs.


And the article is one of those "Quite clearly bullcrap" type of wiki articles, or at least your interpretation. We've already seen based on OTHER wiki articles that that wiki article is of questionable quality, and the article has NO CITATIONS of it's strength, and purpose. It's one of questionable quality that the wiki itself calls into question.

The article outlines the deflector dish's purpose right here with citations:

The deflector commonly takes the form of a dish-shaped force beam generator containing heavy-duty subspace accelerators at the extreme forward end of the vessel's secondary hull. It performs its primary function by emitting low-power deflector shields to deflect microscopic particles and higher-powered deflector beams and/or tractor beams to deflect larger objects. (Star Trek: First Contact; VOY: "Alliances", "Shattered")

The article doesn't cite the next two paragraphs, which don't involve using the navigational deflector for navigation, and so are beyond the scope of this discussion anyway.

As for how strong the deflector field is, no, it doesn't cite precise strength, because Trek normally doesn't care. At all. It's as strong as it needs to be.

However we can still extrapolate strengh thanks to SCIENCE! By which I mean basic math coupled with observable evidence on the show.

Heck, let's use the micrometeorite storm. The speed of the storm isn't said in the episode, but say for the sake of argument that it's travelling at 1,000,000 meters/second, which is the speed at which the Earth orbits the sun, and is a fairly slow and lazy speed by Galactic terms. Going by the screen cap you provided, most of those "micrometeorites" seem to be of significant size and not micro at all. Let's say .5 kilograms, though. That's pretty small.

Now, if you're right, then Voyager was completely without power. It wasn't in subspace at all, and all movement was at far less than c, meaning that the equasion J=.5mv^2 should be accurate enough for conversational purposes.

Let's see...do some math, and we get 250,000,000,000 joules.

For comparison, most bullets travel at around 1000 m/sec (depending on various conditions, of course), and a 9mm bullet weighs about .00745 kg. So they release about 3,725 joules when they hit something.

So going by Year of Hell, Voyager's navigational shields are at least strong enough to deflect two hundred fifty billion joules with no problems.

Please remember that this is assuming that nothing involved in this calculation is moving at any significant fraction of the speed of light (the meteorite is, specifically, moving at about .003% the speed of light), nor is subspace involved as Voyager's engines are out of comission, so the calculation should be accurate enough for conversational purposes.

Please remember also that that is for one impact. The navigational shields, however, were apparently strong enough to deflect an entire micrometeorite storm, with meteorites of varying sizes impacting the shields constantly.

And that is why we never see starships use railguns or other pure kinetic weapons in Star Trek.

EDIT
Oh, I would like to go on record as saying that I have been doing my math a little wrong, as mass is supposed to be calculated with kilograms, not grams, as I have been doing, and velocity is supposed to be calculated with meters/second.

So I've been off by an order of magnitude or so. Still, that brings caluclations involving sextillions of joules down to being trillions of joules or so. So the amount of energy involved is still staggering.

Starting with the above equasion, I will be using proper values.

[Fan]

You should also note that it doesn't stop them, it deflects them.. by virtue of being a deflector. It takes SIGNIFICANTLY less force to turn something aside than it does to completely stop it.

But still, I severely doubt the meteorites were going that fast. It was outside of a nebula, and floating in dead space meaning it was as "Stationary' as something like that can get. Meaning I severely doubt it was going 10,000 Kilometers per Second.

In fact, with a quick google search, our own Kupier belt is MUCH slower, and the smaller fragments can be going at as slow as 4 miles per hour.

Now this is a cloud outside solar influence made up of significantly smaller particles. I think you can extrapolate from there.

[lesser_minion]

Even when travelling at subluminal speeds? What is it good for if it doesn't work no matter how fast you're travelling?

Yes, it is useless even when travelling at subluminal speeds. It only gives a good approximation when the ship is travelling at extremely slow velocities -- far slower than what an impulse drive permits.

This puts aside the fact that we already know that ships use subspace fields to make all kinds of travel easier -- in fact, DS9 could barely 'move' without erecting a subspace bubble around itself first.


So J=.5mv^2 should be accurate enough for conversational purposes, since all we have to assume is that it is possible for the ship to reach one-quarter the speed of light. Heck, at .25c, there isn't even any noticeable time dialation; that doesn't set in until you're at at least something like .9c.

It is not. At anything above 0.10c, it's not even useful for a forum discussion. When discussing ships that use magic subspace technology to get around, it's not appropriate ever. Again.

As for time dilation, as far as we know, Star Trek ships don't experience it. And again, it doesn't magically "kick in" at 0.9c. Here's the actual formula: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation


So - once more, with feeling - starships in Starfleet can travel at .25c with no adverse effects because of their deflector fields, which are capable of deflecting away quintillions of joules of energy that would be released by an impact with even a small object at that speed.


Incorrect. We already know for a fact that they use subspace technology to artificially reduce the amount of energy that would be involved both in moving and in a collision.


I actually have brought this up before on another forum to explain why no one uses mass drivers in Trek: by necessity, even basic deflector fields would have to be enough to stop a kinetic energy weapon.

Untrue.


You are mistaken.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Cause_and_Effect_(episode)
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Jem'Hadar_(episode)

[Rogue Shadows]

You should also note that it doesn't stop them, it deflects them.. by virtue of being a deflector. It takes SIGNIFICANTLY less force to turn something aside than it does to completely stop it.

And you should also note that it is able to do this repeatedly, indeed for a seemingly limitless amount of time, and .5 kg is very small for a meteorite. Judging by your screenshot, most of the meteorites look like they weigh several megagrams.


But still, I severely doubt the meteorites were going that fast. It was outside of a nebula,

The nebula couldn't even be seen anymore. Which means Voyager was, herself, moving at significant speeds.


and floating in dead space meaning it was as "Stationary' as something like that can get.

This would require a lot more knowledge than we have available at the moment. Also more math than I'm capable of, as we'd need to calculate Voyager's velocity, the meteorite's velocity, the average mass and compesition of each meteorite, impacts per second, and so on.

Also, it's not much of a "shower" if it's stationary. That's just a "field" then.


Meaning I severely doubt it was going 10,000 Kilometers per Second.

Why not? Like I said, that's a pretty slow and lazy speed for an object in space.


Yes, it is useless even when travelling at subluminal speeds. It only gives a good approximation when the ship is travelling at extremely slow velocities -- far slower than what an impulse drive permits.

This puts aside the fact that we already know that ships use subspace fields to make all kinds of travel easier -- in fact, DS9 could barely 'move' without erecting a subspace bubble around itself first.

To be fair, that's because DS9 was using orbital stabilizing thrusters to move around, not proper engines. It's the equivalent of trying to use one of those hand-held fans to push yourself around while floating around in zero gravity. Possible...if you can lower your inertial mass.

But the article doesn't say anything about the subspace field somehow changing what would happen had something hit DS9.


It is not. At anything above 0.10c, it's not even useful for a forum discussion. When discussing ships that use magic subspace technology to get around, it's not appropriate ever. Again.

Well, that still leaves the micrometeorite storm travelling at the comparitively lazy .003c, which still involves billions of joules of energy.


Incorrect. We already know for a fact that they use subspace technology to artificially reduce the amount of energy that would be involved both in moving and in a collision.

Moving, yes; the articles are mute on collisions, however, other than to say that a starship needs a deflector dish.


http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Cause_and_Effect_(episode)
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Jem'Hadar_(episode)


These are not pure kinetic weapons. Warp cores explode at the drop of a hat, remember? (http://www.cracked.com/article_18699_6-baffling-flaws-in-famous-sci-fi-technology.html)

(It's Flaw #4 in that article, BTW).

Also don't forget that not every ramming attack results in total destruction for both ships. It's just more dramatic if they do (there's that Plot thing again) (http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100225224135/memoryalpha/en/images/b/bc/USS_Enterprise-E_and_Scimitar_following_collision_extraction.jpg)

[Lamech]

It is not. At anything above 0.10c, it's not even useful for a forum discussion. Actually for Rogue Shadows purposes its fine at anything less than 1c. This is because if he uses the formula .5*m*v^2 at anything less than 1c. The actual result is HIGHER. Not lowers. So this line of argument that he should be using a much more annoying formula is silly. Your argument at this point is "No, actually the shields are even stronger."
P.S. You are right about the subspace field thing though. In fact ships usually drift to a stoppish when they lose engines. Hence, using physics defying technology.

[Rogue Shadows]

P.S. You are right about the subspace field thing though. In fact ships usually drift to a stoppish when they lose engines. Hence, using physics defying technology.

That just plain old doesn't make sense and is a result of Trek writers buying too much into the "space is an ocean" thingy.

That still leaves, though, the micrometeorite storm. No engines, no subspace field, just a hunk of metal and some rocks travelling at insignificant fractions of the speed of light.

[Lamech]

That just plain old doesn't make sense and is a result of Trek writers buying too much into the "space is an ocean" thingy.Eh, live by magic science, die by magic science.


That still leaves, though, the micrometeorite storm. No engines, no subspace field, just a hunk of metal and some rocks travelling at insignificant fractions of the speed of light.Yeah, trek shields are inanely strong. To wit, flying through a sun, the anti-matter missiles voyager, and taking a hit from the planet killer. Also note the weapons they stand up too. You can wipe out all life on a planet with one of their ships, 30 of them can remove the crust of a planet in a few hours, you worry about igniting the atmosphere of planets, ect.

The weapons of a trek warship range from rough parity to a dreadnought to vastly stronger.

[lesser_minion]

These are not pure kinetic weapons. Warp cores explode at the drop of a hat, remember? (http://www.cracked.com/article_18699_6-baffling-flaws-in-famous-sci-fi-technology.html)

How does this make a collision non-dangerous? The fact that it's dangerous because it destabilised the warp core doesn't make it non-dangerous, does it?

[Rogue Shadows]

How does this make a collision non-dangerous? The fact that it's dangerous because it destabilised the warp core doesn't make it non-dangerous, does it?

Remember I said "pure kinetic weapons." If there's explosive force involved, it's not a pure kinetic weapon, it's a giant torpedo.

I'm talking, like, glorified bullets. Railguns.

[Fan]

Um.. from what I'm reading the ship just rammed Enterprise.

No Warp Core magic to the attack, it's an argument against shields.. nothing else.

[Rogue Shadows]

Um.. from what I'm reading the ship just rammed Enterprise.

No Warp Core magic to the attack, it's an argument against shields.. nothing else.

The ship vaporized on impact. That means a warp core breach, because that's what happens in Trek: if the container for a warp core is breached, then the entire thing goes "kablooie."

So, no, in both the Jem'hadar and the Bozeman case, we were watching warp core breaches.

If ships just ram each other, we get what we saw between E and Scimitar up there, from Nemesis. Lots of structural damage, both both ships were badly damaged already.

[Fan]

The ship vaporized on impact. That means a warp core breach, because that's what happens in Trek: if the container for a warp core is breached, then the entire thing goes "kablooie."

So, no, in both the Jem'hadar and the Bozeman case, we were watching warp core breaches.

If ships just ram each other, we get what we saw between E and Scimitar up there, from Nemesis. Lots of structural damage, both both ships were badly damaged already.

The ram was still significant enough for it to CAUSE the warp core breach. The warp core wasn't breached before hand.

Meaning that, for all their shields. The Fed's ships are like loaded powder kegs.

[Rogue Shadows]

The ram was still significant enough for it to CAUSE the warp core breach. The warp core wasn't breached before hand.

I'll admit it's been awhile since I've seen the Bozeman episode (IIRC, they destroyed each other simultaneously, but then again there were all sorts of weird temporal effects going on as well), but in the case of the Jem'Hadar ship, don't forget that it took the explosive force of one ship's warp core going up to take out another ship. What would have happened if it had just been a Jem'Hadar fighter-sized rock travelling at the same speed?


Meaning that, for all their shields. The Fed's ships are like loaded powder kegs.

Which means...they are glorified torpedoes. And that is why we don't see pure kinetic weapons in Trek.

[KnightDisciple]

Regarding the attack on the Odyssey in the episode "The Jem'Hadar", I point to this photo (http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/0/04/USS_Odyssey_critically_damaged.jpg). That hit, which tore a huge chunk out of the hull, barely missed hitting the antimatter containment head-on. I'd say it's reasonable to assume the sudden, drastic shock to the ship's systems resulted in containment failure, and boom (which I think is what a "warp core breach" actually leads to for the explosion; all the antimatter loses containment, so, kablooey).

One can argue back and forth about why they have antimatter drives, but in this case, it's not a "design flaw". It'd be like somebody tearing open a gas tank on a car, dropping a lighter next to it, and being shocked it catches on fire.

[Rogue Shadows]

Regarding the attack on the Odyssey in the episode "The Jem'Hadar", I point to this photo (http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/0/04/USS_Odyssey_critically_damaged.jpg). That hit, which tore a huge chunk out of the hull, barely missed hitting the antimatter containment head-on.

Hell, it looks like that sweet table that Geordi normally hangs out at on E (and has picnics at when Lwaxana is over) would be gone...

Also I'd like to reinforce that we don't know how much of that damage was caused by the kinetic force of the Jem'Hadar fighter hitting Odyssey, and how much was explosive force from the Jem'Hadar's own warp core going up. Having said that, I'm leaning that it was overwhelmingly the warp core explosive force, and not the simple kinetic force.

So once more: glorified torpedo, and not a pure kinetic weapon by any means.


One can argue back and forth about why they have antimatter drives, but in this case, it's not a "design flaw". It'd be like somebody tearing open a gas tank on a car, dropping a lighter next to it, and being shocked it catches on fire.

They use antimatter because the only known alternative is a quantum singularity, i.e., a mini black hole. That's what Romulan ships usually use.

There are some...drawbacks. For example, once it's turned out, it can't be turned off, leading me to wonder what they do with the things when they need to be decomissioned.

Probably throw them at the Klingons or something.

[Fan]

Except in this case, the lighter in question is any matter ever.

And I'd think the main win condition here would be Renegade Shepherd using "negotiations" to get aboard, and proceeding to bake every man, woman, and child.

[Yora]

Star Trek, like most sci fi shows, suffers from severe reactor explosion syndrome.
Damaged engines don't explode in real life. I think almost all explosions of power plants or vehicles are actually steam explosions, because the engines work by heating water to extreme pressure.
Yes, nuclear weapons do explode, but there's an insane amount of engineering involved with the precise goal to get a really big explosion. Since nobody knows how a warp core works, you could just say that it runs on a unique reaction that actually can run away and accelerate to an incredible energy output, but mostly it's because people expect spaceships to explode in a huge ball of fire that leaves no debris of the ship. Same with cars blowing up when Chuck Norris looks at them disapproving.

[Rogue Shadows]

engineering involved with the precise goal to get a really big explosion. Since nobody knows how a warp core works, you could just say that it runs on a unique reaction that actually can run away and accelerate to an incredible energy output, but mostly it's because people expect spaceships to explode in a huge ball of fire that leaves no debris of the ship. Same with cars blowing up when Chuck Norris looks at them disapproving.

Babylon 5 was generally pretty good about this, allowing for the limitations of CGI tech at the time. Ships destroyed in B5 usually just kind of were internally on fire but would structurally still be mostly together, or would break apart into physical chunks.

Not that B5 was necessarily more scientifically accurate. Nukes in space are way more useful than they should be.

[Fan]

Babylon 5 was generally pretty good about this, allowing for the limitations of CGI tech at the time. Ships destroyed in B5 usually just kind of were internally on fire but would structurally still be mostly together, or would break apart into physical chunks.

Not that B5 was necessarily more scientifically accurate. Nukes in space are way more useful than they should be.

I unno, the project an EM pulse that does a pretty good job of disabling electronics and such.

Which MOST settings still operate off of electricity, they just have a nigh limitless way to generate it.

[Rogue Shadows]

I unno, the project an EM pulse that does a pretty good job of disabling electronics and such.

Even today, we have ways of hardening circuits against EM pulses thanks to that whole Cold War misunderstanding. Hundreds of years from now, presumably they'll be even better at it.

Plus in B5, there are entirely-biological ships that shouldn't be effected by EMs at all.

But anyway, mostly I'm referring to B5 showing nukes as acting like megalithically large bombs in space, when in fact a nuke in a vacuum produces only a modest explosion, if that.

[Jethrobot]

Valid arguments on both sides but I feel that Mass Effect is winning due to superb and superior military training compared to the Star Trek soldiers.
If the Mass Effect crew had sufficient ammo they could always blast at the shields until the crew of Deep Space 9 died of massive burns because of the steam erupting from everywhere inside the ship/station that is supposedly protected by shields;)

[Liffguard]

I unno, the project an EM pulse that does a pretty good job of disabling electronics and such.


Even today, we have ways of hardening circuits against EM pulses thanks to that whole Cold War misunderstanding. Hundreds of years from now, presumably they'll be even better at it.

More importantly, an EMP is not an inherent property of a nuclear explosion. Like the shockwave, it is a product of the explosion going off in the Earth's atmosphere. No atmosphere/magnetoshpere, no EMP.

[Fan]

Even today, we have ways of hardening circuits against EM pulses thanks to that whole Cold War misunderstanding. Hundreds of years from now, presumably they'll be even better at it.

Plus in B5, there are entirely-biological ships that shouldn't be effected by EMs at all.

But anyway, mostly I'm referring to B5 showing nukes as acting like megalithically large bombs in space, when in fact a nuke in a vacuum produces only a modest explosion, if that.

Do you have some pics of these modest explosions?

Cause if you don't. It didn't happen. :smalltongue:

But again, the way I see Shepherd winning is talking his way in, and then seizing control of the station, hooking up EDI to a subspace radio, and letting her decimate the ships systems before using DS 9 itself to devastate the forces assembled around them.

[Rogue Shadows]

Do you have some pics of these modest explosions?

Cause if you don't. It didn't happen. :smalltongue:

Your NASA-fu is weak. (http://history.nasa.gov/conghand/nuclear.htm)

[mangosta71]

A single torpedo is usually enough to destory a ship that has lost all shields. Take, for example, D destroying Lursa and B'Etor's Bird-of-Prey with only a single torpedo in Generations.
How many hits did it take to destroy the Bird of Prey in ST6? One from Enterprise to reveal it, I know that Excelsior fired at least 3, and I think that Enterprise fired another 3 after the initial hit. All at an unshielded target.

Your NASA-fu is weak. (http://history.nasa.gov/conghand/nuclear.htm)
So, a nuke detonating a short distance away from a ship in space doesn't produce the heat or the shockwave, which we already knew. However, the radiation is more potent. The ship isn't damaged, but the crew is fried.

Of course, if the nuke actually strikes the ship, all of the effects we know and love come into play. And I still haven't seen anything that refutes the statement: photon torpedoes routinely pass through the shields of starships and strike the hull directly.

Of course, since nothing in the Trek universe obeys the laws of physics, I suppose it's kind of silly to assume that this logic applies.

[Rogue Shadows]

So, a nuke detonating a short distance away from a ship in space doesn't produce the heat or the shockwave, which we already knew. However, the radiation is more potent. The ship isn't damaged, but the crew is fried.

I know (that that's the theory), but I was just pointing out that Babylon 5 made the mistake of showing nukes as producing massive explosions, which they wouldn't.


How many hits did it take to destroy the Bird of Prey in ST6? One from Enterprise to reveal it, I know that Excelsior fired at least 3, and I think that Enterprise fired another 3 after the initial hit. All at an unshielded target.

But just one torpedo to destroy the one in Generations.

Here's that Plot thing again...

[KnightDisciple]

And I still haven't seen anything that refutes the statement: photon torpedoes routinely pass through the shields of starships and strike the hull directly.

Of course, since nothing in the Trek universe obeys the laws of physics, I suppose it's kind of silly to assume that this logic applies.Wait, what? Since when? :smallconfused:

[mangosta71]

Every time one is fired onscreen. We know that the shields are a short distance away from the ship itself because phasers hit them and dissipate with a big, bright flash. Torpedoes pass right through the space that phasers show the shields to occupy and explode against the hull. Then the scene cuts back to the bridge, the captain yells "Damage report!" and an ensign yells back "Shields are at 80%!"

Besides, how can a torpedo blow a hole in the ship (even a small hole) unless it actually strikes it? It can't produce a shockwave in a vacuum any more than a typical nuclear warhead can - there's no matter to propagate the wave. Only something striking the ship can cause a hull breach on deck 37.

[KnightDisciple]

I'm trying to recall a situation outside of Generations (when the Klingons have the frequency of the Enterprise's shields exactly) where that happens. I'd need photo or video of it. I just don't recall it happening.

Shields aren't always all or nothing; damage might happen from momentary spots of weakness where a small bit of an attack's energy leaks through.

And while there aren't big shockwaves per se, torpedoes use matter/antimatter reactions. That would feed a lot force/energy into the shields, taxing them. And when it hits a hull, it would of course do damage.

[mangosta71]

There is no shockwave, because there's no matter. There's nothing in space for an antimatter warhead to react with unless it actually hits matter - an energy field (such as a ship's shields) wouldn't feed an explosion. And even if it did, there would be no shockwave that shakes the ship and makes everyone on the bridge fall over. That can only result from something actually striking the ship itself.

[Rogue Shadows]

There is no shockwave, because there's no matter. There's nothing in space for an antimatter warhead to react with unless it actually hits matter - an energy field (such as a ship's shields) wouldn't feed an explosion. And even if it did, there would be no shockwave that shakes the ship and makes everyone on the bridge fall over. That can only result from something actually striking the ship itself.

I'm going to assume here that the casing for the photon torpedo itself couldn't serve as the matter part of the matter/antimatter equasion. Or that the torpedo can't contain matter for the antimatter to react with. Or something.

Meh, I dunno. Plot.