Star Trek Ships vs. Stargate Ships

[Bagpuss]

From this point,remember two things guys :

1.The topic is Star Trek Ships vs Stargate Ships.All else is interesting ,but a side discussion.

2.Talk TO each other,not ABOUT each other.Take any snark to pm/e-mail.


Thank you.

[jameshawking]

Perhaps my memory is shoddy but....

Is there anything, at all, in Stargate that could topple a Cube? The Wraith and Asgard don't hae anything that could topple the Borg, and i don't believe I've seen anything of the Go'uld either?

And that's not even considering the Breen either, really.

[darth_timon]

Right now I haven't the time to go through so many posts- not only have I got direct replies to me, but it would appear that Tetsujin and Pheonix have their own conservation about my evidence going on as well. If one of you could be so kind as to summarise your latest points, it would make responding to them far easier.

[Tetsujin]

Perhaps my memory is shoddy but....

Is there anything, at all, in Stargate that could topple a Cube? The Wraith and Asgard don't hae anything that could topple the Borg, and i don't believe I've seen anything of the Go'uld either?

And that's not even considering the Breen either, really.

I dont think their is any race Besides Species 8472 that can really deal with the Borg. They are similar to the Replicators, but worse in many ways since they actually gain technology from multiple advanced species instead of just one. Also while the Replicators are machines, the Borg actually have biological brains allowing for more creative problem solving in my opinion. I dont think there is very much in either series that could stand up to a borg cube 1 on 1 and the full capabilities of a Tactical Cube still havent been explored.

[Tetsujin]

Right now I haven't the time to go through so many posts- not only have I got direct replies to me, but it would appear that Tetsujin and Pheonix have their own conservation about my evidence going on as well. If one of you could be so kind as to summarise your latest points, it would make responding to them far easier.

I can understand your dilemma. We are still talking about what has already been said and just touching bases on strategies and opinion and a few of the posts arent directed at you so you dont need to respond to them. How about you try your best to deal with the two posts directed at you on page 47(One from me #926 and one from Phoenix #928) and ignore the rest for now, and we will restate things if we feel it is necessary. Remember you dont need to post until you are completely done with both and we can work on a system where me and Phoenix can combine posts so it would be easier to respond to since it would be both of our responses at once and you can respond once both our statements are on the post. I dont know, whatever is easiest for you since I do understand that you are responding to two different people at once.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

Right now I haven't the time to go through so many posts- not only have I got direct replies to me, but it would appear that Tetsujin and Pheonix have their own conservation about my evidence going on as well. If one of you could be so kind as to summarise your latest points, it would make responding to them far easier.

Hiya, yeah like Tetsujin said we've just been going over previously raised points.

I'd appreciate if you could do a reply to the last reply I posted to you on page 46, it's right at the bottom of the page, Tetsujin replied to it at the top of page 47, I don't mind if it's easier for you to put it into a post to Tetsujin and myself, role it into one.

I'm really interested in your take on points I made about The Die Is Cast, Homecoming and the Beach Head yield issues, if you wanted to skim other parts it's cool with me, but I don't think they're essential to my side of the discussion.

There's stuff in Tetsujin's post he wants you to reply to that I don't think I need to add to, maybe just pick the big points out of those two posts, I believe they're the meat of the debate and if there's any new stuff you'd like to add go for it.

I'm cool if you want to role replies into one post if that's easier and yeah like Tetsujin said take your time, post once you've completed your post, there's no rush.

I think things may have got too heated, I appologize if anything I've posted may sound harsh, just gets a little frustrating when you keep going over points and people assume you're trying to twist evidence, I'm not, I'm just stating things as I see them.

I've been looking at things from the suspension of disbelief angle and I believe more should be taken into consideration than just the visuals especially with The Die Is Cast, I believe you'll understand what I mean by this if you look at the post I'd like you to reply to, if you've got any questions feel free to ask and I'll reply asap.

If you could let us know when you've read these replies to this post of yours that'd be cool, don't worry about going into detail, just an "ok" or "read it" would be cool please, anyway hope you're ok mate, speak later.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

Perhaps my memory is shoddy but....

Is there anything, at all, in Stargate that could topple a Cube? The Wraith and Asgard don't hae anything that could topple the Borg, and i don't believe I've seen anything of the Go'uld either?

And that's not even considering the Breen either, really.

Short of overloading a ZPM and tossing one on Solar System destruction level I can't think of anything.
Maybe a huge Naquadah or Naquadriah asteroid detonated nearby, with a very large sized Solar Flare's worth of power, but the Borg could jump away.
Maybe if the Asurans were around they could make a ZPM powered drone, with solar system destruction levels of power, but if they could have done that on the show it would have meant the end of Atlantis.
If a borg cube was on the opposite side of a star then someone could destroy a star by using a stargate connected to a blackhole, but that's a bit too high a price and the Borg always have more cubes.

[jameshawking]

Short of overloading a ZPM and tossing one on Solar System destruction level I can't think of anything.
Maybe a huge Naquadah or Naquadriah asteroid detonated nearby, with a very large sized Solar Flare's worth of power, but the Borg could jump away.
Maybe if the Asurans were around they could make a ZPM powered drone, with solar system destruction levels of power, but if they could have done that on the show it would have meant the end of Atlantis.
If a borg cube was on the opposite side of a star then someone could destroy a star by using a stargate connected to a blackhole, but that's a bit too high a price and the Borg always have more cubes.

And that's not even touching the fact that Start Trek TOS ships from the Federation could survive punching a hole through the Sun and survive.

I'm just saying, if you need to go to massive extremes, including things that would be damn hard, very situational, and unlikely to work more than a few times, to destroy some of the ships from Star Trek, then the thread is pretty much answered. Now, if those Borg Ships, at the highest point of technological development of the Federation, start getting their asses kicked by Federation ships, that would imply a higher level of advancement from Earth as well than what the Borg had.

Maybe it's a bit of a cheap way to win the debate, but if let's face it, the Big Baddies of Star Trek can stomp all over Star Gate technology, well, isn't that the end of it?

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

And that's not even touching the fact that Start Trek TOS ships from the Federation could survive punching a hole through the Sun and survive.

I don't recall which episode that was, can you refresh my memory please?

I'm just saying, if you need to go to massive extremes, including things that would be damn hard, very situational, and unlikely to work more than a few times, to destroy some of the ships from Star Trek, then the thread is pretty much answered. Now, if those Borg Ships, at the highest point of technological development of the Federation, start getting their asses kicked by Federation ships, that would imply a higher level of advancement from Earth as well than what the Borg had.

Maybe it's a bit of a cheap way to win the debate, but if let's face it, the Big Baddies of Star Trek can stomp all over Star Gate technology, well, isn't that the end of it?

You would think after the lengthy discussions we've been having over the last 10 pages or so that such things would be apparent, I believe Tetsujin and I agree with you on this.
Basically yeah weaker ships from the original line of vessels from Earth are shown to have the firepower mentioned (anyone who doesn't agree can look at the examples given by Tetsujin and I) and they have been shown to be not even a blink in the eyes of the most modern main ST timeline ships and I don't think anyone has even mentioned anything like the Time Ship Relativity, but I guess this would probably go into Ascended/Q territory.

There are a load more details that can be found further back in this thread on even this page alone that would clear a lot of things up for anyone willing to look at the evidence for themselves and not be swayed by anyone else's opinions.

In short, short of elaborate plans then yes it would take a lot to down a Borg cube, if you really take in what is canon and logical for each show.

The main points have gone into Goauld Federation territory, so the Borg and 8472 have been swepped aside for now, they both seem pretty certain to win IMO against pretty much any none ascended race, but we can't really speak for the Ancients.

[jameshawking]

I don't recall which episode that was, can you refresh my memory please?

It was a movie.
You know...THAT one.

You would think after the lengthy discussions we've been having over the last 10 pages or so that such things would be apparent, I believe Tetsujin and I agree with you on this.
Basically yeah weaker ships from the original line of vessels from Earth are shown to have the firepower mentioned (anyone who doesn't agree can look at the examples given by Tetsujin and I) and they have been shown to be not even a blink in the eyes of the most modern main ST timeline ships and I don't think anyone has even mentioned anything like the Time Ship Relativity, but I guess this would probably go into Ascended/Q territory.

There are a load more details that can be found further back in this thread on even this page alone that would clear a lot of things up for anyone willing to look at the evidence for themselves and not be swayed by anyone else's opinions.

In short, short of elaborate plans then yes it would take a lot to down a Borg cube, if you really take in what is canon and logical for each show.

The main points have gone into Goauld Federation territory, so the Borg and 8472 have been swepped aside for now, they both seem pretty certain to win IMO against pretty much any none ascended race, but we can't really speak for the Ancients.

Well considering even the Q had respect and a bit of fear for the Borg, I'd say they could hold their own against the Ancients -shrug-

[darth_timon]

Right, I've had a brief look at both the relevant posts and will try to post responses later on tonight, or possibly tomorrow.

I too would like to apologize for getting a bit testy lately.
I was thinking, regarding the Borg, that a separate thread might be in order- maybe a Borg v Replicator thread, since they are the two enemies most like each other.

[darth_timon]

Ok, I have had a closer look at the arguments of both Tetsujin and Pheonix and am more or less ready to post a more comprehensive reply.

Silent Enemy: The problem I have with taking this episode as any sort of benchmark for the progress of Federation technology is that we have two instances where firepower exceeds the normal operating parameters of the ship, the first being caused by an alien device, and the second where they deliberately overcharge the phasers to achieve the same result. If they are in a position of having to overcharge their weapons every time they want to achieve a 200MT shot, they will end up doing increased damage to the weapons system and possibly the power grid too. You increase the wear and tear on those systems every time you exceed their normal operating parameters, which makes it impractical and therefore not wise to treat as a benchmark.

The Die is Cast: What we have here is an episode where the visual evidence and the dialogue does not mesh. I operate under the idea that visuals are superior to dialogue, under the suspension of disbelief principle, as using this principle, characters can make errors (they are only human after all... or Romulan, as the case may be), but the visuals are clear cut. With the supposed destruction of 30% of a planet's surface there is certain phenomena we should expect to see if firepower is the main means of causing this destruction. The vaporisation or fragmentation of so much material will result in huge, prolonged ejecta into the atmosphere, and so much heat from vaporisation will have the effect of melting material as well. We should be seeing a tremendous light show as this happens, and blasting down to the upper mantle, which on earth at least is a viscous, hot layer, should lead to us seeing, in at least some areas of the attack, this hot, bright, viscous layer.

Instead, the dust clouds/shockwaves are gone very quickly. They settle down in a matter of seconds, which simply isn't possible with such a huge release of energy. The only way for 30% crust destruction to happen without seeing such effects is if some sort of chain reaction was taking effect, and chain reactions don't necessarily need a lot of firepower to cause damage.

Changing Face of Evil: The bare bones of what we know are- a Breen fleet got within range of earth and attacked. I will agree that all else is speculation. However, logic comes into play to fill the gaps. Would the Breen have had time to drop shields and land troops whilst under attack from ground defences, orbital defence and any ships in the area? Would they really have deliberately used low power weapons when they had the opportunity to deal the Federation a crippling blow?

Pegasus: The transcript of the episode states that the asteroids in this episode are made of proto-planetary matter. The properties of such asteroids are not unknown, and it is believed there is less than a 10% change of such asteroids being metallic. Secondly, the asteroid was at least partially hollow, which will reduce the firepower needed to destroy it.

Relics: If taken as an example of high shield strength, this episode stands against all other visual evidence. It is the contradiction, as opposed to the rule. If looked at from the standpoint of the other evidence, there is a case, which I have already made, which allows for the possibility of there being low shield strength, thus tying it in with all the other visual evidence.

Enemies: The Hatak sat for ten hours near a blue giant star. Whichever interpretation of blue giant you take, the Hatak was near a much energetic star than the Enterprise was in Relics and two different individuals have calculated that the minimum yield for Hatak shields, as a result of this, are in the multi-gigaton range.

Beach Head Tetsujin agrees that this episode is proof of multi-megaton firepower for Hataks. The only dispute lies with determining the exact power of each shot.

Goa'uld Policy Pheonix asked why we don't see the Goa'uld perform their high yield destruction against the targets we see in the show. I reply with a question of my own- why in the instances on screen, would they need to? What would they gain from it? The only such occasion which requires closer scrutiny is Homecoming, which I need to review.

[Tetsujin]

Ok, I have had a closer look at the arguments of both Tetsujin and Pheonix and am more or less ready to post a more comprehensive reply.

See how much better taking your time is?

Silent Enemy: The problem I have with taking this episode as any sort of benchmark for the progress of Federation technology is that we have two instances where firepower exceeds the normal operating parameters of the ship, the first being caused by an alien device, and the second where they deliberately overcharge the phasers to achieve the same result. If they are in a position of having to overcharge their weapons every time they want to achieve a 200MT shot, they will end up doing increased damage to the weapons system and possibly the power grid too. You increase the wear and tear on those systems every time you exceed their normal operating parameters, which makes it impractical and therefore not wise to treat as a benchmark.

In a sense it is an accurate benchmark since it shows what the weapons systems of a ship that age are fully capable of even if it was not standard yield. I dont know the exact yield of the blast, but at the same time, the ship nor the weapons suffered catastrophic damage therefore the output of that instance would be likened to overclocking a CPU a tad too far, damage was done but since you know the exact issues from that you can deal with them readily. Upgrades happened fairly quickly and the Columbia(The second NX class vessel) featured many upgrades that the Enterprise was not equipped with at the time, and their construction times were not that far apart.

Also, in recognition of the weapon being overcharged, I showed you a short chain of ships leading from the NX class to the Intrepid class with Klingon ships encountered by both showing a combat benchmark using standard weapons. NX Class<Klingon BOP 22nd century<D5 Battleship<D7 Battleship<Intrepid Class. Each ship on this list has been shown to overpower the last by a decent margin either directly through visuals or through logic(The only logical speculation being the NX class was bested by a class less powerful than a D5 at least twice, and that the D5 is less powerful than the later model D7) Also, of note is how a phase canon in Silent Enemy is rated standard at 100GW more than the weapons used in “Survivors” further stating how that yield is survivors is suspect.

The Die is Cast: What we have here is an episode where the visual evidence and the dialogue does not mesh. I operate under the idea that visuals are superior to dialogue, under the suspension of disbelief principle, as using this principle, characters can make errors (they are only human after all... or Romulan, as the case may be), but the visuals are clear cut. With the supposed destruction of 30% of a planet's surface there is certain phenomena we should expect to see if firepower is the main means of causing this destruction. The vaporisation or fragmentation of so much material will result in huge, prolonged ejecta into the atmosphere, and so much heat from vaporisation will have the effect of melting material as well. We should be seeing a tremendous light show as this happens, and blasting down to the upper mantle, which on earth at least is a viscous, hot layer, should lead to us seeing, in at least some areas of the attack, this hot, bright, viscous layer.

Instead, the dust clouds/shockwaves are gone very quickly. They settle down in a matter of seconds, which simply isn't possible with such a huge release of energy. The only way for 30% crust destruction to happen without seeing such effects is if some sort of chain reaction was taking effect, and chain reactions don't necessarily need a lot of firepower to cause damage.

The principle of suspending disbelief I feel is flawed because it can not take into account the real limitations of the show (budget, time, viewer response, and technological capabilities) compared to how the writers know the show is supposed to be and thus will always be suspect if not looked at logically. Again I do not see how this can be argued since two separate instances of dialogue confirm the damage that was supposed to be done. The discrepancy between no damage and 30%% of the crust being destroyed is too large for you to just dismiss it as not happening. Even if you dont see a magical light show(which would have costs more than nessesary in that episode) How do you take into account the speed and range of the dust cloud over the planetary surface? If the impact and destruction was not great the dust cloud would not have moves that fast nor been that widespread.

Changing Face of Evil: The bare bones of what we know are- a Breen fleet got within range of earth and attacked. I will agree that all else is speculation. However, logic comes into play to fill the gaps. Would the Breen have had time to drop shields and land troops whilst under attack from ground defences, orbital defence and any ships in the area? Would they really have deliberately used low power weapons when they had the opportunity to deal the Federation a crippling blow?

In that your are incorrect. We do not know a Breen fleet got near Earth since numbers nor type of ships were never stated. The only statement I believe was “The Breen have attacked Earth”, that is it. Also since you are working off the principle of suspending disbelief so staunchly then you can not fill in gaps since you have to see it. I believe that is a double standard, in which you can use logic when it suits you then ignore it when it does not. We have to decide now what form of debating you will use since it has and will affect both your past and future posts validity. Either abandon logical assumption and reasoning completely or accept it completely to reach reasonable conclusions.

Pegasus: The transcript of the episode states that the asteroids in this episode are made of proto-planetary matter. The properties of such asteroids are not unknown, and it is believed there is less than a 10% change of such asteroids being metallic. Secondly, the asteroid was at least partially hollow, which will reduce the firepower needed to destroy it.

It was a proto planetary asteroid therefore it was possibly metallic in whole or in part and of what materials if present are unknown. It was partiallty hollow yes, but partially is ambiguous since we dont know exactly how much was hollow and how much was solid. I also dont place any faith in Rikers statement since using over 250 torpedoes would release enough energy to completely destroy a target much larger. Much canon and semi-canon evidence except battle scenes seem to corroborate the high yield of torpedoes. Considering how volatile anti-matter is and the volume of antimatter aboard a ship we can logically assume higher yields than what is seen visually. Also we can use a chain of evidence leading back to ST: Enterprise. Spacial torpedoes are nuclear weapons, and photonic torpedoes were stated and shown to be much more effective and powerful. Therefore we can say that a photon torpedo, which is an upgrade to the photonic torpedo, is more powerful than that. Also given the size and complexity of the weapon, carrying small enough amounts of anti-matter to fit with the yields of most of the shown visuals wouldn’t make sense.

Relics: If taken as an example of high shield strength, this episode stands against all other visual evidence. It is the contradiction, as opposed to the rule. If looked at from the standpoint of the other evidence, there is a case, which I have already made, which allows for the possibility of there being low shield strength, thus tying it in with all the other visual evidence.

The episode only stands against 2 of the instances you have shown which both are highly suspect. Until we see a more general display of low shield strength I can say what was seen in Relics, is more or less standard for a vessel that size in that time period.

Enemies: The Hatak sat for ten hours near a blue giant star. Whichever interpretation of blue giant you take, the Hatak was near a much energetic star than the Enterprise was in Relics and two different individuals have calculated that the minimum yield for Hatak shields, as a result of this, are in the multi-gigaton range.

As I have stated previously, the relatively great distance in comparison to the Enterprise, the low energy transfer of the corona, the lower shield strength at the time for the Galaxy class, and the lack of solar flares in the Hataks case which lowers the energy absorbed my great magnitudes leads me to conclude that the Enterprise was in the more harsh situation. Further details can be found in previous posts.

Beach Head Tetsujin agrees that this episode is proof of multi-megaton firepower for Hataks. The only dispute lies with determining the exact power of each shot.

It is proof of multi megaton power. However it would indicate that the amount of power per shot greatly drops off the more shots are fired which would impede the actual ability to do damage to a mobile target compared to a stationary one(which was the case in Beachhead). Even at best each shot still wasnt the 200MT stated prior, and is further weakened by the fact that the F304 was delivering a payload of at least 4GT with more being extremely likely given dialogue.

Goa'uld Policy Pheonix asked why we don't see the Goa'uld perform their high yield destruction against the targets we see in the show. I reply with a question of my own- why in the instances on screen, would they need to? What would they gain from it? The only such occasion which requires closer scrutiny is Homecoming, which I need to review.

Homecoming is proof of them not doing it even when it is in their best interest. They would need to, to defeat their enemy quickly and effectively. It the same situation if you saw a group of enemies and you had an RPG and a pistol. If the ammo costs the same, it takes the same ammount of time to load and fire each weapon, and you have an infinite amount of both, any person would be quicker to use the RPG since it would do the most damage in the least amount of time and surely defeat the most enemies with the least chance of later reprisals either due to fear of a similar display of force or by virtue of your enemy being dead.


If you want you can wait for Phoenix to attack his thoughts to this post before you reply, or you can just reply and if he has something to say later respond to it at that time. Its up to you.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

Ok, I have had a closer look at the arguments of both Tetsujin and Pheonix and am more or less ready to post a more comprehensive reply.

Silent Enemy:...snipped to keep the size of my post down.

What we know about this incident is that yes using the overload did do some damage to parts of the Enterprises’s systems, but the systems weren’t permanently damaged and the crew could maintain and restore them back to a working order.
You’ll recall that Tetsujin and myself haven’t said this is how we think the system is or should be used all of the time, obviously not.
There was no indication however that this overload is so much more powerful than the upper standard limit of the phasers, since this shot didn‘t entirely destroy the weapon it‘s within the capabilities of the device.
Yes the phasers were damaged in the second shot, but they would be working again within an hour of when archer spoke to reed and tucker, at least one of those phasers was built using parts already available on the ship.

These phasers are the first of their kind used on such a ship, improvements to power handling of that system and anything related to it would mean that such future technologies would be improved.
The progression of ships shown by Tetsujin proves that later vessels would be more powerful, since each newer ship is a significant degree more powerful than the older vessel it faces and that is what’s portrayed in all incidents in ST, unless like I said before the older ships are upgraded with newer technology.

The Die is Cast:….snipped

Even using suspension of disbelief you should be taking more into consideration than just the visuals otherwise the style of debate is illogical I‘m afraid and ignores everything but visuals thus it is a flawed tool for debate since it only uses one very small portion of the evidence at hand.
I’ll re-quote what I put in my original post to you to show you what I’m getting at:

I will never agree that The Die Is Cast proves low yield, because as I stated before it would make no sense for the Romulans and Cardassians to even go to the Founder’s homeworld with that objective (1), discuss that they would achieve a certain level of damage to a planet within a certain amount of time (2), when they’ve had prior experience with a certain type of technology (3) and then have their own sensors confirm the level of damage they achieved with their opening volley (4).
Weapons fire and large visible shockwaves cross the planet indicate the shots were fired (5) and clouds of what could be dust cover the damage done under a very dark and impossible to see through very large portion of the planet(6).
Also not one of the people on the ships questions the accuracy of readings or possibility such a plan could succeed (7).
We have as I have shown above 7 reasons against 1 lack of the kind of visuals you expect to see from advanced futuristic weapons that you have no knowledge of what effects they would have to such a large scale attack.

Using suspension of disbelief you should see that it would be impossible for so many people to be wrong or deluded, especially considering there was a fleet of ships and no one questioned what readings were being shown to them.
Prior experience with the weapons used should show up some suspect evidence if the effects described weren’t actually happening.
We’ve seen star trek weapons vaporize objects without creating large flashes of light.
Like Tetsujin said the Founders home world was a rogue planet, the founders can live in some pretty horrid environments by our standards.
We cannot assume effects that would be present if such an attack happened to a planet identical to Earth would be happening here.

Changing Face of Evil:…..

I know that Tetsujin feels we should not use this episode as any kind of evidence, but for me the visual seen is no where as bleak looking as the one shown in What You Leave Behind and like I‘ve said before the damage shown on that episode was due to ground based attack and not orbital bombardment.
I have to correct you with regards to transporting through shields the Dominion did show the ability to transport people through federation shields when raised and I believe there were instances where people were transported through shields without lowering them throughout the show since TNG.

Pegasus:…..

Belief and truth are two entirely different things and that belief would surely relate to our solar system and not any other since we can‘t explore or test such far off objects.
It’s not clear what the exact size of that asteroid is, it was large enough for the enterprise to travel kilometres inside of it though.

Relics:…..

This episode is not in contradiction of Silent Enemy or The Die Is Cast, it sits with them and shows the shields were likely to be struck by flares.

Enemies:…..

Jacob says they needed to get “close enough to the blue giant’s corona sphere” this would imply they wanted to do what was necessary to mask the ships existence, it doesn’t show that they wanted to sit near the hottest region.
There was also no mention of any prominences near the Ha’Tak.
If even one flare hit the enterprise’s shields (which we have reason to believe was the case) that could equal many gigatons or even teratons, whichever it was depends on how large the flares were and the enterprise could have been hit by many, few or one, they wouldn’t have been mentioned if they weren’t an issue and that is the truth.

Beach Head…..

I think Tetsujin will want to speak for himself here.
He did agree with me about what the Tsar Bomb thing represented.
While I understand that there isn’t a linear progression with yield of those bombs to blast radius I also understand that it‘s unlikely that 812 gigatons is needed to make a 100 mile fireball.
If Tetsujin is right and 3 gigatons will make about a 17 km fireball then I really don’t see even 100 gigatons being required and we also need to take into account the fact the Prometheus was contributing to the attack.
So this incident reduces the Ha’Tak’s yield capabilities.

Goa'uld Policy…..

You are the one that says visuals are king here, we never see the yields you have stated being shown on the show, we don’t see that so we must draw one conclusion that they aren‘t capable of them, not with their pulse weapons firing many quickly dispatched shots anyway.
We have had incidents where the Goauld bombard planets to destroy their enemy, you cannot keep hiding behind this “they don’t want to destroy this technology” and “they want to teach their enemy a lesson” it‘s not always the case and is never to my recollection stated by the System Lords themselves.
Even with their policies the federation shows more powerful displays than we’ve seen from the Goauld.
If the Goauld had the level of firepower you believe they do then they would show it, when defeating the Tokra they should have showed some of it, the Tokra never mentioned any shields to my recollection but it still took a number of shots and a long time to destroy their base.
The kinds of weapons, with the yield levels you suggest should be able to vaporize large portions of the ground, but they do not.
Anubis had no need of the technology the Tollans possessed.
Between Two Fires was a key moment to display the power he had since he’d already been denied the explosive/phasing weapons he sought from the Tollan people.

The only such occasion which requires closer scrutiny is Homecoming, which I need to review.

Fair enough, but I will say now that I am certain that my take on that episode is accurate. It shows a weak display of firepower and is a moment where there was no need to hold back.
Yes Anubis’s shields were only at 40% effectiveness, but there’s no sign of any holes as the attack begins, all we see is a solid shield and not all of the shots are blunted by either the hull or shield, some pass clearly in front of the camera and are entirely unimpeded.
When they slam into the ground we should see a greater display than we do if higher yields were possible there.

[darth_timon]

What we know about this incident is that yes using the overload did do some damage to parts of the Enterprises’s systems, but the systems weren’t permanently damaged and the crew could maintain and restore them back to a working order.
You’ll recall that Tetsujin and myself haven’t said this is how we think the system is or should be used all of the time, obviously not.
There was no indication however that this overload is so much more powerful than the upper standard limit of the phasers, since this shot didn‘t entirely destroy the weapon it‘s within the capabilities of the device.
Yes the phasers were damaged in the second shot, but they would be working again within an hour of when archer spoke to reed and tucker, at least one of those phasers was built using parts already available on the ship.

The point is, the weapons in both occasions were operating outside their normal operating parameters. You cannot take such circumstances as a launchpad in any way, because regardless of whether you've been able to repair the damage, if you keep damaging the system from overcharging it you will do permenant damage somewhere along the line. Tetsujin mentioned overclocking a CPU- imagine doing that over and over again, because you want/need to achieve a particular speed. Even if you can mitigate the damage to a degree, you will accelerate the wear and tear on the device much more quickly than through normal use.

These phasers are the first of their kind used on such a ship, improvements to power handling of that system and anything related to it would mean that such future technologies would be improved.

Improvements to their normal operating parameters, yes. Not necessarily radical increases in firepower.

The progression of ships shown by Tetsujin proves that later vessels would be more powerful, since each newer ship is a significant degree more powerful than the older vessel it faces and that is what’s portrayed in all incidents in ST, unless like I said before the older ships are upgraded with newer technology.

The question is, how much more powerful are these progressions, new designs and upgrades.

Even using suspension of disbelief you should be taking more into consideration than just the visuals otherwise the style of debate is illogical I‘m afraid and ignores everything but visuals thus it is a flawed tool for debate since it only uses one very small portion of the evidence at hand.

I do take into account more than visuals- however visuals are at the top of my list, as you can observe something visually and then arrive at conclusions. Dialogue comes into play as a secondary source, and then you have logic, based on those observations and dialogue.

I’ll re-quote what I put in my original post to you to show you what I’m getting at:

Using suspension of disbelief you should see that it would be impossible for so many people to be wrong or deluded, especially considering there was a fleet of ships and no one questioned what readings were being shown to them.
Prior experience with the weapons used should show up some suspect evidence if the effects described weren’t actually happening.
We’ve seen star trek weapons vaporize objects without creating large flashes of light.
Like Tetsujin said the Founders home world was a rogue planet, the founders can live in some pretty horrid environments by our standards.

Regarding the Founders' home world, we know it's a world that humans can survive on (how else would Sisko et al have survived when held prisoner there in The Search?). We therefore know it has an atmosphere. There are certain properties of the mantle and planetary structure which are actually quite important to the presence of a stable atmosphere.

Regarding the visuals vs dialogue, there are two ways to reconcile the two here. 1: the characters were simply wrong, and had grossly overestimated the capabilities of their ships. 2: there is evidence to suggest that phasers at least, work via chain reactions and not raw firepower; a chain reaction would explain the damage to the Founders' planet but also explain how we see very little visual evidence for this. This would also explain why we see low firepower (such as in Survivors) be so effective- a chain reaction only requires a kickstart, then the reaction itself takes care of the rest.

I know that Tetsujin feels we should not use this episode as any kind of evidence, but for me the visual seen is no where as bleak looking as the one shown in What You Leave Behind and like I‘ve said before the damage shown on that episode was due to ground based attack and not orbital bombardment.

I'm not aware of the damage done in What you Leave Behind being the result of ground troops. We've never seen ground troops produce anything like that in any other ground fight on Star Trek either.

I have to correct you with regards to transporting through shields the Dominion did show the ability to transport people through federation shields when raised and I believe there were instances where people were transported through shields without lowering them throughout the show since TNG.

The Federation was also vulnerable to Dominion weapons until the DS9 season 5 finale, and the Breen have certainly never demonstrated the ability to beam through shields. Plus, it would seem completely suicidal to land ground troops in such a circumstance- not to mention the possibility of capture.

Belief and truth are two entirely different things and that belief would surely relate to our solar system and not any other since we can‘t explore or test such far off objects.

Then what are we supposed to do? If we cannot agree a baseline to even things like asteroids and planets, then we might as well abandon any attempt to have a debate. I can put forth the idea that the Founders' planet was no more than 10 miles in diameter and that the planet in Beach Head was the size of a small sun, and we can go completely into the realm of endless speculation.

It’s not clear what the exact size of that asteroid is, it was large enough for the enterprise to travel kilometres inside of it though.

There's a clip of the Enterprise (the size of which is known) entering a chasm in the asteroid. There is enough room inside the asteroid for a ship several hundred metres in length to move around reasonably comfortably, and no one in the episode itself suggests the asteroid is in the double-digits for KM size. The very script of the episode refers to the asteroid as being proto-planetary in nature, and the composition of such asteroids is not unknown to us.

This episode is not in contradiction of Silent Enemy or The Die Is Cast, it sits with them and shows the shields were likely to be struck by flares.

The flare we see initially on the view screen could still be, based on the size of the star, flare, and vantage point, one which did not come into direct contact with the Enterprise.

Jacob says they needed to get “close enough to the blue giant’s corona sphere” this would imply they wanted to do what was necessary to mask the ships existence, it doesn’t show that they wanted to sit near the hottest region.

It's worth noting that, based on the evidence from the episode, and work from not one but two people, who have both studied the visuals in far more depth than myself, and it's also worth noting that An Ancient did allow for the star to be either B or O: http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=84338

There was also no mention of any prominences near the Ha’Tak.

There wouldn't need to be any major solar activity for the Hatak to absorb a considerable amount of energy from such a star. Blue giants are far more luminous than our own star and give off more energy as a matter of course.

If even one flare hit the enterprise’s shields (which we have reason to believe was the case) that could equal many gigatons or even teratons, whichever it was depends on how large the flares were and the enterprise could have been hit by many, few or one, they wouldn’t have been mentioned if they weren’t an issue and that is the truth.

The visuals don't bear out the idea that a flare hits the E-D's shields, the E-D may have only been caught in the periphery of a flare, if indeed at all.

I think Tetsujin will want to speak for himself here.
He did agree with me about what the Tsar Bomb thing represented.
While I understand that there isn’t a linear progression with yield of those bombs to blast radius I also understand that it‘s unlikely that 812 gigatons is needed to make a 100 mile fireball.
If Tetsujin is right and 3 gigatons will make about a 17 km fireball then I really don’t see even 100 gigatons being required and we also need to take into account the fact the Prometheus was contributing to the attack.

http://stardestroyer.net/Resources/C...xplosions.html- put in 812000 into the yield box and you get a fireball weighing in at 99.9KM at a minumum. I will again point out that there is no reason to doubt An Ancient's work.

You are the one that says visuals are king here, we never see the yields you have stated being shown on the show, we don’t see that so we must draw one conclusion that they aren‘t capable of them, not with their pulse weapons firing many quickly dispatched shots anyway.
We have had incidents where the Goauld bombard planets to destroy their enemy, you cannot keep hiding behind this “they don’t want to destroy this technology” and “they want to teach their enemy a lesson” it‘s not always the case and is never to my recollection stated by the System Lords themselves.
Even with their policies the federation shows more powerful displays than we’ve seen from the Goauld.
If the Goauld had the level of firepower you believe they do then they would show it, when defeating the Tokra they should have showed some of it, the Tokra never mentioned any shields to my recollection but it still took a number of shots and a long time to destroy their base.
The kinds of weapons, with the yield levels you suggest should be able to vaporize large portions of the ground, but they do not.
Anubis had no need of the technology the Tollans possessed.
Between Two Fires was a key moment to display the power he had since he’d already been denied the explosive/phasing weapons he sought from the Tollan people.

Anubis could have raided the ruins of the Tollan civilisation for other technological secrets. He wouldn't have been wise to assume that he could have stolen only one article of technology. Plus, again, in the other examples, why would such high firepower be necessary? The Goa'uld liked to take prisoners to torture (not the smartest policy, but certainly in fitting with their egotistical nature), so, with the exception of Homecoming, which I still need to see, there is nothing in the orbital bombardment catagory to proof low firepower.

Fair enough, but I will say now that I am certain that my take on that episode is accurate. It shows a weak display of firepower and is a moment where there was no need to hold back.
Yes Anubis’s shields were only at 40% effectiveness, but there’s no sign of any holes as the attack begins, all we see is a solid shield and not all of the shots are blunted by either the hull or shield, some pass clearly in front of the camera and are entirely unimpeded.
When they slam into the ground we should see a greater display than we do if higher yields were possible there.

Well as I say, I need to see it before I can pass judgement.