Planetary Destruction In Star Trek

[Praeothmin]

Please don't straw man to such an extreme.

Blowing up the Earth to kill humans was just a pointless waste on the part of the Xinidi.

Agreed, but that was their plan...

Enterprise era Earth seems to have had no real defenses from bombardment, and only had a handful of ships that the Xinidi outgunned.

The Xinidi according to Memory Alpha had more ships, and some of those ships seem to be very large to the of being possibly the size of an ISD.
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Xindi-Aquatic_cruiser

The point is the Xinidi should have been able to just blast the Earth, and human settlements in general. Even the lowly NX-1 had a boat load of nukes, and Star Fleet did not have shields at the time.

But probably not fast enough to keep Earth Allies to stop them if they had simply attacked using their own ships.
Their super planet destroyer was more powerful, and would have allowed them to fire once, and completely destroy Earth.
An attack by many ships would have taken time, and would have allowed help to arrive.
Bottom line is, their ships were not powerful enough to ensure the destruction of Earth, even though they could threaten Earth vessels...

[Admiral Breetai]

So they would have likely needed billions of ships just to heavily damage Earth, billions of ships which they most likely did not possess...

According to trip it would take around 1000 NX-1's firepower to destroy a planet like earth.

to think a few centuries later the payload of the defiant could do the same thing talk about yield increase

[User1618]

So they would have likely needed billions of ships just to heavily damage Earth, billions of ships which they most likely did not possess...

According to trip it would take around 1000 NX-1's firepower to destroy a planet like earth.

to think a few centuries later the payload of the defiant could do the same thing talk about yield increase

As I said, a Constitution-class Starship's power-generating ability is about 8E+28, or 200X an NX-1; and the Defiant would be a lot more.

[User1356]

As I said, a Constitution-class Starship's power-generating ability is about 8E+28, or 200X an NX-1; and the Defiant would be a lot more.

Hilarioius

[Mike DiCenso]

As I said, a Constitution-class Starship's power-generating ability is about 8E+28, or 200X an NX-1; and the Defiant would be a lot more.

Where the hell did you get that number for Connie power generation from?
-Mike

[Mith]

As I said, a Constitution-class Starship's power-generating ability is about 8E+28, or 200X an NX-1; and the Defiant would be a lot more.

Where the hell did you get that number for Connie power generation from?
-Mike

A bottle of scotch I reckon.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Wes: This was the final battle, wasn't it?

Data: Neither side expected Orelious IX to be the decisive conflict.

Wes: There's not much left is there.

Data: The destruction is remarkable considering the primitive weapons of the period.

Data's statement about weapons seems to indicate something more along the lines of what was attempted in "The Die Is Cast" happening for some reason rather then some strange geology, or something planet side.

Data is cold as rock when he describes something. He's merely stating something obvious: the destruction is indeed remarkable considering the shitty weapons they had.
Which pretty much opens the door to many extrapolations.

[Mith]

Wes: This was the final battle, wasn't it?

Data: Neither side expected Orelious IX to be the decisive conflict.

Wes: There's not much left is there.

Data: The destruction is remarkable considering the primitive weapons of the period.

Data's statement about weapons seems to indicate something more along the lines of what was attempted in "The Die Is Cast" happening for some reason rather then some strange geology, or something planet side.

Data is cold as rock when he describes something. He's merely stating something obvious: the destruction is indeed remarkable considering the shitty weapons they had.
Which pretty much opens the door to many extrapolations.

Of course, it makes way for multiple methods of having achieve that destruction, but there is evidence to support it, such as TDiC.

However, bringing it down to more reasonable levels, it's possible that both sides escalated the battle until they were using things like subspace weapons. Looking back at what Kirk's bomb did in Obsession, it would change it from 'no way' to 'remarkable', though for weapons of that level, they'd probably have to be firing multiple warheads for that to happen.

It's really hard to say, but I think subspace weapons are our likely bet here. It would also help suggest why such bans were created in the first place.

[Lucky]

Enterprise era Earth seems to have had no real defenses from bombardment, and only had a handful of ships that the Xinidi outgunned.

The Xinidi according to Memory Alpha had more ships, and some of those ships seem to be very large to the of being possibly the size of an ISD.
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Xindi-Aquatic_cruiser

The point is the Xinidi should have been able to just blast the Earth, and human settlements in general. Even the lowly NX-1 had a boat load of nukes, and Star Fleet did not have shields at the time.

But probably not fast enough to keep Earth Allies to stop them if they had simply attacked using their own ships.
Their super planet destroyer was more powerful, and would have allowed them to fire once, and completely destroy Earth.
An attack by many ships would have taken time, and would have allowed help to arrive.
Bottom line is, their ships were not powerful enough to ensure the destruction of Earth, even though they could threaten Earth vessels...

What Earth Allies that would be able to help the humans? The UFP did not exist yet.

[Picard]

But Earth already had some allies, even if there was no UFP. First, there are Vulcans, right in Earth's neighbourhood. Andorians also seemed to be cordial with Earth, althought I'm not sure about that.

[Lucky]

But Earth already had some allies, even if there was no UFP. First, there are Vulcans, right in Earth's neighbourhood. Andorians also seemed to be cordial with Earth, althought I'm not sure about that.

But none of them would be at Earth, and it would be questionable if they would fight for the humans, and that they would be able to even know who attacked Earth.

[Mike DiCenso]

If you watch the end of "Stormfront, Part 2", as the NX-01 heads home to Earth there is a fleet made of of Earth Starfleet and Vulcan High Command ships there to greet them.
-Mike

[Lucky]

If you watch the end of "Stormfront, Part 2", as the NX-01 heads home to Earth there is a fleet made of of Earth Starfleet and Vulcan High Command ships there to greet them.
-Mike

This still doesn't explain the planet kill, but then the Death Stars never really made sense to me.