Starfleet Jedi

For a long time the exact yield of the Iso-Ton has bothered me… so I decided I’d try my hand at calculating it…

This was a task that simply is nearly impossible to succeed at... but I found two figures that I could make work with some minor... wiggle room.

The first number I chose to use was 25 Isotons, given to me from VOY: Living Witness. It is said 25 Isotons would destroy a city in seconds. I'm going to presume total maximum destruction possible of everything in the city, every building, man woman, dog, tree, and outlying areas (wiping the city from the map)... and I'm going to give it a yield of 1 full gigaton.

Then I ran into the statement that 53 Isotons would destroy a small planet. (VOY: The Omega Directive)

This is a problem since doubling even one gigaton to 2 does not a planet destroy, even a small one... Using pluto as my example, I got 6x10^27 Joules or around 1.45 EXA tons to destroy…

That's a big gap... A really big gap... Thankfully for both examples I found a system to get close to the numbers required for the statements associated with them to make sense. The relation between Isotons isn't measured in any current normal methods. it's measured in eights.

Here is the outline of the relation.

1-8 = tons
9-16 = kilotons
17-24 = megatons
25-32 = gigatons
33-40 = teratons
41-48 = petatons
49-56 = exatons


This isn't perfect, and it certainly doesn't account for some of the stranger statements of 4 million isotons... but it does allow for slightly more consistent statements. OF NOTE: Since I'm already presuming a scale measured in eighths... for all we know our 'quantifications' are not valid here... 25 Isotons could just as easily refer to 731 megatons and 53 Isotons could just as easily be 1.45 EXAtons exact... we just don't know. But at least we now have a ballpark.

Again, this is about as general as I could make it with a minimal amount of effort put in. I'm sure someone here with better math than me can find a better relation with lower or higher ends EASILY possible due to the... very unclear statements of the effects.

I hate to say it, but wasn't it a small moon?

The problem is, just what is "a small moon"?

Something like Deimos (15x12.2x10.4KM)?
Something like Phobos (26.8x22.4x18.4KM)?
Something between that and our moon?
Just plain hyperbole?

We just don't know!

Still, is 53 isotons destroys something like Deimos we can probably calculate how much energy that takes to get a low end figure.

The reason that a 53 isoton blast could destroy a moon was because it had a gravimetric charge on it, and the gravity waves from the blast would destroy the body. But yeah, it's still crappy justification. Just use real terms when writing, damnit!!!

2046 wrote:I hate to say it, but wasn't it a small moon?

Just checked the episode.

Upon picking up the gravimetric charge:
Kim: This looks like enough for a 50-isoton explosion.
Tuvok: 54, to be exact.
Kim: What are we planning to do, blow up a small planet?

A small planet would indeed be something along the lines of Pluto or Eris. We also have to ponder what level of destruction is implied by "blow up." Shattering it would be my guess.

The reason that a 53 isoton blast could destroy a moon was because it had a gravimetric charge on it, and the gravity waves from the blast would destroy the body.

It specifically states yield... one presumes a 53 isoton gravemetic charge would be identical in yield to a 53 isoton photon torpedo. Both would unleash at the very least 53 Isotons...

And good catch on the episode for the exact dialogue ^_^

Any explanation is futile.

I'm afraid that since "isoton" is not canonically defined, writers are free to slap whatever number of isotons onto an explosive device. This is a way for them to sound scientific while really not bothering to match up the explosion with a real, consistent measurement. Various examples of explosions described in isotons are likely going to be inconsistent and thus no definite yield equivalent can be calculated.

Trinoya wrote:

The reason that a 53 isoton blast could destroy a moon was because it had a gravimetric charge on it, and the gravity waves from the blast would destroy the body.

It specifically states yield... one presumes a 53 isoton gravemetic charge would be identical in yield to a 53 isoton photon torpedo. Both would unleash at the very least 53 Isotons...

Im not sure that we can say that from the dialog.

Tuvok: We are ready to load the gravimetric charge.
Kim: This looks like enough for a 50-isoton explosion.
Tuvok: 54, to be exact.
Kim: What are we planning to do, blow up a small planet?

Considering that Tuvok had already identified it as a gravimetric charge it would have been rather redundant and weird for harry to reply "This looks like enough for a 50-isoton gravimetric explosion".

The dialog could easily be interpreted both ways and if the explosive yield is all that is refered to why was harry so impressed with a 54 isoton explosion when in "scorpion pt2" 7 of 9 refers to voyagers type 6 photon torps as having a yield of 200 isotons and voyager is equipped with class 10 torpedoes that have a even higher yield.