Star wars vs star trek......what the hell

[The Dude]

Yeah, my education didn't exactly cover any of that. ;)

[Praeothmin]

Well, mine didn't actually cover plasma, but it did cover electricity and electronics (and some optics as well)... :)

[Cocytus]

Mine covered quite a bit of engineering in various fields. I'm an architect, and we studied other, closely related engineering fields such as structural, electrical and mechanical.

Anyway, that a 500,000 amp arc was going on in a Jeffries Tube suggests Riker and Data had found a damaged trunk line. Just to use the oldest analogy anyone who studies electricity learns, think of current (amps) and potential (volts) like water. A small amount of water moving at high pressure gives you as much as a large amount moving at low pressure. Similarly, a large current at a low voltage can yield the same power as a small current at a high voltage. The larger the current, the bigger the wire you need to transfer it, and the more resistance is built up. This is a problem for larger currents, which is why we generally prefer to send smaller currents at higher voltages. A standard main line is the US is 110,000 volts. Just for the sake of argument, say that trunk line in some random Jeffries Tube on the E-D also runs at 110 kV, with 500,000 amps you'd get 55 gigawatts out of it. Not much by Trek standards. Again, we don't know the voltage requirements of Trek equipment, so any wattages we could derive from this would be conjectural.

The huge advantage afforded by plasmas is that their conductivity is significantly greater than the metals we use. Plasma physics is a whole separate area I know nothing about, but in general discourse a plasma is far more conductive than a metal wire. (Conductivity and resistance are inversely related. The more conductive a metal or material, the less resistance it offers to current.)

[Mr. Oragahn]

Just how would you propose going about doing that since we have no way to directly measure this fictional phenomena? Unlike the neutronic wavefront storm of VOY's "Fair Haven", we have no statements for even the energy gradient of the ion storms, much less anything else about them, except for second hand descriptions. All we know is that they are really nasty and can damage starships. So any calculations would be made using almost completely made up assumptions with little observational data to back them up.
-Mike

Which is why they can't compare an ion-canon to an ion-storm, i.e. there's no quantitative evidence, or even qualitative-- while likewise it ignores starship-speed entirely. In TESB, the Hoth-cannon visibly fires STL, and simply knocks out the ISD electrical systems. This would be some trick against an ST starship, which has FTL sensors, FTL deflector-beams and shields, FTL drive, and no electrical systems.
And we're not even talking about shields, if the main deflector-dish can sweep it out of the way easily within 300,000 km, and probably even further.

In contrast, an ion-storm is quite a bit bigger than that puny little cannon-ball of ions.

The speed of the projectile is not the problem. You claimed that ST ships were immune to ion based phenomena. It's been proven wrong. Hell, someone even posted a video of a VOY episode showing the Intrepid-class take shots from a ground based ion cannon of unknown power and clearly taking the ship's shields down in large packs of several percents.

[Mike DiCenso]

I disagree about the "absence" of electrical systems on a ST ship.
Computer terminals still require electricity, anything that needs to transfer information, or power, needs electricity, whether it's AC power or DC power, it still requires electricity...
When the crew repairs ships, they sometimes take out some circuit boards, and we see chips, capacitors, resistors on these boards.
These are electronic components that require electricity to run...

Yes, they use something called isoliner chips; before that duotronics, and transtators. As I said, very little in the way of what we would consider conventional electrical systems. TOS showed us a lot of the old fashioned cable and circit board type thing because that's all they could afford to do. But by the time of the movies and eventually TNG, we start seeing something different. And of course ST:ENT's "In a Mirror, Darkly" epic retconned some of the systems on a Connie so that it had something more advanced looking under the panels that was in line with the more modern series. What do know from various episodes like TNG's "Disaster" and VOY's "Revulsion" is that the primary power generation as well as the main and secondary EPS power distrubution relays are plasma. Is the power electrically conductive in some manner? Probably. The question is could isoliner chips and the like continue to use that plasma.

If that is the case, a SW ion cannon won't effect their systems the way they would with the more conventional electrical systems of SW ships. Basically the ion cannon acts like a massive EMP weapon, but that would not knock out the power systems for an ST ship. But it will cause other interesting damage as a massive surge winds up being conducted through the ship. This is why the phased ion cannons of the Mokra don't knock the Voyager's shields and power right out, but instead cause more conventional damage. Certainly we have seen that the massive electromagnetic effects of G-type stars as well as more intense EM fields from neutron stars, pulsars, black holes do not effect the ship as we would expect when they close nearly point blank range with the things. The star seen in "Symbosis" would then be very unusual, or can be chaulked up to being a statistical outlier.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

Mike, what's a computer processor?
Simply a series of incredibly small transistors, but they are transistors still.
While the Isolinear chips may look more like miniaturized circuit boards, they still would require electricity to transmit any signal, to run computers, or run any system in the ship.
As I stated earlier:

It's also a question of "How much power do we need, and what available technology do we have to send that power to the appropriate systems?"...

Copper wires will not help when dealing with Shields or Warp or Weapons, but plasma would...

How is the power produced by the Warp core regulated?
Plasma manifolds?
But how are they controlled?
Through electric circuits, whether they are conventional or not, it still makes them electrical systems, and thus may be affected by Ion bolts.
While they have seemed unaffected by the EM radiation from stars, so have ISDs not been affected when close to a star, they were mainly affected by the heat, so it boils down to (again):
Concentration of Ions in the bolt versus the concentration of Ions in "natural" space storms...
One is a threat to ships (Ion storm), while the other definitely cripples ships (Ion Bolt)...

[KirkSkyWalker]

The speed of the projectile is not the problem. You claimed that ST ships were immune to ion based phenomena. It's been proven wrong.

Again, tsunamis and squirt-guns; you're ignoring context. If you said that modern battleships were immune to water-cannons, and someone said "well one got sunk by a tsunami, so you're wrong" then of course you'd send them to the nearest mental hospital; but here you do basically the same thing and claim "you're proven wrong--" talk about "straightacketing" your own argument!

[KirkSkyWalker]

How is the power produced by the Warp core regulated?
Plasma manifolds?
But how are they controlled?
Through electric circuits, whether they are conventional or not, it still makes them electrical systems, and thus may be affected by Ion bolts.

Except that they use plasma-conduits and graviton-based isolinear circuits.

While they have seemed unaffected by the EM radiation from stars, so have ISDs not been affected when close to a star, they were mainly affected by the heat,

We haven't seen them go near a star in the G-canon; but unless there's a solar flare or other magnetic anomaly, then a star's radiation is mainly EM rather than ion-based plasma. For example, there's expected to be a plasma-storm from the sun coming in 2012, which is feared will knock out major power-grids; but normally it doesn't do that.

so it boils down to (again):
Concentration of Ions in the bolt versus the concentration of Ions in "natural" space storms...

If you want to completely discount the immeasurable difference in volume of the ion-storm vs the ion-bolt-- thus once again comparing squirt-guns to tsunami, raindrops to rivers, and sneezes to cyclones.
Also, you can't count only the average concentration in the total storm, since the ship can be caught in a particularly powerful "solar gust" or solar-flare etc. which can be many times more powerful than the storm on average.

A ship caught in an ion-storm also can't very well warp out of the way, however a ship being targeted by an ion-cannonball can move the ship a few meters, or simply shoot the bolt with a deflector, a phaser-beam, a torpedo etc.

In "Balance of Terror," the Enterprise is targeted by the Romulan plasma-weapon, and they warp away at Factor 9; they are unable to evade it since it tracks them and is moving faster than Warp 9, or fire on it since their phasers are off-line; however ion-canonballs could not track them, overtake them, or count on phasers being off-line.

At most, the E-crew would laugh themselves to death.

[Mike DiCenso]

Where is it ever said that isolinear chips are graviton based?
-Mike

[KirkSkyWalker]

Where is it ever said that isolinear chips are graviton based?
-Mike

They're certainly not electron-based. In "A Piece of the Action," Kirk said that the trans-stator was the basis of all ST technology; and it operates by converting EM energy to gravittational.
Likewise, in "Relics" we see that isolinear circuits were an improvement over old ST tech; so they're either graviton-based, or an improvement.

[The Dude]

No he does not. Its simply stated it is the basis for their technology.

[Mike DiCenso]

The Dude is right about that. Here's the dialog:

MCCOY: I left my communicator.
KIRK: In Bela's office?

SPOCK: Captain. If the Iotians, who are very bright and imitative people, should take that communicator apart

KIRK: They will, they will. And they'll find out how the transtator works.

SPOCK: The transtator is the basis for every important piece of equipment that we have.

KIRK: Everything.

MCCOY:You really think it's that serious?

KIRK: Serious? Serious, Bones? It upsets the whole percentage.

MCCOY: How do you mean?

KIRK: Well, in a few years, the Iotians may demand a piece of our action.

Where does it state in there that the transtator is graviton based? It doesn't.
-Mike

[Lucky]

The Dude is right about that. Here's the dialog:

MCCOY: I left my communicator.
KIRK: In Bela's office?

SPOCK: Captain. If the Iotians, who are very bright and imitative people, should take that communicator apart

KIRK: They will, they will. And they'll find out how the transtator works.

SPOCK: The transtator is the basis for every important piece of equipment that we have.

KIRK: Everything.

MCCOY:You really think it's that serious?

KIRK: Serious? Serious, Bones? It upsets the whole percentage.

MCCOY: How do you mean?

KIRK: Well, in a few years, the Iotians may demand a piece of our action.

Where does it state in there that the transtator is graviton based? It doesn't.
-Mike

What Spock is saying could be interpreted as transtators, warp drive, shields, phasers... are all just different uses for the same technology.

[Mr. Oragahn]

The speed of the projectile is not the problem. You claimed that ST ships were immune to ion based phenomena. It's been proven wrong.

Again, tsunamis and squirt-guns; you're ignoring context. If you said that modern battleships were immune to water-cannons, and someone said "well one got sunk by a tsunami, so you're wrong" then of course you'd send them to the nearest mental hospital; but here you do basically the same thing and claim "you're proven wrong--" talk about "straightacketing" your own argument!

Your analogy is simply broken.
What triggers the sinking of boats just does not apply to a large cloud of ions in space.
If you cared about accuracy, you would at least pick an example that has more to do with a storm, a hurricane, and make a comparison between what affects a car and a large house for example.
Actually, you wouldn't even need any analogy at all because what goes on is actually very simple, and has been explained just too many times.

Your appeal to a flawed analogy changes nothing to the fact that you were wrong about the immunity against ion phenomena.

[Praeothmin]

KirkSkywalker, I've said all I cared on the subject, and as it is evident you will never provide any proof or evidence for any of your claims, I will stop wasting my time debating you until you start backing up your assertions with actual facts and evidence...

Have a nice day... :)