The Verteron array in Enterprise.

[Peregrine]

Okay, we have all the information that we are ever likely to get about the array, so lets summarise and then we can see what conclusions were can find.

1) The weapon must be FTL. There was little discernable lag time from it being fired on Mars to hitting its target.
2) At 2% power it was able to to effectively neutralise an NX class starship. It did not destroy the ship, but it did cause significant damage.
3) We have the word of the chief Tactical officer that at full power it would "vaporise" an NX class starship.
4) It made a large crater on the moon. Has anyone calc'ed how big yet?
5) It's targetting system was stated to be 'inaccurate', but was good enough to hit an NX starship in Earth orbit. The targetting system could be configured to be able to hit a single (albeit large) building on Earth when fired from Mars. I think that is actually very impressive.
6) It's observed range is somewhere below 398 million km (the max distance of Earth to Mars), but could be lower or higher.

Have I missed anything?

[Weyoun the Dancing Borg]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

Okay, we have all the information that we are ever likely to get about the array, so lets summarise and then we can see what conclusions were can find.

1) The weapon must be FTL. There was little discernable lag time from it being fired on Mars to hitting its target.
2) At 2% power it was able to to effectively neutralise an NX class starship. It did not destroy the ship, but it did cause significant damage.
3) We have the word of the chief Tactical officer that at full power it would "vaporise" an NX class starship.
4) It made a large crater on the moon. Has anyone calc'ed how big yet?
5) It's targetting system was stated to be 'inaccurate', but was good enough to hit an NX starship in Earth orbit. The targetting system could be configured to be able to hit a single (albeit large) building on Earth when fired from Mars. I think that is actually very impressive.
6) It's observed range is somewhere below 398 million km (the max distance of Earth to Mars), but could be lower or higher.

Have I missed anything?

Yes. At the lowest possible "I can hit a large building but cause no casualties" (ie, MArs/Earth at cloest orbit in 2155) range it can fire 34.65 millionkm.

http://space.about.com/cs/mars/a/marsclose.htm

(cloestest in 50,000 years).

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by Weyoun the Dancing Borg

Yes. At the lowest possible "I can hit a large building but cause no casualties" (ie, MArs/Earth at cloest orbit in 2155) range it can fire 34.65 millionkm.

http://space.about.com/cs/mars/a/marsclose.htm

(cloestest in 50,000 years).

Interesting.

I wonder. If we can get an estimate of the energy needed to produce that crater on the moon, we might be able to get an estimate of what is needed to overpower the NX class defences.

[Torvus]

The moon is about ~2000 miles across, so that crater (from what I recall of the picture) was probably somewhere around 100-250 miles across. I think we're talking about high megaton/low gigaton energies here.

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by Torvus

The moon is about ~2000 miles across, so that crater (from what I recall of the picture) was probably somewhere around 100-250 miles across. I think we're talking about high megaton/low gigaton energies here.

Well I had a look at the asteroid destruction calculator on SD.net and wondered if we could use that. If we enter a figure for an asteroid of 100-250 miles, and then half the result, will that not give us at least an idea for what we need? Worth a go?

[Major Diarrhia]

You're going to need visual aids for this one.
The third one is upside down simply because I think it's a better view.



Bigger onces below.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ot_Large01.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ot_Large02.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ot_Large03.jpg

Just to add it, the STvSW guy thinks that since the dust cloud is hundreds of kilometers wide, that the actual crater is around 21km across. And that's just with the mining station's warp core. Another neat thing, of my own observation, is that you can actualy see cracks in the moon's surface radiating out from the impact site ahead of the dust cloud.

[Weyoun the Dancing Borg]

The radius of the moon is 1737.4 kilometers
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...G=Search&meta=

The moon in this pic is 616 pixels across.

That's 2.82045 pixels per km.

The crator, at it's max (vertical, due to the camera angle) is 146 pixels across.


146x2.82045 = 411.7857km (give or take 15%, my JPG isn't 100% acurate)

[vivftp]

Remember, that's just the dust plume heading out from the impact site. We have no idea what the crater itself looked like, or how much damage was done.

But even if we can't get info on the power of the weapon, the amazing accuracy of the array is enough to impress me.

[Weyoun the Dancing Borg]

Originally Posted by vivftp

Remember, that's just the dust plume heading out from the impact site. We have no idea what the crater itself looked like, or how much damage was done.

But even if we can't get info on the power of the weapon, the amazing accuracy of the array is enough to impress me.

*looks up*

oh, I thought that's what everyone was refering to.

oh well

[Major Diarrhia]

The accuracy of the weapon is truly insane. To even hit a moving object at a hundred thousand kilometers takes accuracy on the order of something like micro arc seconds.

[vivftp]

Originally Posted by Major Diarrhia

The accuracy of the weapon is truly insane. To even hit a moving object at a hundred thousand kilometers takes accuracy on the order of something like micro arc seconds.

It's even more insane, since Paxton said he could target any ship or facility in the system (although you could read into it and say he could target, but not hit).

I wonder how accurate you have to be to hit Starfleet Command from Mars... Say the facility is 1km x 1km

[Major Diarrhia]

I think it was an overstatement as well considering that he need to fine tune the targeting equpiment to hit Starfleet command with a low power shot. Then again, he could set things so that the beam loses focus as it goes, thus spreading over an area of space in order to hit ships. It would make up for a lack of accuracy and considering what 2% energy did to Enterprise, a little loss in intensity wouldn't make much difference.

[vivftp]

Originally Posted by Major Diarrhia

I think it was an overstatement as well considering that he need to fine tune the targeting equpiment to hit Starfleet command with a low power shot. Then again, he could set things so that the beam loses focus as it goes, thus spreading over an area of space in order to hit ships. It would make up for a lack of accuracy and considering what 2% energy did to Enterprise, a little loss in intensity wouldn't make much difference.

Well remember he said he wanted to make a surgical strike on Starfleet Command... if he fired normally he would have taken out 1/2 of San Fran.

So the weapon is quite accurate enough (normally) to hit the target, but he just wanted it even more fine tuned.

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by vivftp

Well remember he said he wanted to make a surgical strike on Starfleet Command... if he fired normally he would have taken out 1/2 of San Fran.

So the weapon is quite accurate enough (normally) to hit the target, but he just wanted it even more fine tuned.

Agreed. It was good enough to hit a manouvering Enterprise in Earth orbit after all. The Enterprise is about 225m long, which is probably not a lot different to the Starfleet Command building.

[Peregrine]

I just had another thought. When the beam hits the sea, doesn't it produce a lot steam? If so, wouldn't that mean that there must therefore be a fair amount of heat present in the beam?

[Peregrine]

There are some nice screen caps on www.ditl.org of the array.

Looking at the picture of the Enterprise being hit, the beam appears to be about as wide as the ship. The ship is about 136m wide. A very rough scaling shows that the steam plume created when the beam hits the water appears to be around 500-700m wide.

[vivftp]

heh, the funniest part about the whole verteron array is the fact that its appearance comes not too long after SW was given 10 lightminute weapons ranges (which a couple of SW people lorded over Trek) - then we get a weapon in ENT that has roughly similar ranges (if not more) and is extraordinarily accurate - and it's 200 years prior to the commonly used Trek (TNG+)

Makes ya kinda wonder about what actual planetary defenses in the 24th century can do (we really haven't seen much of them as of yet... the closest was seeing a planetary disruptor loaded into a cargo ship).

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by vivftp

heh, the funniest part about the whole verteron array is the fact that its appearance comes not too long after SW was given 10 lightminute weapons ranges (which a couple of SW people lorded over Trek) - then we get a weapon in ENT that has roughly similar ranges (if not more) and is extraordinarily accurate - and it's 200 years prior to the commonly used Trek (TNG+)

Agreed. The minimum Earth-Mars distance is 55 million km, which is around 3 light minutes. The maximum is just over 400 million km, which is about 22 light minutes. Of course, he also said that he could hit anything in the system, and if we took the upper range for that, we could be talking around 7 light HOURS!

Makes ya kinda wonder about what actual planetary defenses in the 24th century can do (we really haven't seen much of them as of yet... the closest was seeing a planetary disruptor loaded into a cargo ship).

It's possible that the Verteron array was somehow unsuitable for a weapon. Perhaps once sheilds were available it was found that they could easily block the beam. However, if we are reasonable, we can get some idea of what would be available. It would seem likely that the planetary defences should include very high powered phasers and torpedo weapon arrays. It would also make sense to have orbital systems (starbases and defence platforms) as well as some form of mobile defence (perhaps this is what we saw in BobW). We know that the Feds can make surface based shields that can protect buildings (see TNG: Gambit), so even if we reject the idea of TOS planetary shields, specific locations should still be protected.

[Alratan]

A couple of thoughts -

Do we know the date of the episode? - if so we can calculate the earth-mars distance.

As there is no atmosphere on the Moon, the shockwave we see is not transmitted in any medium, it is actually a cloud of shattered/vapourised stone - so ,uch more energy is required than to produce a similar sized apparent explosion on earth.

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by Alratan

A couple of thoughts -

Do we know the date of the episode? - if so we can calculate the earth-mars distance.

We know the year, but not I think the exact date. Over a year, the range of Earth-Mars varies dramatically.

As there is no atmosphere on the Moon, the shockwave we see is not transmitted in any medium, it is actually a cloud of shattered/vapourised stone - so ,uch more energy is required than to produce a similar sized apparent explosion on earth.

The gravity is less however, so objects will be thrown/travel further. Surely the power would be reduced due to that.

[Weyoun the Dancing Borg]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

We know the year, but not I think the exact date. Over a year, the range of Earth-Mars varies dramatically.

You coulkd narrow it down to summer (sunny) and from there, look at the moon's position, to get a pretty accurate date.

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by Weyoun the Dancing Borg

You coulkd narrow it down to summer (sunny) and from there, look at the moon's position, to get a pretty accurate date.

Does anyone here actually have the kind of astronomical know-how to even try to do this? Whilst it would be nice to get a hard figure on what we actually saw, the "anywhere in the system" would stop it being a truely definitive maximum range.

[Alratan]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

The gravity is less however, so objects will be thrown/travel further. Surely the power would be reduced due to that.

Not substantially.

Remember - such an explosion in an atmposhere would produce a visual effect due to the shockwave propogating through the air and tearing up the landscape, kicking up a dust cloud.

Of the moon, this can't happen, and the cloud is only composed of material ejected from the blast site being propelled balistically. The sheer speed and distance the front moves at is incredible, considering this.

[Major Diarrhia]

Originally Posted by vivftp

heh, the funniest part about the whole verteron array is the fact that its appearance comes not too long after SW was given 10 lightminute weapons ranges (which a couple of SW people lorded over Trek) - then we get a weapon in ENT that has roughly similar ranges (if not more) and is extraordinarily accurate - and it's 200 years prior to the commonly used Trek (TNG+)

Makes ya kinda wonder about what actual planetary defenses in the 24th century can do (we really haven't seen much of them as of yet... the closest was seeing a planetary disruptor loaded into a cargo ship).

This brings up a very interesting though. What if the range of Star Trek weapons, mainly Starfleet, is really only limited by their sensors? We have this weapon which is FTL, and phase weapons, which are probably just weak phasers, also seem to be FTL considering that they can be used at warp while the warp field only extends only a few meters from the hull. Also, it's hard to belive the mining station's warp core was that much more powerful than the NX Class' core. Also keep in mind that every emiter in that array had two very large sensor dishes, plus the station's own sensors.

Originally Posted by Peregrine

Does anyone here actually have the kind of astronomical know-how to even try to do this? Whilst it would be nice to get a hard figure on what we actually saw, the "anywhere in the system" would stop it being a truely definitive maximum range.

If you give me a specific time and date, or two times and dates, I can get you the maximum and minimum distences between any two planetary bodies, using the program Celestia.

Originally Posted by Alratan

Not substantially.

Remember - such an explosion in an atmposhere would produce a visual effect due to the shockwave propogating through the air and tearing up the landscape, kicking up a dust cloud.

Of the moon, this can't happen, and the cloud is only composed of material ejected from the blast site being propelled balistically. The sheer speed and distance the front moves at is incredible, considering this.

What we're seeing may not be a dust wave being pushed forward but dust being pushed up by a ground swell, since we actualy see cracks in the ground outpacing the wave.

And here are more pictures.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...erraPrim01.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...erraPrim02.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...erraPrim03.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...erraPrim04.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...erraPrim05.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...erraPrim07.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...erraPrim08.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...erraPrim09.jpg

[Alratan]

What we're seeing may not be a dust wave being pushed forward but dust being pushed up by a ground swell, since we actualy see cracks in the ground outpacing the wave.

If you look at the first pictures you posted, it seems there is a gap between the wavefront and the ground, as you'd expect from a wave of dust and boulders being thrown balistically.