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Who shall win?
This poll is closed. |
| The Galactic Empire |
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23 |
38.98% |
| The coalition of the willing, Milky Galaxy |
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7 |
11.86% |
| Haha! Babylon5 ownz u! |
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16 |
27.12% |
| The Banana Collective. |
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13 |
22.03% |
| Total: |
59 voters |
100% |
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:27
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quote:
Originally posted by DinoDoc
Star Trek ships are immune to laser weapons. Star Wars ships use laser weapons. Enough said. |
Another common Trekkie fallacy. 
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/index.html
quote:
Amazingly, I routinely get mail from fans of both Star Wars and Star Trek, insisting that turbolasers must be lasers. The usual justification is that they have the word "laser" in the name, so they must be lasers, right? Well, this idea stems from an extremely simplistic and close-minded interpretation of language. A language grows over time, rather than being invented or created. As a result, it will invariably incorporate countless archaic meanings, holdovers, cultural references, etc. One could probably expend huge amounts of space describing the various archaic terms in the English language, but a few examples are easily applied to the turbolaser issue.
Blueprints
In both Star Wars and Star Trek, engineering schematics are invariably described as "blueprints". That is the same linguistic convention used today. But where did it come from? The answer is one which I have personal experience with. Before large-format photocopiers were invented, engineers used to reproduce drawings with a machine called a "blueprint machine." This machine operated on principles which were completely different from a modern photocopier or printer. To use it, you would put your drawing on top of a piece of specially coated yellow paper. The blueprint machine would then shine an ultraviolet light on your drawing, and the light would get through the white parts of the drawing (thus breaking down the yellow coating underneath) and be blocked by the black parts of the drawing. The result was a piece of paper which had yellow lines where all of the black lines on the original drawing were. This paper was then passed through an ammonia-based chemical process which made the yellow coating turn blue. The result was a reproduced drawing that was quite literally blue.
These machines were beastly and unpleasant. The ammonia smelled terrible (although it was good for clearing out sinus congestion), you had to draw on special vellum paper which was translucent rather than opaque like heavy bond paper, and the copies were always "dirty" because the UV radiation was not 100% effective at breaking down the underlying coating layers after passing through the vellum drawing. But they produced copies of drawings at a time when there was no other way. Of course, modern engineering photocopiers produce black lines on white paper without requiring special paper or ammonia treatment, just like any other photocopier. And since most modern engineering drawings are generated in CAD systems, a photocopier isn't really required. Drawings can be simply printed in multiple copies on a large-format laser printer. But the term "blueprint" has persisted to this day, even though the vast majority of the population has absolutely no idea where it came from. When the TM describes the blueprints of the Galaxy Class starship, should you assume that they are using primitive blueprint machines to reproduce their engineering drawings? I wouldn't.
....
It is actually very easy to determine that turbolasers cannot possibly be lasers. Lasers are merely a coherent assembly of photons, and photons have several important characteristics:
They always travel at the speed of light in vacuum, which is hardly surprising since they are light.
They do not interact with one another. If two lasers intersect, an interference pattern may appear in the region of intersection, but they will not impede one another in any way. The beams won't "bounce off" one another, stop at the collision point, or change direction or speed. They will continue as if nothing had happened.
They do not radiate energy in any direction other than their direction of travel. In other words, you will never see a laser in vacuum until it hits something. This is how laser pointers work- you can see the red dot but you can't see the beam. When lasers are filmed for dramatic purposes, they are invariably filmed in an extremely smoky or dusty environment, so the viewer will see the laser scattering off the dust and smoke. In a vacuum, a laser will always be invisible.
Obviously, turbolasers cannot possibly be lasers. They exhibit none of the characteristics of lasers. They travel much slower than the speed of light, they interact with one another (as demonstrated by the combining Death Star beam), and they are visible in vacuum. To put a twist on an old saying, if something doesn't walk like a duck, doesn't look like a duck, and doesn't quack like a duck, it probably ain't a duck.
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Comrade Tassadar
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Umm.....Doesnt Trek have Q and Weasle? Even the Borg......All suficent to defend against Star Wars.
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:27
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quote:
Originally posted by DinoDoc
That will do for a start. We can also deal with the ships escaping from Hoth in full view of a stardestroyer along with thier inability to take out the ion canon. |
The Executor's death wasn't because some snub fighter got through its defenses, actually.
Ackbar ordered all rebel ships to concentrate their firepower on the SSD. This was a combination of MonCal cruisers, frigates and the fighters--a huge amount of firepower. The sheer volume of incoming firepower overloaded Executor's deflector shields, causing them to drop (temporarily, probably). But sheer luck stepped in here...A fighter was able to destroy one of the sensor globes, which limited the ship's targeting capacity. Even still, the Executor's point-defense guns accurately hit an incoming A-Wing fighter from the side, which is an incredible shot on a fighter zipping in at that speed. And then luck sent the crippled fighter into the bridge.
Had the fighter not hit the bridge (by chance), the Executor wouldn't have been destroyed like that(though the onslaught of every Rebel ship may still have eventually destroyed it).
quote:
You didn't give me one. Hell, I even pointed you to a better one. |
So you just dismissed the entire argument that it is impossible for turbolasers to be "lasers"? How is that a refuation? It's just a dismissal sans explanation.
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Static Universe
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The Empire's technology is crap. If their shields and sensors are so advanced, explain to me how the Millenium Falcon, without cloaking of any kind, can just land on the side of a Star Destroyer and hide out for a while?
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27-03-2003 02:09
I pull out.
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