Doesn't the warp travel also destroy the universe? That's why they limit it to like 5 or 6 in case of emergency.thaluikhain said:
Sci-fi technology not used to its potential in sci-fi settings
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It's the name of the planet in English, though, and all Jaffa and Goa'uld speak English.Halyah said:
(Having said that, it's mentioned that some Goa'uld came in ships long after the Stargates were buried, so there are Dark age Christians out there as well as bronze age Egyptians)
In Star Trek DS9, manpower shortage was the much bigger deal then ship construction. The Federation easily built 8 Galaxy Class star ships at once early on then mothballed half of them. A few months into the dominion war they are already fully operation and can be seen in pretty big numbers(5-6 on camera). But star fleet academy turns out VERY few officers per year. Never mind the many thousands Picard/Borg killed just a few years earlier. The ship yards replicate the pieces then the workers assemble them fast enough I believe, but if you can't crew them what's the point? If you look at last episode of Voyager, the typical ships around Earth are actually of fairly new design indicating star fleet is finally replacing it's fleet at a decent pace.
erttheking said:
Actually, the reason boltguns are limited to the astartes is the ammunition requirements, or rather, the lasguns lack of ammunition requirements. Shifting the billions of rounds of ammunition required for a guard army to fight a war from the factory world to the front line would put another strain on the logistics side of fighting an interstellar war, a logistics train that is already being screwed over by occasional incompetence and corruption, actual traitors and heretics with your organizations, multiple competing compartmentalised departments fighting over resources, and moving everything through a hell dimension that would make Pinhead crap out his guts in terror. The Imperium could probably equip several whole regiments of guard with boltguns, but the logistical impact on the forgeworlds, the chartist greatholds, the munitorum supply ships, would be colossal.
The Space Marines, on the other hand, are a completely self contained fighting force, with all requirements of logistics met from one source. They are (nearly) self sufficient in regards to all needs, thanks to the infrastructure they control themselves. They take everything with them when they go to fight, so they can support it for their role as shock assault, special forces.
Really, most of these problems come from Sci-Fi writers having no sense of scale, but generally, I think Trek is the most pants-on-head retarded universe. At least 40k has the excuse that no one knows what they are doing any more because the god of knowledge and change is an eldritch, soul eating abomination and therefore knowledge and change is bad.
Fair enough on most of your points, but I would also like to point out that the god of non-change is also an eldritch soul eating abomination.Dakkagor said:
Talk about Morton's Fork. (And really with Games Workshop's dedication to the Status Quo I'm surprised Nurgle isn't the strongest of the Chaos Gods. It would just seem fitting.)
Many Sci-Fi FTL technologies use theoretical cheats to avoid actually travelling fast than light. In the case of warp the engine literally bends or squashes (hence warp) space to allow you to travel at sub-light speeds but effectively travel distances that require FTL travel. This would mean that the required kinetic energy for FTL speeds wouldn't be present (and if it did it it wouldn't be possible as thats infinite...). Now the potential effect of a warp engine at high warp on a planet is another thing, as thats a hell of a lot of stress it may put on things. Plus theres the ships antimatter load and its ordinance.Draconys said:
Also warp 10 is only really an achievable thing on pre TNG trek, as by TNG the warp speed scale had been re-defined (in universe) and in TNG onwards warp 10 means you pass through every-point in the universe simultaneously. I believe various ways round this were used such as wormholes and trans-warp to allow travel-speeds between high decimals of warp 9 and being everywhere.
It's justified by saying that the secret military police goes out and kills anyone that develops technology that isn't sanctioned by the government. The manga actually has scenes of people building better technology like hot air balloons to fly over the titans and even freaking revolvers, but the tech was deemed too dangerous so the inventors were murdered. The people in charge don't want to be overthrown so they go out of their way to limit technology that they deem too dangerous to have in the hands of the people they rule over.Benpasko said:
Uh... yes there was.thaluikhain said:
It's fairly well established in Star Trek that shields prevent transporter usage. In that episode of Voyager, they had to trick the bomb onto the Borg Ship - by actually beaming it onto something that the Borg were about to assimilate, and allowing the Borg to draw it through their own shields.
Sure...only people have beamed over to Borg ships several times in TNG and VOY. They do it the very first time they meet the Borg, they do it to rescue Picard so he can tell them how to blow up the Borg Cube they just beamed people to and from etcThe_Darkness said:
Just... Any sort of FTL drive.
In order to go faster than light, it would require INSANE amounts of energy. And if we did have the tech to just be able to supply that much power whenever we want to, an almost INNUMERABLE amount of problems could be solved right here on earth. Not to even MENTION how much it would change how we wage war.
Oh, and full virtual reality.
All of a sudden, that age old question that the Matrix brought up suddenly becomes MUCH more relevant. Stay in a beautiful dream-world or experience real life?
In order to go faster than light, it would require INSANE amounts of energy. And if we did have the tech to just be able to supply that much power whenever we want to, an almost INNUMERABLE amount of problems could be solved right here on earth. Not to even MENTION how much it would change how we wage war.
Oh, and full virtual reality.
All of a sudden, that age old question that the Matrix brought up suddenly becomes MUCH more relevant. Stay in a beautiful dream-world or experience real life?
Disagree there...any FTL drive is going to be very technobabbley/magic, something that works outside the rules of physics as we know them. No way to say what power it would use.Arnoxthe1 said:
OTOH, yeah, it'd change so much. Hell, just getting warfare to space would involve a zillion changes, it doesn't work like fighter planes, or worse, like naval ships.
Not necessarily.thaluikhain said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel#Faster-than-light_travel
If a writer is trying to keep to reality at least somewhat, then those methods I just pointed out above come in to play. And they ALL involve using massive amounts of energy or some kind of exotic matter which I'm sure could be used to fuel an infinite energy engine.
Transporters in Star Trek have so many holes in them but while the idea of beaming explosives to ships (like the Borg) is nice and all there is always some reason they can't. Generally shields, however, most Borg ships don't have shields. Borg ships are equipped with dampening fields that prevent anything from beaming in or out of sensitive areas meaning that beaming a bomb onto something like a Borg cube would do very little (one episode suggests that a Borg cube would would continue operating till about 80% damaged). From memory the limited range of a transporter also makes the use of them something of a moot point (something like 40,000km in voyager) whereas a galaxy class ships phasers have something like a 190,000km range (I believe this was mentioned in TNG) so why get close when you can shoot from range and since photons and quantums and most other torpedo weapons used in star trek travel at close to warp speeds, why bother getting close unless you want to board the ship rather than blow it up.
As for replicating ships, yes the parts are replicated but manpower is the biggest issue since officers need to go through Starfleet academy. Speaking of which is there more than 1 academy (i do not believe it is ever mentioned, but if not there really should be cause that makes zero sense).
Why are personal shields not something that is used either. I am sure that there were several episodes that had different forms of human sized shields but these techniques or just devices (which probably should exist by the dominion wars) should be in service.
As for replicating ships, yes the parts are replicated but manpower is the biggest issue since officers need to go through Starfleet academy. Speaking of which is there more than 1 academy (i do not believe it is ever mentioned, but if not there really should be cause that makes zero sense).
Why are personal shields not something that is used either. I am sure that there were several episodes that had different forms of human sized shields but these techniques or just devices (which probably should exist by the dominion wars) should be in service.
Yeah, that makes no sense at all, never has. It's not like personal shields are implausible using Trek technology. Worf managed to build himself a temporary forcefield in five minutes using a comm badge and holograms. This kind of protection would change warfare completely, which is why I think they never address it. Star Trek is usually very ignorant about military tactics and how combat actually works, so they have always gone with the easiest ways to explain and depict battlefields.Tegual said:
On a related note, how do phasers actually work? Early in Trek lore they have the power to completely evaporate humanoid lifeforms. Riker once says that a phaser set on full power and wide beam can destroy an entire building. One man using a phaser rifle should be able to wipe out entire regiments of enemy soldiers. But how do they operate in the Dominion War? They are no more deadly than modern projectile firearms. No disintegration, no blowing up fortifications. Just an orange beam and a few sparks. That always bothered me.
Untrue. The only time anyone has been able to beam onto a Borg ship is when the Borg are not being actively hostile. It is immediately established that the Borg are perfectly willing to let a handful of people onto their ships, because they are simply don't see that as a threat. It's not until the Borg engage someone in a fight that their dampening field goes up.thaluikhain said:
And as for rescuing Picard, that was much more complicated than just beaming over. They first confused the Borg cube by spraying an antimatter barrage at them to obscure their sensors, then flew a shuttle through the cube's dampening field so they could beam at close range right to Picard.