Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Neonivek]

General Order 24 of the original series is pretty much the source of it all. Its a special fleet command order to a federation starship to destroy a planet. Apparently all startship tier federation vessels have that kind of destructive potential.

EDIT: the episode in which the order is given is called "A Taste of Armageddon"

MIND YOU! "Destroy a Planet" has a lot of connotations (From destroy all life to shatter it)

[Sergarr]

@Greiger

Phaser Rifles appear in a few movies and episodes (although, like most hand phasers, they have no sights and would be impossible to aim), while sometime in Deep Space 9 actually decent rifle-type weapons showed up during the Dominion War arc.

While I'm not really well-versed in Star Trek history, I'm fairly sure that high-tech weaponry of 23st century would probably use AI algorithms for target acquisition. Which could explain the lack of sights.

[TempAcc]

Hell, with a specialized narrow AI and some gyroscopes, you could literally make auto-aim a real thing.

[Arx]

Huh, is sour milk common in Sweden? I've never actually run into it before other than dikmelk/amasi here, which is how the Nguni folk prefer to consume it.

Yeah, it's very common here. But surely you have run into at least sour cream or yoghurt before?

Oh, I've run into yoghurt and sour cream. I'd just never actually heard of another country with a serious liking for amasi.

[Frumple]

You could probably extend that to chlorine gas and then nukes.

I hope the thing that's better than nukes at killing people doesn't come soon.

I mean... if you're after specifically killing people I'm pretty sure there's a number of things that fit the bill, particularly from a cost/death ratio. Tailored disease of one sort or another's probably your best bet, something along those lines... they tend to not be considered largely due to the possibility of it turning blue on blue, but if you don't care about that, well. Also probably get better results from an intentionally dirty nuke than your normal one, too, or leveraging the possible EMP effect. Takes more time, but the body to nuke ratio'd likely be better from a mass murder standpoint. Maybe hitting somewhere that's an environmental lynchpin... be interesting to know if anyone's plotted the requirements to forcibly release atmosphere-influencing amounts of trapped methane or somethin'. Seem to remember some last ditch geoengineering plans to lower temperatures that might manage better than nukes would, too. Depends on what you call better, basically.

[Dunamisdeos]

You could probably extend that to chlorine gas and then nukes.

I hope the thing that's better than nukes at killing people doesn't come soon.

I mean... if you're after specifically killing people I'm pretty sure there's a number of things that fit the bill, particularly from a cost/death ratio. Tailored disease of one sort or another's probably your best bet, something along those lines... they tend to not be considered largely due to the possibility of it turning blue on blue, but if you don't care about that, well. Also probably get better results from an intentionally dirty nuke than your normal one, too, or leveraging the possible EMP effect. Takes more time, but the body to nuke ratio'd likely be better from a mass murder standpoint. Maybe hitting somewhere that's an environmental lynchpin... be interesting to know if anyone's plotted the requirements to forcibly release atmosphere-influencing amounts of trapped methane or somethin'. Seem to remember some last ditch geoengineering plans to lower temperatures that might manage better than nukes would, too. Depends on what you call better, basically.

In my experience complete magma coverage works wonders.

[helmacon]

You could probably extend that to chlorine gas and then nukes.

I hope the thing that's better than nukes at killing people doesn't come soon.

Nukes and whatnot work on a different scale than guns. They really don't cover the same topic.

Guns worked as a replacement for arrows because it fulfilled the same roll. Projection of personal force.

Nukes are a projection of national force. There is nothing personal about them.

That's why we have both nukes and guns in common use, because they fulfill different roles.

A continuation from guns would have to be a more effective means of personal force projection.

[Neonivek]

I am not sure... you can seriously denote Nukes as "Common use"

[origamiscienceguy]

"Yep, hand to hand combat is the old school way to kill your foes. It dates back to the honored tradition when combatants respected one another. Killing a man with your bare hands says, "We're all equals as men, except I'm slightly more equal cause I'm still alive and your dead." Of course dropping a nuke them for 50,000 ft is also totally acceptable. I mean lets face it. There's just not enough time in this busy world to show everyone the courtesy of a good strangling. "

[Rolan7]

Phasers are excellent weapons.  Their damage is adjustable from stun to "melt/blast solid rock", which even happens in TOS.
They have no recoil and can fire continuously, briefly, allowing one to adjust aim or simply focus down a particularly hard target.  Warning, surprisingly graphic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q5EXhJzdec
They're compact and light, even the rifles. 
They can be reloaded with power packs, but it only comes up in extended missions.  They clearly have a very high capacity.
They're even repurpose-able as smart mines or grenades, with fairly dramatic yield.

Named characters and villains have super dodging powers, but that doesn't mean the weapons are bad.  And when a phaser does hit, it usually does what it's meant to.  Some aliens have strange biologies, but even battle-ready Klingons get cut down in the DS9 war.  Cases where people shrug off "lethal" phaser blasts are due to mid-level settings, or pure narrative fiat.  Again, "explode rock walls" mode is a thing.

As for guns, and I don't know if this actually gets addressed, but Federation ships have very effective force field technology through their halls.  They dynamically patch the hull with them.  Intruders armed with energy weapons can blast through (reference:  boarders are ever a threat whatsoever), but what good is a handheld gun against something that accurately repels hi-v particles while containing atmosphere?  Sounds like a great way to shoot yourself.

[smjjames]

Do you want me to find episodes where someone took a kill shot center mass and was kind of hurt? or took a stun shot center mass... and was not stunned?

I was asking TempAcc about the 'destroying whole biospheres' thing as I'm not aware of one.

General Order 24 of the original series is pretty much the source of it all. Its a special fleet command order to a federation starship to destroy a planet. Apparently all startship tier federation vessels have that kind of destructive potential.

EDIT: the episode in which the order is given is called "A Taste of Armageddon"

*looks at wikipedia on it*

Given that it was Captian Kirk that did it, it could have been a bluff on his part and never REALLY intended to do it in full.

[wierd]

Omega directive.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Omega_Directive

Very specific invocation, but when found, a starfleet capt must do whatever it takes to destroy the source of the particles. I would presume this includes destroying whole planets, if needed.

[smjjames]

Omega directive.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Omega_Directive

Very specific invocation, but when found, a starfleet capt must do whatever it takes to destroy the source of the particles. I would presume this includes destroying whole planets, if needed.

These Omega Molecules sound like some sort of unobtanium, plus a convulted plot device, and/or something like the Ultimate Weapon or the Ultimate Power Source.

[wierd]

I did say it was a very specific invocation, did I not?

It was basically the result of hamfisted writers looking for an out on the prime directive, but it is what it is.  Under very specific circumstances, federation vessels hold no quarter, and will stop at nothing short of complete removal of the threat.

[Akura]

One of the supervisors who got mad at my frustration at the gross incompetence of the pricers(as opposed to said gross incompetence) last week was complaining about the gross incompetence of the pricers today.