I think the funniest thing is that most of these things we nitpick - the probe droid, wmd's, etc. are for the most part just storytelling conventions.
Example, the probe droid. For the story's sake they needed to 1- let the empire know where the base was (or luke skywalker if you think Vader was already obsessed) and 2- let the rebs know they'd been found. That's all the probe droid was for. there are other examples of Imperial sensor technology that completely contradict the feebleness of that particular droid. To me it seems that the droid designer was hired by a influential uncle and was to dumb to use pre-existing sensor tech. Heck, even Mauls little probe droid was more advanced than it.
Trek has a lot of self contradictory evidence too. Been a while since I've watch much of it, so I couldn't point one out, but I know that back when I watched them, I'd be like "hey, what about what happened in such and such episode."
The truth is that it was storytellers telling stories There really isn't any science involved. Which side wins would just depend on the author. They'd make up some tech or trick or whatever so that the side they wanted to win would win.
My thoughts so far are:
- If ST and SW engaged on the battlefield, just phasers and torpedoes vs. turbolasers and missiles, SW would win. There are just too many ships that are too big and too powerful compared to the ST universe.
- If ST was allowed to use everything at its disposal (i.e. transphasic torpedoes, ablative armor, shield modulations, the Borg, Species 8472 and their planet-busting weapons, temporal weapons, and time travel), ST would win. As far as I can tell, SW has no defense against time travel.
- ST is MORE realistic that SW, but most of the things are still far from realistic.
- SW has a greater standard speed than ST, but ST has actually achieved a greater speed on a few Federation vessels. And there are other species that travel faster than SW, but not everyone in the galaxy travels fast like SW.
imagined sequence of events
1- ST launches transphasic or other doomsday torp at SW ship
2- since we're including EU in this argument jedi or sith onboard SW ship gets a danger sense through the force
3- Said jedi or sith uses the force to send said missile/torp right back where it came from...
So the question is....
Can ST defend against its own tech?
Originally posted by docb77
[b]imagined sequence of events1- ST launches transphasic or other doomsday torp at SW ship
2- since we're including EU in this argument jedi or sith onboard SW ship gets a danger sense through the force
3- Said jedi or sith uses the force to send said missile/torp right back where it came from...
So the question is....
Can ST defend against its own tech? [/B]
Suddenly Q appears... "Oh my poor elcapitan... I cant let him die..." Q snaps his fingers and the entire SW universe dissapears...
See how stupid this argument is...
I think the funniest thing is that most of these things we nitpick - the probe droid, wmd's, etc. are for the most part just storytelling conventions.Example, the probe droid. For the story's sake they needed to 1- let the empire know where the base was (or luke skywalker if you think Vader was already obsessed) and 2- let the rebs know they'd been found. That's all the probe droid was for. there are other examples of Imperial sensor technology that completely contradict the feebleness of that particular droid. To me it seems that the droid designer was hired by a influential uncle and was to dumb to use pre-existing sensor tech. Heck, even Mauls little probe droid was more advanced than it.
Trek has a lot of self contradictory evidence too. Been a while since I've watch much of it, so I couldn't point one out, but I know that back when I watched them, I'd be like "hey, what about what happened in such and such episode."
The truth is that it was storytellers telling stories There really isn't any science involved. Which side wins would just depend on the author. They'd make up some tech or trick or whatever so that the side they wanted to win would win.
Yeah its true... we can nit pick everthing to death... but SW could have orbited a satellite around the planet but they didnt... The Star Destroyers sensors could not pick up the massive power output of the rebel base... and the rebel base could not pick up the Star Destroyer entering the system... poor sensor technology. Our current satellites are better...
yeah yeay... I know its all for the story, so what... the movies are where everyone gets their canon material from. It does not matter that its all to help move the story along... If it did matter then this whole thread would be crap... oh wait ... it is crap.
Please dont get me wrong... I personally dont really care who is better... I like SW for its fantasy and I like ST for its imagined reality. I grew up in the SW erra but I grew up WITH ST since it was on TV every day... I'm just defending ST cause its the underdog...
Originally posted by docb77
So the question is....Can ST defend against its own tech?
I like what TRSundown said about SW and ST. I think that's what has always had the biggest effect on me: the fantasy of SW and the imagined reality of ST. Whenever I think about the future, I think ST not SW. Of course, that really has no bearing on the current discussion.
Can ST defend against its own tech... I believe it can, to a degree. They have (I think) shown themselves to be able to cause their torpedoes to self-destruct, and their phasers appear to be extremely accurate, I would guess that if they had the time, they would be able to shoot them down.
I thought I read somewhere that torpedoes travel at warp speed (even though they appear to move slower than light --> that could just be for effect) and that's why they can be launched at warp. However, I've never seen this in the shows. I doubt even a Jedi would be able to catch it before it hit the ship.
Either way, it is irrelevant. ST has much more powerful weapons that wouldn't be deflected by a Jedi's power. I just saw "Year of Hell" Parts I and II for ST Voyager. The Krenim weapon ship could have destroyed more than 8,000 spacefaring civilizations while trying to repair the timeline. They would have done this by erasing a single, unprotected comet from history. Think of the destruction if they made calculations designed to erase everything and anything from SW.
The Krenim ship is outside of normal space-time so no tech from SW can affect it. The Jedi have not shown an ability to affect things outside the normal space-time continuum, and they have not shown an ability to affect time, just space and matter. The artificially created blackholes would probably not work either, as they are contained within space-time.
ST tech isn't as unrealistic as SW. At least there are plausible theories for warp drive, wormholes, lasers, photon torpedoes, etc. How do you explain Hyperdrive? Or turbolasers? Lightsabers, blasters, their energy sources, their superlasers?
And, in addition to my earlier post, neither of those options is a real sure thing for defeating torpedoes coming back at their ships, or else they would probably be used more often.
Originally posted by DarkLord_981
ST tech isn't as unrealistic as SW. At least there are plausible theories for warp drive, wormholes, lasers, photon torpedoes, etc. How do you explain Hyperdrive? Or turbolasers? Lightsabers, blasters, their energy sources, their superlasers?And, in addition to my earlier post, neither of those options is a real sure thing for defeating torpedoes coming back at their ships, or else they would probably be used more often.
Read this essay on Star Trek realism first.
Read these essays on turbolasers.
Likewise, no SW supporters are claiming "more realistic tech"; that's purely a Trekkie hubris. We're not saying either is more realistic than the other, but every Trekkie thinks that Trek isn't just sci-fi: they think it's the future. And that's just ridiculous.
Originally posted by DarkLord_981
I thought I read somewhere that torpedoes travel at warp speed (even though they appear to move slower than light --> that could just be for effect) and that's why they can be launched at warp. However, I've never seen this in the shows.
Originally posted by Wesker
I really don't see anything in ST ever representing the "future". People running around in pajamas using the most unrealistic sci fi tech possible is a horrible future.
Originally posted by DarkLord_981
ST tech isn't as unrealistic as SW. At least there are plausible theories for warp drive, wormholes, lasers, photon torpedoes, etc. How do you explain Hyperdrive? Or turbolasers? Lightsabers, blasters, their energy sources, their superlasers?And, in addition to my earlier post, neither of those options is a real sure thing for defeating torpedoes coming back at their ships, or else they would probably be used more often.
Star Wars is a Sci-fi FANTASY...
duh! I for one am not looking at the realistic stuff.. its morer of the story and the characters(obi-wan!!) I say... Star Wars is forever ASTIG!!
Conclusion
I suppose that any good trekkie would indignantly point out that Star Wars is not scientifically realistic either. They would be right- Star Wars is not scientifically realistic, and neither are most science fiction series. But this document was not made to claim that Star Wars, Babylon 5, or Battlestar Galactica is scientifically realistic. It was made to refute a widespread myth about the scientific realism of Star Trek. If there weren't so many Star Trek fans propagating the myth of Star Trek's supposedly flawless scientific realism, then this page would not be necessary.
Is it excessive to compare Star Trek's realism to something like Transformers? Perhaps, and perhaps not. Transformers is based on metallic life forms which somehow evolved naturally. In Star Trek, everything from lava rocks to crystals has naturally evolved into life, and organisms have even naturally evolved in the vacuum of space! Transformers also features robots which ludicrously change their mass (growing from a lightweight walkman into a multi-ton robot) during the transformation process, supposedly by keeping some of their mass in an alternate dimension. Utterly ridiculous and unworthy of a serious science fiction series, right? Well, Star Trek has the same thing: subspace mass-lightening. Transformers also has size changes (a tiny walkman turns into a towering robot). Pretty silly? Guess what- a runabout was shrunk to the size of a thimble in the DS9 episode "One Little Ship". Transformers has flexible, self-healing metal. Ridiculous, right? Star Trek has it too- watch the Borg in action.How about Star Wars? Is the Death Star's sheer size ridiculous? It's extreme, but Star Trek features the Dyson Sphere. Isn't the Death Star's power generation technology ridiculous? Not compared to Star Trek- in Trek, the "omega particle" dwarfs the energy density of matter/antimatter annihilation. Isn't the Force truly silly? If anything, it's far more reasonable than S-8472 or the Q. The only distinction between Star Trek and Star Wars or Transformers (or Battlestar Galactica or any other science fiction series) is that the Star Trek writers insert reams of technobabble into their episodes to fool the gullible into believing that their unrealistic technology is more realistic than other series' unrealistic technologies. Did I mention how I hate fakery?
In Star Trek, it is possible to use sound waves as a weapon against a starship in the vacuum of space, cool something below absolute zero, live on an inhabitable planet which is only ten light-seconds from its star, find a crack in a mathematically defined radius, measure power in units of joules and energy in units of watts, shrink a shuttlecraft to the size of a thimble, make gravity propagate at superluminal speed, intercept photons without changing their energy or direction, see non-incident non-radiating particles, come to a meaningless "full stop" in outer space, expand the scale at which quantum effects are significant to encompass the entire universe, live without being born, fly a ship that was never built, dig up miraculously naturally-occuring alloys, vapourize something without producing any vapour, subject metals to high-energy plasma bombardment without damage, find magical "omega particles" that have greater energy density than matter/antimatter annihilation, and take a drug that protects you from radiation.
Is this the science fiction series that its fans tout as the most "scientifically realistic" series in the world? Is this technology the same technology which some fans describe as "feasible?" I believe that Star Trek is neither feasible or realistic. Many renowned scientists watch Star Trek, but they do so because they derive entertainment value from it, not because they think it is realistic!
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