It is completely illogical to assume the existence of everything until it's proven otherwise,the correct logic is the other way around.
Why? Why shouldn't we assume that something that should reasonably exist, exists in a setting?
Why should we assume a bunch of people that signed for stargellet to explore the galaxy and go where no man has gone before would also go "and also, let's have a kickass space army, just in case". Picard and Riker loudly and regularly denied that Starfleet was a military force, and while that was clearly wrong, it was a clearly wrong opinion, one that was not meant to the product of tgier ideals and no thier self delusion. Are we supposed to assume that while Picard was at the academy with classmates training for positions in air combat and artillery support, he was lying to himself about how that must be a non military, peaceful cluster bomb his roommate was bragging about hitting right on target? Come on.
Your argument fails to deliver. First, early TNG had a different ideological approach than the later seasons. While early TNG wanted to play down the military aspect of Star Trek, this was later discarded. Just as the idea that everyone in Starfleet was an officer. The show went in a different direction. Picard had been in multiple military engagements throughout his career, with various wars and conflicts occurring throughout it. The best we can offer is that Picard oversold his own ideology; that Starfleet was about diplomacy and exploration only.
It takes as much delusion not to realize that the ship your commanding is a military tool when it has more than enough firepower capacity to commit a planet to a nuclear holocaust via antimatter warheads (rated in the megaton range) and high powered phaser banks/arrays. You're simply trying to extrapolate more than what is possible, based on the ideological positions of the characters involve. Something you yourself admit is part of their ideology.
We should have some doubt about everything, because otherwise you get bogged down in giant mess of contradictory details as you try to harmonize every single bit of trivia, which is a pointless effort.
And this is why you insist that Star Trek has no grenades, because we don't see it in the Siege of AR-558?
Fine. Whatever is root issue was, the scene doesn't fit in with the other materials you're trying to cite.
How? They set their phasers to vaporize a material (setting 7), they vaporize some of the material, and they go on with their day. I don't see why this is a contradiction. At all.
TM: This setting will immediately kill someone
Show: This will do something that will in no way immediately kill someone.
Again, I'm not sure what your problem is. We already know that the setting they used has a SEM:NDF ratio of 1:1. So half the effects there are caused by what is essentially voodoo as far as traditional physics are concerned.
Yeah, no. I've sat through safety training for welding equipment before, and seen the injuries it causes. "Half incinerated corpse" is not one of them.
Again, you've already argued that NDF works differently on carbon vs titanium, so why is there a large leap between carbon and some fictional metal?
Claudius cannot be taken as a valid source of evidence, both because he doesn't actually know what federation weapons are truly capable of, and much more pointedly, because his judgement on how 22nd century weapons would fair against 20th century tanks has no connection to how well 24th century weapons would match up against 26tb century tanks.
First, Claudius is an excellent source, since he was informed by Merik, a starship captain from the Federation.
CLAUDIUS: Are designed to circumvent any such order. There may be over four hundred men on your ship, Captain, but they can be brought down if it's handled properly. Say, a few at a time. You see, I have the advantage of a trained ship captain to tell me what is and what is not possible. Your communicator, Captain Kirk. Now do save us all a lot of unnecessary trouble and issue the appropriate orders.
MERIK: They're going to be arriving soon, anyway, Jim. A recon party, then a rescue party, then another rescue party. I had less men. It added up the same.
This was how Claudius was able to outmaneuver Kirk in the story. He was already well aware of what the Federation could do. That's how he knew that Kirk's ship could lay waste to the entire planet. That's how he could reason that a hundred men with phasers would outmatch the entire military power of the empire itself.
Second, Kirk himself seems to be of the same mind. He knew that bringing down a hundred men armed with phasers would present an overwhelming force that Claudius had no counter for. Nor does Merik, who is intimately familiar with both groups and their technological abilities, at all question Claudius or indicate that there is exagerration.
Third, there is no reason to believe that UFP military technology regressed from the 23rd century to the 24th century. So there is every reason to believe that if a TOS era phaser is a threat to a WWII or WWI tank, then so would a TNG era phaser. Not unless you have proof that this is not the case? As to what sort of danger that might present to a 26th century UNSC ship, that's another matter.
For people and rocks, yes. For metal?
Generally not.
That would be the same phaser that Claudius, informed by Melik, believed could take out tanks, right? Do you know what setting the phaser is at? Or what additional modifications were made to the phaser beam? It's not like using a phaser to drill or remove material is anything new.
So let's just assume it's completely irrelevant and provides no useful evidence against star trek, because that's totally fair.
I didn't say that. I'm simply saying that it is rather exceptional in what happened. We've seen what shipboard phasers do at higher power setting than the hand units could dream of; they perform the same NDF effect that we generally see applied to rocks and debris taken out by the hand settings. What caused the beam to penetrate is hard to say. It could be a mixture of possibilities that you're not really considering, but assume should be applied to all phaser - metal interactions, despite various episodes showing us what happens when capital ship grade phasers blast apart phaser-resistant material.
First, consider that we do know that phasers have a SEM and an NDF component. It is fully possible that there is a danger of over-penetration, should the SEM component of the phaser be powerful enough to punch through the crate on its own merits. That's worth considering. After all, if the phaser that penetrated Quark's crate was on say, setting 8 and therefore had an SEM of 15 KJs, maybe that was more than enough to punch through both ends of the crate and carry through to the other side.
Second, consider that these were aliens who may have been using phasers or energy weapons that operated on somewhat different principals to starfleet phasers.
Actually, there is, because if that was possible and you could just use a phaser as a corridor wide kill everything beam, everyone would do it all the time, even if they can to hook the phaser up to backpack worn power or cell or something, because if they didn't exploit such an obvious capability they'd be morons.
And "what if we just assume everyone on this side is a moron" isn't a good mindset to have.
That's a false dilemma. There could be many reasons why this isn't ruthlessly exploited by both sides of a conflict. The first is that there is very possibly a technical limit or danger to such an approach. The second is that there might be legal implications. It doesn't preclude to Starfleet using the weapon as we see it. It just isn't a standard practice. It is however, something they can do and it is something they implement. We see that when they use the widebeam settings to hunt for changelings. That tells us that at the very least, a Starfleet soldier in a squad could adjust his phaser rifle to a widebeam stun setting and take out a small group of enemies. We saw Tuvok do the same thing in Voyager and Kirk do the same with his phasers in TOS.
It MAY be possible to put the phaser on a higher setting, such as kill or vaporization in conjunction with the widebeam setting. This was certainly what Riker seemed to have in mind in his dream-state while he was captured. However, as that was a dream, we cannot be certain that he was in his right mind--though his ability to rationalize his way through it suggests to me that it is. Still, we have no confirmation of that.
Now, to touch upon the issue of why someone might not do it legally, there could be international treaties banning such things. If we pass that up (and I wouldn't blame you), then we can look at the technical aspects that could arise. Certainly you can just plug in a phaser to a power source and it should keep running, but there are overheating issues to deal with. A phaser is a very complicated piece of equipment. We have no idea how the crystal within the phaser will react to constant energy being poured into it nor do we know how the rest of the rifle will respond to constant energy being poured out. Even if the barrel doesn't cartoonishly melt, we know phaser rifles have a sensor for its target acquisition, an electric display of some sort, and the circuitry required to make it work. That probably won't respond well to constant megawatts being poured through the phaser, even with an internal cooling system.
If they're not going to use and a d instead going to use tricorders just for scanning thier surroundings, then they have no real edge over the UNSC, and arguably a downside as the UNSC's equipment is better designed for this role, being a HUD display rather than a separate device they have to take thir attention away from their surrounding to examine.
You really only need one guy looking at the tricorder. If it's a squad, that still leaves three other guys to keep a look out. And with the tricorder, you're going to cut down on any sort of surprises to begin with. As for HUDs, we know that Starfleet could produce something similar, if they wish and I'm not entirely certain that the UNSC HUDs are any less dangerous. A lot of things on a HUD could end up distracting you. For example, you probably don't need to know how much ammo is in your gun as a display. But if you're tempted to check via your HUD, you risk the same level of distraction as with a tricorder. Humans can only focus on one thing at a time, even if they can rapidly switch. I'm not sure there is a major difference the two offer, apart from the convenience of the HUD.
You're missing the point. The Federation's mission is to hold territory on the surface, for that they need troops on the surface,and facilities for those troops on the surface.
And all of what they need can be beamed down to them. I'm not sure what more they need that can't just be sent down.
I was unaware that all starfleet transporter chiefs are highly trained tactician and can immediately pick out just the right spot to beam people as part of an ongoing engagement, and under pressure to drop them in fast enough to actual save whoever they're trying to help no less. Where exactly was that established?
It was established in Nor the Battle to the Strong and Homefront that Starfleet used transporters a the preferred method for getting troops around. Do you think that transporter chiefs aren't going to be trained where to put troops? Or do you think that Starfleet just beams them into plain fields and open desserts in the middle of a warzone, because fuck it, why not? In fact, given how crucial transporters were to Starfleet, I'd expect their transporter chiefs to be well taught. This is their primary mode of deployment, after all.
Now, does that mean they're going to be perfect? No, I shouldn't think so. Some transporter chiefs may fuck up now and again, dropping the team too far or too close or even right in harm's way. And of course, there is no reason to believe that every fight will go their way, just because they can do these things. A transporter chief might send in three more squads of UFP troops, only to find them under fire because the first two UFP troops were expectantly taken out in short order. And of course, even with two ships, there is still going to be a bottleneck in how quickly Starfleet can beam people around. Surging troops down from the ship can be accomplished very quickly, but moving them from one part of the surface to another or bringing them back up takes more time.
My point is that the situation favors the Federation, because they can rapidly deploy and redeploy in minutes what would take the UNSC hours. And that they can redeploy so quickly, that it can even tip tactical conflicts between enemy squads, simply because Starfleet can move troops around.
I like how the federation is not only capable of beaming troops down anywhere onto an entire planet at a moments notice, but has that lightning fast response time and also the time carefully scrutinize the surround terrain where a bunch of thier guys are getting shot to bits and carefully pick out exactly the right spot to beam people.
It doesn't require lightning fast response times. On the battlefield, a unit can be pinned for several minutes by an enemy unit. It happens all the time. Now, it's best to already have forces there ready to assist, but Starfleet can draw in more troops to completely change the entire dynamic. An enemy force that is successfully penetrating the defenders could suddenly find themselves being flanked.
Vehicles regularly survive crash landings mostly intact, or even in flyable condition after some repairs, both in real life and in Halo.
From orbit?
Actually, we do, it was at least as large if not larger than then starfleet force, because if was much smaller than a platoon, the platoon commander could have ordered a more orderly, covered withdraw, rather than having to sacrifice two of his own mean to cover the retreat.
That could of been what happened, but then again, we don't know. Nor does that necessarily present a problem, because we already know that UFP vehicles are made out of far more durable materials than UNSC ones, which use titanium.
And scorpion tanks are made of a 26th century ceramic-titanium alloy, but for some totally fair reason your vaguely defined future materials are impervious to phasers but the UNSC's vaguely defined future materials might as well be tissue paper.
There's a difference between vaguely defined materials that we understand (such as a ceramic-titanium alloy) and materials that are just plain made up.
Given that the 20% of the time we do see starfleet troops (and the 99.9% of the time we see alien troops), they also don't have these alleged anti-personal weapons one hand, for no apparent reason, it's baffling how you can claim that all evidence implies that the federation does in fact have tons of anti-personal grenades (and presumably everyone else also does, and also just refuses to use them, despite often lacking the moral or technological constraints of the federation?).
What is more likely:
1. Everyone in the setting does in fact have tons of anti-personnel grenades, which they are totally willing to issue to troops and use in battle, but due to some totally unexplained contrivance, whenever we see them in action that was one of the vanishingly rare times that no one had any.
You're conflating the amount that we see them portrayed in use on the show and the amount that the fictional setting actually uses them. We can have something be rare in the show, but have it common in the setting. For example, if Kirk said that 80% of all merchandise in the UFP was transported via Sunrise Incorporated, but we see Moonscythe Enterprise shuttles 90% of the time, it doesn't mean that Kirk is wrong. It only means that we (for some reason or another) generally see only Moonscythe Enterprise more often from our perspective.
The case is similar here. We only have two incidents of Starfleet using these grenades (Legacy and Homefront), but each incident paints wider implications. In Legacy, these were just grenades that the Enterprise D had. They weren't special ordered, we're not told it was rare for them to carry these grenades, and they seemed rather nonchalant about using them. The implication that we can draw from this is that most, if not all ships, carry some photon grenades as part of their standard armament. And that in fact, all ships probably carry an armory with these sort of things.
The same is applied to Homefront. Although there is only one instance, in one line of dialogue, the fact is that Lyton's line has broad implications. He not only intended to arm what amounts to thousands, if not tens of thousands of troops with these grenades. That he had intentionally stockpiled to prepare for a Dominion invasion.
2. The writers created a setting devoid of any such weapon, but over the close of hundreds of episodes got a bit sloppy once or twice?
Okay, let's take this head on.
1) Grenades in Star Trek first appeared in Arena, which was episode 19 of Season 1. If the setting was intent on not having any sort of explosive, it would seem rather odd to me that they would include it within the first season. Before they hit their 20th episode.
2) Legacy is about 80 episodes into TNG. Homefront is episode 83 of DS9. You might argue that the DS9 writers had worked on hundreds by then, of course (and they would have), but it's not like DS9 had sloppy writing. It was in fact, generally considered to have very good, very tight writing.
3) Even disregarding all of this, we have the issue of the writers giving the grenade a formal name; photon grenade. If this was sloppy writing, then I would expect that Homefront wouldn't have used the term 'photon grenade'. I dare say I wouldn't expect VOY to remember the term. And yet, we have them mentioned in all 3 TNG era shows. By name. Not by 'grenade', but by 'photon grenade'. I won't pretend that VOY wasn't sloppy, but DS9 was anything but. And to argue that it was sort of just dropped in Homefront as a mistake, rather than as a piece of lore, is unsupported. Especially when we have grenades in the original series.
It's only difficult to explain if you have a preexisting assumption that it's totally normal for the federation to have anti-personal grenades in the first place.
Well, let's see. They used them in TOS during Arena. We're told in Legacy that the Enterprise D carries them during peacetime. And we know that they stockpiled them in anticipation of a Dominion invasion. But that to me seems like a pretty good reason to assume that Starfleet has and uses grenades in ground conflicts. Even more so when we know that explosives are still used in ground conflicts. We have Nor the Battle to the Strong, where the Klingons make use of artillery shelling and explosives to attack Starfleet and we know that the Bajoran resistance used mortars to fire grenades at Cardassian skimmers. We even see Jem'Hadar carrying some kind of grenades on their uniforms time to time.
The one example we have of a full on battle between two powers on a planetary scale, we know there is artillery and explosives in play. Apparently powerful enough to turn a runabout into a smoldering crater. Clearly, these are still in use. And they fall fairly well into place with how Kirk and the Gorns fought each other in Arena, with the confrontation being primarily between infantry groups launching artillery at each other.
So, again, why didn't anyinecin the show complain about that, despite complaining about everything else?
Because maybe they didn't? Them not complaining about it doesn't mean that they can't exist. It simply means they didn't think to complain about it or chose not to complain. If you want to be fairly strict on what grenades Starfleet does have, we can go one step further. You make a point that we rarely see them used by personnel.
Alright, so Starfleet might only use a special type of photon grenade, specifically one fired from a mortar, as we saw in TOS. That is after all, the only visual proof of any sort of grenade that Starfleet has. It would explain the lack of use by personnel (because you don't chuck it), it would explain why putting them at a lowest possible setting would act as a diversion, but probably not hurt anyone, and it would explain why even after Starfleet started to stockpile it, we didn't really see them.
On the other hand, it would be supported by the combat situation that we saw in Nor the Battle to the Strong, where mortars and artillery is used against unseen targets. In fact, it's a sort of distinct reversal of what we saw Kirk do the Gorns; this time it's the Klingons using the same (or similar) weapons against the Federation. That would also mean that these are at best, deployed on about the squad level, with one person in the squad carrying the mortar and the grenades. That would sync well with the fact that Picard's raid team only seemed to have one or two deflectors to deploy against Cardassian pursuit.
Of course, the implication of that is that these grenades are basically powerful enough to act as small tactical nukes. And they come 8 to a case.
I don't think we can understand what any one it means, beyond the fact that the writing staff were aping pop culture characterization of the M-16 and the AK.
Who cares what inspired it? Why would Kira say that it has multiple targeting acquisition, when it doesn't?
You take additional supplies and equipment with you because you don't know if you'll need them before you deploy.
Again, we saw troops in the field using these backpacks...so clearly they do take them with them. It just isn't all the time. That's certainly a flaw in their approach, but if Starfleet keeps finding that they need this stuff, won't they just change their behavior? For someone who doesn't want to use the 'character is a moron' rationality, you sure seem to insist that this must remain the case.
They do not actually have plenty of accomplished pilots, as Chain of Command pointed out most of the Enterprise's shuttle pilots were not very skilled or capable of manual control. Most federation pilots can punch in a course and let the auto pilot handle it, which is fine for the regular duties of a shuttle pilot but not good enough for combat.
That's also not true. First, let's come back to the dialouge:
JELLICO: Been awhile since I flew one of these. You're a pilot yourself, aren't you Geordi?
LAFORGE: Yes, sir.
JELLICO: I began my career as a shuttle pilot, on the Jovian run. Jupiter to Saturn and back once a day, every day.
LAFORGE: Is that right? I was on that run myself for a while.
JELLICO: Then you must've done Titan's Turn.
LAFORGE: Oh, yeah. You set a course directly for Titan, hold it until you're just brushing the atmosphere, throw the helm hard over and whip around the moon at point seven c.
JELLICO: And pray like hell nobody saw you.
LAFORGE: You know, this trip into the nebula's going to need someone who can do Titan's Turn in their sleep. These mines need to be laid within two kilometres of the Cardassian ships. But the particle flux from the nebula will blind all the sensors except for this proximity detector. You're going to need one heck of a pilot to pull that off.
JELLICO: Is that you?
LAFORGE: I could do it, but truthfully, the man you want is Commander Riker. He's the best there is.
The discussion isn't that this requires a competent or skilled pilot; both Jellico and LaForge can do Titan's turn (whipping around a moon at .7c...) and LaForge said he could do the job. Jellico could probably do the job. What LaForge is getting at is not that you need a good pilot or a skilled pilot--you need an exceptional pilot. Specifically because the pilot would be going in pretty much blind, save for a proximity detector. Nor did LaForge indicate that he couldn't do it. He simply told Jellico that Riker was the best man for the job.
What this in fact tells us is that LaForge (an engineer) is an accomplished pilot (he said he could do it) and Jellico was also a qualified pilot.
If hopper were armed, then that guy in nor the battle wouldn't have needed to sacrifice himself to ensure it could take off, it could have used it's own, much stronger weaponry to cover itself.
Except if we go by most Starfleet arming conventions for shuttlecraft, the phasers are probably on the front and the hatch is on the back/side. So there's probably a blind spot. And of course, the shuttlecraft may not be safe in just blasting away with people trying to get on in one piece.
Everyone and thier cousin is qualified to drive a car, so I guess we can all be formula one drivers.
I didn't say that. I'm saying that with so many people qualified to fly shuttles, it seems more likely that they would have more accomplished pilots because it is a readibly accessible mode of transportation, in which such skills are strongly rewarded. Especially when we know they have an academy where people are trained as pilots and cross-skill as pilots (like LaForge). In fact, most people who seem to fly the starships seem to be not just accomplished, but incredibly skilled. Crusher had a piloting position before he went to the academy and joined an elite pilot squad. LaForge who started off as the ship's pilot could pull off a daring piloting trick and claimed to be able to pull of a difficult piloting mission (even if he recommended someone better), and one of Paris's main character traits is that he is an exceptional pilot. Dax typically piloted the Defiant...and she's Dax.
Notice how all the really exceptional pilots tend to pilot starships? That lends credibility to the idea that Starfleet actually produces a great deal of good pilots and even exceptional ones. The idea that they don't have many skilled or accomplished pilots is based on no evidence that you've presented, other than conjecture that supports your own theory on UFP combat doctrine.
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