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Captain Holland

Why not nuclear torpedos?

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I was just thinking that a Nuclear weapon has more power than a Photon or Quantum torpedo, why don't they have nuclear torpedos along with Photon, and Quantum torpedos. As a last resort or something. I mean, if the blast doesn't destroy the enemy that surly the radiation will be lethal. What are your thoughts?

Edited by Captain Holland

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Well,TOS did mention that the Earth-Romulan wars were fought with atomic weapons,didn't it?I'm pretty sure it did.So nukes would make since to me.Hey,how's this for barbaric....maybe both sides used orbital nukes on the populations of each others worlds? :drool:

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Aren't they usually at fairly close range when they use torpedoes? Close enough to get caught in the explosion, right? If you fire it from too far away the enemy can detect it easily and just go to warp. This is just a thought, not a theory. Maybe they just used nukes to finish off ships that were dead in space or for orbital bombardment as subcommanderbeavis mentioned. Or maybe it was just one of those things that made sense when TOS was made but doesn't make sense now. Put it into the context of the height of the cold war and the use of nukes seems scary. Put it into the context of our era and it's still scary, but doesn't make much sense given what we know about Trek now. It would seem like a step backwards for Ent, not forwards.

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Think is, nuke's are so powerful, that they'd end up taking the Enterprise with it. If they used them on a planet, then no one could inhabit the planet. While destructive, they are primitive, dangerous, and spread radiation like wild fire.

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I don't think that we will see nukes for several of the reasons listed above. Nukes would cause damage to the ship that was fireing the nuke as well as the other ship. Also, they are barbaric. And finally they are a danger to the crew of the ship that they are carried on due to the radiation and the possibility of a radiation leak.

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I don't feel that nuclear torpedoes would be any more dangerous to the crew of the NX-01 than they are for today's submariners.Accidents aboard nuclear submarines are very,very rare and more often than not are never related to the nuclear payloads.Also the distances between the ships in space are significant,usually hundreds of kilometers if not more,so damage to the torpedo launching vessel would likely not be significant.

Nuclear torpedoes make sense to me,and they would tie in to TOS,like has already been mentioned in this thread.War and killing are barbaric regardless of the sophistication of the weapons being used.

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I agree with others against the use of nuclear weapons on Enterprise. I'm not even sure how much the radiation would affect the enemy if fired in space. Wouldn't the radiation disappate in space?

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I agree with others against the use of nuclear weapons on Enterprise.  I'm not even sure how much the radiation would affect the enemy if fired in space.  Wouldn't the radiation disappate in space?

I'm pretty sure the radiation wouldn't disapate in space, in fact I think we have fired nukes into space to test them, but I'm not sure.

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They often say in episodes that photon topedos can take out large cities in Star Trek. Don't they?

Well, it would depend on the strength of the torpedo, in First Contact when the Borg are attacking the missle complex they are firing something similar to Quantum torpedos, and they weren't destroying more than 10 or 20 feet from the blast area.

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I don't feel that nuclear torpedoes would be any more dangerous to the crew of the NX-01 than they are for today's submariners.Accidents aboard nuclear submarines are very,very rare and more often than not are never related to the nuclear payloads.Also the distances between the ships in space are significant,usually hundreds of kilometers if not more,so damage to the torpedo launching vessel would likely not be significant.

Nuclear torpedoes make sense to me,and they would tie in to TOS,like has already been mentioned in this thread.War and killing are barbaric regardless of the sophistication of the weapons being used.

Agreed.

Go for it Captain Archer!Nuke them Rommie $#@!'s! ;)

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I don't feel that nuclear torpedoes would be any more dangerous to the crew of the NX-01 than they are for today's submariners.Accidents aboard nuclear submarines are very,very rare and more often than not are never related to the nuclear payloads.Also the distances between the ships in space are significant,usually hundreds of kilometers if not more,so damage to the torpedo launching vessel would likely not be significant.

Nuclear torpedoes make sense to me,and they would tie in to TOS,like has already been mentioned in this thread.War and killing are barbaric regardless of the sophistication of the weapons being used.

Agreed.

Go for it Captain Archer!Nuke them Rommie $#@!'s! ;)

Right On!!! a-bomb.gif

Edited by Captain Holland

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the thing is...antimatter radiation may be more toxic than nuclear radiation...take the case of the planet devastated by one reactor leak on the surface of a planet (frienship one -Voyager season 7) vs the toxic radiation leaked at chernobyl..

 

And we can assume, per gram there is more radiation and energy released in antimatter than nuclear..or else we would have warp nuclear reactors ...ie nuclear torpedoes are weak in comparrision with antimatter torpedoes per gram...

 

so if we assume this to be true...then a 1/2 ton antimatter torpedo would have the same yield as a 100 ton nuclear torpedo or something of the sort

 

simple logic applied to a simple problem

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War and killing are barbaric regardless of the sophistication of the weapons being used.

It's not barbaric to defend your home and stop and evil enemy.

 

Do you think that the U.S. did in Iraq was barbaric?

I don't think he was saying that war is unjust in every circumstance,just barbaric.And it is.Killing your fellow man is not a sane or civilized behavior.Unfortunately,we do not live in altogether sane or civilized times.

Therefore,whether you kill your enemy with a nuclear weapon or an antimatter weapon,they are just as dead,and your actions just as barbaric,whether or not your cause was just.I agree with the sentiment.

Edited by Sirius

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I agree with others against the use of nuclear weapons on Enterprise.  I'm not even sure how much the radiation would affect the enemy if fired in space.  Wouldn't the radiation disappate in space?

I'm pretty sure the radiation wouldn't disapate in space, in fact I think we have fired nukes into space to test them, but I'm not sure.

yes there have been nuclear tests in space. man ..........the human race is STUPID.

 

but i think they should have them in ent if they did mention them in tos, for continuity's sake. and, yes, they are a barbaric weapon, but enterprise isnt in the peaceful time of the federation. i think they are still capable of nuclear weapons. they are in a less civilized time.

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Of course its barbaric. Any violence is barabric and medieval. In the perfect world disputes would be reasoned out perfectly without the need for primitive violence. However, we are still quite far from the ideal. And how is the war in Iraq saving lives? I don't agree with the reasons for the war or the war itself but I agree that something had to be done.

 

In Ent we are told that Photonic Warheads (Photon Torpedoes) have a maximum destructive area of 3Km.

 

Maybe because the UFP s is an unaggresive power they don't want a huge be-all-end-all massed destruction weapon. The want a specific weapon that can pick off individual systems. Besides, Photon Torpedoes are very powerfull. The explosive force is just contained within a small area. And 4 Quantum Torpedoes can disable a Keldon class warship.

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B00000IML5.01._PE10_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Trinity and Beyond

 

The only videos of atomic space detonations I've ever seen are in this doc. (YOU MUST SEE!) Seeing them would you help get idea of what it would be like for both the attacking and the attacked vessel. Also of GREAT interest from the footage is how it seems the detonation opens a "hole" within the vacuum of space for a few moments before the "hole" then slams shut.

Truly amazing stuff.

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B00000IML5.01._PE10_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Trinity and Beyond

 

The only videos of atomic space detonations I've ever seen are in this doc. (YOU MUST SEE!) Seeing them would you help get idea of what it would be like for both the attacking and the attacked vessel. Also of GREAT interest from the footage is how it seems the detonation opens a "hole" within the vacuum of space for a few moments before the "hole" then slams shut.

Truly amazing stuff.

ya that movie was on the space channel not too long ago. its scary stuff.

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They often say in episodes that photon topedos can take out large cities in Star Trek. Don't they?

Well, it would depend on the strength of the torpedo, in First Contact when the Borg are attacking the missle complex they are firing something similar to Quantum torpedos, and they weren't destroying more than 10 or 20 feet from the blast area.

True they didn't do much damage in that example but we also know that the power of a photon torpedo is variable... they even are in Enterprise from the moment Starfleet invents them!

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I agree with others against the use of nuclear weapons on Enterprise.  I'm not even sure how much the radiation would affect the enemy if fired in space.  Wouldn't the radiation disappate in space?

I'm pretty sure the radiation wouldn't disapate in space, in fact I think we have fired nukes into space to test them, but I'm not sure.

Exploding nuclear weapons in Earth orbit created the Van Allen radiation belts.

 

One other thing to take into consideration is the type of nuclear weapon. There's nuclear fision, nuclear fusion, nutron and a few more.

 

When talking about the science of Star Trek, many of the devices used are figments of one's imagination with very little science involved.

 

A photon torpedo is a device that emits a large burst of light. (A photon being a particle of light.) This could insinuate that it is a nuclear device that, when discharged, would cause an explosion of such intensity that light is the end result. A "safe" weapon.

 

Wanna learn more? Stop by here

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