how do you know that it isn't the right wavelength/frequency/whatever to block transporters? this is an unknown. and we don't know all the properties of the Covenant alloys, except that they are extremely resilient. they may naturally have such a magnetic interference.
Because the magnetic interferrence would be on one 'frequency' only, while transporters can have their 'frequency' modulated, routed through other sensors, have the power boosted, etc etc. yeah, maybe it will 'happen' to interfere on the transporters natural frequency... and if thats the case, the transporters can just be modified to compensate. even so, there would be a fair amount of magnetic (and other kinds of) interferrence coming from the federation ship itself. Impulse drives are Mass Drivers after all, so if the transporter can be used in those conditions... (im using the word 'frequency' because im too lazy to think of the appropriate word atm, so dont look into that too much)
the bigger the ship, the stronger the shields and armor. why? there's more room for power generation, and the more important it is.
true, and conversely, the slower they go, meaning its harder to miss, and a higher percentage of incoming weapons fire will hit it. It like Potato/Potato... that phrase looses all meaning when you read it... whichever way you look at it, smaller ship, less armored/shielded, but faster, so you can 'dodge' more incoming fire than a larger ship, with more armor/shielding, but slower, so can take a beating, but will definitly take a beating, no matter what, unless your enemy is so unco-ordinated he couldnt hit the ground with his hat...
and how do we know that the very aura of a Covenant dropship wouldn't tear a ST ship in two? how do we know that a Covenant ship couldn't just ram its way through Federation ships? you can't give arguments supported by "how do we know X can't happen?". it's about how we know something can.
and how do we knock Chuck Norris and the Carebears wont jump out from behind a space anomaly and destory the universe? Honestly, im not the first person to have argued in this fashion, and at risk of sounding childish by saying 'he started it', i simply assumed that arguing as such was acceptable. Star Trek and Halo are so different and generally uncomparable that its hard not to argue without some speculation. For all we know, the Federation has some seriously badass weapons of mass destruction, with fleets and fleets of super heavy warships capable of destroying entire solar systems? We dont know, so truly comparing is difficult.
For another reason, comparing is difficult because different Sci-Fi have different lore. In Stargate, near instantaneous interstellar travel is possible via the Stargates. In Star Wars, the Empire ruled with an iron fist and their 'dreaded imperial fleet', yet the most common weapons system on a Star Wars ship is a 'turbo laser' which wouldnt even scratch a Star Trek shield. I said it before, in Star Trek, plasma weapons are pretty low yield, and nothing to worry about, whereas in Halo, they are the 'shit'. If thats anything to go by, its already apparent that no real conclusion could possibly be reached.
The Seraph fighters, the main fighter-bomber of the Covenant, have extremely tough shields. Their weapons are able strong enough to take out starships in around a dozen hits. Spirit and Phantom dropships hold dozens of troops, and are much better armored than a Fed. transport. Longsword fighters have enough bang to blast through fifty to sixty meters of Covenant armor in one run, as evidenced by Master Chief's return of the Covenant bomb in the First Battle of Earth. the Phantoms are even armed with Active Camoflage, making them undetectable by sensors. This is evidenced in the levels Covenant and Floodgate
Given, i had forgotten about Seraphs and Longswords, but you so rarely see them used in atmospheric operations so...
On the other hand, how exactly do you know that a Federation troop transport is not very well armored? or shielded? it may not be, but it could very well be better armored etc than a Spirit or Phantom. We dont know, there is so little info about Federation ground forces if it wasnt for DS9 and their continual wars in that part of the galaxy, we may have never known the races in Star Trek keep standing armies.
However, Federation Shuttlecraft carry weapons comparable to the larger ones carried by larger Federation starships, as evidenced by the hundreds of times in Star Trek when a few story critical characters are being attacked while in a shuttlecraft, yet somehow manage get out of dodge by disabling or destroying the other (often larger, faster) ship. (http://techspecs.acalltoduty.com/sovereign.html#9.0%A0+AUXILIARY+SPACECRAFT+SYSTEMS)
you just compared accuracy-wise the single main weapon of Star Trek to a sidearm, an assault rifle (short range) and a shotgun pistol that's meant for such short-range combat that it might as well be a longsword. a Covenant Carbine would be a much better comparison, as it is the primary weapon for medium-to long range large-scale combat. The carbine would likely rival or even beat the phaser in accuracy and effectiveness. a single shot could kill someone from ST, as they wear no armor or personal shields.
Again, given, i had forgotten about the Carbine, and i had actually meant the spiker not the mauler (jeez, im really showing how long its been since i played Halo 3...). Given, the Carbine could and would be comparable accuracy wise, but how often do you see it on the battlefield? Really, only jackal snipers (who themselves are fairly rare) and maybe a few brutes carry them. I was comparing them to the more widespread, commonly used weapons in the game. Just like US soldiers could use P90's, G11's, M4's or AK-47's, if you want to get a general idea when comparing your weapons to those of a US soldier, you compare it to the M-16, because it is the standard weapon of most US forces.
And still, power wise, Federation phasers are more powerful and dynamic. The Covenant have no single weapon that can stun, injure, kill, vaporise or cut like an industrial laser, be tuned to multiple 'frequencies' to overcome shielding, or set to wide dispersal to take out multiple targets at a time, and is still accurate at great distances. And this is the standard weapon, and even then, just for starfleet vessels. We know that there are many more types of much more powerful weaponry, as evidenced from this quote from Star Trek Insurrection:
TROI
Taking the Captain's yacht out
for a spin?
WORF
(examining the cargo)
Seven metric tons of ultritium
explosives, eight tetryon pulse
launchers, ten isomagnetic
disintegrators...
RIKER
You must be planning on doing
some hunting.
In Star Trek Enterprise, Captain Archer tells Reid that the Earth Army has tactics and weapons 2-3 years more advanced than that of Starfleet. So its possible the Federation army remains more advanced in ground combat than Starfleet, which means we are actually underestimating Federation ground forces.
And again, Starfleet personnel dont wear armor or personal shields, but then they are really supposed to stay nice n comfy up in their starships while the soldiers fight, and for all we know, the soldiers have some very effective armor and shields. We know they can errect shield barriers much like covenant deployable cover, and, if the situation calls for it, and they have the appropriate technology/support, they could possibly transport a flanking force in behind the enemy troops, or even transport a bomb right into the middle of them, or transport the entire enemy group 200 meters in the air...
Also, if you've read Dune by Frank Herman, you know a scientist in the book developed impregnable, indestructible shields that could only be defeated by moving very slowly (so like, attacking with a knife or blade, as opposed to shooting them), or by firing a cutting laser at the shield, which would cause a massive explosion... its very possible Covenant shields could have a nasty allergy to Federation phase weapons, but we dont know that so we wont go into that...
And still, we dont have enough info about Federation ground forces so its pointless to debate the point.
1) there were many more than 50 ships in the battle. Earth had hundreds of ships defending her, and Truth came with an armada.
2)that may have been "all in", but there was definitely not the entire fleets of the various factions at that battle. those were merely the ships that happened to be in those fleets and could reach Earth in time to head through the portal. And most of the Fleet of Retribution was left behind quarantining High Charity to prevent the flood from escaping. in fact, the Shadow of Intent led a "small detachment to pursue an infected cruiser that broke quarantine while the rest of the fleet maintained the quarantine on High Charity. This detachment took part in the second battle of Earth." the detachment had at least 9 CCS-Battlecruisers and an Assault Carrier. it likely had even more, as those were merely the numbers of ships shown on-screen
3)the Second Fleet of Homogeneous Clarity numbered in the thousands. a single fleet. the covenant had hundreds of fleets. And the Sanghili fleets were otherwise occupied with securing peace on their other worlds.
4)Covenant have the numbers. if they can make an their entire Capitol World a spaceship, then they have many, many, many ships. and if they can guard that city with thousands of ships without making a dent in their other fleets' combat efficiency, then they probably have millions of ships. probably dozens of millions.
that could be, except if that was the case, how come they never attacked the UNSC with anything more than a few hundreds of ships? and i dont think you realise how many 'dozens of millions' is. there is really no evidence of there being even 1 million ships. Halopedia only records 9 fleets http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Covenant, and even if you say each of those fleets had 10,000 ships, thats still not a million ships. but fine, so my numbers were off, i was being conservative, but the Federation is still comprised of a great many civilisations. i counted 102 before i figured it no longer mattered http://www.geocities.com/therinofandor/UFP1.html. The Covenant have, what, 7? 8 civilisations tops? Lets take humanity right now, 7 billion or so on the planet, lets extrapolate, with 27 known planets in their 'empire' (and not all of them will have populations numbering in the billions) lets put a number at idn, 100-120 billion 'people'. So, with the 3 Covenant Armed Forces, the 9 fleets comprised of thousands of ships manned by thousands of crew members, High Charity with probably 10 billion beings living on it, plus an unknown number of other space stations.... We are running out of people to put on ships... whats the point of having tens of millions of ships if you cant man them? And just because they can defend their capitol with thousands of ships, doesnt mean they have millions of ships, it just means they have a fleet defending their capitol, and one less fleet to use in battle.
The Covenant Energy Projector is a focusable beam. when glassing planets, it is set to its widest and still crystallizes the upper ten to twenty meters of planetary crust. and it can boil away oceans. that's a shitload of power being weaponized. enough to flash-boil about 1.4 metric Exatons of water. an Exa- is 10^18. Pure water requires 4.186 joules per gram to heat it by 1 degree C. assuming that the average water temperature is rrom temp (20 degrees C, which is actually very generous heat-wise. The real average is lower), that means that it would require about 450 zettajoules of energy to heat Earth's water to boiling temperature.
Federation phasers fire a steady focused beam of phaser energy at speeds approaching .986c (which works out to about 182,520 miles per second - nearly warp one, which also happens to be the speed of light). The phaser arrays also rotate frequency automatically to attempt to lock on to the frequency and phase of an enemy vessels shields for optimal shield penetration. Each array takes energy directly from the Impulse engines and auxillary fusion generators (which means that the phasers can be overloaded for a one-time massivly damaging burst, as seen in Star Trek Enterprise)
And, most importantly, Federation phasers have a max effective range of 300,000 kilometers, thats three times the range of the Covenants most powerful and long range weapon.
A single emitter generates 8.0 megawatts per second, however, during standard operations, usual firing technique involves firing at least 2 emitters at once, resulting in a discharge of approximately 16MW per second. Extreme situations can see more than 2 emitters being fired at once, thereby increasing power output.
A Soverign Class vessel has 14 phaser arrays located around the ship, each housing 4-6 emitters each.
Also, a standard compliment of 325 Mk 4 Photon Torpedos (which are not even the most advanced torpedos in Starfleets arsenal. The most advanced is Mk 25) and 175 Mk Q-II Quantum Torpedos, (though the ship can be outfitted with up to 500 of one type or the other). Both types can be fired from any of the 18 torpedo tubes located around the ship. In the event of needing resupply, Photon Torpedos can be manufactured on board with replicated and off-the-shelf parts.
Mk 4 Photon Torpedoes have a maximum un-modified yield of 25 Isotons, and a maximum modified yield of 80 isotons. Mk 6 Photon torpedos have a yield of 175 Isotons, Mk 9 a yeild of 200 Isotons, and ive been unable to find yield values for Mk 25, though ive seen multiple references to the weapon, so its possible no one has attributed a value.
Mk Q-II Quantom Torpedos have a yield of 275 isotons (according to what values i have found)
The maximum range of both types of Torpedo is 4,050,000 kilometers, although some sources state it as being closer to 8 million kilometers
Both Torpedos travel at .9993c (approaching Warp One, also the speed of light) when fired from a ship travelling at Impulse, while when fired at warp the Photon Torpedo will travel at 110% of the ship's warp factor, and the Quantom Torpedo travels at 115% of the ship's warp factor.
Both Torpedos can be self guided, or guided by the firing ships computer, they can be detonated before impact for splash damage, are themselves heavily shielded and armored, and have shield modulators that enable them to pass through the shields of the firing ship, enabling them to be fired without lowering shields.
(Source: http://techspecs.acalltoduty.com/sovereign.html#3.0%A0+TACTICAL+SYSTEMS, http://www.deepspace12.com/frame.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_of_Star_Trek)
Dont count Federation weaponry out just yet. And i didnt even go into regenerative shielding, ablative armor plating (which, by the way, is very effective at dispersing 'focused plasma beams'), or the tactical applications of the tractor beam (used to push ships into each other, which would most definitly down a Covenant ship's shield)
AND! Federation ships have Holosuites, Gymnasiums, a Firing Range, and A BAR! as well as carrying 16 Shuttlecraft of varying levels of sophistication and ability.
So, considering there are more than 102 individual civilisations within the Federation umbrella, and there are at least 8 completely seperate, yet allied races including Klingons, Romulans and El-Aurians (the El-Aurians are the race Whoopi Goldberg plays in TNG. As if you WOULDNT run =P)
(Source: http://www.geocities.com/therinofandor/UFP1.html, http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/United_Federation_of_Planets,
So not only are the Federation and the Covenant "evenly" matched in technology, to put it very conservatively (i still maintain Federation tech is more advanced, and the large array of weaponry available to the Federation far outnumbers Covenant Space-based weaponry) But the Federation has more numbers than the Covenant, AND more allies.
Due to the lack of Info about Federation ground forces, its impossible to speculate, but, like GrandAdmiralSova was saying, whoever has superiority in space, has superiority fullstop. Once Federation ships wipe out any covenant ships in orbit, they can proceed to decimate any forces on the ground.
Ill grant you, that the Energy Projector is a powerful weapon, but it is outranged, outsped, outclassed by Phaser weapons, and outranged and outdone (damage potential) by Quantum Torpedos (i have a wikipedia page with technical specs on the power generated with zero-point energy, but i doubt anyone would really understand it unless you sat down and thought about it. I just remember the destructive power of ZPM's from Stargate when they happen to explode...)
Anyway, i think ive proven that Federation weapons are not to be trifled with, and that the Federation could potentially have more numbers than the Covenant, especially after the War with the UNSC and The Great Schism...
Your Move, slick =P
