ENT - The Expanse

[clearspira]

Wouldn't the Xindi weapon have choked the atmosphere with dust and debris after cutting out that much land? They wouldn't need a second attack.

[CrypticMirror]

It took less than a century to clear up the mess of a full scale nuclear conflict, with Vulcan help, so obviously Earth has some sort of super atmospheric cleansing tech. If they can clear up the mess left over from WWIII plus the material and gases from the nineteenth and twentieth century industries, then the trench isn't going to be a problem.

[Riedquat]

Wouldn't the Xindi weapon have choked the atmosphere with dust and debris after cutting out that much land? They wouldn't need a second attack.

It'll be less than a dinosaur-killing asteroid (which still didn't wipe out all life, otherwise we wouldn't be here), probably more than a Krakatoa, so some global effects would be expected.

[Mabus]

The beam caused very little dust and debris,in anything it just sort of "liquified" the ground and compressed it, it was mostly when it hit the water that it caused a massive steam explosion. Which would make sense, as when the final weapon destroyed Earth, it just pumped energy into the planet, causing it to melt and crack, but it also produced very little ejecta, but then for some reason the energy rebounded and the whole planet shattered. Similar thing happened to the second prototype. So it's all down to the technobabble the weapon uses.

[McAvoy]

The beam caused very little dust and debris,in anything it just sort of "liquified" the ground and compressed it, it was mostly when it hit the water that it caused a massive steam explosion. Which would make sense, as when the final weapon destroyed Earth, it just pumped energy into the planet, causing it to melt and crack, but it also produced very little ejecta, but then for some reason the energy rebounded and the whole planet shattered. Similar thing happened to the second prototype. So it's all down to the technobabble the weapon uses.

We can assume that weapon was just pumping so much energy into Earth that obviously the heat was overwhelming to melt and crack the crust, and when there was enough energy, it overcame Earth's gravity causing the planet to explode.

Though if you think about it, there was no need to explode the planet. If you just super heat the planet that quickly where the crust melts and cracks, Earth is done. It's a dead planet.

I mean I am sure there is some Trek tech that could super cool a planet (Terra forming) afterwards but I imagine that is a 24thr century level tech. Not that matters if majority of humans are gone anyway.

Mini rant over.

[Fianna]

Depends how long it would take to execute a mass evacuation of Earth. If you merely render the planet unlivable, there will still be people in hermetically sealed buildings who can be beamed to a nearby ship. Blow the planet up, and you take them all down at once (and probably fuck up the lunar colonies, too).

[McAvoy]

Depends how long it would take to execute a mass evacuation of Earth. If you merely render the planet unlivable, there will still be people in hermetically sealed buildings who can be beamed to a nearby ship. Blow the planet up, and you take them all down at once (and probably fuck up the lunar colonies, too).

If Earth has the resources and time to do it, then yeah blowing up a planet just destroys the planet along with the idiots who want to stay on the planet. There is that issue of literally having your whole species history destroyed.

In this case, I don't think Earth had that capability. I don't even think they had the capability to move a million people off of the planet.

[griffeytrek]

I find Archer and his crew of misfits make a lot more sense, when much like Janeway and the doomed and damned crew of Voyager, you adjust your mental filters to see them for what they so clearly are. Archer and crew aren't Starfleet's Best and Brightest. Oh Hell no! Those type people are far to valuable to be sending off on what is almost certainly a deep space suicide mission. A one way trip into 100 different horrifying deaths. Each worse than the last. No, Archer's crew are the type of people that have already signed up for a One Way Trip to Mars, with the promise "once we get you there we promise we'll figure out a way to get you home!" Y'know complete idiots with a dream! The underlying common element that binds the crew of the NX-01 together is "They Are Expendable". Starfleet looked at the problem and decided sending Trip and Malcom would be much cheaper than Chimps. With far fewer complaints from the animal rights activists. Ain't nobody gonna be complaining if you send these assorted yokels on a one way trip to space. When the ship returned to Earth after the first year Admiral Forrest's first words were "Holy Shit! How are you people not dead?" and "But we've already paid for your funerals and everything".