Star Trek Technology - Page 5

I don't ever recall a mention of a nuke in TNG but it was mentioned in Balance of Terror (haven't read most of the thread). That said, most of the issues with using or not using nukes have been writing. They're trying to maintain continuity but at the same time, yeah, shields go down to 15% sometimes after three hits, while you'll see battle scenes that last for fucking ever because each ship pretty much rams each other and maintains thrusters and life support- pretty annoying. BSG was much better thought out with this but I think Ron Moore learned what not to do from his time writing for a few different star trek series. I'm kinda glad that the nukes never really were mentioned much- a few of the newer movies brought up subspace weapons and cool shit like that. Things that were so bad that they were banned in a quadrant. I think I remember hearing that quantum or photon torpedoes were supposed to be some sort of anti-matter explosion (but that shit doesn't make sense because of the low yield you constantly see). Love Star Trek and most of its stuff with all my heart, but IMHO BSG was a better series. That said, without Star Trek, BSG wouldn't have existed the way it did- Moore did some heavy borrowing. Loved the odd TNG reference too.

This was taken from that page:

A 5 million isoton explosion of a multi-kinetic neutronic mine could affect an entire star system. The shock wave had a dispersive force radius of 5 light years. (VOY: "Scorpion, Part II")

That's a 5 Megaton explosion. 690 Gigatons is a little bit more than that. LOL! About 138,000 times more to be exact.

Nukes aint got nothing on this crazy shit.

if they had enough warning, they could beam it off the ship or activate a force field to contain the explosion.

Scotty or Geordi would instantly divert the warp core energy and amplify the containment field. If that didn't work Spock or Data would rip some panel apart, get exposed to some green death gas that kills everything but them and fix the transporter. At least that's how it usually goes.

seconded. moore's influence also made ds9 the best series, imo. better actors, too.

See my post, above; that said, the writers (while talented) aren't exactly postdoctoral molecular biologists/research fellows, much less NIH funded scientists. There are rules when it comes to the real world - though a bacterium cell (aka life) was in fact created in a lab (still, life requires life, immaculate creation as opposed to immaculate conception, and the synth cell (which replicates, etc. thus life) came with its own message readable in its genetic code (not exactly biblical, but hey, enough to upset the fanatics, but then, who says the "creators" didn't adopt THE creator's sense of humor, right?

That said, there's huge work in the area of cultured meat - already done, no animals harmed whatsoever (just like the underlying theory/purpose of the ST replicators, not to mention the whole (underlying) purpose of feeding a bunch of people (astronauts, whatever) on a space ship and/or station with limited storage, not to mention inability to factory farm in space (plus, whole 24th C idea of humanity, egalitarianism, no harm to sentient species like animals, etc. ... OF course ST is political. Anywho, there's a Dutch patent out on the subject, and NASA took it further with fish, turning the whole thing over basically to a non profit by the name of New Harvest, currently working with many research and other facilities, well funded (though not by the animal rights' folks, hmmm, you'd think they'd be all over it, wouldn't you?), and taking it to the next level: namely, commercial scale production (basically, throw stem cells responsible for muscle tissue from a pig or whatever into a vat of fungi or other bio food source for the cells to grow, starve em a bit so they shrink and zap em so they get some exercise (thus forming texture and making them hungry so they eat their bio meal and grow, etc.) and voila, you've your pork or your veal or whatever and just cook it up and add your own parm (also bio food, when you think about it: it's cultured bacteria as is yogurt, etc.). So, yeah, already done and well on its way to the next level ie mass production on a commercial scale, and the Dutch are invested in it, such that this ST tech is in fact in the making and coming to your table, on a resto menu and/or even (feasible) readily made/grown by yourself in your kitchen via a bio machine on your very own counter top next to your bread machine (same idea) soon.

Ah, as to weapons, yes, I remember that pre-warp society ep, where the nukes just fizzled against the shields (and what Reagan's "Star Wars" / SDI was somewhat about, ... wish the administration good luck with that, though of course if that day ever comes, something more potent like the planet killers/red material will be created ... on the other hand, until they actually prove life on another planet (waste of space if not, no?), the day may in fact come where peace on earth and all that ST jazz materializes, since red planeting Earth wouldn't exactly work for anyone (ultimate detente, in my op anyway).

And back to the main heading, ie what ST tech is available today, +100 on the Borg comment (oh, could but don't dare get into the whole philosophical-political aspects of it either, no way I'm going to spoil the fun of the concepts of blowing up planets and/or scattering our atoms via a transporter all over the galaxy with that kind of thinking ... er .....

All fun aside ... and returning to other things/tech we have now, either in spirit or to the letter:

Really, good one, Rambo -- and like your concept for the Trek 12 AB, though read somewhere they're thinking of Khan (huh? hope it's not true, but hey, lots of rumors abound - hope they're reading your Borg/human colony cyber project gone wrong idea, as frankly, I like it better and with the new Kirk's "individualistic" attitude, they could certainly re-do that whole line of thinking in ways that weren't really possible under Gene's "rules" - neat). And to that list of current tech I'll add:

Space shuttles, satellite tech and telecommunications, "on screen" real-time video and related technology, microwave and other advancements including bio-engineered food (including cultured meat, the concept/purpose being in fact the same and we're there already today, just got to make it economical ie commercial scale really, and it's on its way from everything I'm reading about it, also neat), not to mention advancements in civil rights, etc. Gene would no doubt be very pleased.

Again, cool discussion. NEAT.

This simply isn't true.
A few examples: Star Trek VI - the space battles used torpedoes only.
Deep Space Nine - "The Way of the Warrior Part 2" Torpedoes were used against a Klingon Fleet first before phasers. In several other episodes, USS Defiant is able to destroy or disable other ships with phasers only.
In Next Generation episode "The Survivors" Enterprise fires both phasers and torpedoes simultaneously against an enemy vessel.

The problem with this is that it clearly does not comport with what we see on the screen. A nuke in the multi MT range has a blast radius of several miles. These starships are at most 1,000 or so feet long. The supposedly far more powerful torpedoes seem to have blast radii of a few dozen feet at most.

This one is easy.

Having a bomb with a small but very powerful blast radius would be helpful in small corners, i.e. when (space) dog fighting. Just some 25th century type technology that you don't get, yet.

uzzled

Are we talking about photon torpedoes, quantum torpedoes, matter/antimatter torpedoes? (the list goes on ...

Hmmm, ok, I'll bite in (though by no means a military tactics and/or weapons specialist, and especially not when it comes to fictitious weaponry and shielding which none of the serials except for Archer's really talked about in any great detail (i.e., in Enterprise, they had none). From what I know about nukes/fusion weaponry (which isn't a whole bunch, so looked it up), their damage is is in two-parts as follows: thermal (non-ionizing) electromagnetic (air being transparent to the heating effects, causing lethal burns, the first blast category measured in terms of psi overpressure is sufficient to collapse most residential and industrial structures, but which most humans can survive apparently, but not the second blast category), and then there's also ionizing energy (extremely dangerous, "knocking off" electrons from atoms, thus ionizing them but also absorbed by air apparently, and for which treatment if promptly sought is apparently available). If so, ST "deflector shields" as such deflect energy, and are impervious to thermal heat, electromagnetic energy, etc. (and other such forces, not burning up for instance on atmospheric re-entry, for e.g., thus impervious as such to nukes).

In TNG and Voyager, they also "recalibrate" (their terms) their shields to match an enemy's weaponry, and do so in a manner that allows them to fire their own (miraculously matching whatever is tossed at them, energy/plasma/etc wise, but draining their own energy to keep their shields up as the battle wears on (or decisive hits are taken), thus their shields fall (can only absorb and/or deflect for so long before failing in turn, with certain areas of the ship (them and their enemies) being more prone to damage than others (seems to be more about it in a Star Trek wiki, if anyone's interested). Meanwhile, when battling Borg, the first one Star Fleet shoots off tends to score a hit, and they tend also tend to absorb what's tossed at them at first in turn; however, Borg tech (being assimilated from all the various races they conquer/absorb) is "superior" with the collective mind working that much faster such that their cubes adjust/recalibrate/modify/adapt much quicker, breaching their enemy's shields and absorbing what's tossed at them in turn. (yeah, I know ... but that's what the show says).

As to 'knocking' out pesky civilizations, well, Enterprise 'could' but it would violate the Prime Directive, right? (when it doubt, blame it on the Directive, for that seems to be the standard response as everything, right?).

CHEERS (and again, NEAT ... now I'll turn it over happily to you nuclear physicists types

OK maybe they have some super special technology to limit the blast radius, though I have no idea what that would be.

Still, a thermonuclear bomb tends too ... erase ... there is no other word ... whatever matter its blast comes in contact with. Star Trek torpedoes appear to be spit balls by comparision.

Problem with this solution is it is an "always on" solution. It can't be switched on or off like some Romulan ship's cloak. Maybe there is a way to use ionization to activate or deactivate it?

@ GQGeek But, hey, GQ, you forgot about these folks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_astronauts_by_name (reach for the stars, GQ ... or at least get some of those guys in the photos you posted a good tailor; sheesh, where's Garak when you need him ... (not exactly dashing like Capt. Kirk, or astronauts et al., now are they? But that's ok, good tailors remain in the 24th Century! cheers.

BSG was a much different show. Comparing the two is really like comparing apples and oranges. The real reason why ST battles take forever (or at least did until DS9, which by then, was starting to look more and more proto-BSGesque in its battle scenes) is because ST isn't about battle. It's about all the drama that is happening inside the ships during the battle. The battle itself is drawn out for story purposes.