Robert Comsol wrote:
blssdwlf wrote:
"In "Mudd's Women", after the 3rd circuit blew out, they had to use battery power for the transport of the 3 women. During that time, they still had to maintain maneuvering and shields to protect Mudd's ship which in mind, lead to the cracking of the 4th crystal."
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Or the shields were equally powered by this enigmatic "battery power":
FARRELL: We're clearing the asteroid belt now, Captain.
KIRK: Deflector screen down, Mister Farrell. Save the power. |
Since Kirk was aware of the circuits burning out he could've just as well been referring to saving the 4th and last circuit from going out.
Robert Comsol wrote:
We do know from "Mudd's Women" that the Enterprise only had 4 dilithium circuits onboard, we have seen 4 dilithium circuits in "The Alternative Factor" and do not know the exact energy output of "battery power".
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We also know that the battery power was brought on to make up for the loss of the 3 circuits, not that it was substituting for ALL power (the difference between "supplement" and "supplant").
SULU: Another lithium circuit. Now supplementing with battery power, sir.
Because it was supplementing the power system, it is far more likely that there was a fourth active circuit that was powering the warp engines and the shields that were projected forward onto Mudd's ship. This would explain why the crystal was cracked and not a pristine one that was brought out of storage.
In "The Alternative Factor" they lost all four crystals but unlike "Mudd's Women" and "Elaan of Troyius", they have a working crystal converter assembly and thus they can still activate the bypass. In this case, they were likely not on battery power at all.
So to recap, basically we have a few different theories:
- There are 3 active dilithium crystal circuits with a corresponding engine room. The 4th dilithium crystal circuit is a spare circuit. Does it have it's own engine room? When all 3 circuits go out, someone has to manually bring online the 4th one? Or install it?
- There are 3 active dilithium crystal circuits with a 4th "hot" standby circuit. I don't know if Timo is advocating separate engine rooms.
- There are 4 lithium/dilithium crystal circuits housed in a single crystal converter assembly. In Season 1, it was in the Main Energizer room. In Season 2 and later it was moved under one of the engine rooms in the engineering hull.
EDIT:
On the ones with separate engine rooms per crystal, how does a single crystal converter assembly work in the system?