The stupidity in Booby Trap

Like photon torpedos?

 

It starts out with a hard casing, but when launched it transforms into a massive ball of destructive energy... hence the "photon" prefix to the name.

 

Nope, it's still the same missile casing after launch, we've even seen them be retrieved (Worf and Picard went out to chase down one that malfunctioned during a test, for example).

 

Exactly. Leaving the tube and becoming a glowing ball of light does not yet mark a transition from "casing" to "energy"; that apparently only happens at impact.

However, the warhead within can apparently be swapped with relative ease - we have seen these casings loaded with sensors or even live people at times, and supposedly the newfangled "quantum" warheads go into the same casing (since the Defiant has these standard casings aboard).

So if you want a kinetic effect at the target, just install a lump of lead. Or of some superdense material kept stable by treknomagic. Or a gravitic device that gives the torpedo the momentum of an object a thousand times heavier.

We also occasionally learn of our heroes packing various exotic warheads or demolition devices, such as tricobalt weapons or chemical explosives. Phasers and photon torpedoes seem to do the trick in most cases, though.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Danar uses guard's hand to tap on the combadge. So, maybe communicators only have biometric security?

 

The biggest crime was destroying the ship, surely they could have just placed a warning becon, to tell others to stay clear, restirct travel to that sector etc.. In the hopes that one day they could come up with a way to recover the ship.

 

I got an idea. Put someone in a thruster suit, attach a strong cable to him, have that person attach it to the ship and tow it away.

 

Takes too much time. Radiation will fry them before that. Just because there's no weight in zero gravity, an object still has its mass. A thruster suit just hasn't got enough thrust to move a starship anywhere in any reasonable amount of time. Sure, you can get it moving, just very very very slowly.

 

The other end of the cable would be attached to the Enterprise. And if you're worried about radiation, just put Data in the suit. He can survive time distortions.

 

What I meant is that the ultimate delivery of a photon torpedo is an energy weapon, even if the hard casing remains intact until impact.

That would make sense to me. Pack a photon torpedo casing with a warhead and you're all set for some good old fashioned explosive action. Too bad we never saw an episode where they explicitly did this, meaning a direct reference to reconfigure a photon torpedo shell to carry a thermonuclear device.

 

Given how this episode has four credited writers, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the writers weren't all on the same page. One writer probably wrote all of the asteroid scenes while another wrote all of Picard's obsessive fascination with the ancient starship. One writer probably told another "Oh, don't forget that the crew have been spending time with an ancient, dead alien ship" and the other writer thought "Ah, so the ancient alien ship is the cause. Picard would want to destroy it" without realizing that parts of the story have Picard regarding the alien ship as a treasure.

 

Of course, Picard could be the Dr. Belloq sort of amateur archaeologist, rather than the Dr. Jones sort - if he can't have this Promellian treasure chest, then nobody else can, either! He'll just rationalize his childish pride by claiming that removing the ship will be the best way to remove others' unhealthy interest in it.

Picard is known for destroying ancient artifacts left and right, just because. Tox Uthat is gone (for the time being)...

Timo Saloniemi

 

I... don't think that's an accurate comparison. For one thing, Belloq was no "amateur" archeologist. He had knowledge of language that Indy lacked ("you could warn them if only you spoke hovitos") and was able to convince the nazis to work with him. In fact, he had a great respect towards his find when he wanted to make sure that the Ark was indeed the genuine deal rather than take his payment and leave. He wanted to see it for himself.

Indy on the other hand was willing to blow up the Ark with a freaking rocket launcher. Belloq knew Indy wouldn't do it so he called his bluff.

 

... Err, that means he wasn't willing to blow it up.

 

Neither was Belloq.

 

Okay, that was sort of the scene I was referring to, but obviously it's not such a good example at all. It just sort of hints that Jones upheld certain morals while Belloq was at most neutral on them, as well as capable of cynically exploiting others' convictions.

Blowing up the cruiser would be a blow to promelliology, no doubt. But there'd be plenty of aceton assimilators to study, no doubt making the mentharologists jump up and down like Ferengi and salivate like Porthos.

Timo Saloniemi