Another take on the Original Enterprise...

[Cary L. Brown]

Gep Malakai wrote:

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Maybe a silly question, but: how good a simulation of reality is this engineering software? By which I mean, if you build something in there, can you operate it and see if it really would work? If so, would it be possible to fuel this thing up and try to fly it/subject it to the g-forces it would experience and see if it would really operate?

It's not "silly" but I'd need rooms full of supercomputers to do that sort of thing. As it is, the Vega got so large that it overwhelmed my system (part of why I'm leaving it... which is a much more complicated ship than this one is... alone for the time being. Until I get a new machine that can handle it!)

What this does is models volumes, and can calculate mass properties (that is... assign the proper material to all your bits and pieces and you'll know exactly how much it weights, what the center of gravity is, the center of inertia, etc, etc.

I can also simulate mechanisms... and basic kinematics. That is.. I can apply a force and it will tell me how the part responds. I can model all sorts of mechanical elements (springs, pins, cams, etc). This lets you do complete mechanisms.

For instance... a transit vehicle door system I did once, I drove through the physical motion by applying an "air pressure" value. This told me how fast, and with what force, the door would operate, given a particular air pressure supplied by the vehicle... and since there are safety regulations dictating that you can't have a door which slams on someone standing in it and cut them in half, is sort of important!

But... "fueling it up?" Not so much. There is other software which CAN do that, but that's a different problem and requires a different means of solution. Propulsion systems... that's really out of the realm of this. At best, I can determine how fast the ship will spin out of control if the impulse engines aren't located properly!

[Gep Malakai]

Cary L. Brown wrote:

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But... "fueling it up?" Not so much. There is other software which CAN do that, but that's a different problem and requires a different means of solution. Propulsion systems... that's really out of the realm of this. At best, I can determine how fast the ship will spin out of control if the impulse engines aren't located properly!

Now that's something I'd be interested in seeing, especially given the seemingly random locations of impulse engines on Starfleet ships.

[Cary L. Brown]

Gep Malakai wrote:

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Now that's something I'd be interested in seeing, especially given the seemingly random locations of impulse engines on Starfleet ships.

This is why I'm a big fan of multiple impulse-engine emplacements... something seen on the 1701-D and which I implemented on Vega... where you can simply adjust thrust on a per-unit basis to handle all of this... no "nozzle vectoring" required.

In the case of the 1701, we'll have to have some vectoring, upwards or downwards... meaning the ship may occasionally fly "nose down" if he cargo deck is heavily loaded (see the opening credit sequences, though, where it seems to be doing that!). But the nacelles are, combined, volumetrically equivalent to the secondary hull, and they're probably much more dense, so my assumption is that the ship will be pretty well balanced for its engine location. (And if it's not... just make the engines heavier!)

[Gep Malakai]

Cary L. Brown wrote:

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This is why I'm a big fan of multiple impulse-engine emplacements... something seen on the 1701-D and which I implemented on Vega... where you can simply adjust thrust on a per-unit basis to handle all of this... no "nozzle vectoring" required.

The other option being the ever-popular fan theory that the glowy red parts of the impulse engines don't provide thrust at all and just dump waste heat, while the actual propulsion it handled by some kind of non-Newtonain subspace magic. Which would also explain how ships can stop dead without forward-facing engine outlets or spinning 180 degrees to decelerate.

[Cary L. Brown]

Gep Malakai wrote:

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The other option being the ever-popular fan theory that the glowy red parts of the impulse engines don't provide thrust at all and just dump waste heat, while the actual propulsion it handled by some kind of non-Newtonain subspace magic. Which would also explain how ships can stop dead without forward-facing engine outlets or spinning 180 degrees to decelerate.

Which is just fine if you don't call it "impulse." Because the word "impulse" is a real, technical term with a real, established meaning.

An impulse is a force applied over time. It's inherently a Newtonian term. It is utterly fundamental to all mechanics. If someone's talking about this and isn't familiar with the term, they should read up on it.

Call your propulsion system something else... "sublight drive" or whatever... and you can get away with that. But you can't take a real word and totally bastardize the meaning of the word. That's like saying a "light" is something where you turn a knob and water comes out.

[Gep Malakai]

Cary L. Brown wrote:

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Which is just fine if you don't call it "impulse." Because the word "impulse" is a real, technical term with a real, established meaning.

I know. But the way Trek uses it is just dumb.

Cary L. Brown wrote:

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An impulse is a force applied over time. It's inherently a Newtonian term. It is utterly fundamental to all mechanics. If someone's talking about this and isn't familiar with the term, they should read up on it.

Of course, As Laurence Krauss pointed out in "The Physics of Star Trek," the way "impulse" is used in Trek would more properly be called "thrust," since (if I'm remembering the chapter properly) they sacrifice building force over time for quick acceleration. So, you know, Trek strikes out again...

[Gagarin]

Lots of goodies in your post, Cary, especially with the impusle engines and reactor stuff. Which reminds me - what about RCS stuff? When or how are you planning to tackle them? (Sorry if you've already gotten to that issue in this thread, the eye candy is distracting).

[Herkimer Jitty]

Cary L. Brown wrote:

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Which is just fine if you don't call it "impulse." Because the word "impulse" is a real, technical term with a real, established meaning.
.

If someone really wanted to use a magic non-Newtonian drive, they could retcon impulse to an acronym, like how Phaser was meant to be a portmanteau of "phased" and "laser" and got retconned to PHASed Energy Rectification.

[EJD1984]

Looks like you're using ProE Wildfire.

[Praetor]

Cary, I'm really liking this engineering setup at the back of the saucer, and the capabilities that you're giving the power/propulsion systems regarding power adaptability/reconnectivity and generating a low-level warpish field via fusion power. They seem to foggily fit well with the varying depictions of impulse power being used for interstellar travel when maybe it really shouldn't have been. And kudos for making the impulse engines VASIMRs. I think they're a good modern fit.

[BK613]

Cary L. Brown wrote:

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But you can't take a real word and totally bastardize the meaning of the word.

But we do that all the time. Whenever something new comes along, either new terms are invented or old terms are adapted/reinvented. Just some examples:

-ping, which came from the operation of sonar and now is also a ICMP command for testing connectivity
-boot, which now means "start the device" but comes from "bootstrap program" which in turn comes from the phrase "pull one up by one's bootstraps"
-switching, which went from railroad to telephony to networking
-aircraft, wow, do we even want to go here, with port/starboard, rudder, pilot, hull, cockpit, turret, etc. all being borrowed from nautical terminology, and some of those, like turret, were in turn borrowed and redefined from earlier times.

So the idea that "impulse" could have a broader--or even completely different-- connotation than the classic Newtonian one is, to me anyway, entirely reasonable.

[Santaman]

Interplanetary Medium Power Unified Large coil Sub Light Energy drive?

[Wingsley]

RIKER: "Increase to Warp 6"

LAFORGE: "Aye, sir. Full impulse."

TNG - "Conspiracy"


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[Cary L. Brown]

Wingsley wrote:

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RIKER: "Increase to Warp 6"

LAFORGE: "Aye, sir. Full impulse."

TNG - "Conspiracy"

I think that's a great example of the "Peter Principle!"


Honestly, we all know that Trek is chock-full of inconsistencies. It's not actually REAL, after all, and hell, half the world doesn't even care to keep their opinions about "reality" consistent with reality. So it's largely pointless to expect there to never be anything inconsistent with "Treknology."

Still, given all the stuff that's built up over the years, the original concepts (whether we're talking Jefferies, Chang, Minor, Probert, Sternbach, Okuda, etc) are often very well-thought-out... and the inconsistencies crop up later due to other folks not paying attention to the original, well-thought-out concepts. In those cases, I tend to disregard the "bad writing" or "bad directing" or "bad effects" or "bad production" elements and try to stick with the original idea as closely as possible. I don't totally toss the "bad stories" so much as mentally "retcon" them.

For instance, I'm sure that in "real" Star Trek reality (ahem), "Spock's Brain" really happened. But I'm sure that the "real" events were dramatically different than what we saw on-screen. Sort of like what we saw was a really poorly-done "documentary" performed in some 24th-century kid's basement on his eyeball-top-computer.

Actually, "Spock's Brain" could be turned into a decent... even very effective... story. You'd have to totally rewrite it, lose the "Robo-Spock" bit... but the idea of stealing a brain to become the central element of a computer system isn't inherently a bad one, nor is the idea of a society where knowledge has been kept away from the population and only granted... "doled out" so to speak"... when some central power decides it's appropriate.

That would be an interesting project... especially for those here who are more prose-oriented than I am. I'm a big-picture guy and a tech guy... I can come up with great ideas and stories, and I can come up with all variety of technological concepts, but I can't write dialog if my life depends on it!

My point... I engage in "selective mental rewriting" of elements which simply don't work, either in terms of believability or execution. I certainly don't believe that the 1701-D fires phasers from its torpedo tubes, nor that the defiant randomly changes size, nor that every single woman on the "real" TOS Enterprise got the job on some 23rd-century equivalent of Gene Roddenberry's casting couch!

And "Warp 6"... "Full Impulse" is just one of those.

(Either that or Geordi had been drinking... which does raise some interesting "rewriting" options, too!)

[Praetor]

Cary L. Brown wrote:

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For instance, I'm sure that in "real" Star Trek reality (ahem), "Spock's Brain" really happened. But I'm sure that the "real" events were dramatically different than what we saw on-screen. Sort of like what we saw was a really poorly-done "documentary" performed in some 24th-century kid's basement on his eyeball-top-computer.

You've single-handedly summarized the way I like to look at irreconcilable Trek continuity gaffs for my own 'canon.'