The Star Trek interpretation of radiation exposure

[Gary7]

I've noticed this in both TNG and VOY...

The typical scenario is that the ship is being exposed to radiation and they're facing the approach of "lethal exposure" in XX minutes or even seconds. Then the captain does something to get them out of danger.

But... radiation doesn't work that way! Yes, you can certainly get exposure enough to kill you. But... it's not a binary condition of healthy or dead. If you're only SECONDS away from lethal exposure, and then the radiation threat is removed, you have still been exposed to significant radiation. Things just don't go "back to normal" in an instant, not to mention the physical effects. We don't see people becoming sluggish, disoriented, in pain, or developing lesions. They're all fixated on that "lethal exposure" limit that is about be crossed, when they escape it and... everything is back to normal. No long line at sickbay with the doctor(s) struggling to give treatment to everyone quickly.

Has anyone come up with a sensible, plausible explanation for this, or has it simply been accepted that it was a terrible flaw in the production staff's understanding of radiation, much like their missteps with data storage and backup?

 

[cultcross]

Pretty much the only explanation that could make sense given the lack of symptoms is that the limit is actually a tolerance limit of shields or hull - i.e. in x minutes the shields will fail and the radiation exposure will go up a hundred fold, creating an instantly lethal dose.

 

[t_smitts]

I've noticed this in both TNG and VOY...

The typical scenario is that the ship is being exposed to radiation and they're facing the approach of "lethal exposure" in XX minutes or even seconds. Then the captain does something to get them out of danger.

But... radiation doesn't work that way! Yes, you can certainly get exposure enough to kill you. But... it's not a binary condition of healthy or dead. If you're only SECONDS away from lethal exposure, and then the radiation threat is removed, you have still been exposed to significant radiation. Things just don't go "back to normal" in an instant, not to mention the physical effects. We don't see people becoming sluggish, disoriented, in pain, or developing lesions. They're all fixated on that "lethal exposure" limit that is about be crossed, when they escape it and... everything is back to normal. No long line at sickbay with the doctor(s) struggling to give treatment to everyone quickly.

Has anyone come up with a sensible, plausible explanation for this, or has it simply been accepted that it was a terrible flaw in the production staff's understanding of radiation, much like their missteps with data storage and backup?

Yeah, if you know how it works, radiation doesn't really work as a "ticking clock" type of threat. Fortunately, I don't think there's that many episodes that do that. "Final Mission" and "United", and maybe "Disaster" and "Booby Trap" are the only ones I can think of.

 

[Tosk]

I used to just pretened that with the 24th century medicine, "lethal exposure" is the point at which they can no longer reliably fix the effects after the crisis has passed.

But I prefer the version CultCross mentioned. It covers both sides of the equation better.

 

[Gary7]

Pretty much the only explanation that could make sense given the lack of symptoms is that the limit is actually a tolerance limit of shields or hull - i.e. in x minutes the shields will fail and the radiation exposure will go up a hundred fold, creating an instantly lethal dose.

The only thing is, in some of these episodes they talk about the levels of radiation penetrating the ship, versus build-up outside the shields... But if it were to be the latter, would certainly "fit" more nicely.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Since playing Kerbal Space Program, the depiction of orbital mechanics has really annoyed me (again in Final Mission, which had them unnecessarily endangering the ship thanks to a failure to understand orbital velocities, and often when they fly towards the planet hoping to get there from orbit.)

 

[originalbob]

The thing that also troubles me, is that when characters do get a lethal dose, it can be fixed with a single injection, and they're back in the game in minutes....

 

[Tenacity]

^ Even if their cells could be repaired with a injection, what about the ship itself?

Wouldn't it be hopelessly radioactive?

 

[Timo]

If there's a medicine that counteracts the effects of radiation on cells as soon as they emerge, then continuing exposure will be a steady state process, with the two forces battling till there's a balance of sorts, or till a resultant flow in either direction, that of impending healing or impending death. "Final Mission" and the like are perfectly in agreement with that: there's rhyetalyn being injected to the air or whatnot, and radiation pouring in, and the radiation is slowly winning. Remove radiation or reduce it to below a threshold level, and the danger is averted. Not immediately, but there's a specific turning point that they can count down to.

Okay, so it will be a fuzzy turning point, calculated as an average of how much the assorted crew members can take. But the dialogue isn't in contradiction of that. If nobody dies, it just means the calculation featured a safety margin, or that the 99.5th percentile got lucky.

And it wouldn't matter if the ship remained radioactive, as long as the rhyetalyn kept on winning...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's never real life radiation in Star Trek though. It's always "Verteron Radiation" or "Omicron Radiation". Maybe made up radiation really is a hard limit where you're fine until you hit the limit then suddenly becomes lethal.

Duranium probably blocks gamma radiation like lead anyway.