Verterium cortenide 947/952

[Shik]

I'm furloughed from work for minimum 4-6 weeks because of renovations, so I'm lazily re-editing my work, tightening language & expounding on concepts. Anyway, I'm at a point where I'm talking about warp drive advances & I mention verterium cortenide with a number after it. Is this an isotope? Where the creosoted fuck did I get it from?

After striking out on the internet for answers & with all the local colleges being closed for holidays, I reached out to my science side, who are almost entirely biology-based, to see if they have any nuclear chemistry contacts, & what I was told is that alloys & compounds can't have numbers like that after them. In the meantime, I found the source of numbering–TNGTM, p. 57, mentioning "the verterium cortenide 947/952 coils".

So does anyone have a grasp of what this is supposed to imply? Are they coils made of verterium-947 & cortenum-952? Any science types got an answer? I'd ask Rick Sternbach and/or Mike Okuda directly, but it's such a dumb little thing to bother them about, & quite frankly I doubt either would remember what the implication was after 30+ years.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Since Vertarium Cortenide is a composite material according to Memory α, it could be formulation name.

Similar to how steels have labeled names with numbers assigned to them.
CPM-S35VN
CPM-S90V
AUS-8
etc.

 

[Shik]

But this isn't a trademark or anything, & it would be out of line with other compounds mentioned in both that & other publications. For example, matter reactant injector nozzles are mentioned as being made from "frumium-copper-yttrium 2343"; wouldn't something like "FCY2343" or a "trade name" like "frumcyt" be used? Every single instance of an alloy is component parts rather than a code.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

But this isn't a trademark or anything, & it would be out of line with other compounds mentioned in both that & other publications. For example, matter reactant injector nozzles are mentioned as being made from "frumium-copper-yttrium 2343"; wouldn't something like "FCY2343" or a "trade name" like "frumcyt" be used? Every single instance of an alloy is component parts rather than a code.

In the Knife world, when we talk of steel, you could mention the scientific Elemental composition like you stated, but the vast majority of people prefer the common lingo Steel Names over listing a series of letters & numbers to represent their elements.

Spoiler: Steel Name & their elemental compositions

It's more about having easy to remember names that are easily distinguishable from one another, despite their elemental compositions.

Sometimes, elemental compositions are used as names:
9Cr13CoMoV, but those are harder to remember than something like AUS-10

 

[Christopher]

I'm going to guess that the "947/952" could be a typo, a bit of galley-sheet indicia or something that got mistaken as part of the text. I don't know exactly what it could represent, but it reminds me of page number or line number labels, something along those lines. If that page is the only place in the book where the number appears after "verterium cortenide" -- if it's a hapax legomenon, yay, I finally got to use that term -- that makes it plausible that it's just a typo nobody caught.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I'm going to guess that the "947/952" could be a typo, a bit of galley-sheet indicia or something that got mistaken as part of the text. I don't know exactly what it could represent, but it reminds me of page number or line number labels, something along those lines. If that page is the only place in the book where the number appears after "verterium cortenide" -- if it's a hapax legomenon, yay, I finally got to use that term -- that makes it plausible that it's just a typo nobody caught.

Or it could be like Quizno's Batch 83 sauce.

Vertarium Cortenide 947/952 could've been the working formulations necessary to build the Warp Coils to be super effective at doing their jobs.

It could've been the 947th & 952th formulations instruction set to make proper Vertarium Cortenide to make the Warp Coils we see in use today.

During the initial testing to make super efficient Warp Coils in the manufacturing stages, they came up with thousands of different manufacturing methods to make Vertarium Cortenide based Warp Coils, it could've been the 947th & 952nd formulations that worked the best.

Of course they mass tested all the thousands of formulations by having different groups make different formulations and test them out and report back on the findings.

Eventually the best formulation would win and go on to be the mass produced versions that we see in use.

 

[Shik]

Sometimes, elemental compositions are used as names:
9Cr13CoMoV, but those are harder to remember than something like AUS-10

I don't think this is anything like that.

I'm going to guess that the "947/952" could be a typo, a bit of galley-sheet indicia or something that got mistaken as part of the text. I don't know exactly what it could represent, but it reminds me of page number or line number labels, something along those lines. If that page is the only place in the book where the number appears after "verterium cortenide" -- if it's a hapax legomenon, yay, I finally got to use that term -- that makes it plausible that it's just a typo nobody caught.

It's decidely not a typo or galley-sheet item. You can see both instances on the same page clearly belong there:

There is almost certainly a reasonable real-science based point behind this that I can't find or that my lack of nuclear chemIstry knowledge does not let me see. I think I'm probably gonna have to be a pest & ask either Messrs. Sternbach or Okuda about it. How annoying. The question is which one?

 

[Christopher]

It's decidely not a typo or galley-sheet item. You can see both instances on the same page clearly belong there:

Except the second number doesn't have the same format (no slash), so it's ambiguous. It seems unlikely there could be two similar typos on the same page (though stranger things have happened in the wonderful world of book publishing), but it's anomalous that numbers are used after alloy names in those two cases but not elsewhere, e.g. with "woznium carbmolybdenide" on the same page.

Is that a screencap of an ebook edition? It has several missing spaces that are not missing in my print edition.

 

[Shik]

It is a PDF version, yes, but I know that it's in the print one as I wrote this piece before I lost everything I owned many years back. It's also independently verified by simple Google search.

Two pages after the above, we have a mention of "hafnium 6 excelion-infused carbonitrium"; the next page has "hafnium 8 molyferrenite". Page 69 (nice) talks of "forced-matrix 2378 cortanium and stainless steel"; two pages on mentions "854 kalinite-argium". Page 75 has another mention of the 2378 cortanium, & yet another two pages after that talks of "verterium cortenide 934".

Obviously there's some sort of materials science compounding being implied that isolates a certain type of alloy or elemental isotope specific to construction needs. I know & understand that much of it is probably pulled from a zero-point anus as most SF technobabble is, but given the authors, I have to assume there's some actual real-world science foundation to it, but I can't just go find a nuclear chemist and/or metallurgist randomly out on the street. (...Or, maybe I CAN; I DO live right near a pair of major science universities.)

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

It is a PDF version, yes, but I know that it's in the print one as I wrote this piece before I lost everything I owned many years back. It's also independently verified by simple Google search.

Two pages after the above, we have a mention of "hafnium 6 excelion-infused carbonitrium"; the next page has "hafnium 8 molyferrenite". Page 69 (nice) talks of "forced-matrix 2378 cortanium and stainless steel"; two pages on mentions "854 kalinite-argium". Page 75 has another mention of the 2378 cortanium, & yet another two pages after that talks of "verterium cortenide 934".

Obviously there's some sort of materials science compounding being implied that isolates a certain type of alloy or elemental isotope specific to construction needs. I know & understand that much of it is probably pulled from a zero-point anus as most SF technobabble is, but given the authors, I have to assume there's some actual real-world science foundation to it, but I can't just go find a nuclear chemist and/or metallurgist randomly out on the street. (...Or, maybe I CAN; I DO live right near a pair of major science universities.)

Maybe there is a modified version of UNS (Unified Numbering System) used in the UFP.

 

[Christopher]

It is a PDF version, yes, but I know that it's in the print one as I wrote this piece before I lost everything I owned many years back. It's also independently verified by simple Google search.

Uhh, I think you missed the point where I said "my print edition." I already checked against my own copy that I pulled off my shelf only a meter away from me. That's how I knew the missing spaces weren't in the print edition, obviously.

 

[publiusr]

The “V” word makes me think of channeling something to a point—the C makes me think of a core…the very words seem to imply some kind of focusing measure

 

[Christopher]

The “V” word makes me think of channeling something to a point—the C makes me think of a core…the very words seem to imply some kind of focusing measure

"Cortenum" sounds more like "cortex" to me, or "cortisone." "Verterium" sounds like it might be related to verterons somehow -- if only in that the same technical consultants may have coined both nonsense words and fallen back on the same phonetics. Though it makes sense, since verterons are associated with phenomena like space warps and wormholes while verterium is a component in warp coils.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I've looked at verterium cortenide as being the real key to warp drive--or at least the TNG-era version of it. But I've also looked at it as being totally fictitious, with just enough pseudo-science jargon behind it (like the numbering) to make it sound like legitimate technobabble.

 

[Shik]

...Y'know what, I think I'll just go ask the authors or someone in metallurgy or materials science or something. I always forget how unfocused this place is with questions.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Hmm...I suppose someone should mention that verterium cortenide isn't real, so it can have any kind of numbering a writer wants if only to just make it sound technical.

Oh, wait...

 

[fireproof78]

...Y'know what, I think I'll just go ask the authors or someone in metallurgy or materials science or something. I always forget how unfocused this place is with questions.

Because there's no answer. I did a brief search, and the basics are it is an alloyed material of verterium and cortenum. The numbering is probably not relating to the elements, but the type of coils being manufactured and to what specifications to achieve the warp field.

This is purely speculation since a) it's not a real substance, or a real alloy and b) the specifications can then be whatever the writers wants them to be.

And finally, TrekBBS is organized chaos. How are we supposed to give an answer to something the authors of the book wouldn't remember?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Because there's no answer. I did a brief search, and the basics are it is an alloyed material of verterium and cortenum. The numbering is probably not relating to the elements, but the type of coils being manufactured and to what specifications to achieve the warp field.

This is purely speculation since a) it's not a real substance, or a real alloy and b) the specifications can then be whatever the writers wants them to be.

And finally, TrekBBS is organized chaos. How are we supposed to give an answer to something the authors of the book wouldn't remember?

Or it could be the individual formulations of Vertarium & Cortenum

Ergo the ###/###

 

[fireproof78]

Or it could be the individual formulations of Vertarium & Cortenum

Ergo the ###/###

Also possible.

 

[Henoch]

or metallurgist randomly out on the street.

You just found one. Graduate from the University of Michigan in 1981, BSE degree in Materials and Metallurgical Engineering (now called Material Science and Engineering since 1985).

Of course, Vertarium Cortenide 947/952 is technobabble with the plausible tint of real science. My guess: Vertarium Cortenide sounds like a binary compound name made of two elements like calcium nitride, so it could be a binary compound of Vertarium and Corten...something.

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As for the numbers, each number could be its molecular weight which suggests that one or probably both elements are undiscovered, superheavy elements (also called transactinides; there's that ---nide, again).

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The slash (/) can represent a mixture of two different molecular arrangements (I'm not ruling isotopes out at this time) of the elements giving two different molecular weights. So, 947 and 952 are their molecular weights in g/mol of each component. As for the proportions of the mixture, we don't know but a 50/50 mix is plausible. Another explanation of the slash (/), there's two different physical items that make up a coil, like a cathode and an anode of a battery. One half of the coil is Vertarium Cortenide 947 and the other half is Vertarium Cortenide 952.

YMMV .