Ships Should Be Indestructable

[Scout101]

How well would this idea really work, considering that transporters are absolutely key to the plan, and those damned things seem to always go out at the first sign of trouble?

 

[Vanyel]

Well, the oddest bit about self-replicating mines is their ability to replicate ANYTHING with only their limited energy stores and still remain cloaked and armed. Just saying, they seemed a bit more like borrowed 25th century tech to me.

The thing is, the writers missed a terrific idea there, too...

Suppose that the "self-replicating mines" weren't self-powered at all, and didn't carry any "mass reservoirs"... but instead were somehow powered by the wormhole (and got their mass from efflux out of the wormhole as well)?

This would be a bit better explanation... and also avoids the whole pesky "malfunctioning self-replicating mine creates a never-ending 'bacterial colony' of mines which destroys the universe" issue.

Tie 'em to the wormhole, both figuratively and literally.

Maybe they have "verteron pulse collectors" for power, so every time the wormhole opens, dumping energy and mass, they "reproduce?"

I could have accepted that (albeit, granted, it's still "magic"... at least it's LOGICAL magic!) more easily than the poorly-thought-through idea we got.

But wasn't the whole idea of self replicating mines to prevent Dominion forces from coming through the wormhole, and prevent it from being taken down by the Dominion in the Alpha Quadrant? If so, wouldn't the idea you presented only work with ships coming through the wormhole, thus providing the energy and mass needed. Destroying the mines from the AQ side would be easy since the mines have no power or matter to self replicate.

Self replicating mines were a bit of cool science fiction, but they would never work.

 

[Anwar]

And if they were getting power from the AQ side, ie DS9 itself then when the Dominion took over it would've been easy to take them down. Somehow the cloaked mines were able to self-replicate AND still have enough for cloaking all on their own.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

But wasn't the whole idea of self replicating mines to prevent Dominion forces from coming through the wormhole, and prevent it from being taken down by the Dominion in the Alpha Quadrant? If so, wouldn't the idea you presented only work with ships coming through the wormhole, thus providing the energy and mass needed. Destroying the mines from the AQ side would be easy since the mines have no power or matter to self replicate.

Getting energy from the wormhole wouldn't require the wormhole to be "open." It's always there, it's just not always visible unless a ship is coming through it.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Nowhere in DS9 is it implied that the closed wormhole generates energy.
Quite the contrary, in fact - the wormhole didn't remain undiscovered for thousands of years because he was beaming energy.

 

[EyalM]

This would be a bit better explanation... and also avoids the whole pesky "malfunctioning self-replicating mine creates a never-ending 'bacterial colony' of mines which destroys the universe" issue.

I was under the impression that the mines self replicated using debris of destroyed nearby mines. That's why the dominion couldn't just shoot its way through it. So they can't replicate for ever since they don't have the matter.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Nowhere in DS9 is it implied that the closed wormhole generates energy.

Nowhere is it implied that it doesn't. Especially considering what a wormhole actually IS, and therefore doesn't literally "open" or "close." Like the Barzan wormhole, it simply becomes visible when a certain amount of radiation builds up in the event horizon, as when a ship crosses into it or something like that.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Reak the second part of my post:
"Nowhere in DS9 is it implied that the closed wormhole generates energy.
Quite the contrary, in fact - the wormhole didn't remain undiscovered for thousands of years because he was beaming energy."

 

[Vance]

In other words, if the wormhole was bleeding energy, at least the Bajorans or Cardassians would have detected SOMETHING in all that time. It was, after all, sitting near them for thousands of years.

 

[DonIago]

Possibly it was bleeding energy, but not enough to make it discrete from the Denorios Belt itself. I believe it's stated in Emissary that ships tended to avoid that area of space in general.

For that matter, if the Denorios Belt is an energetic area of space even without the wormhole, there's your fuel source.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

The bajorans were a spacefaring species for thousands of years. Then the cardassians came with a massive occupation army.
If the wormhole was a significant energy source, they would have detected it - energy sources consistently show up on sensors in star trek.
Whatever "the temple of the prophets" is, it's not a fountain of energy - at least, not when it's closed.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Conventional (for Star Trek) energy sources can't explain the mines' properties - they would break the law of conservation of energy.

And the mines need a LOT of energy - cloacking, recycling materials from destroyed mines, self-replicating (and the new mines must be able to explode) - I doubt the energy from the Denorius Belt would be suficcient.

The only explanation would be that they're using zero point energy. As to how the Federation aqcuired ZPE:

Quantum torpedos were quite widespread in later star trek. In a DS9 episode, Quark mentioned that they were availabe on the market if the price was right. And these torpedos were said to use zero point energy in DS9 TM.

About ZPE generators - several times during star trek, we had no ideea what technology an alien power source used - just that it was better than M/AM. The borg would be the first example that comes to mind.

My personal speculation would be that the borg showed tha Alpha quadrant that ZPE actually works. Afterwards, the feds (and not only) tried to recreate the technoloy. Quantum torpedos were the first result. Generators that could extraxt energy from the void - ineffectively, but still well enough to power the mines - followed.
The cardassians had their own "little" science project. They built a "subspace generator" aka "ZPE generator" that powered their defenses around Chin'toka. This generator compensated for the ineffectiveness of the process with its size. The results were spectacular. Those impenetrable shields around the weapon platforms and their overpowered weapons - we've only seen that in one main star trek species before: the borg (if you discount several ascended beings).

 

[Cary L. Brown]

The bajorans were a spacefaring species for thousands of years. Then the cardassians came with a massive occupation army.
If the wormhole was a significant energy source, they would have detected it - energy sources consistently show up on sensors in star trek.
Whatever "the temple of the prophets" is, it's not a fountain of energy - at least, not when it's closed.

Not necessarily so.

"Energy" can be found in a great many forms, and tapped in a great many ways.

Geothermal energy is a great "real world" example. An area which, on the surface, produces no useful energy, can, if you use a little ingenuity, produce a great deal.

The energy was always there, but not easily identified.

Maybe the energy output from the wormhole is some similarly "obscured" form... but once they got familiar with the properties of the wormhole, they learned to tap into.

 

[Vance]

Trouble is, the Feddies were detecting wormholes (and occaisionally causing them) nearly 100 years prior to DS9... still a pretty hard leap of logic to make that no one could pick it up if it had been bleeding energy all that time with several powers crawling all over the area.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

The bajorans were a spacefaring species for thousands of years. Then the cardassians came with a massive occupation army.
If the wormhole was a significant energy source, they would have detected it - energy sources consistently show up on sensors in star trek.
Whatever "the temple of the prophets" is, it's not a fountain of energy - at least, not when it's closed.

Not necessarily so.

"Energy" can be found in a great many forms, and tapped in a great many ways.

Geothermal energy is a great "real world" example. An area which, on the surface, produces no useful energy, can, if you use a little ingenuity, produce a great deal.

The energy was always there, but not easily identified.

Maybe the energy output from the wormhole is some similarly "obscured" form... but once they got familiar with the properties of the wormhole, they learned to tap into.

Star trek ships could scan a planet to the core in minutes and detect any geothermal energy.
One of the few tech things that were consistent throughout star trek was that energy sources - regardless of their type - showed up on sensors like a christmas tree.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

The bajorans were a spacefaring species for thousands of years. Then the cardassians came with a massive occupation army.
If the wormhole was a significant energy source, they would have detected it - energy sources consistently show up on sensors in star trek.
Whatever "the temple of the prophets" is, it's not a fountain of energy - at least, not when it's closed.

Not necessarily so.

"Energy" can be found in a great many forms, and tapped in a great many ways.

Geothermal energy is a great "real world" example. An area which, on the surface, produces no useful energy, can, if you use a little ingenuity, produce a great deal.

The energy was always there, but not easily identified.

Maybe the energy output from the wormhole is some similarly "obscured" form... but once they got familiar with the properties of the wormhole, they learned to tap into.

Star trek ships could scan a planet to the core in minutes and detect any geothermal energy.
One of the few tech things that were consistent throughout star trek was that energy sources - regardless of their type - showed up on sensors like a christmas tree.

You really don't get it, do you?

ENERGY EXISTS IN MANY DIFFERENT FORMS.

You have to know what to look for.

Maybe they weren't looking for that SPECIFIC FORM.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Star trek ships could scan a planet to the core in minutes and detect any geothermal energy.
One of the few tech things that were consistent throughout star trek was that energy sources - regardless of their type - showed up on sensors like a christmas tree.

You really don't get it, do you?

ENERGY EXISTS IN MANY DIFFERENT FORMS.

You have to know what to look for.

Maybe they weren't looking for that SPECIFIC FORM.

Quoting Vance:

Trouble is, the Feddies were detecting wormholes (and occaisionally causing them) nearly 100 years prior to DS9... still a pretty hard leap of logic to make that no one could pick it up if it had been bleeding energy all that time with several powers crawling all over the area.

Whatever that SPECIFIC FORM was, they knew what it was - and that means it was relatively easy to find with star trek sensors (which never had trouble finding even UNKNOWN energy forms).
Noone found it because it wasn't there.

If you want so much to stick with your convoluted explanation, do so - but don't throw vaguely insulting coments, such as:
"You really don't get it, do you?"

 

[Vance]

Cary.. the problem, once again, is that the powers mentioned knew what Wormholes are and had been scanning them for at least a century. You're trying to invent a new layer of BS here, saying 'THIS wormhole emitted Absurdium energy, and therefore doesn't count' in order to win an argument that only you are having in the first place.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Star trek ships could scan a planet to the core in minutes and detect any geothermal energy.
One of the few tech things that were consistent throughout star trek was that energy sources - regardless of their type - showed up on sensors like a christmas tree.

You really don't get it, do you?

ENERGY EXISTS IN MANY DIFFERENT FORMS.

You have to know what to look for.

Maybe they weren't looking for that SPECIFIC FORM.

Quoting Vance:

Trouble is, the Feddies were detecting wormholes (and occaisionally causing them) nearly 100 years prior to DS9... still a pretty hard leap of logic to make that no one could pick it up if it had been bleeding energy all that time with several powers crawling all over the area.

Whatever that SPECIFIC FORM was, they knew what it was - and that means it was relatively easy to find with star trek sensors.
Noone found it because it wasn't there.

Okay. I'll admit defeat. You clearly know the "real science" behind the Bajoran Wormhole, and thus know (incontrovertably) that it's IMPOSSIBLE for there to have been some form of energy associated with that wormhole that nobody knew how to look for.

Silly me.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Cary.. the problem, once again, is that the powers mentioned knew what Wormholes are and had been scanning them for at least a century. You're trying to invent a new layer of BS here, saying 'THIS wormhole emitted Absurdium energy, and therefore doesn't count' in order to win an argument that only you are having in the first place.

You're joking, right?

Okay, then... other than saying "I reject DS9 entirely," how do you explain what we see on-screen?

I'm not "the only one having this argument." I proposed a possible solution, and two of the guys in the "argument" (that I'm supposedly the only one involved in) don't like that. But I have yet to see either of you guys propose a better solution.

Other than to say "it's stoopid."