Weaponized Warp Drive

[Vance]

OTOH, I could see a kind of "warp beam" technology being signifigantly different from phasers, possibly certain types of exotic disruptor weapons whose effects may be both dramatic and devastating.

The Varon-T, for example.

You misunderstand. To explain what we see of phasers, in terms of FTL capability, they HAVE to go warp-speed, right? We're also explicitly told to be able to do that, they need to be surrounded by subspace, like radio signals for Subspace radio... hence, Phasers are /some/ sort of projection sent through a subspace bubble to hit its targets.

Yes, that's somewhat ruined in TNG and onward where ships fire from distances where you can literally spit at one another, but in TOS, it's really the only thing that makes sense.

 

[Timo]

Or in the spinoffs, for that matter. We have plenty of DS9 and VOY warp chases where the ships aren't seen in the same view, and where they must be light-hours apart, simply because the hunter does not overshoot his quarry after forcing him out of warp.

Things fired away at warp speed don't seem to have the habit of staying at warp speed unless they come equipped with some sort of subspace magic of their own. Yet obviously this subspace magic is ubiquitous in the Trek universe, to the degree that it would be absurd to state that technology X must lack it in the name of "realism". In Trek, realism is having a subspace sheath. It's not realistic to stick to 20th century science and technology solutions, any more than it would be to stick to 14th century ones. Today's air forces don't stay on the ground because it's "unrealistic" to fly...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Flake]

I have never noticed any planetary capability to defend themselves from Relativistic Kill Vehicles (RKVs)

Accelerate something relatively small to close to the speed of light and you have a planet killer right there! Build a big duranium sphere, strap 10 impulse engines on it, give it a few AUs to accelerate and BAM, massive explosion and no planet!

 

[Timo]

Yet kinetic energy seldom seems to do harm to shielded starships, despite the fact that low-speed rammings are a potent weapon against unshielded ones. Probably shields or tractor beams (which may be the same technology, at least if we trust the TNG Tech Manual) can negate kinetic energy, almost regardless of the amount of said energy...

Remember that Spock in "Paradise Syndrome" thought he could sway a moon-sized asteroid from its path with a tractor beam. It would hardly be practical to build an entire moon in order to overwhelm, say, the defenses of Earth...

...Although that's more or less what the evil aliens tried to do in VOY "Rise". But they wanted it to look like an accident, so they used what looked like natural rocks. And the primitive culture they targeted didn't have tractor beams. The hero ship dealt with the natural rocks easily enough, and only got into trouble when the rocks began to have nasty surprises inside.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

OTOH, I could see a kind of "warp beam" technology being signifigantly different from phasers, possibly certain types of exotic disruptor weapons whose effects may be both dramatic and devastating.

The Varon-T, for example.

You misunderstand. To explain what we see of phasers, in terms of FTL capability, they HAVE to go warp-speed, right?

No. A beam of light always travels at the speed of light in all reference frames. Even warp-driven ones.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

OTOH, I could see a kind of "warp beam" technology being signifigantly different from phasers, possibly certain types of exotic disruptor weapons whose effects may be both dramatic and devastating.

The Varon-T, for example.

You misunderstand. To explain what we see of phasers, in terms of FTL capability, they HAVE to go warp-speed, right?

No. A beam of light always travels at the speed of light in all reference frames. Even warp-driven ones.

In which case a ship at warp would hit ITSELF, as it would be travelling faster than the beam it fired.

Doesn't matter anyways, because phasers don't use light energy. They're charged particle beams (specifically something called "nadions").

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yet kinetic energy seldom seems to do harm to shielded starships

Need I remind you that Scimitar's shields were still at 70% when the Enterprise rammed it. For that matter, the Narada's shields were probably still at full power when it was rammed by both the Kelvin and (25 years later) the Jellyfish.

I do not recall for sure if the Kazon had shield technology, but the collision of Chakotay's ship against the Kazon battle carrier essentially disabled that ship more effectively than any of Voyager's photon torpedoes could have (and subsequently did in later battles

Remember that Spock in "Paradise Syndrome" thought he could sway a moon-sized asteroid from its path with a tractor beam. It would hardly be practical to build an entire moon in order to overwhelm, say, the defenses of Earth...

You forget that kinetic energy is a function of mass and velocity. A moon-sized object at 6km/s has the same kinetic energy as a minivan traveling 60,000km/s. And this is assuming that these are simply "dumb" kinetic kill weapons that deliver energy just by force of impact and not by some type of forcefield that can convert, say, an onboard fuel supply directly into kinetic energy like a weaponized warp drive.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You misunderstand. To explain what we see of phasers, in terms of FTL capability, they HAVE to go warp-speed, right?

No. A beam of light always travels at the speed of light in all reference frames. Even warp-driven ones.

In which case a ship at warp would hit ITSELF

No, the beam still travels at the speed of light relative to the ship that fires it. It also travels at the speed of light relative to its target.

This is one of the funky things about special relativity, but it basically means that no matter WHAT warp factor you're traveling, a photon always moves away from you at exactly the speed of light. What changes, however, is the FREQUENCY of that photon, which means you'll have to adjust the modulation of your weapons accordingly.

Doesn't matter anyways, because phasers don't use light energy. They're charged particle beams (specifically something called "nadions").

Depends on the source. In TOS days phasers were explicitly referred to as laser beams using frequency phasing to achieve harmonic effects on specific targets. Nadions are pretty much TNG-era technobabble, but even if they move at the speed of light, the effect vis a vis special relativity is the same.

 

[Myasishchev]

Yet kinetic energy seldom seems to do harm to shielded starships, despite the fact that low-speed rammings are a potent weapon against unshielded ones.

I actually meant to PM you or something, as we were having a dicussion along these lines in a thread that got closed. If you remember, we were talking about the E-E's ramming of the Scimitar. I ran some numbers, assumed the E-E was going 50km/s and masses 1 million tons, and got a figure of energy absorbed by the target an order of magnitude higher than four pho-torp (2kg M/A warhead) detonations on the hull.

Now, I think 50km/s is a ridiculously high speed (by contrast, I think 1X10^12kg is a very reasonable figure), but a reduction in velocity scales with a reduction in KE, so 5km/s or even .5km/s actually does wind up being pretty competitive with a pho-torp spread. Not Plan A, to be sure, but a feasible maneuver after all.

So, in short, I was wrong.

This is all, of course, before we even get into what kind of damage effects a shielded rammer would have, which I think would have to be rather immense, although incalculable without a solid model for what shields are.

 

[Timo]

No, the beam still travels at the speed of light relative to the ship that fires it. It also travels at the speed of light relative to its target.

This only applies to our universe - and whatever there is between two ships moving at warp speed, it ain't our universe. There are no rules referring to the emission of EM radiation or launching of physical matter from a FTL object in our universe; OTOH, there are fictional constructs in Trek for just such a thing.

In TOS days phasers were explicitly referred to as laser beams using frequency phasing to achieve harmonic effects on specific targets.

Only in backstage material, though - and we should be thankful that this material need not be considered in the context of the actual Trek universe.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vance]

Even within the constraints of the Trek universe, however, Alpha is once again completely wrong. Once a phaser, rock, missile, etc, leaves the subspace field created by the warp bubble, the relative velocity of the thing will immediately reduce to it's sub-light equivalent. The warp effect, which allows FTL travel in the first place, is eliminated.

Therefore, I'm moving at warp 6, I fire a photon torpedo without a 'subspace sustainer'. In 'real terms' the torpedo, within my warp bubble, is only going about .5C, stretched to a bit faster than warp 6 due to the field. Now, as soon as it leaves the field, it's at .5C again. If I fired straight ahead, I'm going to collide with it depending on what disruption happens when matter unexpectedly enters that warp-field again.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

No, the beam still travels at the speed of light relative to the ship that fires it. It also travels at the speed of light relative to its target.

This only applies to our universe - and whatever there is between two ships moving at warp speed, it ain't our universe.

Argument by assertion, Timo? What is that even based on?

There are no rules referring to the emission of EM radiation or launching of physical matter from a FTL object in our universe; OTOH, there are fictional constructs in Trek for just such a thing.

Yeah, fictional constructs which are violated often enough to be considered irrelevant, and therefore we are back to the rules we DO know from traditional physics. There is no logical reason why the rules would change for an FTL reference frame, ESPECIALLY since the presence of the warp field constitutes a fictitious force and can therefore be treated as an inertial reference frame in and of itself. Therefore, two space craft traveling parallel at the same warp factor would, mathematically speaking, share the same inertial reference fame (exactly as a pair of space craft in identical orbits are considered to be stationary with respect to each other).

In TOS days phasers were explicitly referred to as laser beams using frequency phasing to achieve harmonic effects on specific targets.

Only in backstage material, though

So what? It demonstrates that even with the slow VFX graphics, the INTENTION was to depict the propagation of a laser beam. So VFX not only contradicts logic and common sense, it also contradicts everything the writers believed about their own storylines.

We can therefore determine--conclusively--that the VFX is in error.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Even within the constraints of the Trek universe, however, Alpha is once again completely wrong. Once a phaser, rock, missile, etc, leaves the subspace field created by the warp bubble, the relative velocity of the thing will immediately reduce to it's sub-light equivalent.

Which precisely means that a beam of light will move at C with respect to the outer edge of the warp field; once it enters the warp field, naturally its path is distorted by the warp effect and it moves at C relative to the vessel at the center of the field (therefore those photons are moving at warp speed in addition to their C-speed propagation towards the starship).

Which still means their propagation from one warp-driven target to another is exactly C with respect to both starships. That is to say, two ships flying parallel at warp nine and a distance of 300,000km can shine flashlights at each other and still measure the time delay at about one light second. No deflection angle, no position distortion, because relative to one another, both are stationary. The effect of the warp field might (theoretically) distort the apparent position of where that light comes from, which would require some adaptive optics to nullify this effect.

That complicates phaser aiming. But light always travels at C no matter who is watching it.

Therefore, I'm moving at warp 6, I fire a photon torpedo without a 'subspace sustainer'. In 'real terms' the torpedo, within my warp bubble, is only going about .5C, stretched to a bit faster than warp 6 due to the field. Now, as soon as it leaves the field, it's at .5C again. If I fired straight ahead, I'm going to collide with it depending on what disruption happens when matter unexpectedly enters that warp-field again.

Actually, no. At relativistic velocities (such as .5C) the rules change dramatically. The photon torpedo still moves at .5C relative to both the launcher and the target; the only difference is the torpedo's internal clock is no longer simultaneous with the ship that launched it and is now measuring the passage of time at a much slower rate.

 

[Vance]

No, alpha.. it CAN'T work that way. You can't have '.5C relativity' to three points of reference that are moving independantly. And you cannot have something go beyond 1C outside of a warp field, period. By Star Trek's rules, conflating with the laws of physics, no matter what, once you're outside of a subspace bubble, you must be going less than 1C relative to all outside phenomenon.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

No, alpha.. it CAN'T work that way. You can't have '.5C relativity' to three points of reference that are moving independantly.

According to special relativity, you can. Actually, special relativity becomes pretty much useless otherwise.

And you cannot have something go beyond 1C outside of a warp field, period.

Meaningless statement; all velocities are RELATIVE, remember? A photon torpedo may leave the warp field and still be moving at .5C relative to the ship that fires it. If the target is an object in the path of the warp-driven starship, then the photon torpedo is still observed going .5C even though the ship that launched it may be moving at several hundred C. This is because of a break in temporal simultaneity between the starship, the torpedo and its target, colloquially known as "time dilation."

Like most things in SR, it only works out mathematically, and yet is utterly and completely counter-intuitive.

By Star Trek's rules, conflating with the laws of physics, no matter what, once you're outside of a subspace bubble, you must be going less than 1C relative to all outside phenomenon.

Yep. The photon torpedo therefore experiences EXTREME time dilation, which here can be factored in as a result of its emerging from the warp field, jumping from one frame to another.

Of course, if we keep going down this road we'll eventually run into the many cases where SR appears to hinge on a number of seemingly bullshit (but according to most sources, absolutely verified) assumptions, leaving us to wonder whether we should believe the scientific community or our own lying eyes. Me, I don't care either way, I'm just telling you what SR would predict in this case.

 

[Vance]

Alpha, no.. if something has passed 1C without a subspace field around it, it has greater than infinite time dialation, infinite mass, OR infinite energy. Relativity is a mathematical tangent with 1C as the asymtope.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Alpha, no.. if something has passed 1C without a subspace field around it, it has greater than infinite time dialation, infinite mass, OR infinite energy. Relativity is a mathematical tangent with 1C as the asymtope.

The torpedo isn't moving greater than 1C relative to the ship that launches it. And relative to the target, it's simply "incredibly near the asymptote" at something like .9999999999C. That's extreme from the target's perspective, but far from infinite.

 

[Vance]

What you've basically said, then, is that you can get infinite acceleration past C by simply having things go closer and closer to it, with boosters... a ship doing .1C is a booster for another ship, which then goes its own .1C making it now go .2C - etc.. as if there was just linear acceleration.

Physics do not work that way

 

[Crazy Eddie]

What you've basically said, then, is that you can get infinite acceleration past C...

No. Relativistically speaking, you can accelerate for an infinite amount of time and never actually reach C with respect to an outside observer. The time dilation between you and that observer will continue to increase, though.

In this case, the dilation between the torpedo and the target is high enough that the torpedo will never experience itself reaching the target, and the target will have the extremely puzzling experience of being struck by a photon torpedo several minutes before they see it being fired.

 

[Vance]

Which doesn't explain your comments on how phasers working as FTL weaponry, since they clearly do not work that way, and never, ever, have.