Klingon matter-antimatter reaction assembly?

[Captain_Amasov]

While watching the DS9 episode "When It Rains..." again recently, O'Brien mentions that the chief engineer of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey Ki'tang adjusted the tritium intermix to compensate for a warp core containment problem, and that it was this that made the vessel immune to the Breen energy dissipator weapon.

So, does this mean that the KDF use tritium/antitritium based reaction assemblies in their ships rather than deuterium/antideuterium?

It was stated that neither Federation nor Romulan ships could make a similar adjustment to protect themselves in the same way.

 

[Verteron]

Confirmed - the script - I guess they do use tritium! Interesting...

 

[Timo]

Could this help us understand the nature of the Breen weapon, too?

Apparently, it doesn't simply "shut down all power", because that would mean shutting down all the people, too; rendering the emergency lights inoperable; and causing every ship to blow up in a split second when antimatter containment fields collapsed. But what if it does the same trick as the Doomsday Machine or, arguably, the Space Amoeba - "deactivate" antimatter? It just does it more swiftly and completely... That way, only the primary power source of the ship would be affected. Enough to cripple the ship, but leave the escape pods, communicators and whatnot unaffected, as seen.

Now, apparently the thing would be capable of deactivating antitritium in addition to antideuterium. But perhaps it would do the latter better than the former, and a slight adjusting of how the antitritium flows would affect the outcome a lot.

Then again, we don't know if the Romulan artificial singularity drives use antimatter of any sort...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain_Amasov]

Could this help us understand the nature of the Breen weapon, too?

Apparently, it doesn't simply "shut down all power", because that would mean shutting down all the people, too; rendering the emergency lights inoperable; and causing every ship to blow up in a split second when antimatter containment fields collapsed. But what if it does the same trick as the Doomsday Machine or, arguably, the Space Amoeba - "deactivate" antimatter? It just does it more swiftly and completely... That way, only the primary power source of the ship would be affected. Enough to cripple the ship, but leave the escape pods, communicators and whatnot unaffected, as seen.

Now, apparently the thing would be capable of deactivating antitritium in addition to antideuterium. But perhaps it would do the latter better than the former, and a slight adjusting of how the antitritium flows would affect the outcome a lot.

Then again, we don't know if the Romulan artificial singularity drives use antimatter of any sort...

Timo Saloniemi

The Romulan ships are a bit of a puzzle. It sounds like the weapon should effect the electro-plasma system; I had thought that the intermix change the BoP's engineer performed might have altered the plasma in some way. Though even that wouldn't explain how arbitrary the effect seemed to be on the systems of the ships that were not immune.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I'm one of those obstinate jerks who assumes that the warp core is a device for PRODUCING antimatter -- a giant particle accelerator, basically -- which is then consumed by the warp drives to power the rest of the ship. In this sense, the Romulan singularity core would be harvesting antimatter by exploiting vacuum fluctuations, syphoning antimatter from hawking radiation and such.

 

[Patrickivan]

I'm one of those obstinate jerks who assumes that the warp core is a device for PRODUCING antimatter -- a giant particle accelerator, basically -- which is then consumed by the warp drives to power the rest of the ship. In this sense, the Romulan singularity core would be harvesting antimatter by exploiting vacuum fluctuations, syphoning antimatter from hawking radiation and such.

Why assume that? It's been established that it's a Matter/Anti-Matter Reaction Chamber (on Federation ships of course). Not an anti-matter generator...

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Because of the wording, mainly. A "matter/antimatter reaction chamber" could be read to mean "matter-to-antimatter reaction," among the various things that a warp core has been described as. The main reason I assume this is because it's kind of difficult to justify the big-and-huge collimated warp cores used by Starfleet if the particle stream is being fired into a dilithium crystal anyway.

 

[publiusr]

One way to deactivate anti-matter might be described here
http://io9.com/5889828/were-on-the-verge-of-two-world+changing-antimatter-discoveries

"The other big antimatter-related result hasn't come from a big particle accelerator but instead a nanowire in a Dutch laboratory. According to a team led by Leo Kouwenhoven of the Delft University of Technology, they have spotted what could be the first experimental evidence of Majorana particles, first proposed by Ettore Majorana over 70 years ago."

"These theoretical particles are a unique exception to the standard relationship of matter and antimatter, in that they don't annihilate each other when they come into contact. Majorana realized in 1937 that a fermion with no electric charge would have a completely identical antiparticle, meaning pairs of these particles would be able to exist together without destroying one another. They're remained strictly theoretical until now, when Kouwenhoven reported the first tentative evidence of their existence."

So what would happen is for a weapon to make fuel sources, say, stereo-identical---to coin a word. That would stop a starship in its tracks.

Now that might not be all that unlike a stasis field, which klingons use. In order to shield themselves from the effect, they use anti-deutirium but with tritium for normal matter. This keeps the weapon from making them stereo-identical--too big a hurdle to leap, perhaps.

I seem to remember a substance that can exist of particles and anti-particles. Maybe a good dilithium crystal candidate.

Perhaps related to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthopositronium

 

[Timo]

Now that might not be all that unlike a stasis field, which klingons use. In order to shield themselves from the effect, they use anti-deutirium but with tritium for normal matter.

That's a clever connection - and the Klingons would not be too enthusiastic about revealing it, or telling their present allies but former and possible future enemies too much about the technology used in "More Tribbles, More Troubles".

It's also quite possible they would lie to their allies about the true circumstances and specifics that allowed the single ship to survive, as this would give Gowron a political advantage in a situation he might deem strategically advantageous as well.

Another possibility here is that Klingons don't use tritium in annihilations at all, but rather have it as a component in fusion. And the Breen weapon shuts down fusion, the same way Soran's trilithium device does - which means starships lose their secondary power. It just so happens that warp core containment is crucially dependent on secondary power, and ships deprived of fusion will blow up unless they shut down their warp cores (or quantum singularity systems or other main power arrangements) immediately; indeed, their automation will guarantee split-second shutdown and prevent restart. But the Breen weapon affects deuterium-deuterium fusion more severely than it does deuterium-tritium fusion, thus giving the Klingons the opportunity to wriggle themselves out of the jam.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain_Amasov]

Wouldn't Starfleet and the Roumlans have figured out any Klingon deception once they analyzed the Breen weapon and saw how it humbled their ships power systems though?

Plus, is it likely that they'd be able to keep such secrets realistically? The amount of stuff that seems to turn up in Cardassian hands, for example quantum torpedoes, would indicate that even the strictest security measures wouldn't guarantee the safety of said information or prevent it from being acquired by an opposing faction.

 

[Timo]

Wouldn't Starfleet and the Roumlans have figured out any Klingon deception once they analyzed the Breen weapon and saw how it humbled their ships power systems though?

Probably yes. Eventually. I can't see them challenging the Klingons over the issue much, though.

Plus, is it likely that they'd be able to keep such secrets realistically?

On the short term, certainly. And that's all Gowron would need.

Spock already told us how fleeting military secrets are. But they aren't meant to be kept forever, either...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain_Amasov]

Here's an odd thing; when Sisko receives his new replacement Defiant-class ship, it is mentioned that the shield generators have been completely reconfigured to counteract the Breen energy dissipater.

I'm guessing this would mean that if the vessel were hit while her shields were down, that it would suffer the same fate as her predecessor then.

 

[publiusr]

I wonder about the polaron weapons mode of operation.

 

[Timo]

Might be that they are an offshoot of transporter technology - but where Federation phasers are weaponized Federation transporters (and thus can "phase" their targets like the transporter does, but also move physical things such as nanoprobes as in VOY "Macrocosm"), the Dominion polaron beams are weaponized Dominion transporters. Both the Dominion technologies would be good at penetrating Federation shields for the same reason, then.

Did we ever learn if the Feds learned to protect themselves against Dominion transporters?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[publiusr]

I don't remember. In the SW universe, you have the material called hypermatter. It'd be nice to see Trek use it too. A great weapon to keep a pritine planet would be to have the Stargate Otero anti-hyperspace device powered by the Omega particle.
No FTL possible.

 

[Timo]

...Although the Star Trek universe seems to feature an unusually wide range of different technologies and techniques for FTL travel, or for death rays, or for teleportation. Might be impossible to stop them all no matter what combination of blocking technologies you used.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ian Keldon]

Might be that they are an offshoot of transporter technology - but where Federation phasers are weaponized Federation transporters

There you go again with your...unique...speculations. Totally unsupported by canon.

 

[Timo]

...Except for the parts that are. Remember those?

Timo Saloniemi