In ST-TOS, Gene had this wonderful show about being out in "Outer Space" exploring new planets. But what if he had decided to go the other way by exploring "Inner Space" by that I mean the oceans on water borne planets, and we know that these water planets have individual races such as the 'Chodak, Chelon, Selkie, Meskeen, Xindi-Aquatics, Alonis, Seleseress, Squale, Whales, Farrezzi, Skriiti, Lanatosians, Xawe, Dai-ai, Hipon, shalra, Tirek VIII native and Totozoids What would have happened if Gene turned the Enterpirse into a very large and complex 23rd-24th Century Submarine, and kept the regular weapons we all have come to know. So this begs a question... a. Would Phasers be that effective underwater than in outer space; since outerspace is composed of nothing to get in the way of a phaser beam,, however Salt Water has a different salinity than that of fresh water and space, so is there a minimum effective range and a maximum effective range for a phaser to successfully destroy another underwater ship. Secondly Transporters, since Transporters bring back everything, including sea water as seen in the movie where Kirk beams aboard the old klingon warship a pair of whales along with the sea water, is there also a maximum effective range and a minimum effective range for the transporter to work undrwater if he had to keep the submarine hidden,under water,and send away teams to the surface of the planet that may or not have dry land?
seaQuest DSV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeaQuest_DSV In its final season, it was renamed seaQuest 2032. Set in "the near future"—originally the year 2018 in the first season—seaQuest DSV originally mixed high drama with realistic scientific fiction.[4] It originally starred film star Roy Scheider as Captain Nathan Bridger, designer and commander of the eponymous naval submarine seaQuest DSV 4600. Jonathan Brandis also starred as Lucas Wolenczak, a teenaged computer genius placed aboard seaQuest by his father and Stephanie Beacham as Kristin Westphalen, the chief medical officer and head of the seaQuest science department. In the third season, Michael Ironside replaced Scheider as lead of the series and starred as Captain Oliver Hudson. Also present was a dolphin character called Darwin who, due to technological advances, was able to communicate with the crew. Steven Spielberg expressed interest in the project and served as one of the show's executive producers during the first two seasons.
How would this futuristic submarine get from planetary ocean to planetary ocean? Does it have some sort of stargate-like capability?
I would say if they developed the phasers knowing they were intended to be used on an aquatic vehicle then they would be designed to handle the salinity of the water, however if they adopted an existing space based weapon then it would not function as well under water. The transporter has been shown to be selective enough to exclude biological hazards so it should be easy enough to program it to only beam back the people and exclude any unwanted water. We have also seen some exceptionally long ranges for transporters, based on the Kelvin timeline Scotty has figured out how to beam from Earth to Kronos. We have also seen them beam around to area's of the enterprise when needed so the transporter can operate at fairly short ranges.
pErhaps the submarine would be stored in the hangar bay of a warp-capable transport ship which went from planet to planet each week. And there could be some mysterious historical thread tying all these aquatic planets together, and each week they learn a little bit more about it. Kor
The submarine need to look like the sub from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, everything is steam-punk. There aren't multiple worlds, instead the sub journeys on the seas of a immense world (no actual size ever given) of isolated islands and minor continents, each with different peoples and cultures. Some are inhabited by non-Humans (*the "aliens").
I was always intrigued by the frequently-mentioned, never-seen Pacifica on TNG. The awesome thing about seaQuest was how they just kept upping the antee on the series retools every season. "You still didn't like that last thing? Here's some genetically engineered supersoldiers! How about we add some aliens! Are you interested if there's time travel?" And the ever-changing ensemble. I feel like several characters got the "Poochie died on his way back to his home planet" off-camera write-off between season 2 and 3?
It would have been nice to see more Ocean worlds (or indeed more non M-class) worlds and races (many of the races you quote there are non-canon (computer games or books)) - but the budget sadly dictated. It would have given the Federation a bigger and more diverse feel. As there would be an effective range for a Phaser in space, there would also be one for underwater. The difference here would be that the qualities of the water would cause problems that would have to be overcome, content of water could cause scattering which would weaken the phaser power, changes in the density of the water could refract the phaser beam directing it off course. Then there are things such as temperature and pressure gradients, whether you are firing in a vertical or horizontal direction, the already raised sanity, the fact that the water would take some of the energy of the phaser as heat weakening the beam and lowering its power, etc, etc. All of which leads to the punchline, yes, a Phaser would work underwater (because lasers do and phasers are an offshoot of that technology), but it would be less powerful, less effective, have a reduced range and be more difficult to control and predict. The range won't be determined by the transporters, but by the scanners required on get the transport lock. Since Star Trek has always been extremely coy about how the sensors of the Enterprise (et al) work - the series bible says words to the type 'don't explain how they work, they just do' - we have no idea of the underlying physics and technology used here. Thus we can't really make any predictions or accurate assumptions here. Oh, and I loved Seaquest DSV, but its rotating cast and premise was extremely annoying. Something like a live-action Stingray would be very much appreciated by this poster.
I've kind of belatedly realizing how literal it was, in that the seaQuest season 2 finale was them being transported to an alien world, then season 3 started with them just waking up back on Earth 10 years later somehow. Several of the cast was gone and there was a line about "our friends we lost along the way" -- they literally did just die on the way back to their home planet! (Is Poochie a deep-cut seaQuest joke?!?) Meanwhile, seaQuest can get away with all this, and Star Trek somehow couldn't rid themselves of Kim or Mayweather for years on end. "Kim left to join an alien colony, then died." "Mayweather drowned on a water world." (on topic!) It would have been so easy.
You could always have the "sea" be on some megastructure like a Dyson Sphere, Ringworld, Banks orbital - even some sort of rotating torus of water. The downside here, however, is that even a futuristic submarine couldn't go any faster than a present-day one due to the huge drag effect water has, which tops out at around 65 MPH. Theoretically, this can be gotten around through supercavitation - essentially creating an air bubble within the water which the submarine travels within. Then there's no reason why the sub couldn't reach the underwater sound barrier of 5,800 km per hour. Except of course in that case it's not really a submarine any longer - it's just a jet or rocket that's underwater.