Very true but I was referring to the tech available to Starfleet - they can fly to where they want in space and just set up a bunch of antimatter converters when they get there
Anti-Matter is the same matter, but with opposite charges. So Anti-Lithium will be a room temperature solid.
I believe this is also where the privateers extracted the highly volatile "trilithium resin" in the TNG Ep "Starship Mine".
If dirt can get into a car's oil or coolant as it circulates through the engine, why could trilithium not build up in a coolant line? I still think that this shaft routing plasma to other areas of the ship makes the most sense to me at this time, since some of the details are similar to the TMP intermix shaft.
That's a good point that coolant could pick up particles from the engine although that would imply that the coolant makes it into m/am reaction chamber where the dilithium is on TNG ships. The presence of the coolant contacting an antimatter stream would be problematic, IMHO.
Good point. So at that rate, where does the coolant line actually go on ships confirmed to have it, like the Sovereign? It would have to be close to the reaction to cool the equipment, and the Sovereign's might be close enough. But this extra shaft on the Enterprise-D does not seem to touch the warp core. Would it be close enough, who can say? In theory the average car should not "burn-oil" meaning the lubricant and reactant are somehow separated even though both are near the reaction. Not sure if this fact supports or argues against the shaft as a coolant tower.
Yeah if the coolant worked like a car analogy then it would be pumped to a jacket of some kind around the combustion chambers of the warp core. But the warp cores of the TNG and E-E are exposed with no obvious coolant system jacket. Maybe hypothetically when the m/am reactor is offline for service then coolant is flushed into the intermix shaft and reaction chamber to cool it down and the trilithium resin gets mixed in with the coolant at that point and the coolant pipe has a filter that catches it so it can be extracted in "Starship Mine"?
At least that would help explain the addition of trilithium into the Star Trek universe when it was not mentioned before.
If trilithium is a better form of dilithium, and dilithium is used to moderate the M/AM reaction, then trilithium might immediately shutdown or poison the M/AM reaction instantly in order to "scram" an out-of-control, warp core. Maybe other functions.
I don't believe trilithium is a better form of dilithium as it seems to be sought out to be used for weapons and not power generation. I am surprised it's volatility doesn't cause random warp core breaches.
Slowly getting closer. I added in Aux Control (2 locations), the central control core, and refined the turboshafts. I also corrected the season2/3 set plans with my final Main Engineering layout (to best account for the variations seen on screen), final Herbarium, and updated my Aux Control to reflect the episode where we see the other side and to account for the screen wall that some crew miraculously get behind (I drew it so half of it can slide into the wall leaving the alternate version we sometimes see). I have yet to add the phasers (and probably the phaser control room) photon torpedoes, and a few other misc details to finish it off. The neck is a bit empty. There are several turbolifts that don't cross the centerline so they aren't pictured. Turbolift access to the hanger is 2 decks below engineering where the core and more secure part of the engine system is located so the turbolift shafts totally cut it off and you have to climb down from above to get there. I may need to tweak the cross section of Main Engineering to match the set plan. Still lots of little things to do.
I came to the same conclusion about the necessity for a sliding screen wall. It only appeared open in The Changeling but nonetheless makes perfect sense, as well as justify the presence of that extra thick pillar between the screen walls.
I just assumed that there was another door on one side or the other of the area with the mechanical switches and that characters enter from there. I know that the set does not necessarily reflect this, as sometimes there is only one door shown, to the main area of the set. But since this project takes into account the idea that the sets might not be identical to a "real" ship, adding another offscreen door, especially one on the side of the set with view screen would work fine for me.
Working on phasers right now. Since we don't see any phaser balls on the surface, I'm assuming they were recessed.
Now, with the stalk on the lower sensor dome…I could see that as the phaser cannon from THE CAGE….later replaced by phaser banks in the core of the saucer that aim at the lower dome…made of a single huge dilithium crystal. The number of phaser banks determines the strength/color of the beams. Lastly, the ball turrets were added to save on materials. That gives you three variants to go with first and second pilots…and the production look.
Auxiliary Control Room Anyone know what that gizmo on the wall is meant to be? Looks like an egg box. It only appears once in TOS S3 "And The Children Shall Lead". Photo Courtesy of Trekcore.com
I'd not share the idea of a sliding wall. The red grill that we often see on the Enterprise - corridors, machine room, Emergency Manual Monitor - is always a fixed wall. Besides, there is no slide construction to be seen in The Changeling, the grill on the left side of the pilar being just missing. On the Constellation, Matt Decker's ship in S2 Doomsday Machine, the grill is closed and Washburn (and Scotty) are no doubt entering the back compartment via the sliding door on the right side (not to be seen in the pic above, but in my post a moment ago). In The Children Shall Lead and The Way To Eden there are also two grills. The missing of the left grill is due to dramatic reasons. The technician Singh must be distracted so that he cannot see that Nomad is leaving the room. That's why he is going to check some flashing lights in back ground behind the grill, and easy access is only possible when the left grill is missing.