Spoilers Beyond: the technical points (spoilers, and nothing but)

[Ronald Held]

Never heard or read of antimatter pods having a dedicated power supply for cooling and suspension of the liquid antideuterium.
There would have to be some reaction chamber and an equal amount of (cold) deuterium to make the energy needed to power said equipment. Plus a wsy to recrystallize the Dilithium, which may not exist then.

 

[Timo]

You don't need a nuclear reactor to get power out of radioactive materials today. A radiothermoelectric generator is in many ways more efficient, and much simpler and more durable, even though it cannot produce great amounts of power. I trust similar setups would exist for getting sufficient power out of stored antimatter for the act of storing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ronald Held]

You don't need a nuclear reactor to get power out of radioactive materials today. A radiothermoelectric generator is in many ways more efficient, and much simpler and more durable, even though it cannot produce great amounts of power. I trust similar setups would exist for getting sufficient power out of stored antimatter for the act of storing.

Timo Saloniemi

I do not understand. Still need power for refrigeration even if the magnets are superconducting. Batteries would work for a while, but need to be recharged or use fusion generators. Antideuterium is not radioactive and 22d century tech probably does not use radio thermal generators.

 

[Idran]

You don't need a nuclear reactor to get power out of radioactive materials today. A radiothermoelectric generator is in many ways more efficient, and much simpler and more durable, even though it cannot produce great amounts of power. I trust similar setups would exist for getting sufficient power out of stored antimatter for the act of storing.

Why do you trust that? Radioactive material generates heat from decay, which is then exploited by RTGs to generate power; there is no similar reaction for antimatter in suspension, anti-deuterium doesn't just generate power from nothing since it's completely indistinguishable from deuterium except for charge and deuterium obviously doesn't do that. And if you're saying that it might work in Trek science, there's no reason to analogize it with RTGs, because then you're already moving away from real-life physics anyway. There's no basis for the analogy in either situation.

 

[drt]

I do not understand. Still need power for refrigeration even if the magnets are superconducting. Batteries would work for a while, but need to be recharged or use fusion generators. Antideuterium is not radioactive and 22d century tech probably does not use radio thermal generators.

I think Timo is saying that the antimatter pods have a mechanism that allows them to utilize the stored antimatter as a power source to maintain the containment fields, yet doesn't utilize a dilithium enabled reaction. Which is actually a pretty clever idea and makes sense in-universe.

 

[Dilandu]

6) I missed the line explaining why the heroes had to drop the Franklin off the cliff before starting the engines. What part of the engine system needed the fall, and for what reason?

They simply need to have more velocity to reach escape. I.e. more kinetic energy, which they obtained by the drop.

 

[Timo]

Radioactive material generates heat from decay, which is then exploited by RTGs to generate power; there is no similar reaction for antimatter in suspension, anti-deuterium doesn't just generate power

Fissionables are a one-trick pony: they are radioactive, a property nevertheless utilizable in multiple ways in RTGs, fission reactors and a number of other setups. Antimatter is a similar one-trick pony: it annihilates in contact with corresponding matter. Surely the annihilation can be made to happen in circumstances other than a "warp core" with its famed directed jets of reactants, dilithium foci and resulting warp plasma - I mean, it's darned difficult to keep it from happening in the general case. A "leakage-based" reactor quite analogous to an RTG could be rigged, in which the valve that normally lets out the fuel into the warp core now allows a bit of it to annihilate in a chamber that gathers the resultant energies and feeds them to the containment field.

Failing that, just rig an RTG to keep up the forcefield, which might not require much power to work. Most Trek technologies seem to call for a flashlight battery or at most two... (Almost literally - lights fail before artificial gravity does!)

They simply need to have more velocity to reach escape. I.e. more kinetic energy, which they obtained by the drop.

That won't work, of course - any energy gained would be lost in the upward travel, so that it would be zero again when they reached the level of the mountaintop.

Why would the ship or its components need speed? If the ship is supposed to get started in space normally, she will have to do so without speed, because in space there's nothing to compare the speed against.

Perhaps the ship needed acceleration, or more exactly lack thereof? Some components might not activate properly unless in zero gee (say, the plasma stream in the nacelles might droop and fail to hit its target), so Sulu had to keep the ship in freefall until said components flashed green, then activate the components, and with them activate the onboard gravity control systems that would make acceleration issues irrelevant.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dilandu]

That won't work, of course - any energy gained would be lost in the upward travel, so that it would be zero again when they reached the level of the mountaintop.

Yes, but it may gave them altitude. You could trade the velocity for altitude quite well in atmospheric flight, by using the aerodynamic lift.

 

[Timo]

You wouldn't really get higher than your original altitude even in an optimal glider, which the Franklin didn't appear to be. And in any case, Sulu never gained any altitude: he dove down, and then, there, at the bottom of the cliff, suddenly had all systems working, after which he could rocket into space.

Did anybody happen catch the actual dialogue...?

The lifepod turbocab was a nice touch. The diversity in escape pod types, too. Those shuttles trying to take off - people panicking and trying to escape before Kirk gave the order, or brave pilots trying to get out to shoot at the enemy or perhaps give the ship a push?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tomalak]

They made a big point that the Franklin was built in space, and therefore wouldn't work properly under planetary gravity. I don't recall all the dialogue, except the need to hit terminal velocity. I assumed the idea was to mimic weightlessness like the vomit comet, but isn't it the upward climb that produces that effect rather than the downward curve? I'm not a physicist, as you might have guessed.

 

[drt]

Perhaps the ship needed acceleration, or more exactly lack thereof? Some components might not activate properly unless in zero gee (say, the plasma stream in the nacelles might droop and fail to hit its target), so Sulu had to keep the ship in freefall until said components flashed green, then activate the components, and with them activate the onboard gravity control systems that would make acceleration issues irrelevant.

Oooo... I like this explanation.

 

[Ronald Held]

I think Timo is saying that the antimatter pods have a mechanism that allows them to utilize the stored antimatter as a power source to maintain the containment fields, yet doesn't utilize a dilithium enabled reaction. Which is actually a pretty clever idea and makes sense in-universe.

Fine, except where is the deuterium coming from? How is it reacting, and in what container, producing a plasma going into a generator to make electricity?

 

[lawman]

I do not understand. Still need power for refrigeration even if the magnets are superconducting. Batteries would work for a while, but need to be recharged or use fusion generators. Antideuterium is not radioactive and 22d century tech probably does not use radio thermal generators.

I think Timo is saying that the antimatter pods have a mechanism that allows them to utilize the stored antimatter as a power source to maintain the containment fields, yet doesn't utilize a dilithium enabled reaction. Which is actually a pretty clever idea and makes sense in-universe.

I think it's risky to let too much actual scientific knowledge (or speculation) contaminate our reasoning here. ;-) I take what Timo is saying as an attempt to make sense of an observed fact: it is not unusual in Trek for warp-capable starships to crash-land on planetary surfaces — or for that matter for ship's batteries to be drained while in space. We've seen examples of both on multiple occasions. Thus it stands to reason that one of the most important failsafes in Trek tech would be antimatter containment — otherwise any grounded (or drifting) ship would become a de facto time bomb ticking down to a massive explosion. Yet we never see or hear about that happening, or even any concern about it. Why? The most elegant solution is to assume that the antimatter is somehow used to sustain its own containment in case of emergency, until it's exhausted. The exact mechanism through which it does this is almost beside the point, since it's unavoidably completely imaginary...

 

[Dilandu]

Actually, it may not be that simple to explode large mass of antimatter. The problem would be, that any contact with matter would start from surface of antimatter mass, and the resulting X-ray emission would push the matter&antimatter apart from each other, before the whole mass would be able to annihilate. Basically, the uncontrolled annihilation of large mass of antimatter in the containment faliure situation would probably be more like burning, not single explosion. Of course. it would be VERY HOT burning, and with tremendous ammount of radiation...

To quickly explode large mass of antimatter you need either to separate it on small parts which would contact the matter smutaneously, or launch the antimatter toward matter on significant velocity.

 

[Ronald Held]

Lawman, you may be correct in that antimatter containment is always assumed to be the last thing to go, after gravity

 

[Timo]

I assumed the idea was to mimic weightlessness like the vomit comet, but isn't it the upward climb that produces that effect rather than the downward curve?

Throw a rock; any path the rock agrees to draw through the skies is a weightless path, aka a "freefall" one (save for the minor effect of air resistance). A simple drop downwards would do - but the Vomit Comet prolongs the experience by accelerating to an arch that goes both up and down, and cleverly adjusting the throttle of the (very much air resistance -affected) aircraft to mimic the path a simple, engine- and wing-free, thrown rock would make through the air.

Fine, except where is the deuterium coming from? How is it reacting, and in what container, producing a plasma going into a generator to make electricity?

Minor technical details. You don't need a big tank of deuterium (or whatever other stuff agrees to annihilate with antideuterium with proper tweaking) in comparison with the overall antideuterium supply, because supposedly forcefields don't consume nearly as much power as warp drives, and the big tank is sized for years of warp.

Lawman, you may be correct in that antimatter containment is always assumed to be the last thing to go, after gravity

...Perhaps those are much the same thing? Forcefields in Trek have not been described onscreen in detail, but backstage technobabble has shields as gravitic devices (gravitons suspended in a subspace trench). Which is pretty clever, because they would then repel anything with mass, including speeding photons! If gravity manipulation really is that easy, then idiotproof eternal containment seems plausible even for an organization that cannot keep its entertainment devices nonlethal.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[psCargile]

If we direct our browsers to search results of "terminal velocity" we'll quickly understand that the scene in the movie serves to heighten tension and the need to arrive at terminal velocity is "just some shit they made up." Terminal velocity is achieved when the drag of the falling object cancels out the acceleration due to gravity, and would be determined by the Franklin's mass, drag coefficient, and surface area incident to the relative wind, the planet's gravity, and the atmosphere's density. The Franklin's drag would have had to reduce it's acceleration to 0, and given the hypothetical mass of a starship, is it reasonable to assume the Franklin would have sufficient distance to achieve terminal velocity? Furthermore, could not terminal velocity be achieved better with thrusters designed to push the mass of the ship? Is this yet another case of writers not understanding the science they are trying to apply?

And if they needed free fall, they would have that as soon as they fell over the edge. No need for terminal velocity in that case.

Respect the Science!

 

[kazemiya]

Could it be they got the idea from actual v/tol jet fighter? If we observe harrier jet navy , some of their aircraft carrier are equipped with skijump. I think the concept is similar. The different is while harrier's thruster has more than enough power to lift it's body mass, the franklin doesn't. Both of the ship and aircraft using it's engine to increase lift. I guess the concept also similar to low yo yo in dogfight as well. Btw we got our enterprise totaled on this movie mwahahahaha.. i hope the enterprise could get her chance to have a fierce fight with equal opponent in next movie

 

[WinstonSmith]

The actual natives - no longer relevant (they all went extinct). I guess the big question is, were those natives the actual Ancients who built the superweapon, or merely folks pushed aside by the Ancients for their mining project?
The warriors under Krall's control - unknown (they were a slave species that might have been engineered either for longevity or then for ease of breeding, providing an endless supply of them for millennia in either case). Possibly the warriors/slaves live forever using a variant of the process that kept Krall alive, but I never got the impression the slaves would have been engaging in any kidnapping on their own, so it can't be the exact same process.
The assorted captives - varies by species (I don't think we ever learn how long Jaylah survived, or how young she was when escaping, or any specifics like that).

My understanding was that Krall's mindless minions (tm) were the 'drone workforce' left behind by the original inhabitants of the planet (who built the superweapon and then decided oops maybe we shouldn't have done that, broke it into bits) that's mentioned in a bit of blink-and-you'll-miss-it dialogue during Edison's personal log entry. in other words theyre basically robots, the only 'living' inhabitants of the planet being Krall, Kalara and the other snakehead dude that fights Jaylah at one point, along with the crews of ships they've been luring to the planet to 'absorb' for 100 years or so. Apparently Altamid is so far out that no starfleet crews have been out there yet (I think there's mention that the franklin fell through a wormhole or something?) so when krall bumps into one of yorktown's beacons and hacks into it, he realises that not only does the federation still exist but that the enterprise has the other half of the superweapon he's got stowed out the back somewhere and decides to lure them to the planet in the hopes of getting it.

As for the franklin drop, apart from being there basically because its cool, I think there's some mention of needing to drop in order for the 'atmospheric compensators to kick in'. So basically you have to drop the ship to make it realise it's not in space and have the atmospheric flight systems kick in

 

[Ronald Held]

I think the drop of the Franklin was done for visual reasons, as the ship is not an aero craft and only thing that might vary in an atmosphere is the shield configuration. Oops only hull plating available. You cannot expect to scoop up atmosphere and extract/process hydrogen that fast.