Cloaks and Torpedos

[Timo]

Depends on what it contains, I guess. If it's just 3,000 cubic meters of antideuterium (of unknown density), as the TNG tech manual suggests, then this annihilating in the mantle of a planet might just cause a moderate earthquake and perhaps a new volcano or a dozen. If there is fancier stuff going on, subspace interactions and rifts into parallel realms, then the planet might indeed be hurt pretty badly, though.

Not to mention that just an "ounce" (whatever that is in 23rd century terms) of Star Trek antimatter can rip apart a small planet's atmosphere, as in TOS "Obsession"... Presumably their antideuterium is more potent stuff than ours, then.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Transk53]

Re: Cloaks and Torpedos (Now Probably Off Topic Completely)

Unfortunately I never seem to remember episode names for long. If "Obsession" in on the Season 1 remastered DVD, I'll have a look at that.

I would imagine that natural Gravity levels, IE one that is very dense, may counter what would be a meteor hit in essence. A planet with lower Gravity may not be so lucky. Then again, perhaps the reverse would be true. Perhaps a planet would sprout plumes of volcanic matter and sheer itself apart from the inside.

 

[blssdwlf]

How does this account for warping through an ion storm ("Court Martial")...

Who said that the ship was at warp?

Timo beat me to it:
HANSON: Approaching ion storm, sir.
KIRK: Warp factor one, Mister Hanson.
HANSON: Warp one, sir.

... or the Earth's atmosphere (ST:IV)...

Well, I did say "ST IV notwithstanding." That's a problem in general. But I guess you could argue that the ship was merely in the stratosphere at that point, and perhaps was only at WF1 (which is "merely" the speed of light) at that point, or moving at WF6 (which, at the time, was still generally accepted to be c * 6^3, or 216c) so while dangerous (as was clearly inferred), the danger was not the same as if you were warping down into full 1ATM pressure. I thought that this was silly, though, and generally, I treat much of ST IV as in need of a bit of "retcon revision." Your mileage may vary.

Or arguably with warp engines engaged her proximity to Earth kept her actual speed below light speed until she cleared orbital distance. (I just answered my own question )

... or the Mutara Nebula (ST:II)?

Well, if the Mutara Nebula is like REAL nebulae... this would be a non-issue.

Since it is not quite like a REAL nebulae... You could look at it's characteristics: It has been observed to force multi-hundred thousand ton starships to "push" into the boundaries of it. It has been observed to affect the flight (turbulence) of same starships. It is doubtful it is a "light and fluffy" nebula.

 

[Timo]

Also, it seems to hold together (at least on a timescale of years) right next to a star.

By "hold together", I don't mean static existence. It might well be in the process of being sucked into the star while simultaneously being blown away by it, and its story might end just a few decades after the end credits of ST2 roll. But clearly it's quite unlike "real" nebulae, and high density would indeed be one parameter that would fit well with the evidence.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Starlock]

But clearly it's quite unlike "real" nebulae, and high density would indeed be one parameter that would fit well with the evidence.

Timo Saloniemi

Would some form of Dark Matter in the nebula be plausible?

 

[Cary L. Brown]

On ion storms and warp:

Lt Hanson: "Approaching ion storm, Sir."
Kirk: "Warp factor one, Mister Hanson."

On the limitations of navigational deflectors:

If they are good for pushing aside dust at warp 9, that already should give them enough oomph to push aside neutron stars at warp 1 - the difference in speed and related Newtonian energy is that extreme.

Timo Saloniemi

Well, by the "Old scale" for warp factors...

WF1 = c

WF9 = 9^3 x c, or 729c.

Last time I checked, a particle of sand is not 1/729th of the mass of a neutron star.

And even with the "WF10=infinity" recalibration, the "old scale" is largely approximated until you get into the higher values... really, WF9.2 and higher, new scale.

and kinetic energy, in any relative frame, is proportional to mass, by definition, and proportional to the square of velocity, by definition, as seen here:

which means that if you're talking about a velocity difference of 729:1, you're talking about a kinetic energy difference of 531,441:1, which is still quite a bit different from the "grain of sand to neutron star" level you mention, isn't it?

I tend to disregard the "Roddenberry recalibration," since the poor man was suffering from a severe degenerative neurological condition at that point in his life and was never really the "technical expert" on Trek matters even prior to that ("a fleet of modern airliners" in the hangar? Really? Main Engineering in the saucer, aft centerline? And on and on...) The man's ability to write enjoyable dialog was excellent, and his ability to turn a passable story into a great one during the late 1960s through his grasp of characterization was key to what made Trek great, but he was never really someone with a grasp of science, and his mental degradation merely exacerbated that.

But even if you really, really like the "Roddenberry warp scale recalibration," you can still turn the numbers around and you'll find that matters of newtonian physics, which applied to "warp drive" matters, simply don't apply, and would require the same "infinite energy" that real modern physics tell us that achieving light speed would require today.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You think that this would "flatten/incinerate" an entire continent... I think that this is a bit of an overestimation, but I also think you're dramatically overestimating the amount of antimatter carried at any time by a starship.

Well, just going by canonical references to antimatter being stored aboard. Privately I believe there are other things going on, but then, based on what I think is happening in a warp engine it would a very different reaction anyway.

FWIW, I have been left with the impression that the bollide impact at Yucatan that wiped out the dinosaurs is estimated to have produced a blast wave that would destroyed everything for several hundred miles and covered much of North America with a blanket of ash and ejecta material. But I admit it's been a couple of years since I last read anything on it so maybe that's out/outdated data?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

But clearly it's quite unlike "real" nebulae, and high density would indeed be one parameter that would fit well with the evidence.

Timo Saloniemi

Would some form of Dark Matter in the nebula be plausible?

To the extent that dark matter ITSELF is plausible.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

You think that this would "flatten/incinerate" an entire continent... I think that this is a bit of an overestimation, but I also think you're dramatically overestimating the amount of antimatter carried at any time by a starship.

Well, just going by canonical references to antimatter being stored aboard. Privately I believe there are other things going on, but then, based on what I think is happening in a warp engine it would a very different reaction anyway.

FWIW, I have been left with the impression that the bollide impact at Yucatan that wiped out the dinosaurs is estimated to have produced a blast wave that would destroyed everything for several hundred miles and covered much of North America with a blanket of ash and ejecta material. But I admit it's been a couple of years since I last read anything on it so maybe that's out/outdated data?

Oh, I agree with the Yucatan impact's... well, IMPACT on the world (and expect that the blast wave may have had direct impact for a thousand miles more more).

Of course, while we have good geological evidence of this impact, we don't REALLY know what happened... it's always good idea to distinguish between theory (which is what we're talking about) and fact (the dinosaurs might have died for some utterly unrelated reason, as far as we can know for certain, right?)

I believe that this is what happened, but I'm not going to treat it as "fact."

Re: warp drive, again...

I think we'll both have to agree that much of what's seen on-screen in Trek simply doesn't work. That as much does work as we've seen is nothing less than astounding, really, but it's not all one big, coherent structure, and without some "retconning" it can never be.

What I'm talking about is my own perspective on how I envision a "pocket-universe subspace bubble" warp drive system as working. I believe that this largely works in context with Star Trek as aired. But NO "real science" or "hypothetical science" model really fits with everything seen on-screen, does it?

To me, the "warp bubble" is really a separate universe-let, just slightly "offset" from real space-time. Within this little "pocket universe," the ship is essentially stationary. Perhaps momentum is conserved, in a sense, so that the momentum the ship has when entering "warp" is the same momentum is has when re-entering normal space-time, but this has no real relevance to "warp" as I envision it.

It is the "subspace bubble" which is traveling faster-than-light. Not the ship... which is, for all practical purposes, "stationary" inside of the bubble.

Mass which impinges on this bubble "falls into" the bubble. It does not flow at FTL speed within this bubble, though. It basically enters the bubble's volume at the same velocity it was at in real space/time.

The deflector beam pushes these particles, at "sublight velocity" inside of the bubble, back out of the bubble, where they "fall back" into real space-time with a velocity which is the vector sum of their original velocity and whatever new velocity was added to them by the deflector beam.

See? It's not moving FTL particles (relative to the frame of the ship) at all. It's moving sublight particles, outside of the bubble, or it's moving sublight particles, inside of the bubble, but in either case it's still moving particles at sublight.

Now... what happens when at warp, using this model? The very rarified atmosphere of deep space is much more dense inside of the bubble, but is not moving at higher velocity inside of the bubble. YOu're adding a lot more particles per unit time, but these particles are still at their basic "real space" velocity conditions inside of the bubble. So, if you're moving at WF6, the "in-bubble" particle density will be something along the order of 729 times the "warp transition" density. You'd be pushing the big chunks, the gravel, the sand, even the dust aside, but of course, you'd also be permitting free hydrogen (at 729 times warp transition space density) to pass through and to be collected by the bussard system... and this is likely why the ship shows some degree of "weathering" as well.

What is the difference between "real space" density and "warp transition" density? Well, that's a bit rougher... but my own rule-of-thumb is that, since relativity starts coming into play at about .75c, I cut things off there... the ship is in "warp" prior to 1c, and about .75c most likely.

That's my own model of how "warp" works. And I hope you can see how this works when you enter a full-density atmosphere. The relative velocity of the particles entering the "bubble" is not FTL, but the rate of entry is based upon the rate at which the bubble projected front surface is passing through this medium, and the rate of exit is based upon the rate at which the bubble projected aft surface is passing through.

Since density is greater at the leading "edge" than at the trailing "edge," the mass being added will exceed the mass being eliminated. Thus, my statement of "instantaneous hyper-pressure." But you'll still see so much mass passing into this field, even in atmosphere, that the flow rate will result in hyper-velocity flow.

Either, as far as I'm concerned, result in instantaneous destruction of the ship.

Now, going to warp LEAVING the atmosphere would eliminate the "hyper-pressurization" issue entirely... mass flow out will exceed mass flow in. There is no reason that the pressure inside the bubble would rise at all.

And since the particle velocity inside the field is the same as it was outside of the field, only altered by real physics inside the field (such as, for example, the rapid addition of lots of gas atoms and molecules at a very high rate of speed), it's not hard to imagine that as you leave the atmosphere, you'd be subjected to only a very brief period of extreme atmospheric drag, but not the same effect you'd see warping in.

It would still be VERY harsh on your ship, but orders of magnitude less so when exiting the atmosphere than when entering it, due to that pressure-gradient issue.

The only real issue is "how long does the subspace field continue to exist after the ship ceases actively generating it?"

And... as a corollary... is collapse related purely to time, or is it related to energy dissipation (meaning that the more mass is collected in the dissipating field, the faster the field collapses)? I tend to believe it's the latter, rather than the former, but there's no evidence either way.

In either case... warping into a planet will result in the destruction of the ship, either above ground, or at ground level, with the subspace field continuing for some brief period of time after the destruction of the ship.

The antimatter reserves will react with available matter and will result in a massive explosion, but the energy released by this explosion will be what we'd expect from real physics... the only effect of the subspace field would be to tell us WHERE this energy will be released, and how...

That's how I make all this fit together. I see no other way it can fit. But nobody has to buy into my take on warp drive but me, since there is no REAL "warp drive" science at all (and I'm including the hypothetical stuff currently being discussed in real-science circles, not merely fictional circles, by the way... none of it is proven at any level at this point!)

 

[Transk53]

Would some form of Dark Matter in the nebula be plausible?

Recommend you watch Professor Brian Cox in Wonders of the Universe. The bloke is a genius, yet makes it so simple.

In answer to your question, In my limited theory, maybe. Dark Matter does not reflect light or emit it, so I would think perhaps. Then again ST is fiction, so why not.

 

[tighr]

I tend to disregard the "Roddenberry recalibration," since the poor man was suffering from a severe degenerative neurological condition at that point in his life and was never really the "technical expert" on Trek matters even prior to that.

I'm not a huge fan of the recalibration, either. It simplified things a bit, but at the same time it imposed a baffling theoretical maximum to the speeds one could attain. Essentially it should have been a speed limit on the abilities of warp drive. I am OK with warp 10 being the maximum speed attainable using warp drive, but not with warp 10 = infinity. That's just non-sensical. Is Mach 1 the fastest you can go? Is the speed of light the fastest you can go? Why would warp 10 be the fastest you could go?

It would have been better to say that the technology that existed in the 24th century was only such that Warp 10 was possible, and Warp 10 = (x) speed. That allows for the possibility that future advancements in warp drive would allow Warp 11 and beyond to be reachable.

If he was hoping to squash things like transwarp, then imposing a Warp 10 maximum only served to hasten the development of alternative propulsion. I see technologies like transwarp, quantum slipstream, frequent wormholes, jump gates (the Graviton Catapult from The Voyager Conspiracy), etc as direct consequences of the stupid recalibration.

The very idea is flawed! if the whole point of warp drive is to bypass the FTL barrier, and the "transwarp threshold" is meant to be speeds past warp 10, then warp 10 CANNOT equal infinity.

 

[Judy Waxhorn]

I take it to mean a limitation on what is possible with warp-drive.

I pay no heed to the nonsensical meta-crap such as "what Roddenberry says."

Stupid rules like that get in the way of a good story.

 

[tighr]

I take it to mean a limitation on what is possible with warp-drive.

Sure, I would too. If not for the Voyager episode Threshold, which clearly depicts the events of what happens when Warp 10 is achieved.

Nonsensical.

 

[blssdwlf]

Well there is also "Best of Both Worlds" where the E-D had to go in and out of the Paulson nebula at sublight instead of warp. Perhaps the warping through an atmosphere "limitation" is a TNG idea?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Mass which impinges on this bubble "falls into" the bubble. It does not flow at FTL speed within this bubble, though. It basically enters the bubble's volume at the same velocity it was at in real space/time.

The deflector beam pushes these particles, at "sublight velocity" inside of the bubble, back out of the bubble, where they "fall back" into real space-time with a velocity which is the vector sum of their original velocity and whatever new velocity was added to them by the deflector beam.

See? It's not moving FTL particles (relative to the frame of the ship) at all. It's moving sublight particles, outside of the bubble, or it's moving sublight particles, inside of the bubble, but in either case it's still moving particles at sublight.

The problem with this is it takes a certain amount of time to push those particles back outside the warp field. In a dense enough field of gas, as those particles are leaving the warp field they collide with particles falling into it again, creating a compression wave. The deflector beam itself acts as a physical barrier against which those particles now collide exactly as if the warp field were a physical shell plowing through space. IOW, the deflector beam creates a boundary layer for a shock front.

This also ignores the fact that those particles will be compressed as they pass through the warp field in the first place, just by virtue of the ship's immense forward motion. The sudden reduction of relative velocity between the outside and inside of the field once again produces a shock front and incoming gas collides with the accelerated gas in front of it, again forming a boundary layer.

Now... what happens when at warp, using this model? The very rarified atmosphere of deep space is much more dense inside of the bubble, but is not moving at higher velocity inside of the bubble.

It doesn't have to be, it's still moving at higher velocity than the material OUTSIDE the bubble and thus creating bow shock in front of it. See, the difference in velocities between the two regions is what causes that shockwave: so long as particles are able to move freely across the warp field boundary AND so long as their velocity on one side of the field is higher than their velocity on the other, a bow shock will form in front of the ship. The only way to prevent this is to create a situation where particles can enter the warp field but cannot leave it again and thus matter in warped space cannot interact with the outside universe.

That's my own model of how "warp" works. And I hope you can see how this works when you enter a full-density atmosphere. The relative velocity of the particles entering the "bubble" is not FTL

You're misusing the definition of "relative velocity" and that's where the problem is coming. You're saying the particles that have entered the warp field aren't moving at FTL velocity relative to the starship, which is true. It doesn't change the fact that they ARE moving at FTL velocity relative to EVERYTHING ELSE, and the shock layer will still form on the front of the warp field as long as those two reference frames are allowed to interact.

Either, as far as I'm concerned, result in instantaneous destruction of the ship.

Nothing is instantaneous, especially in physics.

The only real issue is "how long does the subspace field continue to exist after the ship ceases actively generating it?"

Depends on the warp drive method being used. TMP-era starships could take between 20 and 30 seconds.

That's how I make all this fit together. I see no other way it can fit. But nobody has to buy into my take on warp drive but me, since there is no REAL "warp drive" science at all (and I'm including the hypothetical stuff currently being discussed in real-science circles, not merely fictional circles, by the way... none of it is proven at any level at this point!)

Well, there's always the possibility that a warp drive is principally similar to an artificial gravity field (or an alcubierre surfboard) in which case the ship will be physically accelerated forward by the field and will retain that forward momentum until something interacts to slow it down. The drag force in that case is the interaction with the navigational deflectors pushing all that material out of the way, or the leading edge of the warp field itself.

Another thought, however, comes to mind: someone on another thread suggested that the difference between phasers and disruptors may be that the latter uses gravimetric/subspace fields to impart kinetic energies on targets, like a sort of weaponized tractor beam acting at a distance (at least, the Eminian disruptors arguably acted on this principle). When you think about the Enterprise-D using its main deflector dish as a weapon in "Best of Both Worlds" it makes me wonder if warp-like energy beams might be a fairly simple application, especially if you can get a disruptor to channel warp nine into a planet's surface. In that sense, you'd get all the hyper-hyper velocity compression of a kamikaze warp drive without the trouble of sacrificing an entire starship.

 

[Transk53]

All this would be great topic matter, if the content actually exsisted. Where is the proof that Warp could actually be used as method of interstellar travel. And more to the point that a mythical crystal is needed to regulate. Other tech needed etc etc.

 

[tighr]

Where is the proof that Warp could actually be used as method of interstellar travel.

727 episodes of Trek.

Did you want me to list them for you?

 

[Transk53]

Where is the proof that Warp could actually be used as method of interstellar travel.

727 episodes of Trek.

Did you want me to list them for you?

LMAO. Not necessary, you have just reinforced my point

 

[Sandoval]

727 episodes of Trek.

Did you want me to list them for you?

If you wouldn't mind.

 

[Transk53]

As my thread has been hijacked, I am merely asking that from an Engineering aspect, that someone post a plausible explanation that a Warp Drive or Core is technically possible. Anybody can watch Star Trek, but it is not definitive.