Did the Auto-destruct partially malfunction in TSFS?

[royalfan5]

The way the Enterprise blows up has always kind of bothered me. You have the Bridge detonate, then the partial collapse and detonation of the saucer section, then a slow fiery descent into the atmosphere. (Providing a great shot for the movie, which I understand is the actual reason for the sequence, as well a good analogy to how a seafaring ship would sink if scuttled)

However, if that is the way the auto-destruct was supposed to function, wouldn't that potentially leave a partial hulk for for enemies to scavenge if there wasn't a planet nearby to fall into?

It make sense to believe that the sequence at least partially failed due to the existing battle damage doesn't it?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

They probably did it for the dramatic effect of the secondary hull burning up in the atmosphere, with the crew watching.

Technically speaking, the entire ship should have been obliterated, for the reason you mentioned.

 

[Timo]

There is some merit to the famous backstage rationalization (printed e.g. in Shane Johnson's Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise) that scuttling near planets is normally done gently (by verbally selecting "Destruct Zero", the otherwise nonsensical phrase we hear Kirk use), because blowing up the entire ship and its antimatter powerplant ("Destruct One") would result in too much damage to the planet. Remember how just a tiny part of the ship's antimatter stores ripped half the atmosphere off a planet in "Obsession"?

Especially ST3:TSfS would call for the velvet gloves because Kirk hoped to make use of the planet afterwards! Of course, this supposes that "Destruct Zero" involves not just a limited use of explosives but also a controlled ejection of all the antimatter before the ship otherwise disintegrates, either from the scuttling charges or from atmospheric impact. But this is a good supposition to make; those warp core ejectors and whatnot don't seem to work too well in saving ships from destruction, so perhaps they are actually optimized for destruction scenarios?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kemaiku]

Genesis was dying anyway, hardly matters.

 

[Jeyl]

When it comes to the Self-Destruct mechanic, I've always thought there were many various ways a ship could destroy itself. One through matter anti-matter, one through explosive charges, one through unmanned collision courses, ect.

I think with TSFS, it was the charge because as everyone has said, a matter anti-matter reaction would have destroyed a good chunk of the planet, let alone the Bird of Prey that was sitting right next to the Enterprise.

Although, the more I think about an event where the Enterprise blows up completely without a huge chunk of the secondary hull would have been an interesting idea. Picture if you will that Instead of a meteor like object going through the atmosphere, it was more like a meteor shower. Bits and pieces of the Enterprise continuously entering the atmosphere for the rest of the planet's duration. Would have been a nice backdrop showing the burning debris in the background with Kirk fighting Kruge. The sight of Genesis exploding and the flaming debris of the Enterprise coming out of the sky? Talk about getting a sense of destruction.

 

[Kemaiku]

No.

Grissom's engine core overloading did nothing to the Genesis planet earlier in the movie.

In Generations the Enterprise D's much bigger, much more powerful warp core going up did nothing to Veridian 3.

So obviously that's not it.

 

[Jeyl]

So obviously that's not it.

Unfortunately like a lot of things, how much power a self-destruct has is a bit of a mixed bag. One time Scotty said it would destroy V'Ger's GIGANTIC SPACESHIP, other times it knocks the saucer section's helm controls.

 

[Kemaiku]

Most of the time an entire ship blowing up, which would take all the antimatter with it anyway, only affects maybe a few kilometers. We've never seen a core explosion that should be true to life except for Trek XI, which may have been partly the red matter hole's influence too.

 

[Timo]

And of course it may be that a destruct by external forces can be a "Destruct Zero" on occasion, a "Destruct One" on another. The default setting on any Federation starship would probably be "in case of destruction, eject all antimatter for minimizing the effects". Which would explain how the very concept of starship wreckage can exist in the Star Trek universe; without "Destruct Zero" type precautions, the vicinity of Wolf 359 should have been a gaseous anomaly rather than a scrap yard.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kemaiku]

We don't see antimatter pods escaping and most of the time there would literally be no time.

Ships blow up a lot with antimatter still onboard and it never creates all that big a bang.

First Contact had ships still very much in action being vapourised with no huge antimatter explosions, caught too suddenly to do anything about it.

 

[SchwEnt]

Yeah, different modes of self-destruct.

As in TMP, the antimatter can be released for an uncontrollable explosive result. Not a designed self-destruct, but rather a result of removing all safeties regarding the ship's antimatter.

There's the "Destruct Zero" scenario, seen in TSFS, which is evidently a controlled self-destruct. Perhaps intended to scuttle a ship or to prevent capture. A method designed to affect the ship itself and not inflict damage elsewhere. As mentioned, Kirk would be needing the nearby Bird of Prey intact.

There's the "Destruct One" option, designed to cause maximum damage to the ship and everything else in the area. Perhaps a combination of on-board charges and explosive overloads and antimatter containment shutdowns, all sequenced for maximum damage and destruction.

 

[Timo]

We don't see antimatter pods escaping and most of the time there would literally be no time.

No time to see them going, perhaps, but the computers would have time to yawn between "terminal damage from Klingon disruptors detected" and "antimatter safely dumped". The modern military has several comparable systems in action, including certain types of reactive armor or ejection seats; split-second reaction times aren't particularly hard to pull off.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[R. Star]

I dunno, a charge of some sort seems a great contingency option if power to over load the warp core or anti-matter systems or whatever is off line. How many times in TNG/VOY was the self-destruct somehow damaged or otherwise disabled?

 

[Timo]

Apparently, only a very small fraction of the cases, if every instance of a wreck being left behind marks a successful ejection.

Clearly, ejecting while the ship still remains undestroyed is a dangerous operation: if any of this potent Star Trek antimatter is spilled in the process, the crew will die anyway. So the ejection system probably never will save lives aboard the doomed ship. But it will save lives aboard ships next to that one!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jerikka Dawn]

We don't know that the Enterprise woudn't have been rendered completely useless to the enemy absent its fall toward Genesis. Genesis just happened to be there, and when the explosion pushed it toward the planet, it broke up in the atmosphere. That doesn't mean that the self destruct mechanism used wasn't enough to render the ship completely destroyed -- it just means that crashing into the Genesis atmosphere likely destroyed the ship before all the charges left to go off had a chance to do it themselves.

 

[Kronos]

It has always seemed to me that the charges blew up the bridge, auxiliary control, enviromental controls and the computer system, basically creating a load of scrap but not making a bang that might damage the only other ship to escape on.

 

[Timo]

It's just that it very much looks like all the really important parts of the ship, mainly the warp engines and the location where the warp core and the torpedo launchers reside, were left completely intact by the explosions we could see, for an extended period of time at least - which does make one think that something went wrong with the scuttling charges. Perhaps they did not completely fail to detonate, but some of them were apparently badly delayed, possibly badly enough to allow a swiftly acting enemy to stop further detonations. There are many stories of warship scuttlings here on Earth being stopped by a brave and determined boarding party...

If a malfunction is ruled out, then it looks like the scuttling charges were optimized to go gently on the warp drive, for whatever reason.

Or perhaps the charges malfunctioned the other way? Perhaps Kirk only wanted to blow up the areas with Klingon boarders, so that he could later return to the wreck and fly it back to Earth, but something went wrong, the entire saucer blew and the fell from orbit. Kirk's "What have I done?" takes a new meaning here...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

That would certainly provide a clearer answer to the old question of "why didn't Kirk just beam over to the nearly empty BOP?"

On the other hand, if Kirk only meant to kill (or incapacitate) the Klingon borders, wouldn't making use of the intruder alert systems be a sensible route to pursue? Knockout gas, phasers on wide beam, even just some locked doors all seem less drastic than resorting to dynamite!!!

 

[jayrath]

Or even just drop the bulkheads and turn off the turbolifts? It'd take a week for the boarding party to zap their way to the bridge. (Accommodating of them to beam into a transporter room, and not right onto the bridge, incidentally.)

None of it makes too much sense, but perhaps auto-destruct and intruder containment were some of the systems damaged in the BoP attack. Lots of other things already went gaflooey, and Kirk & Co. no longer had any hope of running the ship themselves.

So the only hope was destroying the bridge and (more far more importantly) computer core, and letting the atmosphere do the rest of the work.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Shane Johnson's idea of there being a "destruct one" and a "destruct zero" could still work if the latter is used to ensure enough clearance for last-second lifeboats and transporters, IMO. The former could be used when any evacuation of the ship isn't possible or feasible.