Dilithium crystals for C-57-D saucer?

[Ronald Held]

Spock almost always speaks literally.
I thought that each Lazarus was 'converted" going through the corridor, so that only matter was on Kirk's side, regardless of which Lazarus it was.
I was using the same mechanism that existed in the DCU going back and forth to Qward.

 

[Christopher]

^^I have to admit, that almost makes sense. Too bad the rest of the episode still doesn't make sense.

 

[larryman]

So, if I install 'TAF' dilithium crystals within the entire C-57-D perimiter edge, and energized them with output from the fusion reactor... the crystals could emit a ship-surrounding extra-dimensional field. Which places the C-57-D into a ghostly hyperspace enviornment (somewhat similar to the TAS corridor) - where speed of light can be exceeded by using hyperdrive, rather than space-warp drive.

This might lead to a visible dilithium red glowing ring on the saucer's perimiter edge, when in hyperspace flight. That would be in addition to the red glowing original hyperdrive engine. I think that would be an acceptable alteration, because the red ring would only be visible for hyperspace flight. And other aspects of the original short hyperspace flight scenes need alterations also - the saucer's flight orientation, and the hyperspace visual enviornment.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

So, if I install 'TAF' dilithium crystals within the entire C-57-D perimiter edge, and energized them with output from the fusion reactor... the crystals could emit a ship-surrounding extra-dimensional field. Which places the C-57-D into a ghostly hyperspace enviornment (somewhat similar to the TAS corridor) - where speed of light can be exceeded by using hyperdrive, rather than space-warp drive.

This might lead to a visible dilithium red glowing ring on the saucer's perimiter edge, when in hyperspace flight. That would be in addition to the red glowing original hyperdrive engine. I think that would be an acceptable alteration, because the red ring would only be visible for hyperspace flight. And other aspects of the original short hyperspace flight scenes need alterations also - the saucer's flight orientation, and the hyperspace visual enviornment.

Dude... as much as I like to treat this stuff seriously sometimes, I try to connect "real world facts" with reasonable speculation.

Everything you just wrote was basically "magic." If you want to write a story which has the visuals you just described... GO FOR IT. But honestly, there is no connection whatsoever between the fictional "dilithium crystal" concept and the "cool visual effects" stuff you just described there.

If you want to have "cool visual effects" in a story, put 'em in. If you want to use "technobabble" about "dilithium crystals" or "unobtanium hull members" or whatever... put 'em in.

But what you just wrote simply doesn't "follow" in any logical fashion whatsoever. "Cool red lights" is unrelated to ANYTHING "factual" or logical... much less to anything anyone has discussed so far in this thread.

Often, when you're trying to come up with some "fictional science" to represent a unique or new setting... you're simply better off NOT EXPLAINING THINGS AT ALL. Focus on telling a story. If you want to get into the "technology" of the setting, start with reality and expand on that in only the places where reality, as we know it, can't explain things you want to do.

Ideally, if a story is well-told, you don't NEED to explain things. In a cop drama, nobody stops to explain the mechanisms inside the cop's car or gun or whatever... it's there to serve a purpose to the story, and as long as it does so, WHO CARES "how" it works, as long as it doesn't work in a way that violates stuff that the audience already knows!

 

[larryman]

^^ Ok.

 

[Tigger]

Christopher is correct, that TAF is the only TOS episode which presents dilithium crystals as possessing some intrinsic power of their own, which can be depleted and can be re-charged via a re-amplifying process.

While not part of TOS, we should remember that in Star Trek IV radioactive photons from a fission nuclear reactor were necessary to recrystallize the drained dilithium crystals of the Klingon Bird of Prey.

 

[Timo]

Neutrons, man, neutrons. "Radioactive photons" are science fiction. Neutrons are hard science fact.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

Neutrons, man, neutrons. "Radioactive photons" are science fiction. Neutrons are hard science fact.

Huh? Gamma rays are high-energy photons. Of course, photons themselves are not radioactive, but then, neither are neutrons. They're both types of radiation given off by radioactive atoms undergoing decay.

And while TVH's technobabble about capturing and storing photons for later use may have been gibberish at the time, in recent years scientists have actually found ways to "freeze" or "store" photons (actually by storing their quantum information in a Bose-Einstein condensate and later causing it to emit identical photons).

 

[Timo]

Oops, sorry, I falsely remembered that ST4 spoke about neutrons specifically. Thankfully, neither the expression "radioactive neutrons" (as such plausible, since neutrons can do radio-decay) nor "radioactive photons" (not plausible as such, unless one means photons created by radioactivity) was used - all Spock ever said was "high energy photons". That is, gamma leaks from the fission reactors of the carrier.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tigger]

That is what I get for quoting the plot part of the Wiki entry in 10 seconds rather then pull out my ST IV DVD and spend 10 minutes trying to find the actual quote.

When I read it, I did feel it was silly, but then this is Star Trek, after all, and there are plenty of examples of such silliness in plots, so I accepted it at face value.

 

[Basill]

Spock almost always speaks literally.
I thought that each Lazarus was 'converted" going through the corridor, so that only matter was on Kirk's side, regardless of which Lazarus it was.
I was using the same mechanism that existed in the DCU going back and forth to Qward.

^^I have to admit, that almost makes sense. Too bad the rest of the episode still doesn't make sense.

That is actually how I always retconned it since my young times. Lazarus's device was more than a bridge but also a sort of "flipper" so that one could cross over safely. You step through and then suddenly <He-man voice> "By the power of Einstein!" YOU yourself are anti-you. Otherwise Kirk would have annihilated the moment he touched the atmosphere, much less stepped out onto the surface (not to mention all the other Lazarus zippy do's prior.)

Christopher's right though. Episode still sucks.

 

[Ronald Held]

He is correct from a scientific viewpooint.

 

[GilmourD]

Would dilithium crystals be useful in a Forbidden Planet C-57-D hyperspace patrol saucer? The saucer is only atomic powered (probably fusion reaction), and uses no anti-matter fule. It's speed is 17-ly per year (aproximately equilivant to warp 3 or warp 4).

Uhhh... Yyyyeah... and why not throw in a flux capacitor and an interociter while you're at it? And reverse the polarity of the neutron flow in the oscillation overthruster.

And remember! Don't cross the beams!

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Would dilithium crystals be useful in a Forbidden Planet C-57-D hyperspace patrol saucer? The saucer is only atomic powered (probably fusion reaction), and uses no anti-matter fule. It's speed is 17-ly per year (aproximately equilivant to warp 3 or warp 4).

Uhhh... Yyyyeah... and why not throw in a flux capacitor and an interociter while you're at it? And reverse the polarity of the neutron flow in the oscillation overthruster.

And remember! Don't cross the beams!

Why not cross the beams? Would it be bad?

 

[Hofner]

Unfortunately the debate over whether dilithium crystals can be installed in the C-57D is moot.

Sadly the C-57D met its end when the giant Agnes Moorehead smashed it to smithereens.

Robert

 

[Christopher]

Or was that when Jack Klugman and Ross Martin crashed it into a ghost planet?