Dilithium questions

[Ryan8bit]

I realize that Dilithium is a fictional substance with fictional properties. I also realize that originally they wanted to use lithium, but the real properties of lithium didn't make sense in context to their use. Therefore, I don't accept that earlier ships ran on lithium crystals.

My questions are:
1. Is Earth or the Sol System supposed to have dilithium?
2. Did the Phoenix, Zefram Cochrane's ship, use dilithium?
3. Do Federation and Klingon ships absolutely require dilithium? Have they always? I understand Romulan ships operate differently, and if I recall, they don't need dilithium.
4. It's been a while since I dared to watch Enterprise again, but did the NX-01 and ships of that era use dilithium?
5. Is dilithium supposed to be rare?

Basically, if you need dilithium, and we don't have it in our system, then how could we ever leave?

 

[Carpe Occasio]

If starships ran on Lithium then you could probably never fire phasers or go to warp because the ship would be too chilled out.

 

[Baldus885]

If the ships ran on Lithium-Ion batteries, you could recharge them.

I know it's not canon, but in Birth of the Federation, Sol was marked as having dilithium. If Dilithium were the only way to drive a warp engine then it stands to reason that Sol has Dilithium somewhere within it, at least enough to get to another system containing more.

 

[Carpe Occasio]

If the ships ran on Lithium-Ion batteries, you could recharge them.

I know it's not canon, but in Birth of the Federation, Sol was marked as having dilithium. If Dilithium were the only way to drive a warp engine then it stands to reason that Sol has Dilithium somewhere within it, at least enough to get to another system containing more.

What's up with that avatar? Star Trek: TPG (The Peruvian Generation).

 

[Timo]

1. Is Earth or the Sol System supposed to have dilithium?

No onscreen hints for or against.

2. Did the Phoenix, Zefram Cochrane's ship, use dilithium?

No onscreen hints for or against. The Phoenix may or may not have had an antimatter powerplant; all we know is that "intermix" was a feature of that vessel, but it's not a term exclusive to engines that mix matter and antimatter.

3. Do Federation and Klingon ships absolutely require dilithium? Have they always? I understand Romulan ships operate differently, and if I recall, they don't need dilithium.

No onscreen... You know the drill. Romulan ships are supposed to use small black holes instead of antimatter, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't use dilithium as well. And certainly it seems to be important to the Romulans that they get to mine dilithium from Remus, the hellhole twin planet to their lush Romulus.

4. It's been a while since I dared to watch Enterprise again, but did the NX-01 and ships of that era use dilithium?

NX-01 and supposedly NX-02 definitely used dilithium. The first hints were given in "Cold Front", but there was a long technobabble tirade about the role of dilithium in, I think "Bounty" in the 4th season. Essentially, the NX ships use it the same way as TNG era ships are supposed to. But probably this is the exact breakthrough that allows those new ships to travel at warp 5 - the older vessels probably don't have dilithium.

5. Is dilithium supposed to be rare?

In TOS, yes. In TNG, it can probably be replicated at will. But the Romulans still use Reman slave labor for mining it - perhaps to give the slaves something to do?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ryan8bit]

I know it's not canon, but in Birth of the Federation, Sol was marked as having dilithium. If Dilithium were the only way to drive a warp engine then it stands to reason that Sol has Dilithium somewhere within it, at least enough to get to another system containing more.

BOTF is kind of why I came up with this question. They use it that way just for the mechanics of the game, which the use of dilithium was a little weird.

 

[asdf1]

I can't remember where, and i don't think it was canon, but i remember reading somewhere that one of our planets (Mars i think) was rich in dilithium, which is where Zefram Cochrane got it for the Phoenix.

 

[JoeZhang]

I can't remember where, and i don't think it was canon, but i remember reading somewhere that one of our planets (Mars i think) was rich in dilithium, which is where Zefram Cochrane got it for the Phoenix.

Same in Federation where they realised that many lithium rocks actually extended into the forth dimension and were dilithium..

 

[Ryan8bit]

Missed the post by Timo. Thanks for your answers.

I'm kind of disappointed that in Nemesis they made dilithium mines on Remus. Mostly because dilithium is supposed to regulate the anti-matter flow, and if your ships are powered by singularities, you wouldn't think they need it.

5. Is dilithium supposed to be rare?

In TOS, yes. In TNG, it can probably be replicated at will. But the Romulans still use Reman slave labor for mining it - perhaps to give the slaves something to do?

I doubt it could be replicated. I'm sure there's some tech-speak mumbo-jumbo that would prevent that. Otherwise, why would Remus still need said mines? Why would the vorta in "One Little Ship" care so much about Coridan's dilithium?

I always thought that Scotty's little method of restoring dilithium crystals in TVH was kind of silly because it somewhat negates the need to mine large quantities of it, right?

 

[Timo]

Well, as far as we are told, replicators can replicate everything, without exceptions.

It's just that obviously it's not always worth the while to create certain goods or products via replication. Perhaps dilithium is so hellishly complex to replicate (or, thanks to weird physics, requires so much energy to replicate) that it's easier to just mine the damn stuff?

...Certainly dilithium would remain valuable in the 24th century even if the superpowers knew how to replicate it, as they could still sell it to lesser species at top credit.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kemaiku]

1. Is Earth or the Sol System supposed to have dilithium?

No.

2. Did the Phoenix, Zefram Cochrane's ship, use dilithium?

No.

3. Do Federation and Klingon ships absolutely require dilithium? Have they always? I understand Romulan ships operate differently, and if I recall, they don't need dilithium.

Federation and Klingon: Yes. Romulan: No.

4. It's been a while since I dared to watch Enterprise again, but did the NX-01 and ships of that era use dilithium?

Yes.

5. Is dilithium supposed to be rare?

Very.

Dilithium and Latnium have been stated onscreen to be non-replicateble.

 

[Haytil]

1. Is Earth or the Sol System supposed to have dilithium?

If not, then perhaps it can be generated artificially in a lab. If it's really expensive, then that would explain why mining a natural source is more ideal. But if a culture doesn't have a natural source available on their planet, they may be able to artificially construct it (particle accelerators and all that), even if it is inefficient.

2. Did the Phoenix, Zefram Cochrane's ship, use dilithium?

Based on the use of the term "intermix ratio," we can assume that Cochrane used matter/anti-matter reactions to power his vessel, which would require dilithium. So either they found a source on Earth, or another planet/asteroid in the system, or made some in a lab (though this may have been very difficult/expensive).

I'm kind of disappointed that in Nemesis they made dilithium mines on Remus. Mostly because dilithium is supposed to regulate the anti-matter flow, and if your ships are powered by singularities, you wouldn't think they need it.

Who's to say that other power sources on Romulus (or on lesser Romulan ships) don't use matter/anti-matter reactions? The quantum singularities are dangerous - we know this not only because black holes inherently are, but because we saw one of the major risks take shape in an episode of TNG. So maybe they're only reserved for the big battleships of the Romulan navy, while smaller ships and domestic power plants on planets use more conventional means of power generation.

Sort of like how we have nuclear submarines, but also ships and power plants in the US that use other, more conventional, less dangerous methods of power generation.

Also, maybe the Romulans mine it on Remus to sell it to other cultures. Even if the Romulans don't use it, it's clear that many others throughout the galaxy can, so it's a valuable resource that can be traded.

I doubt it could be replicated. I'm sure there's some tech-speak mumbo-jumbo that would prevent that. Otherwise, why would Remus still need said mines? Why would the vorta in "One Little Ship" care so much about Coridan's dilithium?

Maybe the cost of mining it is much less than the cost of replicating it. If it's an inherently difficult structure to replicate, then it may be more ideal to dig it out of the ground. If you have a natural source, no reason not to use it - either in your own plants, or to sell to others.

Well, as far as we are told, replicators can replicate everything, without exceptions.

Latinum can't be replicated.

 

[Timo]

Based on the use of the term "intermix ratio," we can assume that Cochrane used matter/anti-matter reactions to power his vessel, which would require dilithium

.

I'd really hesitate to jump to such a conclusion. "Intermix ratio" would be inherent in any bifuel system, such as a chemical reactor, or a tritium-deuterium fusion reactor.

And I don't see why matter/antimatter would always require dilithium, either. Nothing of the sort has been established onscreen. It's just that dilithium plus matter/antimatter seems to be the best possible combination available to 24th century tech, not that it would be the only one.

The quantum singularities are dangerous - we know this not only because black holes inherently are, but because we saw one of the major risks take shape in an episode of TNG. So maybe they're only reserved for the big battleships of the Romulan navy, while smaller ships and domestic power plants on planets use more conventional means of power generation.

Quite possible. This would explain why our heroes didn't make a big discovery in "The Defector" or "The Next Phase" even though they had a chance to study a Romulan scoutship at close range (or even from the inside).

Then again, it would be nice to think that the Romulan vessel from TOS "Balance of Terror" already used a quantum singularity power system, explaining why Scotty would mistakenly think their power was "simple impulse" - the telltales of a m/am powerplant would be absent.

Latinum can't be replicated.

That's just a theory never explicated on screen. As far as we know, latinum can be replicated just like everything else - perhaps it's just that there's no point in replicating GPL bricks any more than there would be in replicating dollar bills, because replication would create identical bricks or bills, down to the serial numbers, making the forgeries worthless in a world where instantaneous cross-checking via computer is the norm.

It would be a separate point that latinum as a material is coveted for jewelry. This need not have anything to do with rarity, and could have everything to do with prettiness.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[captcalhoun]

in the novel "Prime Directive" it's stated Earth had quartz which was actually dilithium and it was only because of later discoveries of 4-dimensional subspace physics that this was discovered...

 

[Crewman47]

Here's a question that I guess has been asked before but do Starships (not just Federation) carry spare Dilithiuum crystals and if not, why not? You'd think that with the problems that can occur with these valuable, possibly rare minerals that the major races could afford to have least a few spare crystals just in case something does go wrong.

I know it may just be a plot point but just think that if BoP in TVH had a spare set of crystals then Checkov and Uhura would never have needed to go and search for Nooclear Wessels and steal there Radiation what's its from the Enterprise, resulting in the capture and eventual hospitalising of Checkov. Same thing in that TOS epsiode where there Crystals are loosing power one at time. If they had spares then they'd just swap out the burnt out one and put in the new one.

Do you think that the crystals are really that rare that Starfleet and the major races can't even afford to put spares on there ships?

 

[Timo]

I'd argue that the crystals we saw failing one by one in "Mudd's Women" were spares. Only a couple of them would normally be in active use at a time, and when one failed, a replacement would come online. It's just that yes, the crystals were rare enough that a starship might only have four of them aboard (two active, two spares).

Alternately, we could argue that the crystals in "Mudd's Women" were all that was left from the ship's previous, exceptionally long and demanding mission - the trip to the outer limits of the galaxy in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". After all, "Mudd's Women" directly follows this episode in stardate order. Perhaps starships normally carry a greater number of spares.

But again in "The Alternative Factor", four crystals is what the ship seems to have available. At least, when they all go dead due to the strange spatiotemporal hiccup, we see just four of them recharged, in a machine obviously designed for recharging four. But that could be because the crystals aren't supposed to all die at once, so the machine has been built with the capacity for only four at a time - there may be dozens of equally dead spares waiting elsewhere for their turn at the recharge machine.

Note that Kirk is never truly worried about running out of crystals in that episode, not even when the two Lazari steal a pair of those each. The ship still continues to operate just fine, the transporters run, the phasers fire, etc. This might suggest that there are more than just the four crystals aboard.

Now, the idea of Klingons running their ships without spares I have no problem with. Standard pseudo-Russkie mentality there.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ryan8bit]

I'd really hesitate to jump to such a conclusion. "Intermix ratio" would be inherent in any bifuel system, such as a chemical reactor, or a tritium-deuterium fusion reactor.

Would fusion even give the necessary power for warp flight though? I suppose warp 1 for a limited test flight could run off fusion, but that would take a LOT of storage capacity. At least 100x more than it would for antimatter.

 

[Timo]

I don't see why fusion would not cut it. We know nothing at all about the power requirements of warp, after all. As far as canon is concerned, burning of coal might suffice for firing up a small warp coil.

It may of course be that one doesn't need just power to fire up the warp coils: one may need some sort of an exotic particle that is only produced in annihilation/pair formation reactions (say, the warp particles of VOY "Parallax" infamy), whether those take place due to deuterium/antideuterium collisions or some sort of Hawking radiation at the edge of a quantum singularity.

And of course, storage capacity deals with energy. Power is a function of how fast you can feed your fuel into the reaction as much as it is a function of how much energy is released per time unit of reaction. A fast-proceeding fusion reaction might beat antimatter if you can feed more deuterium per second than you can feed antimatter. And I could easily see limitations in the ability to pump antimatter as opposed to pumping simple hydrogen.

Timo Saloniemi