Dilithium

[topcat]

if a copper cable was used, it was be a bundle of individual cables.
ENT warp cores don't use dilithium at all. Its just a stream of anti matter injected into a stream of anti matter.
TNG the enterprise could stay at warp velocity even if the crystals were removed for inspection. Ideally the crystals merely went back to being nothing more then a device used to smooth out the warp plasma inside the core. before it was injected into the primary plasma conduits.
And warp plasma has always been nothing more then the byproduct of matter and anti matter reacting with each other inside the warp core.

 

[Timo]

ENT warp cores don't use dilithium at all.

Nope. They work exactly like TNG cores - the relevant technobabble from the TNG Tech manual is quoted almost verbatim in the fourth-season ENT episode "Bound". (Onboard dilithium gets a mention in the early "Cold Front" already, but its exact role isn't explicated there yet.)

In all the shows but TOS, we know antimatter annihilates either inside or next to dilithium; in TOS, this may or may not happen. We know power comes out. We don't know the nature of the power for sure - "warp plasma" is vague enough that it could be a type of power familiar to today's science (with the magic happening at the coils, not before that), or then something completely fictional to start with. Certainly it appears mostly magical in VOY "Fair Trade" where its exact makeup is an important trade secret.

Whether TOS differs from the rest of the lot in featuring dilithium as an independent power source is a point often argued here. "The Alternative Factor", a silly episode that nevertheless doubled our knowledge on matters dilithial back when it aired, shows aliens stealing paddle-shaped crystals (or matrices of microcrystals?) and powering up their interdimensional machine with them, but is that again them using dilithium as a mediator in annihilation?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[1001001]

There is one question that never really has been answered. In some TOS episodes the technical discussion makes it as if the Dilithium crystals are used to provide an external power source that is used to "power" the warp core itself. As if it acts like a carberator.

topcat, first of all, welcome to the board. I appreciate your enthusiasm.

However you've been bumping a lot of old threads. This one in particular hadn't had a reply in 9 months, and the OP doesn't post here anymore.

Generally speaking it's not a huge deal, but please be aware there are many current discussions getting pushed down the page but zombie threads. There is no hard and fast rule, but 6 months with no reply is a decent guideline.

Thanks.