General Trek Questions and Observations

[Swedish Borg]

Harkins, for some reason (rank? position in Starfleet?) had the authority to disengage the primary coolant system, which will cause a warp core breach (presumably because the lack of coolant somewhere will increase temperatures enough to rupture some of the antimatter containment). I will presume that not every clown can disengage the primary coolant system, and that it was something only reserved for chief engineers (or higher, as Commander Harkins may have been) and Captains and such, presumably to be done in case of emergency or technical reasons (moving to a secondary, with the warp drive offline).

A warp core breach might be preventable still, with quick actions, after the coolant system comes offline, and depending on how bad it is breached, part of the ship might survive. On the Enterprise (unlike Voyager), most of it might survive, as it would knock out the nacelles and secondary hull, but the saucer could conceivably clear itself away, even accidentally.

An auto-destruct probably ensures destruction of the saucer and the secondary hull much more thoroughly than a simple warp core breach (although, yes, a breach is probably utilized).

I don't think so. In Timescape a simple core breach causes the total destruction of the ship. A core breach is all you need.

 

[Tim Thomason]

I don't think so. In Timescape a simple core breach causes the total destruction of the ship. A core breach is all you need.

"Depending on how bad it was breached". Timescape featured an interrupted power transfer and feedback, not a coolant leak or shutdown, so probably much worse. And the Galaxy is more integrated than the Constitution.

Not all warp core breaches are equal.

 

[matthunter]

And if we take the TNG Tech Manual into account, you can't rely on being able to breach the core, so there are backup charges placed all over the ship in the event you need to destroy her in such an event (or destroy the separated saucer).

 

[Oddish]

True. They're probably also intended to ensure complete destruction of the ship's remnants, so that no technology can be scavenged from them.

 

[Swedish Borg]

"Depending on how bad it was breached". Timescape featured an interrupted power transfer and feedback, not a coolant leak or shutdown, so probably much worse. And the Galaxy is more integrated than the Constitution.

Not all warp core breaches are equal.

I beg to differ, all core breaches are equal, it's the core exploding, what caused that explosion is of little consequence.

If the fuel tank of your car explodes, the explosion will be the same regardless of what caused it.

 

[Oddish]

I beg to differ, all core breaches are equal, it's the core exploding, what caused that explosion is of little consequence.

If the fuel tank of your car explodes, the explosion will be the same regardless of what caused it.

Not entirely true. If the gas simply ignites, you have a fire. If the blast aerosolizes it, you have a violent explosion: a gallon of erosolized octane (C8H18) has the explosive potential of 14 sticks of dynamite.

Theoretically, some core breaches could be more violent than others.

 

[Swedish Borg]

...
Theoretically, some core breaches could be more violent than others.

I don't see how.

 

[matthunter]

I don't see how.

Well, for starters, there's the ratio of matter/antimatter being used in the reaction at the time, which can vary.

There's how much antimatter is left in the fuel reserve.

Referring back to the TNG Tech Manual, the autodestruct is not JUST a core breach, but also releasing the containment fields on the antimatter reserves.

To use your car analogy, a core breach is your engine exploding, not the fuel tank.

 

[at Quark's]

Isn't a warp core breach basically a matter-antimatter explosion, in principle the most violent explosion imaginable? I wouldn't be convinced that such an uncontrolled explosion couldn't also rupture the tanks, leading to a much larger explosion in turn.

 

[Swedish Borg]

Well, for starters, there's the ratio of matter/antimatter being used in the reaction at the time, which can vary.....

I disagree. The anti-matter in the ship can only be kept away from matter by using forcefields. Once the ship explodes the damage will be enough to shut down all these forcefields and the antimatter contained will have no trouble finding matter to collide with given that the ship itself is matter in great quantity. As I said only an active field can contain antimatter, which makes it very dangerous because a malfunction is synonym to the explosion of said antimatter.

If even one kilogram of antimatter is released, the resulting explosion will make Hiroshima look like a firecracker.

 

[Oddish]

That's why Wesley's tiny little bit of antimatter (in "Peak Performance") was able to propel a starship over 300,000 miles away. The amount of energy produced by a ship the size of the Enterprise D at Warp 9 is beyond imagination!

 

[matthunter]

If even one kilogram of antimatter is released, the resulting explosion will make Hiroshima look like a firecracker.

And yet a single photon torpedo cannot obliterate a starship reliably. This despite the payload of a standard warhead being 1.5kg of antimatter, according to the Tech Manual.

 

[Swedish Borg]

And yet a single photon torpedo cannot obliterate a starship reliably. This despite the payload of a standard warhead being 1.5kg of antimatter, according to the Tech Manual.

This means that Star Trek physics and real physics are two very different things.

 

[Oddish]

It means that shield technology is powerful enough to blunt weapons that could obliterate whole cities.

 

[Swedish Borg]

It means that shield technology is powerful enough to blunt weapons that could obliterate whole cities.

According to Wikipedia, one kilogram of anti-matter is equivalent to 288, 000 Hiroshimas!!! I think it would do a lot more than obliterate one city!!! It would likely destroy several American states and irremediably damage the ecosystem of the entire planet!!! ONE KILOGRAM!!!

 

[publiusr]

Yellowstone was about 100,000 Hiroshima bombs...Less than K-T still. A thimble full of zero point energy is said to be enough to foil the Earth’s oceans, so I read once

 

[Swedish Borg]

Yellowstone was about 100,000 Hiroshima bombs...Less than K-T still. A thimble full of zero point energy is said to be enough to foil the Earth’s oceans, so I read once

You mean "boil", don't you?

 

[dupersuper]

The three most senior officers, as demonstrated in TSS.

Or before that in Let That be Your Last Battlefield.

The standard autodestruct protocol forces a warp core breach, which completely destroys the ship.

Yet for some reason blows up the saucer, as seen in Search for Spock.

Yellowstone was about 100,000 Hiroshima bombs...Less than K-T still. A thimble full of zero point energy is said to be enough to foil the Earth’s oceans, so I read once

"Curses, foiled again!" - Earths oceans

 

[Swedish Borg]

....
Yet for some reason blows up the saucer, as seen in Search for Spock.
....

And left the core section intact. That was stupidly inaccurate yet more spectacular than an explosion beginning in the core.
You can't conclude anything based on these explosions that are meant to be the most spectacular possible and not necessarily accurate. Just like people who are hit by a ray of light will not be blown away like we often see, even a powerful laser beam will only cause a microscopic recoil barely perceptible.

 

[Oddish]

What could explain "Search" was that the destruct sequence was rigged to use ordnance to blow the bridge area, decisively erasing all data and technology. Then, they breach the core to destroy everything else.