How does red matter stop a supernova?

[Crazy Eddie]

The problem with a von Neumann machine approach to Genesis isn't that it's impossible--nanomachines essentially built the biosphere of Earth, it just took three billion years to get it cozy.

Have you SEEN the Genesis device? It aint a "nano" machine.

Besides, the organisms that built Earth's biosphere didn't have the technology to reorganize matter at the molecular level. Enterprise's food slots apparently do this as a matter of course; Genesis would be, simply, an outgrowth of that technology.

So, if Genesis was like a gray goo (or whatever color, I forget) thing, that's acceptable, but the device working its magic in a few minutes is pretty infeasible.

Why? Even in TOS, you can fabricate a chicken sandwich and a cup of coffee in about thirty seconds (provided the tribbles don't get to it first). Why would an army of self-replicating fabricators take more than a few days to rearange the surface of a planet?

 

[Myasishchev]

^No, the Genesis device created through some sort of explosion. Which is weird.

All life that we know of has the "technology" to reorganize matter on the molecular level. Cyanobacteria, for example, first had the "technology" create and sustain an oxygen atmosphere, which couldn't have persisted outside of the constant work of photosynthesizers like it.

While it's unclear whether matter reorganization was going on in TOS, assuming it was, the volume of a chicken sandwich versus the volume of a biosphere is pretty large, even with a geometric progression. Plus an energy source is needed, capable of altering the chemistry of 10^16 kilograms worth of matter for a Earth-sized biosphere, and a heat sink capable of dealing with the waste.

 

[shadowedgalaxy]

I thought "red matter" sounded pretty interesting... until they showed it being a ball of red goo.

 

[Captain Robert April]

^ Yes, the Red Kool-Aid Blob of Doom. Best served with the Blooming Onion of Doom that we saw in Nemesis.

 

[Ronald Held]

Lots of money for CG and not too much for a red fluid suspended in a clear one.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^No, the Genesis device created through some sort of explosion.

That's not well established. The explosion of Reliant was a consequence of Genesis being activated in the transporter room, destroying the entire ship. The energy reaction of triggering the device may be many things--violent if nothing else--but I doubt it would qualify as an "explosion."

While it's unclear whether matter reorganization was going on in TOS, assuming it was, the volume of a chicken sandwich versus the volume of a biosphere is pretty large,

How many chicken sandwiches would it take to cover the Earth five miles thick? How many fabricators would it take to make that many sandwiches in 48 hours? However many that is, set a single fabricator on the surface of a planet, program it to scoop up a chunk of the soil and turn it into another fabricator that does the same thing. The number of fabricators increases geometrically, doubling every two minutes; in twenty four hours, the entire planet will be knee-deep in them.

Plus an energy source is needed, capable of altering the chemistry of 10^16 kilograms worth of matter for a Earth-sized biosphere, and a heat sink capable of dealing with the waste.

A heat sink os hardly necessary, the excess entropy is channeled into the planet's core to make it active again (hence "a moon or other dead form"). Anyway, the power source problem is the same problem with the self-replicating minefield; obviously, there are ways around it one way or the other.

 

[Myasishchev]

That's a point I hadn't considered about the Reliant; having a starship's worth of antimatter should likely have rendered the Genesis Effect--regardless of other plausibility issues--totally ineffective.

I mean, most planets don't consist of a few hundred thousand tons of antihydrogen. I submit they probably wouldn't have designed it with that thought in mind. It might satisfy the energy requirements, but I don't think much useful work could be generated from an uncontrolled, uncoordinated antimatter spill.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Actually, I'm pretty sure the explosion of Reliant was pretty much just a matter of the Genesis Device tearing it apart at the moment of activation. Doesn't take an explosive to do that; a turbine with a couple of missing fanblades will do the same thing to your average submarine.

Genesis pretty much HAS to be a self-replicating swarm device in order to keep working under those conditions, though. The effect would have been localized to reliant and a small portion of the nebula to create a miniature genesis cave. But a swarm of devices acting on some kind of final configuration program would find the pulverized material from Reliant lacking and would set about tearing down the nebula to satisfy the rest of their mass/energy quota.

 

[Captain Robert April]

One would expect, at least, the attempt at scientific and technical consistency at a given era.....

You're talking about the same bunch that clearly don't know the difference between a foot and a meter.

 

[Longinus]

You're talking about the same bunch that clearly don't know the difference between a foot and a meter.

Well, that happened to NASA as well...

 

[Longinus]

As for the naming of things, I have nothing against Red Matter, it is a good name. As noted, it then being literally red goo was a bit silly though. There is no need to use unnecessarily convoluted terminology, however, if one uses words like Supernova or Blackhole, phenomenons of (somewhat) known properties, then it is really bad scifi writing to assign them properties wildly deviating from those known.

 

[Myasishchev]

Actually, I'm pretty sure the explosion of Reliant was pretty much just a matter of the Genesis Device tearing it apart at the moment of activation. Doesn't take an explosive to do that; a turbine with a couple of missing fanblades will do the same thing to your average submarine.

Yeah, but submarines aren't carrying something as volatile as antimatter. When Reliant was torn apart, the antimatter came out of its bottles, and would've reacted with the ship and the nebula.

Genesis pretty much HAS to be a self-replicating swarm device in order to keep working under those conditions, though. The effect would have been localized to reliant and a small portion of the nebula to create a miniature genesis cave. But a swarm of devices acting on some kind of final configuration program would find the pulverized material from Reliant lacking and would set about tearing down the nebula to satisfy the rest of their mass/energy quota.

Are we assuming it was Mutara and not Regula? I always figured Mutara as a young planetary nebula (it's gotta be, to be so dense), with Regula a planet maybe Mars or asteroid belt-distant from the resulting white dwarf star. The nebula was cleared locally by the Genesis effect (and the Reliant explosion) and most of it wound up being pushed away.

It's true, this isn't fully with the appearance of Genesis in TSFS. (Interestingly, I believe it might actually be reasonably consistent with the appearance of the Baku system in Insurrection.) But for all I love TSFS, Genesis is retarded and I'm willing to throw up my hands and declare VFX and continuity errors on that.

At any rate, I'm fine with Genesis as swarming microscopic replicator devices. It doesn't answer everything, but it's more plausible than the three step "1. explode 2. ??? 3. biosphere!" process that TWOK's visuals suggest.

Back to red matter, maybe it has something to do with chromodynamics, given the name. It's probably just as stupid, in the final analysis, but a material that does something to increase the range of the strong force to work between adjacent nuclei, and not just within nuclei (and in a really permanent fashion only within protons), would, I suppose, make extremely dense region of matter.

 

[Longinus]

What? Are people assuming that Genesis planet was created just from the gas of the Mutara Nebula? I always assumed it was the nearby asteroid... Regula? Makes much more sense that way.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I figured it was everything within reach of the Genesis Wave. The nebula, Regula, the station, the Reliant, and very nearly, the Enterprise.

 

[Vance]

What? Are people assuming that Genesis planet was created just from the gas of the Mutara Nebula? I always assumed it was the nearby asteroid... Regula? Makes much more sense that way.

Actually, the Nebula could have a lot more mass than a mere planetoid. The only real issue is where did that star come from? Was it there all along, and, if so, why was there a nebula around it? The Genesis device wasn't meant to make whole systems, after all...

 

[Myasishchev]

What? Are people assuming that Genesis planet was created just from the gas of the Mutara Nebula? I always assumed it was the nearby asteroid... Regula? Makes much more sense that way.

Actually, the Nebula could have a lot more mass than a mere planetoid. The only real issue is where did that star come from? Was it there all along, and, if so, why was there a nebula around it? The Genesis device wasn't meant to make whole systems, after all...

That's why I reckon it's a planetary nebula, which is a red giant shedding its outer layers and evolving into a white dwarf. So the star was there the whole time.

Also, the "submarine" battle scene in TWoK is only remotely plausible if Mutara was an early planetary nebula, the expelled but still relatively dense atmosphere of the dying red giant, ionized by the ultraviolet radiation from a helium-burning, 30,000K+ corpse of the original star.

 

[Longinus]

Genesis Device was certainly never meant to make planets out of gas, only to make lifeless planets sprout life. The explosion transformed planet Regula to Genesis planet.

 

[Ronald Held]

Not enough mass in the asteroid to create a Class M like planet. I presume any matter within the range of the Wave got used.

 

[Myasishchev]

We have figures on the size of Regula?

 

[Captain Robert April]

The gravity certainly seemed to be within Earth standard.