Photon torpedoes and antimatter

[Longinus]

It is generally accepted that destructive power of photon torpedoes comes from antimatter warheads. However, in TOS episode "Obsession" the cloud creature is finally destroyed by an antimatter blast, yet is immune to photon torpedoes. At that time the writers didn't seem to think photon torpedoes as antimatter weapons. When is the idea of antimatter torpedoes mentioned first time, and what might have been the originally intended working mechanism of photon torpedoes?

 

[Plecostomus]

Up until it became "canon" that they were antimatter devices we played them as nuclear-pumped directional lasers. That was the origin of the term "photon" in my mind.

 

[Timo]

The first onscreen verbal mention of antimatter in connection with photon torpedoes could be as late as ENT "The Expanse", really. Or does anybody recall anything explicit in the other five TV shows or the movies?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[buzzknox]

The first onscreen verbal mention of antimatter in connection with photon torpedoes could be as late as ENT "The Expanse", really. Or does anybody recall anything explicit in the other five TV shows or the movies?

Timo Saloniemi

In Sons of Mogh, a Klingon ship is damaged and the station took on the casualties for treatment. If memory serves, Bashir said that the injuries included exposure to gamma radiation and were what you would expect from an anti-matter explosion. That led to a discussion about the damage being caused by a torpedo or a mine (which is what led to the revelation of the Klingon operation).

A counterpoint, though, came in the TNG episode Night Terrors when the crew discovers that to escape their dilemma, they would need to generate a massive explosion. Photons aren't considered as a viable solution, but the deflector is. They do so by releasing hydrogen, which reacts with a chemical another ship is releasing. It's a bit of dramatic license that made sense for the episode, but unfortunately serves as canon evidence that a simple chemical reaction puts out more energy than the main deflector or torpedoes (which isn't possible if they are AM based).

So, we have another Trek inconsistency.

 

[Plecostomus]

Good point. "canon" on my context was the TNG manual. I consider that to be "correct" unless something on screen contradicts it.

 

[Plecostomus]

The first onscreen verbal mention of antimatter in connection with photon torpedoes could be as late as ENT "The Expanse", really. Or does anybody recall anything explicit in the other five TV shows or the movies?

Timo Saloniemi

In Sons of Mogh, a Klingon ship is damaged and the station took on the casualties for treatment. If memory serves, Bashir said that the injuries included exposure to gamma radiation and were what you would expect from an anti-matter explosion. That led to a discussion about the damage being caused by a torpedo or a mine (which is what led to the revelation of the Klingon operation).

A counterpoint, though, came in the TNG episode Night Terrors when the crew discovers that to escape their dilemma, they would need to generate a massive explosion. Photons aren't considered as a viable solution, but the deflector is. They do so by releasing hydrogen, which reacts with a chemical another ship is releasing. It's a bit of dramatic license that made sense for the episode, but unfortunately serves as canon evidence that a simple chemical reaction puts out more energy than the main deflector or torpedoes (which isn't possible if they are AM based).

So, we have another Trek inconsistency.

Maybe maybe not. Could come down to needing the right sort of energy, or X amount of energy over Y time.

A photon could deliver the wrong sort of power or not enough of it over a long enough period, but a controlled burn of hydrogen and whatever other substance the alien had would deliver enough of the right sort of power over the right amount of time.


See I wish they'd explain things like that in just a tiny bit more detail other than "it won't work not enough power..." It'd reduce the need for huge flocks of nerds, geeks, engineers, wannabees and canon-honkers to congregate online.

 

[Timo]

Umm, the solution to the jeopardy in "Night Terrors" doesn't need to involve making as massive an explosion as possible, or releasing as much energy as possible. It involves sending hydrogen into the strange rift, on the assumption that the strange aliens on the other side know what they are talking about when they ask for such a thing.

We don't know what happens to the hydrogen they release. Is there a chemical explosion, as they at first speculate? Or does something else happen? It was only the tentative theory of our heroes that an energy release would be helpful; perhaps the aliens on the other side knew better.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cary L. Brown]

The first onscreen verbal mention of antimatter in connection with photon torpedoes could be as late as ENT "The Expanse", really. Or does anybody recall anything explicit in the other five TV shows or the movies?

Timo Saloniemi

This is interesting...

I "knew" as early as 1974 or so that they were m/am weapons. Not sure WHY I knew that, though.

The first real reference I know exists to that end came from FJ's work, which came along a couple of years later.

I suspect that the "M/AM warhead" idea was something invented on the fly by one of the staffers, most likely in a Q&A at a convention.

 

[ancient]

So they're called photon torpedoes because...science?

In TOS weren't they just shown as energy bursts? I don't think the torpedoes in TOS had any physical component, they were more like pulse phasers.

 

[Vanyel]

The first onscreen verbal mention of antimatter in connection with photon torpedoes could be as late as ENT "The Expanse", really. Or does anybody recall anything explicit in the other five TV shows or the movies?

Timo Saloniemi

In Sons of Mogh, a Klingon ship is damaged and the station took on the casualties for treatment. If memory serves, Bashir said that the injuries included exposure to gamma radiation and were what you would expect from an anti-matter explosion. That led to a discussion about the damage being caused by a torpedo or a mine (which is what led to the revelation of the Klingon operation).

A counterpoint, though, came in the TNG episode Night Terrors when the crew discovers that to escape their dilemma, they would need to generate a massive explosion. Photons aren't considered as a viable solution, but the deflector is. They do so by releasing hydrogen, which reacts with a chemical another ship is releasing. It's a bit of dramatic license that made sense for the episode, but unfortunately serves as canon evidence that a simple chemical reaction puts out more energy than the main deflector or torpedoes (which isn't possible if they are AM based).

So, we have another Trek inconsistency.

Before that we have "Q Who?". When the Borg have caught the 1701D at the end of episode, just before Q rescues them, the order is given to fire photon torpedoes. Data replies that without the shields an antimatter explosion could destroy the 1701D.

Just checked the episode. Data says a "Photon detonation" could destroy the 1701D. No mention of photon torpedoes being matter antimatter war heads in that episode.

 

[comsol]

The first onscreen verbal mention of antimatter in connection with photon torpedoes could be as late as ENT "The Expanse", really. Or does anybody recall anything explicit in the other five TV shows or the movies?

Timo Saloniemi

This is interesting...

I "knew" as early as 1974 or so that they were m/am weapons. Not sure WHY I knew that, though.

The first real reference I know exists to that end came from FJ's work, which came along a couple of years later.

I suspect that the "M/AM warhead" idea was something invented on the fly by one of the staffers, most likely in a Q&A at a convention.

They are described as "energy pods of matter and anti-matter contained and held temporarily separated in a magno-photon force-field" in the 1968 Making of Star Trek.

 

[Longinus]

They are described as "energy pods of matter and anti-matter contained and held temporarily separated in a magno-photon force-field" in the 1968 Making of Star Trek.

That is great. So who would like to come up with a convoluted piece of technobabble to consolidate this with the events in Obsession?

 

[Cary L. Brown]

The first onscreen verbal mention of antimatter in connection with photon torpedoes could be as late as ENT "The Expanse", really. Or does anybody recall anything explicit in the other five TV shows or the movies?

Timo Saloniemi

This is interesting...

I "knew" as early as 1974 or so that they were m/am weapons. Not sure WHY I knew that, though.

The first real reference I know exists to that end came from FJ's work, which came along a couple of years later.

I suspect that the "M/AM warhead" idea was something invented on the fly by one of the staffers, most likely in a Q&A at a convention.

They are described as "energy pods of matter and anti-matter contained and held temporarily separated in a magno-photon force-field" in the 1968 Making of Star Trek.

Bing-bing-bing-bing-bing...

We have a winner!

 

[Timo]

Of course, even back in TOS, the important thing about photon torpedoes was that they were, well, torpedoes. They were launched from "tubes" which were first "loaded", and they "impacted" on the target and "detonated". Every possible effort was made in dialogue to make them analogous to classic WWII torpedoes, and thus dramatically familiar to the audience.

I'm sure that, had there been a dramatic need to show photon torpedoes up close or being loaded or something like that, and had the budget existed, TOS would already have shown a facility very similar to what we saw in ST2:TWoK.

"energy pods of matter and anti-matter contained and held temporarily separated in a magno-photon force-field"

The TNG Tech Manual says the same thing without the economy of words:

"a simple 1:1 m/am collision device consisting of six slugs of frozen deuterium which were backed up by carbon-carbon disks and driven by microfusion initiators into six corresponding magnetic cavities, each holding antideuterium in suspension"

According to the manual, the more efficient, post-TOS version has

"the two components held in suspension by powerful magnetic field sustainers within the casing"

so essentially the same thing but the microscopically compartmentalized separation field plays a more active role, removing the need for macroscopic physical movement of components for annihilation.

All of these are also compatible with what was seen in "Obsession" or ST2: the "energy pod" could be the sphere used against the vampire cloud in the episode, and the sleek shape from the movie could hold one or more of these spherical energy pods as its warheads.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Myasishchev]

They are described as "energy pods of matter and anti-matter contained and held temporarily separated in a magno-photon force-field" in the 1968 Making of Star Trek.

That is great. So who would like to come up with a convoluted piece of technobabble to consolidate this with the events in Obsession?

The creature is transparent to gamma rays produced by an annihilation reaction, but contact with antimatter itself killed it, not through heating its mass, but by directly converting it into energy?

It's been a while since I've seen Obsession, I forget if the cloud thing even has mass. All I really remember is it's like the Companion gone bad.

 

[Longinus]

All of these are also compatible with what was seen in "Obsession" or ST2: the "energy pod" could be the sphere used against the vampire cloud in the episode, and the sleek shape from the movie could hold one or more of these spherical energy pods as its warheads.

Yes, but in Obsession photon torpedoes are used against the creature, but are ineffective. Yet, the very same mechanism that is supposed to be in the torpedoes (the antimatter pod) later destroys the creature. And characters do not express any doubt about it's effectiveness.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

All of these are also compatible with what was seen in "Obsession" or ST2: the "energy pod" could be the sphere used against the vampire cloud in the episode, and the sleek shape from the movie could hold one or more of these spherical energy pods as its warheads.

Yes, but in Obsession photon torpedoes are used against the creature, but are ineffective. Yet, the very same mechanism that is supposed to be in the torpedoes (the antimatter pod) later destroys the creature. And characters do not express any doubt about it's effectiveness.

Well, stop to think about WHY the ship's weapons were not effective.

Phasers passed through "holes" in the entity. Pretty much the same as torpedos did. They were able to "hit" it, but it was able to "move out the way" (both physically and... well, "space/time/technobabblishly").

What we see is that it was able to do this... MOMENTARILY. Not "permanently. And not over a long distance.

Get it? The creature wasn't "invulnerable," it was just able to avoid getting hit. It was just really really good at evasive maneuvers.

Had the torpedoes actually "impacted" on the creature and had any degree of dwell time, rather than being instantaneous "flashes" which the creature was able to, essentially, dodge... we might have seen a more effective result.

So... the creature is on a planetary surface, and you pop off what is effectively an "super-duper-uber-nuke." Unlike in space, the energy is not instantaneously dissipated. It sticks around, not just for a fraction of a second, or even for a couple of minutes, but for days, weeks, MONTHS...

The creature may have been able to "step aside" from the blast, instantaneously, but it wouldn't be able to STAY "stepped aside."

So it would "dodge" and maybe survive for an extra fraction of a second, then it would reappear, in the middle of a massive fireball which makes any nuclear explosion we've ever conceived of seem like a firecracker by comparison.

It's like taking shelter from a nuke behind a steel door. It might protect you for a few milliseconds longer than if you were unprotected, but you're still toast.

 

[Royal Fizzbin]

It's like taking shelter from a nuke behind a steel door. It might protect you for a few milliseconds longer than if you were unprotected, but you're still toast.

...or a lead-lined refrigerator.

 

[Timo]

And the sad thing is, that was the best part of the movie...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Saquist]

The first onscreen verbal mention of antimatter in connection with photon torpedoes could be as late as ENT "The Expanse", really. Or does anybody recall anything explicit in the other five TV shows or the movies?

Timo Saloniemi

In Sons of Mogh, a Klingon ship is damaged and the station took on the casualties for treatment. If memory serves, Bashir said that the injuries included exposure to gamma radiation and were what you would expect from an anti-matter explosion. That led to a discussion about the damage being caused by a torpedo or a mine (which is what led to the revelation of the Klingon operation).

A counterpoint, though, came in the TNG episode Night Terrors when the crew discovers that to escape their dilemma, they would need to generate a massive explosion. Photons aren't considered as a viable solution, but the deflector is. They do so by releasing hydrogen, which reacts with a chemical another ship is releasing. It's a bit of dramatic license that made sense for the episode, but unfortunately serves as canon evidence that a simple chemical reaction puts out more energy than the main deflector or torpedoes (which isn't possible if they are AM based).

So, we have another Trek inconsistency.

actually it means the antimatter wouldn't react with what ever was out there and disrupt the rift.