You seem to have ideas as to what the "Gravimetric ProtoStar Containment" is.
Let's hear your ideas, I'm all ears. Speculate away.
Spoilers Protostar drive system
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Let's hear your ideas, I'm all ears. Speculate away.
Much as i love "Trek Tech" i'm not seeing a lot of answers as to how this works. To be fair, the series has given us very little information but i would surmise a few things.
. It needs a warp-sized amount of power for containment since there are 2 warp cores and it still registered as a major power user (comparing it to the Romulan AQS which presumably, guessing, does not and provide power at all times)
. It is focused on faster travel speeds, not powering the ship. Presumably when its containment mode it is not providing power, its using power per several statements.
. How a zillion-kilometer protostar "fits" is not clear; perhaps the name is misleading, or there is access interdimensionally / subspace to an actual protostar, or its a "bottle universe" type of thing.
. And how it generates power - or perhaps more warp zoomph that is not power - is also unknown. Is this an engine mod or a power upgrade or both? Wouldn't two warp cores without a "baby star" be plenty of power?
. And it doesn't scale or work beyond this or we'd see it all over prior to the Burn.
. It needs a warp-sized amount of power for containment since there are 2 warp cores and it still registered as a major power user (comparing it to the Romulan AQS which presumably, guessing, does not and provide power at all times)
. It is focused on faster travel speeds, not powering the ship. Presumably when its containment mode it is not providing power, its using power per several statements.
. How a zillion-kilometer protostar "fits" is not clear; perhaps the name is misleading, or there is access interdimensionally / subspace to an actual protostar, or its a "bottle universe" type of thing.
. And how it generates power - or perhaps more warp zoomph that is not power - is also unknown. Is this an engine mod or a power upgrade or both? Wouldn't two warp cores without a "baby star" be plenty of power?
. And it doesn't scale or work beyond this or we'd see it all over prior to the Burn.
Based on what was said thus far, I'd have to agree.
The Romulan AQS is a power source... not specifically focused on allowing faster speeds (although technically, it should have been possible - might demonstrate limits of Romulan technology for power extraction and optimization when using AQS which limits Warbird Warp speeds.
Based off what we saw, I'd agree... partly.
Though, one has to wonder what preserves containment when the ship is offline (like it was when Dal and Rok initially found it).
If its a protostar, one would think it wouldn't just 'poof out of existence' and just 'poof back in' on demand - or it may just generate power/radiation if its fed matter.
Also, it SHOULD be possible to use this thing for power generation as well considering its basically a 'core' which is in engineering (which typically houses a Warp core... aka, method of power generation).
Bottle universe (or mini universe) sounds about right ... or at least shrinking technology devised from the anomaly in DS9 episode 'One Little ship' was applied to preserve a Protostar as is without losing on its radiation/power generation abilities.
Who knows what SF did.
But I would imagine that fitting something of that size into a small container and keeping it there would require a LOT of power.
Its possible that its easier to keep certain objects at small sizes indefinitely unless the object passess through that anomaly again.... however, in case of an interstellar body... the sheer gravity of the thing wouldn't necessarily allow anything more than a temporary shrinkage (in-universe-wise).
This is called 'Proto-Warp'... its possible it uses a different subspace domain compared to regular Warp, Quantum Slipstream or even Voth and Borg Transwarp (all of which [presumably] have their own subspace domains).
Achieving Warp speed might be a requirement before activating Proto Warp though (but we have no direct evidence for this).
Technically, it should be possible to be used for BOTH power generation and Proto-Warp. We have seen the ship's lights going blue when Gwyn activated the Protostar, so this could have simultaneously re-charged the ship in that moment and reinforced SIF to the point so it can withstand travel at Proto Warp speeds - a limitation that at this stage it needs Warp cores still due to it being a Prototype perhaps and something to maintain containment.
As for 2 warp cores being enough for Proto-Warp... evidently not.
It could be a combination of unique radiation of the Protostar and the radiation its producing being 'relevant' for achieving Proto-Warp speeds, reinforcing structural integrity and power generation.
174 000 TW hits the Earth alone at any given time (0.174 Exawatts per second?)... but that's just what hits the Earth at any given time.
Our sun has an energy output of 383 Yottawatts per second (or 383 000 000 Exawatts - aka, 383 million Exawatts).
That's tens of millions of times more power than the ENT-D warp core was capable of in its 'idle state'
The ENT-D warp core generates at any given time 12.7 Exawatts per second (or so the dialogue implied in 'True Q' - yes Data was cut-off before he could say 'second' but the scriptwriters said its supposed to be 'per second').
That doesn't take into account the passage of time from TNG to VOY and beyond... but it stands to reason the Intrepid class had similarly powerful or even more powerful Warp core to the Enterprise-D thanks to technical advancements and being faster... and that about a decade later, the Protostar would have at least similarly powerful Warp core in a much smaller frame... times 2.
Jankom Pog said that just 1 Warp core on the Protostar would take them to Warp 9 (implying a WEAKER Warp core than on the Galaxy class and Intrepid Class ships - but we saw that even the Defiant is of comparable size to the Protostar, so using that kind of Warp core might be doable - or LESS emphasis was made on achieving higher Warp speeds, compared to achieving Proto Warp - hence enough power for Warp 9 per 1 core).
But, even if we go with at least 10 x 2 = 20 Exawatts per second with two warp cores in idle state... with at 10x increase in power expenditure for Warp drive... maybe 100x more, depending on speeds used - because higher warp speeds will require higher energy expenditure according to how Warp drive works - and past Warp 9.9, energy consumption and speed both DOUBLE).
I don't know how much more power a SF ship Warp core can produce for top cruising speeds for example... but I probably wouldn't give them more than 5-10 times increase... and I doubt a core could put out 100x more energy compared to its idle state.. or am I wrong?
I would have thought the term 'baby star' (as used on Prodigy) would indicate something similar to a main sequence star, just with much less energy output... on the scale of say 200 000 Exawatts per second - compared to ENT-D Warp core).
Given the rate of power draw needed for containment itself... would 20 exawatts be enough to contain 200 000 Exawatts power source for the amount of time we saw?
The power loss on the Protostar reminded me of 10x power expenditure that VOY experienced in the Void, and they had a week to go on a single core - so, perhaps increasing this power loss to 100x (to accommodate just could indeed demonstrate such a rapid power loss for Protostar containment - if the Protostar core generates about 100x more power than both Warp cores) - I'm just hypothesizing here and the Void is my closest reference in regards to power expenditure.
But I could also easily be wrong apart from the ENT-D power generation and our star power generation, and nothing else in Trek canon (that I can recall) confirms other numbers.
Eh... its possible it WILL/WAS used for centuries before SF moved onto something else prior to the Burn (maybe Quantum Slipstream V2 was far better option since it offered 10 000 Ly's per minute and could be easily powered with conventional M/AM warp core with only downside being use of Benamite Crystals which took years to synthesize in the late 24th century [but I would think SF would reduce the time needed to synthesize the benamite crystals from years to months, or even weeks, or days even just a year or two after VOY returned) coupled with Temporal Technology which was in common use since at least 26th century), or it ended up 'lost' somehow (which wouldn't surprise me) so, SF didn't see it worthwhile to repeat the experiment (although for sheer power generation this would have potential and could have avoided the Burn - but I'm sure te writers will introduce 'something' that will make it impossible for the technology to prevent it from being refined/improved to a degree where it no longer needs Warp cores for containment).
Remember that Discovery has a tendency to confuse power generation with method of travel. Aka Disco writers are under the impression that each 'FTL drive' has its own individual power source (which CAN happen, but we also saw that this is NOT a requirement - Arturis fake Dauntless didn't use Antimatter, however, VOY was able to achieve and maintain orginal Slisptream V1 of 300 Ly's per hour (maximum at the time) through M/AM energy generation... same with infinite velocity TW, and even using Borg TW coil technology - both of which were powered by M/AM on VOY ... the Borg use an unknown means of power generation though - but nothing was said that its' M/AM).
The Caretaker for comparison used a Tetryon reactor which managed to hurl VOY 75 000 Ly's in a span of a few seconds.
So, I don't think you need specific power generation for Warp or other FTL types of populsion/drive... you just need efficient and adequate method of power generation that allows FTL of your choosing.
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