ST Picard - Starships and Technology Season One SPOILER Discusssion

[valkyrie013]

Well.. It is power.. A shuttle us usually battery powered or maybe a fusion reactor .. ( Danube and larger have a small warp core) and they only get up to warp 3? (Or yes.. Plot speed)
So the bigger more powerful the reactor the faster you go or so..
So say voyager has a more compact and powerful reactor than other ships that size

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Well.. It is power.. A shuttle us usually battery powered or maybe a fusion reactor .. ( Danube and larger have a small warp core) and they only get up to warp 3? (Or yes.. Plot speed)
So the bigger more powerful the reactor the faster you go or so..
So say voyager has a more compact and powerful reactor than other ships that size

All "Warp Capable" shuttles seem to have Warp Drives, just the size & scale were adjusted to fit the platform.

Just like modern engines on Aircraft come in many different Sizes.

 

[valkyrie013]

Yes.. has a "Warp drive" but has no reactor to power it.. may have a fusion reactor to provide power, or a smaller ones like the shuttle pods are battery powered.. Danube class Has a warp reactor on the spine, so therefore can go faster for longer.
So.. nacelles.. yes, but reactor. maybe if the shuttle is big enough.

 

[Go-Captain]

I think the Type 15 explicitly has a fusion reactor and I think we never see nor hear about it going to warp. The Danube class runabout explicitly uses antimatter as fuel in TNG. I figure any shuttle which can do any sort of warp speed is running on antimatter.

 

[Timo]

Yup, Danubes have an "antimatter pod" (DS9 "Battle Lines"); TOS Class F has "ion power" (TOS "The Menagerie"); Type 6 has "fusion reactor assembly" (TNG "The Outcast" graphics"); and Type 10 can be flown without a "warp core" (DS9 "The Sound of Her Voice") although we don't learn whether this involves first ripping out this piece of standard equipment for the required non-warp sortie. And Romulans have their artificial quantum singularities, and (or perhaps aka) whatever allowed their ship in "Balance of Terror" to go places with Scotty thinking the "power" was "simple impulse".

So we have plenty of diversity there already, and it's pretty darn difficult to go and claim that warp performance would depend on any single easily discernible factor. But warp is finicky, and it's apparently pretty easy to knock ships to sublight in chases, so it wouldn't seem out of place to more or less arbitrarily claim that X, Y or Z (say, extra mass or things jutting out of the hull) degrades the warp performance of any ship originally designed to work without X, Y or Z..

Holes in hulls built with such might be filled at the skipper's peril; holes might be drilled into intact hulls at similar extreme risk. But fundamentally, any shape is fine and well for a warp-capable spacecraft, as e.g. the Borg so brutally prove. Just refrain from messing with it unless you want to re-tune everything else, too!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Boo-khat!]

Hull holes could be a way to get a particular warp field geometry but with lower mass for a higher speed. There's an episode of Voyager where 7 says the mass of a spacecraft makes it slower, and we have some circumstantial indication hull form dictates warp dynamics. Though I'm not a fan of mass effecting warp speed and would prefer to ignore that.

If that was the reason, then I would think that every ship would have them.

 

[NCC-73515]

https://www.facebook.com/Trekcore/photos/pcb.3982656995080391/3982656668413757/

 

[Paul Weaver]

Data Containment -- for when he's hijacked by Noonien again?

 

[DEWLine]

Some interesting modifications on the Starfleet Okudagram style there...?

 

[ProwlAlpha]

https://www.facebook.com/Trekcore/photos/pcb.3982656995080391/3982656668413757/

Why does an IPad look more futuristic than this does?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Why does an IPad look more futuristic than this does?

Minimalism looks futuristic for some reason.

 

[Deks]

Yes.. has a "Warp drive" but has no reactor to power it.. may have a fusion reactor to provide power, or a smaller ones like the shuttle pods are battery powered.. Danube class Has a warp reactor on the spine, so therefore can go faster for longer.
So.. nacelles.. yes, but reactor. maybe if the shuttle is big enough.

Type 4 shuttles in the 24th century have Warp engines and mini Warp cores allowing for a speed of Warp 4 - otherwise, they wouldn't be able to go to warp (and we've seen them doing so).
Even Discovery shuttles are equipped with functional Warp engines, however, we've only seen them going Warp 1 (that we know of... its possible they may be able to go Warp 2 which would be useful for larger distances such as reaching Talos IV and for Admiral Cornwell to reach Discovery when it was on the run from S31).

The Delta Flyer also has a mini warp core... its Warp capable (and we've seen it being in Warp on multiple occasions), and from the technical manuals its supposed to have a top speed of Warp 6 (its basically an improved Runabout).

 

[Deks]

Why does an IPad look more futuristic than this does?

Who says it does?
To me, that pad looks more futuristic than the iPad.
A more futuristic version would likely be a virtual display which can be seen via say smart lenses, or the SF officer uniform has a massive network of mini-processors across its entire surface area with sensors, communications, etc... all of which would be able to produce a holographic display when you need it.

I find the prospect of shoveling everything into a comm-badge (which can easily be removed from a person like we've seen on oh so many occasions) a bit primitive when you can just create hundreds or thousands replicas of the same technology interconnected inside the actual clothing vastly expanding on the said capabilities (and SF technology was already up to this task in the 23rd century).

 

[Unicron]

I think it's also worth considering that form tends to follow function, and that even if one theoretically could create lots of complex, micro-scaled "futuristic" technology for an original setting, it doesn't mean such a path would necessarily be the best choice. I could probably imagine any number of sci-fi settings where the advanced technology wouldn't necessarily be on the same level as advancement we would have now, nor would it all be portable. It would depend on a number of other variables.

And there's also the problem of having technology so advanced it interferes with other key aspects of the story, which is always an issue for me. I tend to think story development should take priority and tech can be a useful tool for that, when used properly.

 

[fireproof78]

I think it's also worth considering that form tends to follow function, and that even if one theoretically could create lots of complex, micro-scaled "futuristic" technology for an original setting, it doesn't mean such a path would necessarily be the best choice. I could probably imagine any number of sci-fi settings where the advanced technology wouldn't necessarily be on the same level as advancement we would have now, nor would it all be portable. It would depend on a number of other variables.

And there's also the problem of having technology so advanced it interferes with other key aspects of the story, which is always an issue for me. I tend to think story development should take priority and tech can be a useful tool for that, when used properly.

Precisely so. The story should not always be around the tech. And, I abide by the statement that just because you can do a thing doesn't mean you have to do a thing. To quote the great Phil Tippet with regards to computer effects "The computer wants to you." Meaning that you can feel very free with the technology but it can seriously impact the story.

 

[Richard Baker]

And there's also the problem of having technology so advanced it interferes with other key aspects of the story, which is always an issue for me. I tend to think story development should take priority and tech can be a useful tool for that, when used properly.

People are still having a problem writing mystery/adventure stories where someone is isolated or sees something unusual when everyone carries high resolution cameras, video and communication equipment around continuously. No classic scenes of going through the microfiche archives in the town library either, you just Google...

 

[Timo]

...Of course, the classic whodunnit plot still works: creating the visual evidence is so trivial that as the first assumption, it's always a forgery and can be ignored!

(Every story then becomes "Rashomon" or "A Matter of Perspective", but that part can be omitted for brevity.)

Timo Saloniemi