Spoilers Star Trek Discovery - Starships and Technology Season Five Discussion

[B.J.]

I am curious now - what ever happened to Romulan tech that used an artificial singularity to power their warp drives? They didn't use M/AM or dilithium crystals at all to my recollection. However, the Ni'Var all seemed to be affected by the Burn and its attack upon dilithium. Were the singularity drives all broken as well? Something doesn't track there.

Did they say when reunification happened? The singularity tech may have been ditched in favor of M/AM drives for whatever reason (inefficient, not enough resources to build them, too many reliability issues, etc.). Doesn't explain why they couldn't build a new one, although with the Vulcans being famously cautious, it may still be in "re-development".

EDIT: Just had another thought - the Federation should also have access to that tech, since Ni'Var was part of the Federation at the time of the Burn. The Romulan faction even wanted to stay part of the Federation. So yeah, head scratcher.

 

[David cgc]

There was some BTS tech material by Sternbach that said Romulan singularity engines also incorporated dilithium.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Did they say when reunification happened?

Doesn't look like it was ever canonically stated. According to MA, it only says that the reunification happened "centuries after" Spock got the ball rolling. No specific year, only that the Qowat Milat was instrumental in negotiating the final merger, and that Ni'Var seceded from the Federation after the Burn in 3089.

The singularity tech may have been ditched in favor of M/AM drives for whatever reason (inefficient, not enough resources to build them, too many reliability issues, etc.). Doesn't explain why they couldn't build a new one, although with the Vulcans being famously cautious, it may still be in "re-development".

Yeah, I could see that.

EDIT: Just had another thought - the Federation should also have access to that tech, since Ni'Var was part of the Federation at the time of the Burn. The Romulan faction even wanted to stay part of the Federation. So yeah, head scratcher.

Indeed. It should have at least been evaluated as a possible alternative.

There was some BTS tech material by Sternbach that said Romulan singularity engines also incorporated dilithium.

Well, that would probably explain why that tech was set aside post-Burn. I think I would like to have heard that in-dialogue to enforce the canonicity of it (like from Geordi in one of TNG's several Romulan-centric episodes), but considering the provenance of the statement (from Sternbach), I could accept it without an on-screen mention.

Although I think that Occam's Razor demands that the writers just simply forgot that little factoid about Romulan warp tech when they wrote those episodes!

 

[Ithekro]

Perhaps it takes dilithium to produce a proper quantum singularity for warp uses. That or dilithium was still better for directing the energy into a plasma or whatever for the warp nacelles.

 

[mithril]

Perhaps it takes dilithium to produce a proper quantum singularity for warp uses. That or dilithium was still better for directing the energy into a plasma or whatever for the warp nacelles.

i've generally figured that it's like the Protocore on the protostar. you need dilithium moderated M/AM warp cores to run the singularity core's containment system.

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

i've generally figured that it's like the Protocore on the protostar. you need dilithium moderated M/AM warp cores to run the singularity core's containment system.

Spoiler: Here's a piece of the Romulan Propulsion Technical Pages by Rick Sternbach.

The Dilithium seems to be used to convert the Plasma escaping the Artificial Quantum Singularities into usable "Electro Plasma" that can be fed to the Warp Nacelles.
The nice part about a AQS is that you can feed in nearly any form of matter since it's a "Artificial Black Hole", they keep the tiny 0.8 cm diameter AQS spinning at 29k RPM. They had 3x different matter streams feeding it around it's equator.

That sucker was enough to power the entire D'Deridex.

 

[Praetor]

Maybe quantum singularity drives are inherently less stable than their M/AM counterparts, too?

That certainly feels like a very Romulan thing to be true to me.

 

[Ronald Held]

I do not understand. Plasma from M/AM reactions would be different than from AQS. I see Dilithium as a catalyst to the reactions using antimatter.

 

[Praetor]

I think Mr. Sternbach means dilithium is meant to do something to the plasma that results from the M/AM reaction (or from spinning deuterium into a quantum singularity) that results in it being useful for powering things.

 

[evilchumlee]

I think Mr. Sternbach means dilithium is meant to do something to the plasma that results from the M/AM reaction (or from spinning deuterium into a quantum singularity) that results in it being useful for powering things.

Yeah it's been made fairly clear at this point that the dilithium isn't necessary to generate power, it's necessary to achieve warp. EXACTLY what that all means can be anything, but it's exactly why Romulan ships are also affected... their singularities just provide power for the warp reaction to occur. The dilithium is still needed for the actual warp.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Here's an interesting notion - if the dilithium crystals that controlled Romulan singularities went <foom!> at the same time as all the others during the Burn, wouldn't that then allow them to release from containment and start swallowing ambient matter floating around, generating a bunch of rogue black holes all over formerly-Romulan space?

 

[evilchumlee]

Here's an interesting notion - if the dilithium crystals that controlled Romulan singularities went <foom!> at the same time as all the others during the Burn, wouldn't that then allow them to release from containment and start swallowing ambient matter floating around, generating a bunch of rogue black holes all over formerly-Romulan space?

You might think so... but then again we have never heard of destroyed Romulan ships leaving black holes in their wake, so my guess is that the technology doesn't quite work that way and once the containment is lost on the artificial singularity, it... dissipates or something.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Y'know it's funny - I remember years ago, when playing Star Trek Online, there were a couple of tactical fleet operations and story missions where you had to go up against adversary D'deridex's and Valdore's. Every time you destroyed one of those bigger ships, I noticed that they were the only ones in the entire game that didn't explode - they imploded, with the destabilized singularity sucking the whole broken ship into it and ultimately disappearing. It was a neat effect, and I just now remembered it from this conversation...

 

[B.J.]

Yeah, a tiny singularity like that very likely evaporates once they no longer are being maintained. Our own real-world simulations have indicated that as well.

 

[137th Gebirg]

That's just what they want us to think!

 

[Ronald Held]

Depends if the AQS sucks up matter faster than they can radiate the energy equivalent.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

The Hirogen relay stations were powered by quantum singularities. When the containment field failed, everything in a short distance of the station was pulled into the qs. (See episode "The Hunters")

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

The nice thing about AQS reactors is that it leaves no evidence behind, nothing for the enemies to scavenge.

Which can also be bad in that you have a hard time tracking down what happened to your ship should something go wrong. You would hopefully believe that the auto-ejecting the "Black Box" far away enough so that it doesn't get caught up in the Micro Black Hole would help leave a record of what happened to your ship.

 

[blssdwlf]

Spoiler: Here's a piece of the Romulan Propulsion Technical Pages by Rick Sternbach.

The Dilithium seems to be used to convert the Plasma escaping the Artificial Quantum Singularities into usable "Electro Plasma" that can be fed to the Warp Nacelles.
The nice part about a AQS is that you can feed in nearly any form of matter since it's a "Artificial Black Hole", they keep the tiny 0.8 cm diameter AQS spinning at 29k RPM. They had 3x different matter streams feeding it around it's equator.

That sucker was enough to power the entire D'Deridex.

In "Timescape" we clearly see the AQS housing / Engine Core of a Romulan Warbird and it doesn't look like Sternbach's cross-section. We do see a Romulan Warbird explode in "Tin Man". I doubt that the Romulans used dilithium for their large AQS-driven Warbirds, but maybe they had a bunch of shuttles onboard that don't use AQS but a M/AM-dilithium setup?

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

In "Timescape" we clearly see the AQS housing / Engine Core of a Romulan Warbird and it doesn't look like Sternbach's cross-section. We do see a Romulan Warbird explode in "Tin Man". I doubt that the Romulans used dilithium for their large AQS-driven Warbirds, but maybe they had a bunch of shuttles onboard that don't use AQS but a M/AM-dilithium setup?

I'd argue their shuttles and other "Auxilliary Craft" use M/A-M Reactors, those are easy enough to make compact.

But the larger Mother Ships should all have converted to AQS reactors.

Personally, in my head cannon, they are using Synthetic Dilithium Crystals to convert the input energy into Electro Plasma and most species are growing / manufacturing their own synthetic Crystals, just like we can make Synthetic Diamonds IRL.