The nature of Impulse Power / Drive
- Thread starter Jedi Marso
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Actually, one could have been sent any time after separation.
Easily a case of LaForge deciding to deal with the threat as quickly as possible, especially with the threat confined to just Minos.
Then why not before?
Then why send the saucer away at all if there was no danger of the threat following? In such a scenario, LaForge's instructions should have been "Stay here; if and only if I fail, return to SB103. That is, just send a signal for a pickup because you setting course for SB103 yourself would make zero difference to your rescue schedule anyway".
Either there can be no pickup, ever (in which case launching on a sublight journey of a few decades makes sense, but only on the multiple assumptions that the stardrive section is as good as dead already, the enemy can't or won't follow, and Starfleet won't send a third ship to see what happened to the Drake and the Enterprise in a time shorter than said decades), or then there is the option of warp travel (in which case the saucer can do it all on its own). There's no third option, certainly not one involving a warp sustainer.
Timo Saloniemi
It could have been if that works for you. Starfleet could have been notified that the saucer was heading alone to Starbase 103 not long after the decision was made.
LaForge didn't want to risk the ship's civilian population and non-essential personnel in a battle.
LaForge wouldn't think like that if he was callously letting the saucer risk getting slaughtered by the Echo Papa probe, by refusing to give it a warp boost.
Really, there is no excuse not to give the warp boost (now that "EaF" had shown that warp separation is perfectly safe and the way to go), other than sheer malevolence. That, or the warp sustainer concept being false.
Timo Saloniemi
Really, there is no excuse not to give the warp boost (now that "EaF" had shown that warp separation is perfectly safe and the way to go), other than sheer malevolence. That, or the warp sustainer concept being false.
Timo Saloniemi
Had the probe pursued the Enterprise like Q did earlier in the year, LaForge might have done things differently, but it stayed within proximity of Minos.
In which case LaForge has two choices:
A) The distance he put between the drone and the saucer already suffices, and there's absolutely no point in sending the saucer anywhere.
B) The distance might not suffice, and the saucer has to be sent somewhere farther out.
In neither case does it make any sense to send the saucer out at sublight speed. In A), there is no need for the saucer to move one inch, and nothing good will follow from it moving. In B), sublight is grossly inferior to warp (which the enemy has not demonstrated being capable of), and there's no excuse not to use warp, indeed no excuse to drop out of warp in the first place.
The conclusion is similarly two-pronged: either LaForge is a murderous idiot, or then warp was used without any reliance on the sustainer concept.
Timo Saloniemi
A) The distance he put between the drone and the saucer already suffices, and there's absolutely no point in sending the saucer anywhere.
B) The distance might not suffice, and the saucer has to be sent somewhere farther out.
In neither case does it make any sense to send the saucer out at sublight speed. In A), there is no need for the saucer to move one inch, and nothing good will follow from it moving. In B), sublight is grossly inferior to warp (which the enemy has not demonstrated being capable of), and there's no excuse not to use warp, indeed no excuse to drop out of warp in the first place.
The conclusion is similarly two-pronged: either LaForge is a murderous idiot, or then warp was used without any reliance on the sustainer concept.
Timo Saloniemi
LaForge did the right thing based on the information he had at hand (which is all any commander can do--it's easy to play Monday morning quarterback and second guess someone else's decision years later). The probe only attacked the Enterprise while she in orbit of Minos and did not pursue her when she left. It also did not engage warp at any time during the engagement, so it was logical for LaForge to consider the probe confined to Minos space and act accordingly. Picard, Riker, or even Logan might have done things differently, but LaForge's tactic did work.
This is no excuse to send the saucer to an utterly pointless sublight journey. OTOH, betting on the enemy not following is just plain criminal, if LaForge could trivially assure the enemy could not follow by sending the saucer away at warp. There is no mandate for LaForge to bet.
"LaForge's tactic did work" in no way excuses him telling Logan to swim those 2,000 miles. Stupid officers may sometimes live to face their court martial. That should not be counted in their favor.
Timo Saloniemi
"LaForge's tactic did work" in no way excuses him telling Logan to swim those 2,000 miles. Stupid officers may sometimes live to face their court martial. That should not be counted in their favor.
Timo Saloniemi
It wasn't "utterly pointless" at all. LaForge simply didn't want to take civilians and non-essential personnel with him into battle, and it was better to send them off in the direction of a starbase where they could ultimately be rescued if things went south at Minos. Second-guessing or denouncing LaForge's tactic is overlooking the fact that he was able to successfully protect the saucer as well as recover two away teams from a dangerous situation.
That's totally beside the point. LaForge had a means of providing safety for the saucer: he failed to utilize that means. Instead, he utilized a means that did not help at all - the sublight journey provided zero improvement on the situation of the saucereers over standstill, and was massively inferior to giving the saucer a FTL start.
Half-hearted measures succeeding is no excuse for having been half-hearted in the first place. Especially as being half-hearted cost the heroes more in terms of time and tactical advantage than doing a quick warp separation would have.
Timo Saloniemi
Half-hearted measures succeeding is no excuse for having been half-hearted in the first place. Especially as being half-hearted cost the heroes more in terms of time and tactical advantage than doing a quick warp separation would have.
Timo Saloniemi
Actually, that's totally the point. He succeeded. His plan worked. Anything else is academic at best, or splitting hairs at worst.
But LaForge's officer skills are of zero interest here. The nature of the saucer's warp drive is what we are trying to discern. And there is a capability that is not being exploited in the episode: that of using a warp sustainer on the saucer. So you have exactly two choices:
1) LaForge fails to exploit a helpful capability.
2) The capability does not exist.
The former is only relevant if you want to argue that the capacity exists. But it cannot be used to support the concept that the capacity exists. At best, it can be used to argue the opposite (by saying that LaForge shouldn't be an idiot because he's a hero character).
Timo Saloniemi
1) LaForge fails to exploit a helpful capability.
2) The capability does not exist.
The former is only relevant if you want to argue that the capacity exists. But it cannot be used to support the concept that the capacity exists. At best, it can be used to argue the opposite (by saying that LaForge shouldn't be an idiot because he's a hero character).
Timo Saloniemi
Even if the saucer has a warp sustainer, using it is problematic, because separation at warp is dangerous. Data said separation at warp is dangerous in "Encounter at Farpoint." Assuming it has one, La Forge could be making a quite correct command decision not to risk using the saucer's warp sustainer unnecessarily, because the saucer was not in immediate danger and would be safe from the weapon away from the system.
Previous posts say otherwise.
But saucer separation didn't occur at warp in "Arsenal of Freedom," so that doesn't come into play. You would need to already be at warp so a warp sustainer can, well, sustain warp.
Which tells us volumes, because LaForge was at warp before making the decision to slow down to impulse.
Perhaps he was indecisive at first, and stopped for that reason. But accelerating back to warp was not a major choice to make, because he had to accelerate back to warp anyway, to get back to the planet. The opportunity to use the putative sustainer was definitely there. And the only downside would have been the theoretical risk that had been proven minimal in "EaF" already.
Timo Saloniemi
Perhaps he was indecisive at first, and stopped for that reason. But accelerating back to warp was not a major choice to make, because he had to accelerate back to warp anyway, to get back to the planet. The opportunity to use the putative sustainer was definitely there. And the only downside would have been the theoretical risk that had been proven minimal in "EaF" already.
Timo Saloniemi
I think @C.E. Evans is right about this.
Encounter at Farpoint didn't show that at all. It simply proved the theoretical possibility that Data was already aware of, but that doesn't make it any safer. "Absolutely no margin for error" means it remains a very dangerous thing to do even under the best circumstances.
The simplest explanation is that impulse engines are capable of limited (and highly inefficient) FTL travel. Case closed.
We don't know how long it actually took Enterprise to traverse the "few light days" to Delta Vega. However, using the impulse drive as a straightforward newtonian rocket to accelerate up to anything more than a fraction of Lightspeed though would take a HUGE amount of fuel, many times than the mass of the ship itself. And we know that they can't replenish their fuel along the way, because Kirk warns Spock that they'll be trapped in orbit of Delta Vega, unable to blast back out again.
Conclusion: You would definitely need some sort of (magic) subspace mass reduction system in play.
Now, the TNG tech manual talks about "subspace driver coils" built into the impulse engines themselves (despite the examples above that it's actually the nacelles that do that job). Interestingly, the TM states that this is a recent development of starship design, only introduced in the Ambassador Class (perhaps to coincide with saucers that could routinely separate?) This means that earlier starships had to rely on the subspace (i.e. mass reduction) field generators in the nacelles, much as the shuttlecraft and maybe even the Romulan BOP had to in their turn.
So in the WNMHGB scenario I see the warpless nacelles using their (thankfully still functional) mass reduction abilities to assist the Impulse Engines. This drags the Enterprise over to Delta Vega, exhausting the remaining Impulse Engine fuel in the process. Isn't it lucky they happened to be in the neighbourhood?
Mytran I seems implicit that there is some inertial reducing field.
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