True--but that might be a good 3D effect for future displays. I remember a guy on G4 was doing cheap 3D type effects with the Wii that reminded me of the targeting effect.
TOS Photon Torpedo
- Thread starter blssdwlf
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True--but that might be a good 3D effect for future displays. I remember a guy on G4 was doing cheap 3D type effects with the Wii that reminded me of the targeting effect.
In Star Trek TMP, wasn't there a line in the script where Chekov was talking about bringing Photon Torpedoes aboard while the ship was in dock?
No. He says "Photon torpedo load status."
As scripted, the computer replies "Full". I brought this up in the topic quoted below.
Recently dug out the book "Chekov's Enterprise", Walter Koenig's account of making ST:TMP, to look up something about the Rec Deck scene, but while flipping through the book I saw something that I thought might be of interest to the guys into the show's tech.
Interesting trivia...but note the item "Deflector Screen Placements", which sounds like the deflector screens can be placed in different locations or distances.
Also note that the Photon Torpedo load status is "full" while the ship is still in dock. Would this be the case if the torpedoes were intended to be pure energy in TMP? Make of that what you will.
It does also make sense that the shields/screens can be extended as that is what they did in Mudd's Women.
The crosshairs can be interpreted either way. Personally I doubt that they would have come up with something that complicated back then, simply because they never really did, all visual screens were very simple and the button configuration was complicated, something that always bothered me about trek. If you were to look at something that might be considered a similar peice of technology by todays standards it looks complicated, but everything is labelled and has a specific purpose, whereas in trek it just seems like if you randomly press buttons everthing goes as planned.
On the other hand, Timo has a good point that it would make sense to have both visuals on the same screen so you wouldnt have to look around to find info that you need at a glance. And truthfully, you don't really know what the intentions of the writers, producers, set/prop managers etc were intending when you see it on screen.
As for the torpedos, I had a discussion with someone that pointed out that the tech in TOS was developed by a completely different staff with completely different intentions as the later staff recruited for the movies and then again for TNG etc.
The fact was also pointed out that no matter what was really intended to for TOS the tech was altered for the movies and then TNG which now is considered as a sort of replacement for the original ideas, so anytime there were any references to TOS era during the newer shows it all had the TNG style tech, hence ENT having TNG warp coils and torpedos (this discussion had been on how TNG turned a TOS jet engine type warp nacelle into a tube with a bunch of coils wrapped around it and plasma that gets turned into a warp field that also didnt exist in TOS).
This is the definition of retcon in Trek terms. So you can either say that tech changed from ENT to TOS and then back to ENT style in TNG or you can go with the retcon version and say it is all the same....
...which is why there are so many continuity errors in trek.
Or you could say that there are several parallel universes going on (which links up pretty well with the different production staffs of the different series
)
Or you could say that there are several parallel universes going on (which links up pretty well with the different production staffs of the different series
I think that is the only reason why old school trek fans like the new movie IMHO.
The jury is still out on just what the intent was during TOS, because is it was deliberately left vague. The fact is that there is just as much justification for the TNG version of engine setup (really TMP version, started off my Matt Jefferies in his Phase II redesign of the Enterprise) as there is for the Franz Joseph model of having all the works in the nacelles. And considering that the "in the nacelles" version relies on the more vague references, the stronger case is actually for the warp core channeling power to the rest of the ship, which is what Okuda, Sternbach, et al, were basing their version on. They didn't just pull this stuff out of the ether, there's a pretty solid basis for it within the confines of TOS.
And, again, Jefferies started it down that path with the Phase II design.
^^^^That's very true, it is left very vague....but I do know that there was a planned direction on how the tech was supposed to go. There is a guy on another forum (Totally in love with TOS, hates TNG) that literally watches each episode to piece notes together on how the tech was planned out.
Personnaly I prefer the TNG tech, it was developed more as a literal concept on how Warp Drive and such might actually work, where as TOS seemed more fantasy sci-fi of the time. I like them both, but TNG seemed more true.
Personnaly I prefer the TNG tech, it was developed more as a literal concept on how Warp Drive and such might actually work, where as TOS seemed more fantasy sci-fi of the time. I like them both, but TNG seemed more true.
In some respects, the TOS phasers seemed more powerful, steady bolts than what was seen in movies (ST II). One could make an arguement that some earlier vessels use less safe equpment, and yet we are told that TNG tech is superior. Imaging a vessel uses not hydrogen and anti hydrogen, but plutonium and anti-plutonium perhaps?
If you watch ST2, there are several optical inserts and suggestions that the phasers used by both ships were not on full power. When Khan initially attacks, he wanted to only cripple the Enterprise. When Kirk shoots back, he only had enough power for a "few shots". Later you can see the power level indicator around 1/4-1/3rd power. Khan at that point was on impulse power only with warp controls damaged.
I noticed this as the difference between Star Trek from the 1960's and the TNG-on versions. To me it seems to parallel the difference between the pre-70's vision of the future (flying cars, energy weapons, FTL travel, space colonization) and the more current and realistically tempered vision of the future.
Back to the TOS photon torpedo, it still seems to me that even if the intent was to one day show a torpedo casing that it wasn't a sure thing that the warhead would be based on antimatter, IMHO.
Maybe someone could pass on that plan to the folks who worked on the show, because it'd certainly be a surprise to them.
From what I can tell, the only one who had a definite scheme in mind is John Meredyth Lucas, since it's generally his episodes where the more specific references come from. With everyone else, it amounted to "the ship uses warp drive, which is powered by matter/antimatter annihilation, the nacelles have something to do with the process and somewhere in the mix are these dilithium crystal thingies." Other than that, it's pretty much fielder's choice.
I also had the sense, growing up, that photon torpedoes were pure energy, but I must yield to logic.
Fact: photon torpedoes are seen as discrete objects, traveling at sublight speeds, even in TOS. 'Pure energy' doesn't move at any speed below 186,000 miles per second.
Fact: Phasers couldn't be used in TMP because of the engine imbalance. They tap the ship's energy. Photon torpedoes apparently are a separate system - they have their own payload.
How can we reconcile the fact that TOS employs antimatter as weapons on two occasions while not using photon torpedoes? Simple - photon torpedoes don't use antimatter in TOS days. They're some sort of unexplained weapon that wreaks havoc on energy ships, and we don't know how they work. Later references toward antimatter use in torps was a technological advancement that increased the power or efficiency of photon torpedoes by employing antimatter in the power source.
Fact: photon torpedoes are seen as discrete objects, traveling at sublight speeds, even in TOS. 'Pure energy' doesn't move at any speed below 186,000 miles per second.
Fact: Phasers couldn't be used in TMP because of the engine imbalance. They tap the ship's energy. Photon torpedoes apparently are a separate system - they have their own payload.
How can we reconcile the fact that TOS employs antimatter as weapons on two occasions while not using photon torpedoes? Simple - photon torpedoes don't use antimatter in TOS days. They're some sort of unexplained weapon that wreaks havoc on energy ships, and we don't know how they work. Later references toward antimatter use in torps was a technological advancement that increased the power or efficiency of photon torpedoes by employing antimatter in the power source.
Sure it does. All you need is a medium.
In vacuum, electromagnetic energy is probably the "purest" form, and does move at c. But all sorts of semiphysical things could also carry energy in coherent form. Phaser beams demonstrably move at any speed from zero to high warp, which is not unexpected: various beams in real life display such behavior (even though we lack the tech to go past c, we can cover all of the lower speed range) by having their constituent particles or assorted sum waves move at the desired speed. A pulse of such a beam could well behave like a TOS photon torpedo, thus traveling at arbitrary speed yet not being anywhere close to a physical projectile.
Also, in TMP the ship was shown to be "loaded" (the word used on Chekov's control panel) with photon torpedoes before leaving port. She was never shown to be "loaded" with phaser blasts, merely "powered". The terminology difference certainly is suggestive, and jibes well with the later movies which show physical torpedoes and their loading records.
How can we reconcile WWII movie heroes using chemical explosives for naval adventures without using torpedoes? After all, torpedoes are based on chemical explosives!
Easily enough, I'd think. A torpedo contains much more besides chemical explosive - and most of it is unneeded and unwelcome in certain tasks such as demolition work or booby-trapping. When Kirk used antimatter to defeat the dikironium cloud, he didn't need anything from the torpedo besides its warhead. Which is probably what we saw: a photon torpedo warhead sphere taken out of the torpedo casing and manhandled to the planet's surface...
Similarly, when Kirk used antimatter against the Space Amoeba, he was fighting an enemy hundreds of thousands of times larger than his own ship; photon torpedo warheads elsewhere in TOS were practical weapons against targets the size of his own ship. So launching a hundred thousand torps wouldn't be a practical option. Yet creating a dedicated large demolition charge and bolting a launching device to it would be. Imagine a WWII destroyer tasked with demolishing a dock. Rather than futilely fire all eight torpedoes towards the shallows, the destroyer might rig one of her motor launches with all the Torpex warheads plus whatever other explosives they could find aboard, and aim that at the gates of the dock.
Timo Saloniemi
KIrk's Enterprise having warp coils, in fact the basic idea of warp coils, originally came from the animated series episode "One Of Our Planets Is Missing," not from TNG. The warp coils were always a TOS/TAS thing.
Okuda, Sternbach and others had absolutely nothing to do with the original idea.
Sure, but that would just bring you back to photon torpedoes having a physical component, unless we're going to describe other particles besides photons non-physical. Though photons are very physical in their own right, I suppose... they certainly aren't imaginary
You got me there, except TAS and TOS are not exactly the same thing, and if it was brought up first in TAS that doesn't mean that it is something that was drawn up in TOS.
I would like to think that it is consistant throughout all series but it seems to jump around a lot.
There is a guy in another forum that is putting together tech data from TOS and production notes and documents to try to figure out their intentions, apparently they did have one...but I wouldn't know what it actually was.
There is a "depends how you look at it" thing between TOS and TAS. I basically consider TAS to be a continuation of TOS, but others of course think TAS is non-canon. Given how the ship looks in TOS/TAS it would seem that the basic structure of the ship is the same.
"Practical Joker" is where we first saw the holodeck, in a more primative form.
The "energy bolt" fired by the Romulans at the Enterprise during BoT would seem to be an example of a caseless torpedo. It either followed the Enterprise into warp or was fired at warp (the Romulan was warp capable) and could accelerated to match and slighty excede the Enterprise's speed. If all that is true then the energy torpedo could also, logically, be able to malnuver and track the ship it was fired on. If it was a simply straight line weapon then the smallest course change would have cleared the Enterprise from danger.
While caseless the Stafleet energy torpedoes might have possessed a physical core, consisting of tracking and propulsion. The remainder of the torpedo would be formed around this. The matter and antimatter that compose the warhead would also feed the caseless core warpcore, the longer the flight, the smaller the warhead on impact.
This may have been what happen to the Romulan energy bolt just prior to impacting the Enterprise, it's fuel was used up and there was no warhead.
The advantage to caseless core idea is you can vary the amount of m/am easily, for a long warp run against a heavy warship you could pack on the m/am to the point that the torpedo looked like a long slug.
Or there would be the option of using a light weight sublight only core with a tiny amount of m/am for a warning shot or demostration across the bow.
Into the energy "bubble" you could also insert ECM, decoys, etc.
Caseless core could be the basis for recon and scientific probes, instruments could be quickly attached to the exterior, not installed inside a cased torpedoes shell.
TUC clearly shows that cased torpedoes are not casual opened and closed to insert instruments.
The caseless cores would be smaller and you could store more in the same space. They would be slighty easier for the loading gear to move around.
"Practical Joker" is where we first saw the holodeck, in a more primative form.
The "energy bolt" fired by the Romulans at the Enterprise during BoT would seem to be an example of a caseless torpedo. It either followed the Enterprise into warp or was fired at warp (the Romulan was warp capable) and could accelerated to match and slighty excede the Enterprise's speed. If all that is true then the energy torpedo could also, logically, be able to malnuver and track the ship it was fired on. If it was a simply straight line weapon then the smallest course change would have cleared the Enterprise from danger.
While caseless the Stafleet energy torpedoes might have possessed a physical core, consisting of tracking and propulsion. The remainder of the torpedo would be formed around this. The matter and antimatter that compose the warhead would also feed the caseless core warpcore, the longer the flight, the smaller the warhead on impact.
This may have been what happen to the Romulan energy bolt just prior to impacting the Enterprise, it's fuel was used up and there was no warhead.
The advantage to caseless core idea is you can vary the amount of m/am easily, for a long warp run against a heavy warship you could pack on the m/am to the point that the torpedo looked like a long slug.
Or there would be the option of using a light weight sublight only core with a tiny amount of m/am for a warning shot or demostration across the bow.
Into the energy "bubble" you could also insert ECM, decoys, etc.
Caseless core could be the basis for recon and scientific probes, instruments could be quickly attached to the exterior, not installed inside a cased torpedoes shell.
TUC clearly shows that cased torpedoes are not casual opened and closed to insert instruments.
The caseless cores would be smaller and you could store more in the same space. They would be slighty easier for the loading gear to move around.
^^^I actually also agree that TAS is a continuation of TOS, and I like all forms of canon and non-canon to complete the picture. It's just that historically each show has had different production staff and even though they are all similar in many ways they are also all different in many ways, which kind of sucks for continuity.
For this reason whenever I get on the subject of an individual series or movie I try to leave out the others because it may be different and have no bearing on the actual topic.
^^^Also T'Girl I like your explanation of the caseless torpedo, it would make sense to have some kind of physical arrangement in the system even if the charge was energy, so you can control speed and direction.
For this reason whenever I get on the subject of an individual series or movie I try to leave out the others because it may be different and have no bearing on the actual topic.
^^^Also T'Girl I like your explanation of the caseless torpedo, it would make sense to have some kind of physical arrangement in the system even if the charge was energy, so you can control speed and direction.
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