What powers what on a starship.

[Paul Weaver]

The anti-matter containment pods have very rarely breached, no matter how dead a ship is. In Disaster, for example, the antimatter containment field (singular) was damaged, but not that the power wasn't available, just that it couldn't be used properly.

At other times when power has been taken away, at least mostly (Starship mine for example), there's been no mention of the antimatter pods.

It wouldn't surprise if the pods have their own internal power supply -- perhaps even a small matter/antimatter generator -- to keep the pods working. We've seen them ejected into space, and according to Memory Alpha "VOY: Resolutions" confirms they're self contained.

Not only that, but it seems hard to "uncontain them", deliberatly. You can't telnet in and shut down the containment field, otherwise Tuvok wouldn't have wasted a torpedo do destroy one.

As for how small systems get powered -- we've seen plenty of evidence of explosive consoles across all ships, one does have to wonder why bridge consoles aren't powered by a 50V dc circuit and some relays. That said, some systems like replicators use shocking amounts of power.

I guess I always assumed that normal systems were powered from a battery-backed "alternator", which itself was powered by impulse or warp engines.

 

[Vanyel]

An antimatter/matter generator inside the antimatter pods would need to be inside its own containment field or once again BOOM! An external one, that I could see as a viable option.

Being able to remotely shut off these fields would be a good idea. A self destruct system that doesn't rely on explosive placed around the ship, but a violent matter/antimatter reaction would vaporize the ship and prevent the ship from falling into enemy hands. In the Search for Spock, the ship was destroyed more by its plunge toward the Genesis planet than by explosion. Had the planet not exploded, portions could have survived and give the Romulans or other hostile races to gain a small insight into Starfleet technology.

So would it be more efficient for the Fusion reactors of the impulse engine(s) to generate the electricity required to power the lights and doors and life support systems while the warp core powers the energy hogging transporters, phasers and shields?

But, the fusion reactor(s) must be able to do more. Like I mentioned the warp core was off line during the final battle in Nemesis, yet Enterprise still had shields and phasers and torpedoes both Photon and Quantum.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Boris - The whole point of this forum is to discuss the "what if's" and "whys", not quote page 77 of a tech manual.

No, the whole point is to discuss the "what ifs" and "whys", having previously quoted page 77 of a tech manual and preferably episodes as well. Otherwise, at best, the discussion gets stuck in one place, and at worst, it disintegrates into a number of incompatible personal views, as opposed to maintaining and fleshing out one official view.

If somebody is flat out wrong about something, somebody will call them on it, but respectful discussion among all generations of Star Trek fans is welcome here.

Who said that generations and respectful discussion were an issue? I'm just pointing out that there is no need to "believe" something you can look up.

As somebody who is just about to turn 40, I remember well the days before the internet where fans of the tech side of Trek would just meet and talk and think about all different things.

But these are days of the internet, which allowed a lot more fans to interact and share bits and pieces of knowledge, a lot of which ended up in online databases for everyone to peruse. I've seen discussions from the 70s and 80s, and a lot of the unknowns have been filled since then thanks to the power of internet sharing.

Even Gene Roddenberry wasn't consistent with his edicts, so a 20 year old tech manual isn't flawless or not subject to change.

I'm not saying that the books are flawless or not subject to change, only that they are required reading and a required starting point for these discussions. You're implying that Gene Roddenberry was highly involved with the technical side of Star Trek, but that was never his primary concern, so it's no wonder he wasn't consistent with his edicts. It was, however, a primary concern of Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda, and they have remained fairly consistent over the years. If you were to ask Rick Sternbach about a Voyager issue, most of the time he would give you the same answer he would've given ten years ago. I know, because I've been online long enough to compare such answers.

Trek fans talk and dream and think of new things. It is what we do. And considering how often the frequent posters here are credited by published authors, they do it very well.

I doubt it's that often. Examples? If I were a licensed author, it would be easier not to add external credits to a book unless they were essential to its success. I would add someone who performed a painstaking investigation I can't do without, not just about anyone who offers off-the-cuff speculation. I can easily come up with my own off-the-cuff speculation.

Maybe you should create your own blog with requirements on what level of knowledge members can have. You might enjoy it more than the free flowing nature of this forum.

And maybe you should create original fiction which doesn't come with almost fifty years of backstory. Then you can be as free-flowing as you like, but with Star Trek, you can only be free-flowing within certain constraints.

 

[Vanyel]

Thank you, Boris.

You turned what I thought would be a nice debate and exchange of ideas into the innermost layer of hell.

Glad I waited an hour before posting this. The original post was a lot longer and filled with words, in both Spanish and English, that I would never say in front of a priest or my mother.

Thank you Boris, now do what Jury Number 4 told Juror Number 10.

To everyone else, I apologize for this post and completely derailing this thread.

 

[Timo]

There is a downside to relying on things that were "intended" twenty years ago, almost regardless of whether they were partially implemented or left unimplemented. Namely, Star Trek isn't a planned event, despite all the planning that goes into it. It's something that happens, and then some internally consistent logic is applied to patch the cracks. It helps if there is preplanned internally consistent logic as the basic building material of the wall, but that doesn't suffice - you always need more of that plaster to fix the cracks and to build the extra walls you end up needing.

The "basic assumptions" behind Treknology are the riskiest, as they are virtually never challenged by the aired events. Thus, there can be excellent ideas on how warp drive works - but they carry no weight in the end, because if the nature of warp drive ever becomes a point of argument of the evidence-based sort, it happens because of something we saw on screen, and that single occurrence infinitely outweighs all that was left unsaid previously.

Things like photon torpedo inner workings are more likely to benefit from Paramount employee forethought, because we get pieces of onscreen evidence all the time, in the forms of cool props, bits of technobabble and flashy battle scenes. There's dramatic incentive for things like that. But there's little or no dramatic incentive for describing warp drive on screen, and thus all the thinking that goes into it is lost thinking, regardless of who is doing it - right until the point when something does manifest onscreen, and thus becomes the sole "authority" on the subject.

On the specific issue of what powers what on a starship, there's actually a dramatic angle we can and should exploit. Specifically, several episodes in several of the spinoffs tell us that virtually any part of the power system can be rerouted to supply virtually any other part. Life support can boost weapons, weapons can boost propulsion, life support and holodecks can boost main power; there is no good justification on thinking that any limitation exists on power rerouting and cross-linking.

Arguably, you need a warp core to run a warp drive. Or did, until VOY "Parallax" - but this episode had the characters discuss "power to warp drive" and rule out holodeck power but accept power from deck 9 life support. This thus completely overrules any possible earlier ideas on warp core power being reserved solely for warp propulsion, or of life support power allocation being insignificant in the warp propulsion context. Plus it opens the possibility of life support power sources positively contributing to warp propulsion (rather than merely life support power drain affecting the power available to warping). At least the dialogue suggests that "holodeck reactors" can deliver their output to warp drive - although we can always wiggle and say that they can deliver to other hungry systems, leaving the warp drive with more of the warp core power. The point is that we both can and have to wiggle, and preconceived notions on power systems from, say, the TNG TM cannot affect this argument and cannot help us in any way.

The bottom line perhaps unfortunately is, in the fluid realm of Star Trek, something written decades ago is automatically less relevant than something dreamed up today. Regardless of who's doing the writing or dreaming.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vanyel]

Riker did shoot down Shelby's idea of using a saucer separation for the up coming battle with the Borg because they could use the power from the saucers impulse engines. That too would imply that there is a lot of cross connections allowing a ship to conserve power or add power to weapons or shields.

But just how much can one supply the other?

Currently we can down step the electricity coming off the high tension power lines so they can be used safely in our homes, so I wouldn't be inconceivable that by the the time of Warp Engines there is a way to use the warp plasma to create electricity.

I just think it would be easier to use the fusion reactors to create that power. Then as Riker implied, use those reactors to help add power to weapons and shields when needed. I'm sure a ship as big as a Galaxy Class can even close off decks, or parts of decks so that even more power can be diverted to weapons and shields.

 

[Timo]

Today, it's difficult to feed power back to the network from small "tributary" sources such as rooftop windmills. It's mainly an issue of control, of phase adjustment, and of transformer efficiency. Those issues might have been solved on 24th century starships, though - so that in an emergency, anything down to hand-cranks could contribute to powering up the shields or even the warp drive. Not just power reallocation, but actual feeding of power from tributaries, then.

On the other hand, using "high" power to fire up "low" applications is reality today already, and there should be no problem using the warp core for powering up a toothbrush as such.

Yet I'm far from convinced that electricity would remain a competitive power transmission medium in the future. It's not that clever a technology in the first place. And many TNG applications appear to involve wireless power transmission, or at least recharging, which suggests EM fields (or something more exotic) but doesn't necessarily point to electricity. For all we know, the primary means of power transmission to door servos and toothbrushes in TNG is chemical or even nanomechanical, which is why electric surges are a common fault mode: the ship is not designed to protect against electrocution because there's not supposed to be any electricity aboard! Whenever an alien intrusion or a console overload kills a redshirt, it's because electricity was induced in a system that was not supposed to have any.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vanyel]

Yet I'm far from convinced that electricity would remain a competitive power transmission medium in the future. It's not that clever a technology in the first place. And many TNG applications appear to involve wireless power transmission, or at least recharging, which suggests EM fields (or something more exotic) but doesn't necessarily point to electricity. For all we know, the primary means of power transmission to door servos and toothbrushes in TNG is chemical or even nanomechanical, which is why electric surges are a common fault mode: the ship is not designed to protect against electrocution because there's not supposed to be any electricity aboard! Whenever an alien intrusion or a console overload kills a redshirt, it's because electricity was induced in a system that was not supposed to have any.

Timo Saloniemi

There are batteries of some kind in at least the TOS era. Scotty claimed they were on "just the batteries" after Khans attack. And in Trials and Tribble-ations Lt. Watley reminds Bashir that he is draining the power on his tricorder because it was open. So, at least at that time, there is some type of recharging needed for tools. Yes, not necessarily electricity, but something.

Some possible evidence for electricity are in Disaster. The electrical arc preventing Data and Riker from continuing down the Jeffries tube to Engineering. Data used his own body to break the circuit. Also in one TOS era episode, Scotty is is a Jeffries tube and what ever tool he's using seems to be pulling an electrical arc.

Yes, they can be some other form of power that resembles electricity, but it could just be same centuries old (To the people of the TOS and TNG eras) electricity.

I do like your argument that the consoles and such do not use electricity because they have no breakers and tend to explode. Very good argument against the use of electricity aboard a starship. From you, Timo, I expect nothing less than good arguments.