Why UFP starship arm such weaken weapons

[Baffalo]

As to the VOY episode "Living Witness", if we're to take at face value that 25 isotons could level a city in seconds, then a photorp would be enough if you coose the high end figure of 25 isotons equal to 64.4MT or the low end of 8.05MT (1 isotons = 322KT).

Another reason why I don't think the writers have thought things through is that in VOY "Juggernaut", a Malon export vessel could transport 4 trillion isotons of antimatter waste. If the waste were to detonate, the low end figure of its yield would be 1.288 exa-tons and its high end figure of 10.304 exa-tons.

But of course it is all complete garbage as apparently 54 isotons is enough to blow up a small planet. (VOY: "The Omega Directive")

Too inconsistent.

Honestly, I would just assume that it's the fault of the writers. The writers are basically told to take a technical term and stick it in the show to try and get back in touch with everyone who thought Star Trek was meant to be about science, despite the fact that Star Trek is on par to a philosophy student in scientific insight.

My personal theory is that isoton is a standard unit of reference when it comes to explosives. I say reference in the same way that in mathematics, we have terms for units such as Siemens (1/Ohms), radians, things that we use as a reference but are in fact unit-less. Similar to the way large explosives are refered to as simply 'kilotons' or 'megatons', we know it means pounds of dynamite. It's a standard label but without knowledge of what it refers to, it's meaningless.

So if we treat it like that, let's say we reference explosives to tons of antimatter. In the case of anti-matter, the actual amount of anti-matter is meaningless, because it's not the volume or size, but the mass of anti-matter being used. And if you know how much an equivalent mass of anti-matter releases when it contacts matter, you can use that as a frame of reference. So how much would a ton (or metric ton in this case) produce in terms of power?

One metric ton is 1000 kilograms, or 1,000,000 grams of deuterium. Because the speed of light is 3x108 m/s, a metric ton of anti-matter, when converted to pure energy, releases 3x1017 Joules, or 300 Peta-Joules of energy. Because of the nature of the explosion, we have the equivilent mass in normal matter being destroyed, for a total of 600 Peta-Joules of energy. Just for reference, one ton of TNT releases 4.184x109 Joules of energy. That sounds impressive, but considering we measure nuclear weapons often in megatons, a megaton is 4.184x1015. That means that you're looking at the equivilent of 72 one megaton nuclear weapons in the same package. Forgive me, but considering that both the United States and the Soviet Union had literally thousands of these weapons and bigger, and the worst we predicted was nuclear winter, I don't think anti-matter is really that efficient.

In all honestly? I'd arm my ships with high-yield nuclear weapons if I went toe to toe with a Federation starship, because I'd be reasonably even matched in terms of firepower.

[Simon_Jester]

'Full of research and industrial accidents' meaning 'on two occasions?' Granted, the fact that the Borg couldn't make it work either is a point in the conspiracy's favor.

Given the first catastrophic failure with the Federation, and the subsequent Borg failure, and the failure of every other attempt in Star Trek canon that I can find a reference to... maybe Omega molecules really are impossible to control and confine. Maybe there are theoretical problems with the idea of stabilizing them that the Federation has good reason to think are insoluble? Maybe they sought confirmation from more advanced races on this issue?

We don't know all the details. All we know is that the Federation government believes the Omega molecule to be so intrinsically dangerous to interstellar navigation that it is worth taking nearly any reasonable risk (such as the loss of a ship) to be rid of them.

Maybe they're right.

Of course, if there were any evidence in Star Trek for anyone having successfully stabilized an Omega molecule, then the Federation might want to relax its policy. Is there such?

But this brings up another issue. The Voyager crew are not in or near Federation space. Janeway brings her crew into this because the Black Ops team Starfleet would normally use is tens of thousands of light-years away. Instead of keeping on her way, maybe altering course slightly to get away from that world quicker, she diverts course to go straight to the Particle. Apparently, destroying the Omega Particle is a greater priority than getting her crew home!

If Janeway were a proper military officer, she would indeed consider standing orders such as "destroy all Omega molecules at all costs" to take precedence over getting home in a hurry. This would not be surprising.

[Enigma]

Honestly, I would just assume that it's the fault of the writers. The writers are basically told to take a technical term and stick it in the show to try and get back in touch with everyone who thought Star Trek was meant to be about science, despite the fact that Star Trek is on par to a philosophy student in scientific insight.

My personal theory is that isoton is a standard unit of reference when it comes to explosives. I say reference in the same way that in mathematics, we have terms for units such as Siemens (1/Ohms), radians, things that we use as a reference but are in fact unit-less. Similar to the way large explosives are refered to as simply 'kilotons' or 'megatons', we know it means pounds of dynamite. It's a standard label but without knowledge of what it refers to, it's meaningless.

So if we treat it like that, let's say we reference explosives to tons of antimatter. In the case of anti-matter, the actual amount of anti-matter is meaningless, because it's not the volume or size, but the mass of anti-matter being used. And if you know how much an equivalent mass of anti-matter releases when it contacts matter, you can use that as a frame of reference. So how much would a ton (or metric ton in this case) produce in terms of power?

One metric ton is 1000 kilograms, or 1,000,000 grams of deuterium. Because the speed of light is 3x108 m/s, a metric ton of anti-matter, when converted to pure energy, releases 3x1017 Joules, or 300 Peta-Joules of energy. Because of the nature of the explosion, we have the equivilent mass in normal matter being destroyed, for a total of 600 Peta-Joules of energy. Just for reference, one ton of TNT releases 4.184x109 Joules of energy. That sounds impressive, but considering we measure nuclear weapons often in megatons, a megaton is 4.184x1015. That means that you're looking at the equivilent of 72 one megaton nuclear weapons in the same package. Forgive me, but considering that both the United States and the Soviet Union had literally thousands of these weapons and bigger, and the worst we predicted was nuclear winter, I don't think anti-matter is really that efficient.

In all honestly? I'd arm my ships with high-yield nuclear weapons if I went toe to toe with a Federation starship, because I'd be reasonably even matched in terms of firepower.

But in VOY, they've used isograms when referring to how many isograms needed to barely power Voyager's sonic shower. That's a bit different than explosive yield.

[Baffalo]

But in VOY, they've used isograms when referring to how many isograms needed to barely power Voyager's sonic shower. That's a bit different than explosive yield.

Well, technically, we are talking about energy and mass. Let's assume that by a few, they mean between two and five isograms of anti-matter, or five grams. Considering that this was enough to power the sonic showers on a Nova class ship, we can assume that this means at peak loads. A Nova-Class ship has a crew of 80, so peak times may mean at most, 40% of the crew showering at once. That's 32 showers in use. Now, we assumed that an isogram is a gram of anti-matter, which means the energy output is approximately 180x1018 Joules of energy. 1 Joule = 1 Watt x Second, so to get it into seconds, we divide by 3600, giving us 25x1012 Watts for peak times. Given that a refrigerator uses about 1,000 Watts or a 24,000 BTU air conditioner uses 2600 Watts, this is a huge amount of power. And that's every single second.



My last post was in error. I forgot to square the speed of light, so below is the corrected equations.

A metric ton of anti-matter releases 90x1021 Joules of energy, so given that 1 megaton of TNT yields 4.184x1015 Joules, that requires 21 million nuclear weapons. So yes, anti-matter is much more powerful.

[Jawawithagun]

A metric ton of anti-matter releases 90x1021 Joules of energy, so given that 1 megaton of TNT yields 4.184x1015 Joules, that requires 21 million nuclear weapons. So yes, anti-matter is much more powerful.

Isn't a significant percentage of that released in the form of neutrinos and thus not usable?

[Baffalo]

When you're several orders of magnitude away, a significant percentage becomes negligible in the big picture.

This is true. Even if 50% of the energy lost is in the form of neutrinos, that's still 45x1021 Joules, or only about 10 million nuclear weapons.

[Ahriman238]

We don't know all the details. All we know is that the Federation government believes the Omega molecule to be so intrinsically dangerous to interstellar navigation that it is worth taking nearly any reasonable risk (such as the loss of a ship) to be rid of them.

Maybe they're right.

Of course, if there were any evidence in Star Trek for anyone having successfully stabilized an Omega molecule, then the Federation might want to relax its policy. Is there such?

It sure looked like it was stabilizing in the episode. Whether it wou;d have lasted is anyone's guess. Umm, if you're willing to go very far down the cannon tree to a computer game called Star Trek Armada, the Ferengi create an Omega Particle and a means of stabilizing it, but I doubt it was very good since they tried to sell it to the Cardassians, but it was stolen by the Romulans who traded it to the Borg. When the Romulan/Borg mutual backstab is done, a Fed/Kling/Rom alliance seizes a traswarp gate and sends a vast fleet to destroy the Particle, rather than let the Borg keep an infinite power generator.

If Janeway were a proper military officer, she would indeed consider standing orders such as "destroy all Omega molecules at all costs" to take precedence over getting home in a hurry. This would not be surprising.

But why? It's not a threat to the Federation or any of it's member worlds. It is a threat to her ship and crew, but not if they get clear fast enough. Neither Voyager nor the Federation have anything to gain. Following standing orders for the sake of following orders is all well and good in a traditionaly military outfit, but Starfleet usually goes for more free-minded officers, and you have to ask yourself when 'just following orders' will cut it. More so, when destroying an entire advanced civilization. In RL military, you get shot or hung for 'just following orders' when said orders are clearly immoral or illegal.

[Batman]

Talking about orders of magnitude off, 4.5E19J, actually, I'm afraid.

[Baffalo]

Talking about orders of magnitude off, 4.5E19J, actually, I'm afraid.

I misplaced my normal calculator, a TI-89, and I had to use an old scientific and I'm not entirely sure the keys are working right.

[Connor MacLeod]

Iso-(measurement) like isoton or isogram are used like in RL. It could refer to a unit of mass or energy. Quite possibly ot units of force (ton-force!) We simply dont knwo what to interpret isoton as in either context (how many kg, joules, whatever.)

Also "antimatter waste" could be referring to contaminated materials as a result of antimatter reactors (Assuming they can generate or create any lingering, long term radiation effects, that is.) since Matter-antimatter annihiliaton won't leave behind any srot of byproduct you can "transport" anyhow. (although hauling trillions of "any"tons of it in a starship is... interesting, to say the least.)

Of course, the whole "antimatter waste" thing (aside from weird cases where inert matter seems to spontaneously interact in a non-annihilation manner, or generate antiparticles...) tend to suggest "antimatteR" in Star Trek, as I alluded to, is something.. exotic.

[Baffalo]

Iso-(measurement) like isoton or isogram are used like in RL. It could refer to a unit of mass or energy. Quite possibly ot units of force (ton-force!) We simply dont knwo what to interpret isoton as in either context (how many kg, joules, whatever.)

Also "antimatter waste" could be referring to contaminated materials as a result of antimatter reactors (Assuming they can generate or create any lingering, long term radiation effects, that is.) since Matter-antimatter annihiliaton won't leave behind any srot of byproduct you can "transport" anyhow. (although hauling trillions of "any"tons of it in a starship is... interesting, to say the least.)

Of course, the whole "antimatter waste" thing (aside from weird cases where inert matter seems to spontaneously interact in a non-annihilation manner, or generate antiparticles...) tend to suggest "antimatteR" in Star Trek, as I alluded to, is something.. exotic.

I got to thinking about this and came up with a personal theory that might explain the so-called 'antimatter waste'. Let's say you have antimatter being produced. Most logically, you'd want anti-hydrogen, which would be the smallest amount of a stable element as possible. If you hit hydrogen with anti-hydrogen, you get a pure, clean loss, meaning there's nothing left. But hydrogen, like almost every other element in existence, has certain isotopes, and these isotopes are the problem. In theory, you want a perfect 1:1 ratio of hydrogen and anti-hydrogen going in. But what happens when you hit something bigger, like say, helium or an even heavier element with anti-particles?

In theory, the positrons would connect with electrons, blowing them out of existence, then the anti-positrons would collide (as well as anti-neutrons), blowing them to smithereens. But that's introducing a ton of energy directly into the nucleus of an atom, plus it's no longer the element you started with. Gold, smacked with anti-hydrogen, would form platinum for a few very tiny seconds. Then it would either a) stabilize into platinum or b) scatter like a cue ball breaking the pool table. I think option B would be the case we're looking at. The anti-matter waste might simply be what's left after taking heavier elements and using anti-matter against it, rather than cultivating the exact 1:1 ratio. Theta radiation might be the energy released when you crack an otherwise stable element, or it might be a new term for gamma radiation. Regardless, you've used something to annihilate anti-matter, and what's left needs to be gotten rid of. Personally, I think they bombard the matter with anti-matter until it's so radioactive they have to get rid of it by dumping in space before it causes a meltdown, similar to fuel rods in modern nuclear reactors.

[Simon_Jester]

We don't know all the details. All we know is that the Federation government believes the Omega molecule to be so intrinsically dangerous to interstellar navigation that it is worth taking nearly any reasonable risk (such as the loss of a ship) to be rid of them.

Maybe they're right.

Of course, if there were any evidence in Star Trek for anyone having successfully stabilized an Omega molecule, then the Federation might want to relax its policy. Is there such?

It sure looked like it was stabilizing in the episode. Whether it wou;d have lasted is anyone's guess.

Yeah, that's kind of the point- given the track record of the Omega molecule, is there any evidence that anyone's ever successfully stabilized one of the damn things for an extended period of time?

Sure, ST Armada, but do we know the stabilization process will work there? How long does the thing run before it's destroyed?

If Janeway were a proper military officer, she would indeed consider standing orders such as "destroy all Omega molecules at all costs" to take precedence over getting home in a hurry. This would not be surprising.

But why? It's not a threat to the Federation or any of it's member worlds. It is a threat to her ship and crew, but not if they get clear fast enough. Neither Voyager nor the Federation have anything to gain. Following standing orders for the sake of following orders is all well and good in a traditionaly military outfit, but Starfleet usually goes for more free-minded officers, and you have to ask yourself when 'just following orders' will cut it. More so, when destroying an entire advanced civilization. In RL military, you get shot or hung for 'just following orders' when said orders are clearly immoral or illegal.

...Wait. Can you explain to me how they destroyed an entire civilization? I am confused.

Meanwhile, a big enough number of the things, according to the episode in question, could disable warp travel over a quadrant-sized region of space, which would both strand Voyager permanently and cause an enormous amount of trouble for all the numerous species native to the Delta Quadrant. Hell, there doesn't seem to be any upper limit to how big a blast you can get from the things; depending on just how many of the molecules there were, the effects might even extend beyond that.

[Ahriman238]

Sure, ST Armada, but do we know the stabilization process will work there? How long does the thing run before it's destroyed?

A few days.

Yeah, that's kind of the point- given the track record of the Omega molecule, is there any evidence that anyone's ever successfully stabilized one of the damn things for an extended period of time?

Allos and his people. I don't know if they could have kept it stable indefinitly, and it was certainly foolish to duplicate it millions of times before making sure, but consider: The Borg had a stable Omega Particle for a zeptosecond, one trillionth of a nanosecond, and considered it a great success. The people Voyager stole the particles from had them for at least eight hours between the detection of the particle and Voyager's arrival. More likely they had the particle for several days, given Voyager's alleged but inconsistent sensor ranges, and the fact that there were millions. Given Allos' passion, and the aforementioned millions of particles I wouldn't rule out them having stable particles for years.

Until Voyager and her self-righteous captain.

...Wait. Can you explain to me how they destroyed an entire civilization? I am confused.

Meanwhile, a big enough number of the things, according to the episode in question, could disable warp travel over a quadrant-sized region of space, which would both strand Voyager permanently and cause an enormous amount of trouble for all the numerous species native to the Delta Quadrant. Hell, there doesn't seem to be any upper limit to how big a blast you can get from the things; depending on just how many of the molecules there were, the effects might even extend beyond that.

They didn't, that we know of, but they seemed perfectly prepared to given the large warhead they were preparing. Also, the locals seemed pretty desperate to get the particles back, and Allos to prevent them from destroying it. I can just imagine them all dying in an ice age or something because the power for heaters simply wasn't there.

They do say that many particles could disrupt warp travel over half the delta quadrent. They also mention destroying a small planet with a modified photon torpedo and walking through a supernova with the assistance of the Doctor's innoculation against radiation. You decide how literally you want to take these statements.

And the locals had already had an explosion that consumed a signifigant amount of their 'substance' and only stopped warp travel a little ways from the planet, still a comfortable ride at impulse.

I don't know what more to say, except that the chief scientist of the Denobulan/Cardassian/Ferengi hybrids there accused the Voyager crew of destroying that which they did not understand, and as far as I can tell he was spot on.

[Baffalo]

Personally, I think the Omega particle scares Starfleet because they don't want to face a scenario where warp travel is impossible and that everyone is, in effect, isolated. It's a nightmare scenario and rightly so, given that many Federation worlds are interdependent on components and supplies. Sure, short jumps like from Earth to Mars would still be reasonably done, but travelling to the nearest star would take much too long. So Starfleet treats the Omega particle as a threat to the very foundation of the Federation, which is warp travel. Indeed, without warp, there really would be no Federation. So it's not hard to consider it Starfleet's number one priority, because it's no use defending primitive cultures if they can destroy the Federation in the blink of an eye on accident.

As far as Janeway's orders go, consider it from her perspective. She's been taught this one particle is a threat to everything she has worked for her entire life. It threatens her crew's chances of getting home even with all the leaps they've made. The culture using it has millions of the damned things that could fall into the hands of cultures who would use the molecules to decimate other species. It's a threat that honestly, even I can sympathize with. It'd be like if a primitive tribe hidden in the jungles of the South American rain forest discovered an ICBM from the cold war pointed at the US, and they went in and started banging around. Sure, the analogy is poor, but even with the laws in place to protect these ancient cultures, you would still step in to prevent the accidental destruction of millions.

The culture in question may understand the Omega Particle much better than Starfleet does. That's fine and dandy. They can experiment all they want after Janeway has gotten home. But for now, it's a threat, a damned big one, and she knows what her duties are.

And now, I'm going to go soak my head in acid for defending Janeway.