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I was just watching the opening to DS9 "The Maquis, part 1." A small Cardassian ship is docked at DS9 and explodes shortly after undocking (thanks, Maquis.) Here's the interesting thing...the ship was less than its own length from the docking arm. The station rocked lightly, but there was no damage. And the debris was still floating inside the docking arms later.

Now, I'm assuming this ship was warp capable (since anything less would make it incapable of leaving Bajoran space in any reasonable amount of time, and probably be obsolete anyway). So...is this an example of DS9 taking a warp core breach at close range with its shields down?

NOTE: The ship is destroyed by the sabotage of its impulse engines. But unless someone can demonstrate otherwise, I'm assuming that an explosion powerful enough to destroy a Trek ship will also destroy its warp core and antimatter storage.

The only other thing I can think of as a hull strength indicator is when a Jem' Hadar ship blasts a docking arm off.

Metrion Cascade wrote:NOTE: The ship is destroyed by the sabotage of its impulse engines. But unless someone can demonstrate otherwise, I'm assuming that an explosion powerful enough to destroy a Trek ship will also destroy its warp core and antimatter storage.

Woah there buckaroo, when have we ever seen a Cardassian ship have its warp core cook off when destroyed? Just because the Feddies have shitty saftey procedures doesn't mean the Cardassians overload their Warp Cores full-time or that their anti-matter supplies don't auto disperse/eject during an explosion.

In the episodes with fleet battles I dont recall seeing Cardassian ships suffer warp core breaches when destroyed.

Gandalf wrote:The only other thing I can think of as a hull strength indicator is when a Jem' Hadar ship blasts a docking arm off.

Nope, never happened.

Alyeska wrote:

Gandalf wrote:The only other thing I can think of as a hull strength indicator is when a Jem' Hadar ship blasts a docking arm off.

Nope, never happened.

I thought it was form the opening of To The Death. I know it wasn't shown on screen, but I do remember the Defiant coming home through the wormhole and seeing the aftermath.

Gandalf wrote:

Alyeska wrote:

Gandalf wrote:The only other thing I can think of as a hull strength indicator is when a Jem' Hadar ship blasts a docking arm off.

Nope, never happened.

I thought it was form the opening of To The Death. I know it wasn't shown on screen, but I do remember the Defiant coming home through the wormhole and seeing the aftermath.

That was from a bomb placed inside the Upper Pylon by a Jem-Hadar raiding party.

The Kernel wrote:

Metrion Cascade wrote:NOTE: The ship is destroyed by the sabotage of its impulse engines. But unless someone can demonstrate otherwise, I'm assuming that an explosion powerful enough to destroy a Trek ship will also destroy its warp core and antimatter storage.

Woah there buckaroo, when have we ever seen a Cardassian ship have its warp core cook off when destroyed? Just because the Feddies have shitty saftey procedures doesn't mean the Cardassians overload their Warp Cores full-time or that their anti-matter supplies don't auto disperse/eject during an explosion.

The ship in question exploded very suddenly. However, it didn't look like a standard warp core explosion either.

The device was described as an Implossion device.

Alyeska wrote:The device was described as an Implossion device.

Damn you for beating me to it!

Alyeska wrote:The device was described as an Implossion device.

An impulse engine implosion device IIRC.

Do explain to me how a ship that doesn't have time to shut off its impulse engines does have time to eject its core. Never mind that we didn't see the core ejected, and it probably would have been destroyed by the explosion if it was. And also explain how reactor design matters when the reactor is breached. If one ship has excess antimatter in the reactor, that doesn't mean it will explode more violently than another ship with the same amount of antimatter aboard. When it's released it'll still react with the ship.

And we don't know that the impulse implosion itself was powerful enough to destroy the entire ship, or had to be. If you breach the antimatter containment system or warp core the ship will explode, regardless of whether what you used to breach it was as powerful as the antimatter itself.

evilcat4000 wrote:In the episodes with fleet battles I dont recall seeing Cardassian ships suffer warp core breaches when destroyed.

The possible explanations being that:

1.) They always ejected their cores well before they were destroyed (no, they didn't).

or

2.) They do breach (along with the warp core on every ship that completely explodes so that its drive section doesn't remain intact), and that's what Cardassian warp core breaches look like.

And remember...at least one Cardassian warp core was breached by prolonged fire from a Federation hand phaser (VOY "Dreadnaught").

Metrion Cascade wrote:And remember...at least one Cardassian warp core was breached by prolonged fire from a Federation hand phaser (VOY "Dreadnaught").

Come on, that was a fucking cruise missile, not a starship.

The Kernel wrote:

Metrion Cascade wrote:And remember...at least one Cardassian warp core was breached by prolonged fire from a Federation hand phaser (VOY "Dreadnaught").

Come on, that was a fucking cruise missile, not a starship.

Actauly those were the antimatter storage tanks. And Bellana had to sit there with the phaser on max for a good five minuites or so and just keep blasting into them. Being what they are, they are probably heavily reinforced and shielded to keep them safe...I sure as heck hope they are.

Chris OFarrell wrote: Actauly those were the antimatter storage tanks. And Bellana had to sit there with the phaser on max for a good five minuites or so and just keep blasting into them. Being what they are, they are probably heavily reinforced and shielded to keep them safe...I sure as heck hope they are.

Yeah, that's what I meant, it's a freaking flying bomb, it should be a lot easier to cook off than a ship using antimatter for its reactor.

What's interesting about that is that in TNG, we saw that a single hit from a Klingon disruptor to the warp core could cause the Enterprise to blow whereas antimatter storage tanks on a fucking Cardassian missile required minutes of directed phaser fire to say nothing about the warp cores on Cardassian warships. I'd say we have pretty clear evidence that Cardassian ships have better saftey around their antimatter supplies then their Feddie counterparts despite O'Brien's bizzare rantings about Cardassian saftey procedures.

The Kernel wrote:

Chris OFarrell wrote: Actauly those were the antimatter storage tanks. And Bellana had to sit there with the phaser on max for a good five minuites or so and just keep blasting into them. Being what they are, they are probably heavily reinforced and shielded to keep them safe...I sure as heck hope they are.

Yeah, that's what I meant, it's a freaking flying bomb, it should be a lot easier to cook off than a ship using antimatter for its reactor.

What's interesting about that is that in TNG, we saw that a single hit from a Klingon disruptor to the warp core could cause the Enterprise to blow whereas antimatter storage tanks on a fucking Cardassian missile required minutes of directed phaser fire to say nothing about the warp cores on Cardassian warships. I'd say we have pretty clear evidence that Cardassian ships have better saftey around their antimatter supplies then their Feddie counterparts despite O'Brien's bizzare rantings about Cardassian saftey procedures.

That or Klingon disruptors can deliver more firepower than Fed phasers.

And why would a (very fucking expensive) bomb that has to reach a destination have worse containment than anything else? Are the containers even built for specific ships rather than simply mass produced in various sizes and shipped out?

Warp core =! AM storage tanks

Uraniun235 wrote:Warp core =! AM storage tanks

That should be !=

Yeah, I failed that class.

That or Klingon disruptors can deliver more firepower than Fed phasers.

Pulse disruptors do seem to be more powerful than beam phasers. In "Rascals" an ancient BOP was able to drop the Enterprises shields within seconds using pulse disruptors only.

evilcat4000 wrote:

That or Klingon disruptors can deliver more firepower than Fed phasers.

Pulse disruptors do seem to be more powerful than beam phasers. In "Rascals" an ancient BOP was able to drop the Enterprises shields within seconds using pulse disruptors only.

Um...I do seem to recall BOPs coming in various sizes. So this doesn't necessarily mean all BOPs, just a certain class.

But yes, pulse weapons do seem to deliver their energy faster.

Worf said that the BOP was a B'rel class.