Energy Creatures

[Chris Parr]

Okay, so maybe it's unlikely that the god like beings from this galaxy will intervene to save the Federation, but that doesn't mean the Empire is going to have an easy time of it! There are still energy creatures living in interstellar space that feed on energy sources such as stars and unwary starships!

Oh sure, the Federation and other interstellar civilizations know enough to alter the frequencies of their power cores so as to "sour the milk" but the Empire has no such knowledge. So it seems likely that the fusion power cores in the Star Destroyers and hypermatter reactors in Death Stars would prove a tempting treat too good for these energy creatures to pass up, and the Imperials could find themselves drained of power and stranded between the stars since all of their advanced tech is useless without power. Since we have no idea how fast these energy creatures can travel we don't know whether they can pounce on a ship travelling in hyperspace, but it seems to me the danger is still there.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well, since all the energy beings I can recall travel around in normal space-time or using some analogue of warp travel, and hyperspace is another dimension, I see no reason to think these beings could catch a vessel in hyperspace, regardless of speed.

For that matter, it's entirely possible that it's ST race's reliance on subspace and subspace technology that attracts these random energy creatures, and that, since SW ships use no such technology, they wouldn't be interested.

On that note, how many of these "energy beings" do you think are out there? Whilst they turned up in a bunch of episodes, they were, IIRC, one-off creatures or were stopped before they could breed.

[Chris Parr]

Hard to say, there could be any number of energy creatures out there.

[bilateralrope]

What happens if an energy creature tries to feed from a ship that is generating too much power ?

[Eternal_Freedom]

What happens if an energy creature tries to feed from a ship that is generating too much power ?

I would imagine it would be like any other creature that eats too much, it'll get fat and bloated. Of it it's too much power too quickly, it will, i dunno the right term to use, overload? Burn out? Go pop? Something like that.

[Chris Parr]

If the ship is generating too much power wouldn't that just attract more energy creatures to the feast?

[Sea Skimmer]

Does a squirrel fried and set on fire by a transformer attract more squirrels? Going to depend on how you think the energy feeding actually works.

[Chris Parr]

Squirrels don't feed on energy, though. So your analogy doesn't work.

It would be more like—the way that a dropped candy bar attracts a lot of bugs, so too would a sweet power source like a Star Destroyer or a Death Star attract lots of these energy creatures.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well it depends if there are actually any more of that kind of energy creature. Like I said, most of them were one of a kind.

Ok, to twist the analogy, does one cat or dog that ate so much it's stomach exploded attract more cats or dogs tot he scene? Or does it make others think "hmm, maybe I shouldn't go near that, didn't go so well for Bob here."

[Chris Parr]

Well, your analogy still doesn't work because no animal ever ate so much that its stomach exploded. When a dog or cat feels full, they simply stop eating. So if there's too much food for one animal to eat, like a big stinking carcass of a hippo, it will just attract more animals to the feast.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I did say I was struggling to find the right term. I originally went with overload or burnout. As in, the creature simply cannot handle the energy being generated by the "meal" and I damaged by it, possibly fatally.

I think the best way to think about these energy creatures that feed on ships etc would be as recharging a battery. The creature feeds, absorbs the energy, and uses that to sustain itself until it's next "meal." Ultimately there is an upper limit on how much energy it can absorb and hold. Now, it's been a while since I studied electronics, but overcharging batteries is, IIRC, a bad idea.

For instance, whilst I don't have exact numbers on hand, it is generally accepted on this site that SW ships have power outputs that are at least three orders of magnitude above Federation (and similar) ships. To use my above example, what would happen it you took an ordinary car battery and tried charging it direct from the national grid without a transformer? I'm not an expert but I think something bad would happen.

[Chris Parr]

All right. I'm just saying in that case more than one energy creature would be attracted to that extreme sweet power source the way a bunch of bugs would be attracted to a candy bar a hundred times bigger than any single bug. All of them would take a portion of the energy so none of the would overload.

I believe that although we only saw single representatives of these energy creatures, more were implied to exist. For example there were the jellyfish looking creatures seen in "Encounter at Farpoint" who were actually mates so that would imply the possibility of a larger population, and then there was infant energy creature tat attached itself to the Enterprise until they "soured the milk", which would imply that some of these energy creatures reproduce. We don't know their cycle, but it seems to me you'd need at least one or two of the creatures to do that.

And finally, Voyager encountered an energy creature that thought Voyager was trying to take its mate and kept attacking them. It was only whn Voyager assumed a submissive posture that the energy creature let the go. No, I don't remember what episodes those last two are from, I just vaguely recall seeing them on an episode of TNG and Voyager. And all of them would seem to imply a larger population o these energy creatures, at least to me.

[Pelranius]

Well, your analogy still doesn't work because no animal ever ate so much that its stomach exploded. When a dog or cat feels full, they simply stop eating. So if there's too much food for one animal to eat, like a big stinking carcass of a hippo, it will just attract more animals to the feast.

The python that ate an alligator in Florida would disagree with you.

[Chris Parr]

Really? I never heard of that happening before.

[Napoleon the Clown]

We've never seen enough of these things to believe they're common enough to even be of concern.


That being said, if the Alpha Quadrant powers know how to "sour the milk" what makes you think the Empire's power generation would taste good in the first place?

[Elheru Aran]

Bear in mind that the Empire uses a completely different form of reactor than most of Star Trek does-- 'hypermatter'. Star Trek powers tend to use matter/antimatter or nuclear fusion (the Romulans use a captive singularity, but that's pretty wonky). There's a fairly valid possibility that energy creatures might not even notice hypermatter reactors.

Even if they do... Star Wars already has a canon creature which sucks power from ships-- mynocks. A small smuggler craft has to land and send a couple of guys out to shoot them off the hull; I imagine the Imperials have rather more sophisticated ways of removing such parasites. An energy creature may be a little more difficult to shoo away, but considering that even conservative math (if you're honest anyway) gives Star Wars a serious edge in power generation capabilities over Trek...

[Purple]

If all else fails you can just shoot them. Given that turbolasers are some sort of contained plasma thing I imagine that you could "feed" the creatures that way. And unlike phasers there is no continual link to the ship so it would not be dangerous to you. It'd be like an old man throwing bread crumbs to pigeons in the park.

[Ted C]

In an invasion, the Empire will be moving against population centers of the Federation, Klingon Empire, Romulan Empire, and other interstellar civilizations. That means they won't be wandering into a lot of systems populated with energy eating fauna.

Besides, with things like mynocks and space slugs lurking about their own galaxy, the Empire is no stranger to bizarre space fauna.

[Chris Parr]

All right.

[Simon_Jester]

Hard to say, there could be any number of energy creatures out there.

No, there could not.

If independently warp-capable 'energy creatures' were as common as, say, normal starships, then people would encounter them in space about as often as they encounter starships. They don't. This suggests that such beings are rare, or usually remain dormant and quiet most of the time.

All right. I'm just saying in that case more than one energy creature would be attracted to that extreme sweet power source the way a bunch of bugs would be attracted to a candy bar a hundred times bigger than any single bug. All of them would take a portion of the energy so none of the would overload.

That only happens because there are very many bugs and very few random candy bars. It is NOT implied in any instance that "energy beings" capable of feeding on a starship's energy supplies are common wildlife in the Star Trek galaxy. They are encountered multiple times, yes, but not often.

If they were encountered more often, then Star Trek powers (including the Federation) would know how to deal with them, from experience, instead of always being caught largely by surprise and having to laboriously figure out how to defend themselves.

Compare to, say, Romulan battlecruisers. If a Romulan battlecruiser shows up, the Federation has a pretty damn good idea what to do, from experience- raise shields, fire torpedoes, yadda yadda. The Federation knows how to detect Romulan battlecruisers, how to defend themselves, how to fight back. Sure, the Romulans have some neat technologies to hide from detection and defend their own ships in return- but the Federation doesn't need to launch a whole new science project to figure out what to do every time Romulans attack.

By contrast, each episode with an 'energy being' is treated like a standalone. No two instances are alike, suggesting that there is no one species of 'energy being' which is common throughout Federation space- either there are many species of 'energy being' all native to small separate areas, or there are lots of them spread widely, but very few of any one kind. And in each instance, the 'energy being' has different means of attacking starships and/or protecting itself.

So granted, hostile energy beings may reproduce, they may have mates or friendships or whatever... but energy beings can't be that common, even if the Enterprise does seem to run into two or three of them a season. The Enterprise is not a representative sample of the population. We know this because while the Enterprise encounters Romulan warships about as often (not MORE often) than it encounters dangerous energy beings... somehow, the energy beings are always a unique unexpected threat, while the Romulans are a known quantity. This suggests that encounters with energy beings are NOT routine, compared to something like "pissed off Romulans."

[Chris Parr]

Okay.

[Elheru Aran]

Think upon Earth wildlife. Take the basking shark (also known as a 'megamouth') or the oarfish. Both are fairly rare; both generate quite a bit of commentary and the occasional news report when they show up, and if they show up dead, they're shipped off to a lab for autopsy and study. Versus a regular shark-- there's a lot of them out there, people run into them often enough that they don't generate much comment, fishermen pull them in fairly regularly. It's like that with the energy creatures, although you could consider each one to be a separate 'species', I suppose.

[Sea Skimmer]

Well, your analogy still doesn't work because no animal ever ate so much that its stomach exploded.

Birds and dry rice say otherwise.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Well, your analogy still doesn't work because no animal ever ate so much that its stomach exploded.

Birds and dry rice say otherwise.

Dry rice isn't a problem for birds. In fact, They can regurgitate just fine. (Seagull horking up a hotdog, in case you're super squeamish.)

Of course, knowing anything about avian parental tactics, you'd already know birds can vomit just fine.


Pacman frogs, on the other hand, have been known to kill themselves by trying to eat too goddamn much.

[Simon_Jester]

Even humans can kill or seriously injure themselves by overeating when they've been under famine conditions and someone shoves a huge pile of food under their nose.

And an energy creature that normally lives on starship power plants will probably not get to eat very often. If it did, then the energy creature would be a familiar pest that passing starships would know how to deal with because energy creature attacks would happen like once a week. So that is a fairly apt analogy, I'd think.