A theory on the bad warp core design

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Now, in TNG, we all know Warp Cores are death traps. Safety cannot be used in the same sentense.

But in TOS, it was different. The U.S.S. Enterprise (refit), U.S.S. Reliant and U.S.S. Enterprise-A were all shot to hell in ST:II and ST:VI.


The question is, how could they go from having naccelles blown off and no danger to naccelles being nudged and exploding?


Concider this. In 100 years the Romulans went from Fusion (Impulse power) to M/AM (warp cores from Klingon ships) to Black Holes (Quantum Signularity).

My theory, is that QS's were more powerful/efficient then Warp Cores. So with engineers like Scotty dead or retired, the new engineers decided to rework the Warp Core. In exchange for safety, it got powerful enough to stand against Romulans.

So we get the Galaxy Class Explorers. They can stand toe to toe with a Romulan Warbird, but pays a terrible price in safety.



Thanks to Stravo, whoose fanfic "Star Crossed" had the original idea of the unsafe warp cores being more powerful.

[Stravo]

Thanks to Stravo, whoose fanfic "Star Crossed" had the original idea of the unsafe warp cores being more powerful.

I was about to add that this theory sounded suspiciously familiar. Can we deny that the Federation warp cores are more powerful than in TOS BUT can we also deny that warp core breeches happen at the drop of a hat in TNG. FOr instance, when the Bozeman, a TOS era Miranda bumps into the Ent-D's nacelle a full blown warp core breech occurs - The Bozeman continues on its merry way yet its a 100 years older. This is PROOF that the older ships simply had more stable warp cores back then at the cost of power. With the advancement in safety features they were able to squeeze more power out of the warp cores.

There is a contingent out there that insists that the warp core breeches are a GCS specific flaw.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Thanks to Stravo, whoose fanfic "Star Crossed" had the original idea of the unsafe warp cores being more powerful.

I was about to add that this theory sounded suspiciously familiar. Can we deny that the Federation warp cores are more powerful than in TOS BUT can we also deny that warp core breeches happen at the drop of a hat in TNG. FOr instance, when the Bozeman, a TOS era Miranda bumps into the Ent-D's nacelle a full blown warp core breech occurs - The Bozeman continues on its merry way yet its a 100 years older. This is PROOF that the older ships simply had more stable warp cores back then at the cost of power. With the advancement in safety features they were able to squeeze more power out of the warp cores.

There is a contingent out there that insists that the warp core breeches are a GCS specific flaw.

IIRC Voyager had the same flaws (and the same holodeck and transporter ones too)

[Illuminatus Primus]

That doesn't make sense though. You're trying to get it to stand toe-to-toe with a superior ship but you make it easier to blow up? Not logical.

[Alyeska]

Not only are the QS cores more powerful, they are smaller (single deck small unit)

Actually, the GCS was the only real faulty ship, and that was only the first class of it. Look at all the wrecks at Wolf 359 and how they stayed together. There were quite a few "modern" designs there.

Nebula
Nebula Prototype
New Orleans
Challenger
Cheyenne
Niagra

[TheDarkling]

We see a GCS during the dominion war with a nacelle blown clean off and it hasnt under gone a breach - its possible they fixed it with war-galaxy class (that I have heard about but I dont think theres canon evidence for it).

[Alyeska]

We see a GCS during the dominion war with a nacelle blown clean off and it hasnt under gone a breach - its possible they fixed it with war-galaxy class (that I have heard about but I dont think theres canon evidence for it).

Looking at the Yamato, E-D examples, and the Oddessey it would seem the original flight of GCSs had some problems. However durring the Dominion war we don't see them with near the problems as before. There is the GCS example you showed, and there was the USS Galaxy herself that took heavy damage to the engineering section and survived. So it would seem the newer GCSs had the faults removed in the design and built better, and the older GCSs (of the first 6, 3 died by the same problem) they fixed the design flaw (as evidence by the USS Galaxy at Chin'Toka)

[Darth Wong]

Looking at the Yamato, E-D examples, and the Oddessey it would seem the original flight of GCSs had some problems. However durring the Dominion war we don't see them with near the problems as before. There is the GCS example you showed, and there was the USS Galaxy herself that took heavy damage to the engineering section and survived. So it would seem the newer GCSs had the faults removed in the design and built better, and the older GCSs (of the first 6, 3 died by the same problem) they fixed the design flaw (as evidence by the USS Galaxy at Chin'Toka)

Could it be that rather than fixing a "design flaw", they simply shifted the trade-off of safety and power back to safety? Perhaps the Dominion War GCS's were less powerful.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

We see a GCS during the dominion war with a nacelle blown clean off and it hasnt under gone a breach - its possible they fixed it with war-galaxy class (that I have heard about but I dont think theres canon evidence for it).

Where was this?

[Alyeska]

Looking at the Yamato, E-D examples, and the Oddessey it would seem the original flight of GCSs had some problems. However durring the Dominion war we don't see them with near the problems as before. There is the GCS example you showed, and there was the USS Galaxy herself that took heavy damage to the engineering section and survived. So it would seem the newer GCSs had the faults removed in the design and built better, and the older GCSs (of the first 6, 3 died by the same problem) they fixed the design flaw (as evidence by the USS Galaxy at Chin'Toka)

Could it be that rather than fixing a "design flaw", they simply shifted the trade-off of safety and power back to safety? Perhaps the Dominion War GCS's were less powerful.

Unlikely. If you compare the damage the E-D caused to the Galor's in TNG to the damage that GCSs were causing to Galor's in DS9 their firepower figures are about the same. That isn't counting the fact that DS9 era GCSs could very well have had more powerful torpedoes.

If you look at the damage taking capabilities of the Nebula, Nebula Prototype, New Orleans, Challenger, Cheyenne, and Niagra which all use GCS parts, I find it entirely possible they fixed the design flaw in the GCS. From the destruction of the Oddessey to the onset of the war they had 3 years to fix the problem.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Actually Alyeska, a disabling shot took out (disabled) a Galor in TNG while IIRC after multiple hits a Galor still had shields in DS9.

[Alyeska]

Actually Alyeska, a disabling shot took out (disabled) a Galor in TNG while IIRC after multiple hits a Galor still had shields in DS9.

Did the Galor have shields up or down? Also it should be noted that between TNG and DS9 the Galor seems to have gotten a pretty good boost in firepower. In TNG they represented a minor threat to a GCS while in DS9 they were doing a fair bit of damage (causing signifncant damage to Miranda class ships with no shields, blowing up Bugs, BoPs, and Breen ships in 1-2 shots)

[TheDarkling]

GAT: I was looking for the screen cap of the GCS over at sb.com but I havent found it yet (if any sb'ers can remember the thread a link would be helpfull) I did discover this though (Spacebattles link) where you are arguing for a much higher Klingon fleet that whats stated - it seems very odd (especially as rthe pro trek people are asguing for the lower figure) probably figure the lower the klingon number the higher the Fed number or something / insane rambling.

My personal old favourite thread is where GAT places HTL's at around 500 mt how times have changed.

Edit: Fixed offending link. -Crayz9000

[Alyeska]

My personal old favourite thread is where GAT places HTL's at around 500 mt how times have changed.

That was Pre-ICS days. Of course HDS would like people to believe that pre-ICS warsies were intentionally being extremely conservative in their figures for no reason.

[Alyeska]

GAT: I was looking for the screen cap of the GCS over at sb.com but I havent found it yet (if any sb'ers can remember the thread a link would be helpfull) I did discover this though (Spacebattles link) where you are arguing for a much higher Klingon fleet that whats stated - it seems very odd (especially as rthe pro trek people are asguing for the lower figure) probably figure the lower the klingon number the higher the Fed number or something / insane rambling.

Can you describe the particular picture and what the thread discussion was about? I have done a variety of GCS related threads at SB.

[TheDarkling]

I believe you were involved, all I can recall is that the issue of the GCS warp core/ firework was brought up and someone posted a screen cap of a GCS with heavy damage in the background of one of the DS9 battles (possibly the Breen retaking Chintoka but dont hold me to that).

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

I was being generous.

[TheDarkling]

3 orders of magnitude (at least) thats dam generous , lets not hijack the thread though .

[Alyeska]

I believe you were involved, all I can recall is that the issue of the GCS warp core/ firework was brought up and someone posted a screen cap of a GCS with heavy damage in the background of one of the DS9 battles (possibly the Breen retaking Chintoka but dont hold me to that).

This isn't what you meant, but its the closest thing I remember there being on a GCS thread.

[Alyeska]

(Arg, no edit button)

http://kier.3dfrontier.com/forums/showt ... ND+venture

[TheDarkling]

I have found one when the breen retake Chintoka (although it isnt the one I saw on sb.com) - I will post it tomorrow im off to get some sleep now but its basically the stardrive section of a GCS with large amounts of damage to its underside.

[Alyeska]

I have found one when the breen retake Chintoka (although it isnt the one I saw on sb.com) - I will post it tomorrow im off to get some sleep now but its basically the stardrive section of a GCS with large amounts of damage to its underside.

Ah yes, I remember that one. It seems to be missing part of one warp engine, the entire saucer section, part of the kneck, and heavy damage to the underside of the stardrive. Yet it didn't explode, it was just a drifting hulk with some plasma fires going.

[TheDarkling]

Here it is (but it isnt great quality)



An enlarged version



Asx you can see the ship has been pretty much gutted yet its warp core hasnt exploded in a firey ball of plasma.

[Cpt_Frank]

is that a galaxy class?

[Vympel]

Doesn't look like its definitely a Galaxy-class to me. It could be Ambassador.