The scene begins oddly, the planet is shown on the view-screen from what I presume is geo-synch orbit—whatever that may be for this planet—and a torpedo is launched which reaches its target and detonates in about a second, giving it a far greater observed speed from a stationary source than normal; such a speed would give it a very high K.E.
The next oddity is the explosion itself—superimposed over a sphere on photoshop I find the visible diameter to be ~400 km assuming Vagra II is just as large as Earth. This is exceedingly huge implying a yield of about 1.5 TT (Teratons), yet it is dim, more of a yellowish haze than a boiling seething ball of fiery destruction, and it lasts for about one second, implying about 35 KT (Kilotons), which is less than the probable K.E. of the torpedo. Had it been 1.5 TT it would have lasted for about 2700 seconds! The short duration and lack of brightness do not allow for a large traditional yield, yet a smaller yield would not create effects 200 km away in less than a second; a) too little energy b) shockwaves cannot travel that fast in an M-class atmosphere.
I have found that on an Earth-sized sphere a point of light close to 3 km above the surface will illuminate a 400 km wide area, perhaps an aerial detonation could account for everything? This is simple enough, a low KT explosion would do the job, light up the large area and last about a second…but it has problems. The “illuminated” area should expand at about light speed, yet it takes most of a second. The bright flash is missing and finally the “illuminated” area is an opaque yellowish-white haze…it obscures the surface below, rather than make it brighter and clearer.
Another idea I had was an orbital or upper atmosphere detonation. This could also explain the short duration of the blast, in space the vaporized torpedo case would only glow a short while and in the upper atmosphere the energy should dissipate quickly even from a large yield. However this too should produce a bright flash; also (and I am theorizing as I go, feel free to point out any mistakes/misconceptions) matter-antimatter annihilation produces largely gamma rays which don’t penetrate atmospheres very well, a lot of energy would be absorbed on the way down, increasing the necessary yield (already prodigious) and maybe even produce heating effects that will last visibly for more than a second anyway; a widening columnar “fireball” raining down from space if you will. Obviously such an occurrence would invalidate this idea, regardless of the yields in play and their relationship with other known Trek yields. Finally, why? Why use more antimatter to make a big boom in space when you could do the job with a much smaller yield?
Then I fell on the mass-warhead idea; simply let raw K.E. do the job. To get the 400 km wide fireball I reasoned a multiple attack vector warhead (AKA, a small charge shatters the case into fragments that impact over a wide area) would spread the energy out enough to fill the area with dust and hot air. I’m reasonably certain the K.E. of the torpedo could be quite high, it is visible for most of the flight time, which is ridiculous unless it suddenly hit an acceleration curve of titanic proportions, meaning its impact speed would have been very high, and a significant fraction of lightspeed even. Some problems with this are obvious: if you fragment a torpedo how will it re-enter the atmosphere without burning up (it can’t be shielded any more) and how do you get an even application of fragments? I can only explain that by inventing a new weapon specifically designed for orbital bombardment, but it has never been mentioned, seen before or since and it is hard to justify inventing Treknology without those things. Additionally, if you want to cover a wide area a full spread of torpedoes should do the job almost as well. Another question about this is again why? Why cover such a large area? Perhaps Armus blocked the sensors and Picard was unwilling to risk assuming Armus had not moved the shuttle?
With my other ideas unsatisfactory I played with subspace (If you can’t explain it, use subspace
), something like Praxis perhaps…I noticed there is something very odd about StarTrek, a great many large releases of energy are accompanied by strange shockwave-like stuff and are curiously short lived when on atmosphere. See DS9 “The Die is Cast” for extreme examples, but also in TNG “Contagion” Iconia’s exploding power reactor, TNG “Survivors” the Husnok’s house obliterating blast for atmospheric explosions of gargantuan size yet without appreciable brightness or enough duration for even MT ranges. In space there is Praxis, of course, but also the Enterprise-D’s core in Generations, the “Supernovae” in the same movie, the warp core in Insurrection and possible even the ring like thing in Nemesis during the Scimitar’s destruction. These just came to mind, there are certainly more.I have come to wonder if what we see on Vagra II is a subspace disturbance. Stop. Before thinking “that’s all the subspace technobabble crap I can stand, why the hell would it do that, (etc)” keep in mind how like it or not just about everything in Trek is connected to subspace. Remember earlier I noted this torpedo’s K.E. should be M.T. at least? (A ~100 kg case, a ballpark guess of 42,300 km, and about 1 second flight time. Neglecting the acceleration which is on a huge curve, that is 42,300 km/sec which equals… whoa…21.3 GT. Before I had used 10,000 km as a guess, but I just looked up our Geosynch orbit and am quite surprised by the result, that pesky squared term) That impact alone would do everything that didn’t happen: bright flash, smaller fireball lasting longer, and normal propagation for the blast wave, the energy to do all that was there, where did it go? I proposed to myself mass lightening was the key. Mass lightening is a funny beast; you can’t push a button and make something lighter (or heavier) without violating conservation of energy, even in StarTrek, if you could it would be a simple matter to construct a perpetual motion machine whereby an armature with weights that change mass may be made to spin faster and faster, other more efficient applications are doubtless available, yet fusion power creates antimatter and runs homes, not perpetual motion. My interpretation is that if you halve the mass and accelerate you must still pay for the K.E. that would have been gained had you not tampered with the mass—the advantage being you needn’t pay with your engines, but instead provide juice directly to the device that changed the mass in the first place. Therefore a vessel of great mass and a nuclear reactor would only need small thrusters to traverse a solar system quickly! Of course there may be other start up and inefficiency costs as well, but the important part is no possibility of perpetual motion, and a reason for why SF ships always leave the nacelles “on” at impulse speeds; they’re busy making the ship “lighter” and the powerful warp core does most of the work.
Coming back to the torpedo, they can maintain warp fields and likely have warp coils (sustainer coils in the TM) and the ability to reduce mass—so if a torpedo at 1/3 mass or so is destroyed whilst moving at a few km/sec, what happens to the missing K.E.? Mass lightening involves subspace heavily, I imagine the energy is in subspace and once released would create a subspace shockwave. Next, such a shockwave may travel considerably farther than might be expected from its source yield (Praxis is a good example) so some MT’s may well travel 200 km or so and a starship which “sees” the environment around it through a subspace lens (even visual sensors seems to rely on subspace—visual range is many thousands of km and offers astounding detail, yet can be jammed: ST II for example, static? Huh? Then of course there is “Peak Performance” where holograms are used to confuse the Ent-D, Riker says it will work unless someone looks out a window…) may well see a subspace shockwave without looking for it specifically. The end result would be an expenditure of a great deal or energy to accelerate the torpedo, most of which is lost to subspace, and a real world yield of, oh 35 KT or so; just enough to destroy the shuttle. The 400 KM wide haze is a subspace disturbance, and like all subspace disturbances seen, lasts for a second or so, long enough to cover up the real explosion, which is very faint from such a high orbit. Occam might bleed from the ears, but to best of my reasoning this offers everything and explains other incidents as well, and it is not that “far out.” A good question here is again why? Why use a LOT of precious antimatter to get a really steep acceleration curve, when it is not needed? Well, maybe it was. Armus could posses the ability to intercept a torpedo and Picard wished to give it no time to react, I doubt Picard had any more idea of Armus’s capabilities than I do, but I see the value in taking no chances.
Well, that was a bit long, but I’ve had these ideas kicking around for a while and needed to get them out. I favor the last two and especially the last one, both get the job done, but the last one ties in existing Treknology and may explain other incidents as well. So, bottom line: the torpedo carried a lot of antimatter. A lot, perhaps a few GT’s worth, (about 25 kilos at least for GT range) nearly all of which was used to accelerate the torpedo to its target. Final real world yield is either its raw K.E. over a 400 km area, or a few KT with a large subspace shockwave accompanying it. I do find such a high potential yield to be very high, I recommend actual frame by frame scaling, and the Enterprise started the torpedo on its way, so it didn’t have a cold start, which may lower the yield. Most importantly range, if Vagra II was in fact much closer then the yields become more reasonable, without knowing the day on Vagra II I cannot be sure. At any rate, I’ve likely made some grevious error in there somewhere, so feel free to correct me, flame me or what have you, but most importantly I want your ideas! This is a confusing aspect of Trek, and short of calling bad Special Effects it is hard to explain, I don’t presume to have listed the only choices available!
