Ion Cannon Question

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2002-12-31 11:07pm

I couldn't find a thread where this has been addressed: if it has please point me to it with the minimum of flaming.

With that disclaimer out of the way, what happens when a Star Trek ship gets hit with an ion cannon? What I'm wondering about specifically is whether we'd expect ion cannon hits in the secondary hull to result in catastrophic failure of warp core containment (ie. "Boom!") Obviously the effects will be bad enough without that result, since anything from the toilet paper dispensers on up is controlled by the ship's computer.

Seggybop · Post by **Seggybop** » 2002-12-31 11:13pm

If the pulse is strong enough to go through the shield, immediately their power goes out and the antimatter containment fails...

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2002-12-31 11:25pm

Ensign : Captain there seems to be an object on collision course with us.....it is cylindrical, approximately 20cm in length and 10 in diameter it has a single white stripe upon it and unidentifiable markings....
Captain : Bring it up on main viewer.
Ensign : Aye sir
Captain : *squints at the small object* C....O.....K.....something.....
At that point the object collides with them, the 'caustic' liquid interacting with the navigational deflector causing a feedback in the warp do-da containment thingmies and blowing the whole ship up......
Moral of the Story, never underestimate the power of caffinee.....

Anyway, Ion Cannons.....if they did have any effect on a ST ship you can bet it would be a very very bad one.......

Keevan.

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2003-01-01 06:53am

Well the very word ION cannon, would probably scare the shit out of any ST ship, because ions are very dangerous to them. Every time they get into an "ion storm" they almost die. So if you fire concentrated ions (or whatever ion cannons might be) they would probably die an agonising death ala warp core breach in 3.2 seconds.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-01-01 03:38pm

Seggybop wrote:If the pulse is strong enough to go through the shield, immediately their power goes out and the antimatter containment fails...

The TM speaks of "superconducting field sustainers"... this might imply that even in the event that power is cut off from the pods that the magnetic fields would stay up for awhile. Not that that's admissable...

Anyway, Ion Cannons.....if they did have any effect on a ST ship you can bet it would be a very very bad one.......

Oh please, they have a "very bad" effect on SW ships too. If the Rebels had had a planetary turbolaser at Hoth as well, they could have really fucked up that ship they disabled.

How is the "ion cannon" supposed to work anyway?

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2003-01-01 05:17pm

from page 30 of the Star Wars ICS:

Ion cannons fire an electrical charge to disrupt the control circuits of an enemy craft without destroying it.

That's the best description of how they work that I could find. Starwars.com is even *less* informative, simply noting that the ion cannon on Hoth momentarily (their word) disabled a Star Destroyer. The effect appears very similar to the Ionization Blaster that the Jawas use to disable R2-D2, making me wonder if the same technology isn't used in both weapons.

I'm just wondering about the feasability of capturing ST ships with them: the safety systems of a warp core all seem to be active in nature, which would lead me to believe that knocking out the computer systems of a Federation ship would cause a containment failure. It would make sense for there to be a passive safety system like the TM describes, but ST writing being what it is lately that may not be the case.[/url]

Anarchist Bunny · Post by **Anarchist Bunny** » 2003-01-01 05:47pm

I remember vaguely in a SW book in which one Imperial warlord was trying to unite all the warlords, that what the ion cannons did were they were a directed EMP attack, knocking out the computers of the ship they hit.

If thats what they do, then even if the core doesn't lose containment, they've lost all of their control and will probly have to crawl through some jeffery's tubes to restart everything, in .00001 seconds before he and the entire ship is destroyed.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-01 07:31pm

Either way the Feddie ship is doomed. The warp core's inteegrity is dependant upon active computer control. Cut that and it's dead even if an ion cannon blast doesn't kill them directly.

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2003-01-01 07:44pm

That's what I was figuring, that taking a Fed ship meant severing the warp nacelles so it couldn't run... kinda sucks because the odds of blasting it to pieces in the process go up.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2003-01-01 08:23pm

Uraniun235 wrote:
Seggybop wrote:If the pulse is strong enough to go through the shield, immediately their power goes out and the antimatter containment fails...
The TM speaks of "superconducting field sustainers"... this might imply that even in the event that power is cut off from the pods that the magnetic fields would stay up for awhile. Not that that's admissable...
Anyway, Ion Cannons.....if they did have any effect on a ST ship you can bet it would be a very very bad one.......
Oh please, they have a "very bad" effect on SW ships too. If the Rebels had had a planetary turbolaser at Hoth as well, they could have really fucked up that ship they disabled.

How is the "ion cannon" supposed to work anyway?

It fires a highly concentrated beam of Ions. This induces large current into the metalic hull shorting out and disabling the ship electronics allowing it to be more easily captured or destroyed. In the case of post TOS Star Trek ships this would knock out the vital active control systems that control the warp core and cause the ship to explode.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-01-01 08:24pm

beyond hope wrote:That's what I was figuring, that taking a Fed ship meant severing the warp nacelles so it couldn't run... kinda sucks because the odds of blasting it to pieces in the process go up.

Hey, if you breathe on the nacelles to hard the ship blows up.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2003-01-01 09:08pm

Although the ion cannon is intended to disable ships and not destroy them, the Federation ship design is designed so that important systems require power, and if the power is stopped, it shuts down, endangering the ship. So, if not only do the Feds have to worry about the TLs, they have to be concerned about the ion cannons.

Have there been any instances where losing all power didn't cause the ship to blow up?

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2003-01-01 09:20pm

Heres something form Disaster.

O'BRIEN
When the filament hit us, the
ship was momentarily charged...
as if it had... come into
contact with a live electrical
wire.

RO
That weakened the containment
field surrounding the antimatter
pods. The field strength is down
to forty percent and it's still
falling.

O'BRIEN
(ominously)
If it falls to fifteen percent...
the field will collapse and
there'll be a containment breach.

Beat.

No the absolute terrifying bit.

TROI
Which means... ?

What a moron

RO
The ship will explode.

Duh

So anyway it's reasonable to assume that the Ion cannon will have an effect however the degree of that effect depends upon how much power it delivers compared to a Quantum filament (or two) also their shields were down upon impact with the filament I think so that should be factored in I guess.

As a side note.

O'BRIEN
(re: display)
How'd you do that?

RO
I diverted power from the phaser
array and dumped it into the
engineering control system.

O'Brien reacts sharply.

O'BRIEN
You what?

RO
(ignoring O'Brien)
The engineering station's on-line,
Counselor.

O'BRIEN
(angry, to Ro)
That's a completely improper
procedure. You can't dump that
much raw energy into a bridge
terminal without---

RO
(flatly cuts him off)
We aren't going to get out of
this by playing it safe.

Consoles can actually take that level of power? I wonder what they run at normally (when its is supposed to be safe).

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2003-01-01 09:37pm

The Darkling wrote:As a side note.

O'BRIEN
(re: display)
How'd you do that?

RO
I diverted power from the phaser
array and dumped it into the
engineering control system.

O'Brien reacts sharply.

O'BRIEN
You what?

RO
(ignoring O'Brien)
The engineering station's on-line,
Counselor.

O'BRIEN
(angry, to Ro)
That's a completely improper
procedure. You can't dump that
much raw energy into a bridge
terminal without---

RO
(flatly cuts him off)
We aren't going to get out of
this by playing it safe.

Consoles can actually take that level of power? I wonder what they run at normally (when its is supposed to be safe).

If they're really pulling that kind of power, it goes a long way towards explaining the "exploding console" syndrome in ST battles.

I'm not sure the power level of ion cannons is well-established. Obviously they're less powerful than the heavy turbolasers since Star Destroyers use the turbolasers in preference to the ion cannons. How much less, I don't know.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-01-01 10:33pm

beyond hope wrote:I'm not sure the power level of ion cannons is well-established. Obviously they're less powerful than the heavy turbolasers since Star Destroyers use the turbolasers in preference to the ion cannons. How much less, I don't know.

That's because in most cases the mission is to simply kill the other ship. In general ion cannons are only used once the sheilds have been battered down and you want the target intact.

And in general, ion cannon firepower isn't going to be too much less. You can batter down a sheild the same as you would with turbolasers. It takes somewhat longer, because a ship mounts less ion cannons, but they do work at roughly the same time. The assualt of Blackmoon tells us that an ion bombardment doesn't take too much longer than a turbolaser bombardment.

And unless they are orders of magintude weaker than a turbolaser they'll still kill a federation ship. Whether throught electrical damage or flat out rip you apart damage it will kill a trek ship.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2003-01-01 11:39pm

lets not forget the Structural Integrity Fields. Federation ships can not hold togather without this active control system. If power goes out then the ship would simply fall apart. I admit that is pushing the definitions of the devices. loss of power would at least knock out FTL capability.

Enola Straight · Post by **Enola Straight** » 2003-01-02 12:20am

Knowing how volatile antimatter is, I'm sure Starfleet engineers construct antimatter containment units with permanent magnets, just in case a power shortage would cause an electromagnet to fail.

I imagine a bit of technobabble entails the construction of a "lightning rod"
to siphon off the Ion Cannon's charge/energy/power into subspace.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2003-01-02 12:43am

Enola Straight wrote:Knowing how volatile antimatter is, I'm sure Starfleet engineers construct antimatter containment units with permanent magnets, just in case a power shortage would cause an electromagnet to fail.

NEWS FLASH!!!

They don't!

[quote="Enola Straight]I imagine a bit of technobabble entails the construction of a "lightning rod"
to siphon off the Ion Cannon's charge/energy/power into subspace.[/quote]

That's just silly! It would only work if the Ion cannon was not a beam of highly charged particles.

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2003-01-02 01:43am

Enola Straight wrote:Knowing how volatile antimatter is, I'm sure Starfleet engineers construct antimatter containment units with permanent magnets, just in case a power shortage would cause an electromagnet to fail.

Doesn't that mean that the Yamato(sp?) shouldn't have blown up, then?

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2003-01-02 01:53am

Darth Yoshi wrote:
Enola Straight wrote:Knowing how volatile antimatter is, I'm sure Starfleet engineers construct antimatter containment units with permanent magnets, just in case a power shortage would cause an electromagnet to fail.
Doesn't that mean that the Yamato(sp?) shouldn't have blown up, then?

You got it. The Yamato blew up because a computer glitch turned off the active anti-matter containment system and boom!

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-01-02 11:04am

Enola Straight wrote:I imagine a bit of technobabble entails the construction of a "lightning rod" to siphon off the Ion Cannon's charge/energy/power into subspace.

Are you serious? Trekkies just love to make up technobabble out of thin air to make everything immune from attack don't they.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2003-01-02 11:14am

I imagine a bit of technobabble entails the construction of a "lightning rod" to siphon off the Ion Cannon's charge/energy/power into subspace.

I imagin that might work if Ion Cannons were acutal Black Mages Sitting in on the Hull and casting Bolt 2 at enemy ships instead of a giantic pulse of EMP and Energy

Lord Edam · Post by **Lord Edam** » 2003-01-03 01:23pm

Isolder74 wrote:
Enola Straight wrote:Knowing how volatile antimatter is, I'm sure Starfleet engineers construct antimatter containment units with permanent magnets, just in case a power shortage would cause an electromagnet to fail.
NEWS FLASH!!!

They don't!

NEWS FLASH!!!

They do!

VOY: Night, the ship loses all power, yet doesn't explode.

infact, "lose power" = "antimatter explosion" seems to be a very common misconception with Trek ships.

Provided the ion cannon isn't powerful enough to destroy the ship in its own right (ie, they actually want to capture it) there's a good chance of the ship surviving with nothing more than a few dead bridge crew, because it's unlikey to cause computer glitches as happened to the Yamamoto

If the trek ship knows the ion cannon is coming, they could try changing the shields to do like they did to the charged plasma in "A Matter of Time", making the ion cannon useless anyway.

But then, it all depends on how the ion cannon operates. One of the possible explanations is a massive EMP caused by the ions decelerating against the particle shields, which then causes the superconducting power circuits inside the ship to short out. If this is the case, then ion cannons won't even have any effect on Trek ships, which have sat through pulsar jets and errupting neutron stars without too many adverse problems.

The Nomad · Post by **The Nomad** » 2003-01-03 01:31pm

The Enterprise-D also sat near an hyperactive sun and had many problems with EM fields and radiations.

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2003-01-03 01:54pm

Lord Edam wrote:
They do!

VOY: Night, the ship loses all power, yet doesn't explode.

infact, "lose power" = "antimatter explosion" seems to be a very common misconception with Trek ships.

In that episode, 7 of 9 observes that, although main and auxiliary power is down, that:

"Independent subsystems are operational--environmental controls, Holodecks..." - Seven of Nine, Night.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Ion Cannon Question

Ion Cannon Question

C'mon its a ST ship....