Matter-Antimatter Drives vs Singularity Drives

[Borgholio]

Well then what if we just say it's not an actual black hole? Since obviously if it were a black hole with a small enough mass to be portable, it would also explode fairly quickly which it doesn't do.

[Batman]

We have no fucking clue how the damned thing will behave because real worlds physics just went out the window?

[Borgholio]

We have no fucking clue how the damned thing will behave because real worlds physics just went out the window?

So in other words, welcome to Star Trek?

[Batman]

I think that pretty much covers it, yes

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah we might as well say it's powered by magic pixie dust....

Hey wait a minute, that Romulan ship had tiny creatures living off of it's engine core...it really is magic pixie dust!

[Borgholio]

Hey wait a minute, that Romulan ship had tiny creatures living off of it's engine core...it really is magic pixie dust!

So to stabilize the Romulan core, instead of doing a power transfer beam...maybe they should have just clapped their hands and thought happy thoughts?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Probably would have worked better than the power transfer that blew up the Enterprise.

[Borgholio]

I would have paid real money to see Worf try to revive Tinker Bell that way.

[Ted C]

I suppose we can assume that because it's artificial, it has an unnaturally low mass and an unnaturally low decay rate, making it suitable for use as a ship's power supply. Quite possibly it requires a lot of special equipment running to keep it stable, making it no safer than a M-AM core.

[Scottish Ninja]

Here's a quick thought - besides the exact issues of size and mass, assuming that something's going on as Ted C describes, if the rate of decay (and therefore power output) is inversely related to mass, what if to increase power output you decrease the fuel flow - with the limitation that you can't cut back the fuel for too long or by too much, otherwise the singularity will lose too much mass and explode. That'd be cool.

[FedRebel]

Yeah we might as well say it's powered by magic pixie dust....

Makes sense, most of Federation technology in the 24 century requires Harry Potter style "spells" (the nonsensical technobabble.) to function. and the made up units of measure (the casual misuse the prefix "iso") throw in that dash of mystical alchemy.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Here's a quick thought - besides the exact issues of size and mass, assuming that something's going on as Ted C describes, if the rate of decay (and therefore power output) is inversely related to mass, what if to increase power output you decrease the fuel flow - with the limitation that you can't cut back the fuel for too long or by too much, otherwise the singularity will lose too much mass and explode. That'd be cool.

Whilst that would be a cool concept, unless the black hole is very massive (by starship standards) the rate of evaporation will be so high that to actually change it you'd need to feed it a lot of mass, by which I mean many thousands of tonnes. In which case, you might as well just use an ordinary (but we-ll designed) warp core, you'd have to use a lot less fuel.