The Generations wreck - ship hull strength

Smiling Bandit · Post by **Smiling Bandit** » 2003-06-16 12:10pm

I was wondering if anyone had done some calcs on the force the wreck in "Generations" exerted on the hull. Obviously, either the intertial dampeners were intact and functioning or the velocity was survivable, but either way, the hull seemed to be stringer than I had thought - that ting did smash down into the planet and remained largely intact.

TurboPhaser · Post by **TurboPhaser** » 2003-06-16 12:33pm

Yeah the hull is pretty tough. I don't have any figures though.

But the saucer held up pretty well after being shot up, caught in a Antimatter explosion's shockwave, going through the atmosphere at high speed and finally crashing on a planet and eradicating 10 km of forest.

Yeah, I think its pretty tough.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-06-16 01:36pm

TurboPhaser wrote:Yeah the hull is pretty tough. I don't have any figures though.

But the saucer held up pretty well after being shot up, caught in a Antimatter explosion's shockwave, going through the atmosphere at high speed and finally crashing on a planet and eradicating 10 km of forest.

Yeah, I think its pretty tough.

I don't think the saucer was ever hit- the BoP targeted the engineering section repeatedly. Which stood up to the photon torpedoes and disruptors quite well, regardless.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-06-16 04:22pm

Amusingly, the merchandised toy model of the shot-up E-D has no damage on the stardrive section, and huge gaping scars in the saucer.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-06-16 06:18pm

As far as we can tell in the crash landing scene there were two window faliures, that is all. The bridge dome and a single forward window shattered. Seeing as most did not and the ones that slammed through the rock didn't shatter, that would indicate that these two window sets had defects. Given how many windows were on the entire ship, this isn't entirely unreasonable. Just means the Federation needs to stop putting so god damned many windows on their ships.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-06-16 06:36pm

Aw, but they look so pretty!

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-06-16 06:55pm

*tosses gas on the fire*

Didn't a pine tree penetrate one of those broken windows?

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2003-06-16 06:59pm

Ender wrote:*tosses gas on the fire*

Didn't a pine tree penetrate one of those broken windows?

No. One of Darth Wong's good friends (iXJac, IIRC) wrote an entire page discussing that "fallacy." As it is, the pine tree only managed to punch through the camera lens for the E-D's viewer. Only later did people start misremembering and believe that the tree had actually punched through the ship itself.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-06-16 07:44pm

Ender wrote:*tosses gas on the fire*

Didn't a pine tree penetrate one of those broken windows?

Do tell me how a pine tree is going to penetrate through windows that were surviving smashing through the rock of a rather large hill.

The Silence and I · Post by **The Silence and I** » 2003-06-16 08:22pm

I'm not remembering well enough, can shots of the event be used to calculate initial velocity, and so the K.E./momentum, then determine how much force the ground absorbed upon impact? Or is this shot just too complicated to get good measurements (maybie why I have seen none).

TurboPhaser · Post by **TurboPhaser** » 2003-06-17 01:35am

Vympel wrote:
TurboPhaser wrote:Yeah the hull is pretty tough. I don't have any figures though.

But the saucer held up pretty well after being shot up, caught in a Antimatter explosion's shockwave, going through the atmosphere at high speed and finally crashing on a planet and eradicating 10 km of forest.

Yeah, I think its pretty tough.
I don't think the saucer was ever hit- the BoP targeted the engineering section repeatedly. Which stood up to the photon torpedoes and disruptors quite well, regardless.

Thats possibly true, but we didnt see all the battle. And during the seperation sequence I believe the saucer was damage at the rear.

Amusingly, the merchandised toy model of the shot-up E-D has no damage on the stardrive section, and huge gaping scars in the saucer.

Hehe, I have that model. There is damage to the rear of the nacelles ( When i say 'damage' its actually black spray paint

) and a bit of damage to the foward end of the engineering hull. And a couple of streaks on the inside nacelle pylons.

As far as we can tell in the crash landing scene there were two window faliures, that is all. The bridge dome and a single forward window shattered. Seeing as most did not and the ones that slammed through the rock didn't shatter, that would indicate that these two window sets had defects. Given how many windows were on the entire ship, this isn't entirely unreasonable. Just means the Federation needs to stop putting so god damned many windows on their ships.

Wasnt the windows on Starships supposed to be made of transparent aluminium? That wouldnt shatter. More proof that SF used the lowest bidding contractors to build the E-D.

For a hull that is so thin and has so many windows, it is remakarbly tough.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2003-06-17 03:35am

Wasn't it stated that the ship couldn't survive in atmosphere due to something to do with the structural integrity field?

Death from the Sea · Post by **Death from the Sea** » 2003-06-17 02:38pm

Gandalf wrote:Wasn't it stated that the ship couldn't survive in atmosphere due to something to do with the structural integrity field?

I dunno, but it seemed to do pretty well in the episode "The Arsenal of Freedom".

TurboPhaser · Post by **TurboPhaser** » 2003-06-18 12:27am

Yeah, the computer in GEN said something about the SIF systems failing, but it engaged secondary systems.

Uh, about Arsenal of Freedom, the ships shields seemed incapable of preventing the heat from getting to the hull. However, the ships sheilds were failing.

I think Worf said 'No 4 deflector is now inoperative'.

Just before that robot thing showed up.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2003-06-18 12:40am

Master of Ossus wrote:
Ender wrote:*tosses gas on the fire*

Didn't a pine tree penetrate one of those broken windows?
No. One of Darth Wong's good friends (iXJac, IIRC) wrote an entire page discussing that "fallacy." As it is, the pine tree only managed to punch through the camera lens for the E-D's viewer. Only later did people start misremembering and believe that the tree had actually punched through the ship itself.

It was Lord Edam, actually.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-06-18 12:46am

I'm aware that it ws disproven, hence by comment about gas.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2003-06-18 04:20am

I see no reason to believe that the saucer section's descent was entirely unpowered. They certainly didn't look like they were making a fully ballistic entry.

Smiling Bandit · Post by **Smiling Bandit** » 2003-06-18 08:42am

True; if it was unpowered, they would have simply dropped into the ground like a rock and smashed straight down. So I guess we can chalk this up to inertial dampers and structural integrity field?

That might make some sense if we compare it to the relative ease with which penetrating objects punch through - the nortmal shields won't work too well against matter, the inertial dampeners work for the whle ship, so offer no help unless the structural integrity field is solid. So really, all you have to do is overcome that thing.

So what happened here could be that the inertial dampeners helped keep it all together since the damage was unfocused. I suppose the SIField could work better against even forces over lots of the ship rather than pinpoint effects.