StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Eternal_Freedom wrote:The novel stated (as far as I can recall) he used the warheads. That suggests a fission reactor of some kind. Then again, modern nukes contain some tritium and lithium deuteride, so he may have extracted fusion fuel from that.

However, during their test flight, Riker clearly mentions "bringing the warp core online." Given that the warp core has only ever been described as a power source, not an essential part of the warp drive, it makes it even sillier to me.

At one point during the writing of First Contact, the writers of the film considered what might power the matter-antimatter reaction chamber aboard the Phoenix, in lieu of dilithium crystals. Co-writer Ronald D. Moore later recalled, "We had talked about it being from something modified from the thermonuclear warhead – that somehow setting off the fission reaction was what kicked it off." (Star Trek Monthly issue 45, p. 46)

Borgholio wrote:It's kinda confusing actually. On further research, it seems like the Phoenix DID use antimatter but with a nuke as a regulator instead of dilithium (how the fuck is THAT supposed to work)?

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Phoenix

At one point during the writing of First Contact, the writers of the film considered what might power the matter-antimatter reaction chamber aboard the Phoenix, in lieu of dilithium crystals. Co-writer Ronald D. Moore later recalled, "We had talked about it being from something modified from the thermonuclear warhead – that somehow setting off the fission reaction was what kicked it off." (Star Trek Monthly issue 45, p. 46)

I dunno, if it DID have antimatter, that just throws the whole thing into doubt. I agree it's a stretch just to have built the Phoenix so soon after WW3, but to include antimatter as well?

Hey we could always blame it on aliens...

biostem wrote:And while we're on the topic - do they ever address why no one on Earth has ever picked up, for instance, radio transmissions from an early Vulcan or Quo'nos?

Randall Munroe wrote:The full picture is more complicated, but the bottom line is that as our technology has advanced, less of our radio traffic has been leaking out into space. We’re closing down the giant transmitting antennas and switching to cable and fiber and tightly-focused cell-tower networks.[2]

While our TV signals may have been detectable—with great effort—for a while,[3] that window is closing. In the late 20th century, when we were using TV and radio to scream into the void at the top of our lungs, the signal probably faded to undetectability after a few light-years.[4] The potentially habitable exoplanets we’ve spotted so far are dozens of light-years away, so the odds are they aren’t currently repeating our catchphrases.

But TV and radio transmissions still weren’t Earth’s most powerful radio signal. They were outshone by the beams from early-warning radar.[4]

Early-warning radar, a product of the Cold War, consisted of a bunch of ground and airborne stations scattered around the Arctic. These stations swept the atmosphere with powerful radar beams 24/7, often bouncing them off the ionosphere, and people obsessively monitored the echos for any hints of enemy movement. (I wasn’t alive during most of this period, but from what I hear, the mood was a little tense.)

These radar transmissions leaked into space, and could probably be picked up by nearby exoplanets[5] if they happened to be listening when the beam swept over their part of the sky. But the same march of technological progress that made the TV broadcast towers obsolete has had the same effect on early-warning radar. Today’s systems—where they exist at all—are much quieter, and may eventually be replaced completely by new technology.

Flagg wrote:I always just assumed the Phoenix used an advanced prototype fusion reactor to power a short warp jump. And that's what I'm going with.

Biostem wrote: Wait... I thought the M/AM reactor was the power source, and the Warp Reactor was powered by that, in order to produce the warp field necessary to go FTL...

Regardless, they still don't address the other required technologies - such as inertial dampeners

artificial gravity,

FTL sensors of some sort,

structural integrity,

and the so-called "super alloys" necessary to withstand the stresses of FTL travel.

Borgholio wrote:It's kinda confusing actually. On further research, it seems like the Phoenix DID use antimatter but with a nuke as a regulator instead of dilithium (how the fuck is THAT supposed to work)?

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Phoenix

At one point during the writing of First Contact, the writers of the film considered what might power the matter-antimatter reaction chamber aboard the Phoenix, in lieu of dilithium crystals. Co-writer Ronald D. Moore later recalled, "We had talked about it being from something modified from the thermonuclear warhead – that somehow setting off the fission reaction was what kicked it off." (Star Trek Monthly issue 45, p. 46)

I dunno, if it DID have antimatter, that just throws the whole thing into doubt. I agree it's a stretch just to have built the Phoenix so soon after WW3, but to include antimatter as well?

Hey we could always blame it on aliens...

It can't be antimatter - that requires (in Trek) dilithium to work... which is not present in Earth's solar system...

Borgholio wrote:

It can't be antimatter - that requires (in Trek) dilithium to work... which is not present in Earth's solar system...

Dude, the writers themselves say it was antimatter. Thus, as implausible as it seems to us, it was antimatter...modulated somehow by a nuclear warhead.

Borgholio wrote:No he said "Core". But a warp core doesn't have to be exclusive to matter / antimatter. I can't recall the source, but I read some back-story about early Warp drives being electrically powered by a fission or fusion reactor. Once antimatter production took off, they switched to that because it is (of course) far more powerful than either fission or fusion. I am curious how a non-antimatter warp core could generate warp plasma though...