Separated E-D Saucer in BoBW

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Dusk's separation thread reminded me of this: In the scene where the E-D separated, the saucer put on a light show in order to distract the Borg from the real threat (the shuttle) by firing antimatter charges. How? From where?

The saucer isn't meant to store or handle antimatter at all, since it's all supposed to be held in the engineering/stardrive section. Moving antimatter around the ship, particularity in populated areas like the saucer, seems a tricky proposition. Even if it were moved, this would take a bit of time to prepare; time was of the essence in this ep. Then, just where on the saucer hull would such things be fired from? It's a clever idea, but hard to make sense of it.

[Duskofdead]

Dusk's separation thread reminded me of this: In the scene where the E-D separated, the saucer put on a light show in order to distract the Borg from the real threat (the shuttle) by firing antimatter charges. How? From where?

The saucer isn't meant to store or handle antimatter at all, since it's all supposed to be held in the engineering/stardrive section. Moving antimatter around the ship, particularity in populated areas like the saucer, seems a tricky proposition. Even if it were moved, this would take a bit of time to prepare; time was of the essence in this ep. Then, just where on the saucer hull would such things be fired from? It's a clever idea, but hard to make sense of it.

Doesn't the saucer presumably hold at least very small packets of antimatter for self-destruct mode? At any rate, since Shelby and Riker seemed to discuss a plan in detail (off screen) before implementing it, any particular things the saucer might have needed to pull off that part of the plan could have been transferred specially prior to separation.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Dusk's separation thread reminded me of this: In the scene where the E-D separated, the saucer put on a light show in order to distract the Borg from the real threat (the shuttle) by firing antimatter charges. How? From where?

The saucer isn't meant to store or handle antimatter at all, since it's all supposed to be held in the engineering/stardrive section. Moving antimatter around the ship, particularity in populated areas like the saucer, seems a tricky proposition. Even if it were moved, this would take a bit of time to prepare; time was of the essence in this ep. Then, just where on the saucer hull would such things be fired from? It's a clever idea, but hard to make sense of it.

Doesn't the saucer presumably hold at least very small packets of antimatter for self-destruct mode? At any rate, since Shelby and Riker seemed to discuss a plan in detail (off screen) before implementing it, any particular things the saucer might have needed to pull off that part of the plan could have been transferred specially prior to separation.

Yeah, I guess there is antimatter in the self-destruct packets, but I'd assume it's not meant to be tampered with. Hell, if things got extremely desperate Riker might have needed to self-destruct and hope to take the Borg out with him.

[Duskofdead]

I always wondered about that little manuever too, btw, and why we never saw it reproduced again.

[Captain Seafort]

Probably because antimatter's a lot more useful it the engines or PTs - it was only the specific circumstances of Riker's rescue operation tht made it worthwhile. As for where the antimatter came from, the TM states that the saucer has its own torpedo launcher, and antimatter pods for "emergency flight rules" (injecting antimatter into the fusion reactors). I'm not sure if the MSD shows either of these though - probably only the launcher, given that the saucer engines are well away from the centreline.

[Tsukiyumi]

I thought the TM was non-canon.

[Captain Seafort]

It is, which is why I was wondering if these characteristics were on the MSD.

[Tsukiyumi]

Do we ever get a good look at that in the series?

[Sionnach Glic]

They could always have moved some up to the saucer section prior to the battle, and just chucked them out airlocks when they needed them.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Eh...

That still leaves the question of how they'd be fired. I don't think there's anything (especially on the saucer section) that's designed to fire antimatter. Even high energy applications like phasers might be a different story when pressed directly with something that annihilates matter of any kind! Dilithium is too precious to place on the hull of a ship.

[Sionnach Glic]

Like I said; toss 'em out an airlock with a bomb on a timer strapped to them. Not too hard to do, I'd imagine.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

[IU police]That may not be how the scene shows it since they seemed to come from a lot of different spots around the saucer; would you need that many airlocks? They also seemed to leave the ship with appreciable speed[/IU police]

OTOH, I probably shouldn't complain, since the captain can order anything he wants fired and nobody on the bridge would bat an eye. Hell, it seems to me that sometimes the various Captains may be pulling "isomagnetrons" or "barbometric particles" (whatever the hell they all were - those sound no sillier than the real ones) out of their asses yet Data, Dax, et all find ways to invent and fire them. So, Goerdo could probably make the ship's water fountains fire antimatter if ordered to!

When in doubt...

[Sionnach Glic]

[IU police]That may not be how the scene shows it since they seemed to come from a lot of different spots around the saucer; would you need that many airlocks? They also seemed to leave the ship with appreciable speed[/IU police]

That could be a result of them being on timers. If set to go off at varrying times, the explosions would appear all around the ship.

Or maybe they just removed some escape pods, and turned the launchers for them into makeshift AM cannons.

[Aaron]

Like I said; toss 'em out an airlock with a bomb on a timer strapped to them. Not too hard to do, I'd imagine.

Err...how? I assume you don't mean by hand.

[Sionnach Glic]

Stick a timer on a container of matter and anti-matter rigged to a small explosive charge that will breach the M/AM container.
Place in airlock.
Exit airlock.
Hit the big "vent airlock" button.
Watch as M/AM charge gets fired out of the ship by the decompression.

Easy enough, unless I'm missing something.