Nebula Class Disscussion

[Mark]

Pods launced from Voyager seem to just drift out as well.

[Mikey]

Au contrair, GK - the pods in FC certainly weren't setting any speed records, but there was a visible ignited exhaust which shut off shortly after detachment. Granted that it came from the pods, not the E-E; but it certainly lloked like an initial booster of some sort.

[Coalition]

I'd imagine it'd have to do with a situation similar to that of Generations. Core won't eject, gets you away from the warp core, ASAP. Maybe the idea of emergency separation only?

I'd tell my designers to have about a half dozen ways available to jettison the warp core safely, rather than trying to get away in escape pods. The the warp core is gone, and all the antimatter, then the only dangerous stuff on the ship is hydrogen for the fusion reactors. You won't get enough compression in the ship to have a fusion explosion, and by using the existing life support systems you don't have to worry about running out of air in a small craft.

Make the fusion reactor big enough, and you should be able to reach warp 1, or at least send an SOS. By using the existing ship, you don't have to worry about forgetting something important, you can use the existing life support, communications, sensors, etc. See here for what I mean.

The ship will still have orbit-surface shuttles, so you can get the crew off. What is the range of a Star Trek lifeboat? How much life support does it have in weeks/months? Does it have warp capability? If it doesn't have warp, it won't be leaving the current star system, and have live occupants at the destination.

[Teaos]

I'd tell my designers to have about a half dozen ways available to jettison the warp core safely,

Name me 6 ways to get rid of the core safetly.

[Sionnach Glic]

Ejecting it the way Trek ships do now.
Beaming it and any volatile components out.
Rigging a system that causes it to be dropped out of the ship when power to that system is cut off.
Setting it up so that it will "Scram" if there's a problem.

There, four possible ways that could be used. And I know damn all about engineering. Double up a couple of those systems, and you've got your 6 methods.

[Coalition]

I'd tell my designers to have about a half dozen ways available to jettison the warp core safely,

Name me 6 ways to get rid of the core safetly.

I'm not a proper designer, so I can only think of these:
1) Pressurized gas constantly pressing against the nozzles to let the antimatter in, with electromagnets holding them in place. The power supply for the electromagnets is linked to antimatter containment. If the power fails, the nozzles get pushed out by the springs, and the antimatter sprays outside the ship. This is mainly for the antimatter injection system.
2) Similarly, use springs or similar for the main warp core itself, again held via electromagnets. These electromagnets are pwered by the same power supply that handles the warp core. The springs would be strong enough to override the electromagnets in #1, to make sure that antimatter is always vented outside the ship.
3) Vents - if the antimatter is stuck open for some reason, a physical vent can simply dump it into space. Again, the vent would be kept closed by an electromagnet, and constantly pushed to open by compressed gas cylinders. Lose power, and the vent opens up. Not sure what to use for the power supply, maybe link to two coolant systems? If both fail, then the vent auto-opens?

For all of the above options, it would be easy for a person to manually trigger them. Just cut off the power supply to #1, and the vents get jettisoned automatically. For #2 you watch the whole warp core fly out. For #3, the antimatter just exits the ship, and barely enters the main power system.

Design ideas:
1) Limited antimatter in the core - tell my engineers to figure out a way so that there is less antimatter in the core, so when it takes damage my engineers can handle the problem
2) Antimatter control - allow only the minimum antimatter being released from the pods at a time. This way even if a nozzle is stuck open, it is easy to close off the other pods, and let it run the warp core. Also have the antimatter grab (to pull antimatter from the pods) linked to the coolant system. If the coolant fails, the antimatter cannot be pulled as fast
3) Independant backups - Have a backup computer available for antimatter control, in case someone decides to shoot the main computer. This backup would be isolated from the main computer, so in case someone/something gets into the main computer, the backup can be used with minimal problems
4) Backup coolant supply - obvious
5) Electrical power grid - no more of this pressurized plasma conduit junk, just clean power
6) Multiple access to Engineering - Not counting Jeffries tubes or other crawlspaces, I want multiple paths available to Engineering. In case of a disaster, people can get in/out faster, plus you have shorter distances to walk.
7) Warp Surge protectors - in case of a plasma surge, I want a place for the extra plasma to go, instead of causing the ship to blow up. This can be a conainer of some kind, or another vent
8) Control system redo - if there is any damage to the control systems (above a pre-determined threshold) the warp core will shut down, rather than running out of control. The shut down will be accomplished primarily by shutting down the antimatter flow, but if the designers can find other ways, I will consider (and likely use) them.
9) Isolated chamber. The Warp core will be behind a thick set of shielding. From The Adversary there is enough radiation coming out of the warp core to kill a changeling, so I don't want my engineers walking around it every day. The only way to access the core will be via space suits, and hopefully the warp core can be designed with the spring jettison in mind, so losing the warp core doesn't mean a bloody smear across the inside from the people that were working on it.

The basics would be that the engineers are constantly trying to make it work harder, rather than working 24/7 to make sure it doesn't explode.

[Deepcrush]

A simple pod release. Have a small thruster on the thing and just let it fly.

Thats 5.

[Sionnach Glic]

Another idea:
Rig a dead-man's-switch system that opens up a conduit leading out into open space. If power fails or something goes wrong, everything in the core gets directed out into space, preventing any dangerous reactions. Problem solved.

[Deepcrush]

So how many ideas is that now? Just between people on this site? It's just a shock that TNG era trek has fallen into such stupidity.

[stitch626]

To bad we didn't work for them.

[Graham Kennedy]

Au contrair, GK - the pods in FC certainly weren't setting any speed records, but there was a visible ignited exhaust which shut off shortly after detachment. Granted that it came from the pods, not the E-E; but it certainly lloked like an initial booster of some sort.

Bad choice of words. I know they came out on thrusters rather than literally drifting. My intent was to say that they were very low acceleration. It was a slow, leisurely escape maneuver, not a "bullet out of a gun" style thing as with Sisko's escape pod.

[Mikey]

True. Although it makes one wonder if there are degrees of separation acceleration available.

[Tsukiyumi]

True. Although it makes one wonder if there are degrees of separation acceleration available.

Yeah, in the case of the E-E, they knew exactly how much time they had; in Sisko's case, they didn't know when they'd be destroyed, other than the impending core breach.

[Mark]

Interesting idea. Perhaps greater acceleration is used at different times. After all, there is a VERY limited fuel supply on a lifepod. And perhaps the greater acceleration comes at some other cost?

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Limited antimatter in the core - tell my engineers to figure out a way so that there is less antimatter in the core, so when it takes damage my engineers can handle the problem

Can't do that: there is a one-to-one relationship between antimatter consumed and power produced - hence, limiting antimatter == limiting power output. You produce as much power as the ship needs at any one time (that should always have been a component of the design) but you can't consume less than that given rate of antimatter.

This ties into # 2: by definition only the exact rate of antimatter being consumed must be released for the flow to be steady. If this isn't the case there will necessarily be a buildup of antimatter outside of the pods!

These aren't design "objectives" so much as physical laws that must necessarily be considered for the system to work at all.

On the core ejection - just close the valves (matter and antimatter injectors, and the power output conduits) open the hull and blow the thing with thrusters.

One problem does occur to me though: any residual antimatter in the core at the time the ejection is taking place will react and cause plasma to be vented by the core into the open space of the core assembly! There necessarily must be antimatter left in the core for there to be a danger of explosion, after all. Then, you'd have to shut off antimatter flow before the core is launched to avoid venting antimatter into the open spaces of the ship anyway- but then if you could do this with the core in place and let the core run itself dry, there'd be no possibility of explosion with nothing there to explode. There seems something strange about this: you can't eject the core without first shutting off antimatter but pre-emptively emptying the antimatter from the core defuses any possibility of the thing going boom. Given that core ejection seems to occur on command rather than strictly automatically, how in the holy f*ck can they know the exact time they need to eject (down to the picosecond) without either the ship going boom anyway due to antimatter release into the open ship or the core remaining in place until just the *exact* moment the core will explode. If they're doing it preemptively to avoid a boom, than why wouldn't just shutting the antimatter flow achieve the same effect - surely they wouldn't wait until just the moment until the core is about to explode from the antimatter already in it if they're preempting the explosion, no?