Gearing Up For War

[Tyyr]

My suspicion based off that quote would be that the power distribution grid of the GCS is set up like a conventional power grid you'd see in a city. You don't build 500kV lines to every single house on the off chance they might need that kind of juice in the future. Instead you build the largest line they could reasonably ever need. On a GCS shields and weapons get conduits large enough to handle their maximum designed draw. So you can't just take energy from the labs and run it into the weapons, the power conduits aren't large enough, so in this case rerouting power actually meant rerouting conduits, or waving the magic wand over the existing ones to handle it.

[Graham Kennedy]

I think it was more realigning the warp coils that would take two days rather than shutting down a power grid.

[Mikey]

I think the talk of war-era GCS' going without holodecks, swim clubs, etc. has less to do with power savings (for the reasons just expressed) or even space savings (there's plenty and to spare already) but with mass savings.

Careful about the Akira-class, SG. There's no real evidence for it being a mass conveyance or "carrier." Certainly, judging by the number of tubes on the model, it's a warship... but that thru-deck bay is a sweet idea, but purely speculation.

[Coalition]

One thing Sternbach suggested back in the day was that the war era GCS builds were launching with minimal comforts. They built the power, weapon and other vital systems into them but left out the holodecks and recreational facilities, most of the crew quarters, diplomatic facilities, science labs, etc. As a result the ships were considerably easier and faster to build.

I often wondered about how they use power on the ships. When it goes into combat does the Enterprise-D really keep powering all the holodecks, science labs, replicators, etc? I'd have thought it would shut them all down and divert the power to the shields and phasers. Surely that's within their capability!

Remember Voyager? It had power issues, but could still keep the Holodeck running because it was a (I forget which) different/incompatible power supply. So you could have a Warship going into combat, with a program running in the Holodeck, according to Voyager.

Of course, you also have "Booby Trap", where the Holodeck was shut down due to power loss.

This is assuming that the Ent-D Holodeck and Voyager Holodeck are the same design.

I think the talk of war-era GCS' going without holodecks, swim clubs, etc. has less to do with power savings (for the reasons just expressed) or even space savings (there's plenty and to spare already) but with mass savings.

Um, even without the holodeck running, you still have the mass of the raw material. If you want to create 100 kg of matter and you have matter-energy-matter conversion, you will need >100 kg of fuel (due to inefficiencies).

[stitch626]

Um, even without the holodeck running, you still have the mass of the raw material. If you want to create 100 kg of matter and you have matter-energy-matter conversion, you will need >100 kg of fuel (due to inefficiencies).

He's talking about them not having holodecks etc in the first place.

[Mikey]

Um, even without the holodeck running, you still have the mass of the raw material. If you want to create 100 kg of matter and you have matter-energy-matter conversion, you will need >100 kg of fuel (due to inefficiencies).

He's talking about them not having holodecks etc in the first place.

Yeah, thanks for the assist, Stitch. Of course the mass of the holodeck and associated material is going to remain constant whether or not it's running. The idea is that the GCS saves the mass of component x if it is launched without component x.

[Coalition]

Um, even without the holodeck running, you still have the mass of the raw material. If you want to create 100 kg of matter and you have matter-energy-matter conversion, you will need >100 kg of fuel (due to inefficiencies).

He's talking about them not having holodecks etc in the first place.

Ah, phew. I'm used to people thinking that since the Federation 'gets all its supplies from energy' that it will mass zero. I was pointing out to those people that the fuel needed for that energy will still have mass.

[Captain Seafort]

This is DITL, not SFJ.

[Mark]

SFJ?

[Captain Seafort]

StarfleetJedi - an abode of idiots inspired by our recent numpty-of-the-week.

[Aaron]

Well, in fairness to the typical SFJ poster, most of them will at least give you a straight answer rather then baffle you with BS.

[Nickswitz]

Well, in fairness to the typical SFJ poster, most of them will at least give you a straight answer rather then baffle you with BS.

But they still sound like morons... Just truthful morons.

[Reliant121]

I'd rather have a willfully honest idiot, than a willfully deceitful one.

[Captain Seafort]

I'd rather have someone who wasn't an idiot.

[Mikey]

I'd rather have someone who wasn't an idiot.

That's the shame of it - the deceitful ones are usually intelligent... at least, intelligent enough to be deceitful.