Galaxy Class "Warp Core" problems?

[Weyoun the Dancing Borg]

First Time: USS Yamato ("Contagion" - TNG)

Reason: An Iconian (think "Ancient race") computer virus took control of the system and whilst deleting / re-writing the software, caused component failures throughout the ship. Lights, life support, turbo lifts, replicators etc. Unfortunately, one of the systems affected was the containment field / warp core and it catastrophically blew up. It didn't spontaneously explode, an alien computer virus caused it to shut down (and then explode).


Second Time: USS Enterprise ("True Q" - TNG)

Reason: Q wanted to test Amanda's powers, and created a warp core breach by removing the containment field (IIRC). Amanda contained it and restored the core to normal. Act of Q.


Third Time: USS Enterprise ("Timescame" - TNG)

Reason: Whilst performing a power transfer from the Enterprise to a Romulan warbird, alien lifeforms living in the Romulan's warp core (an artifical quantum singularity - don't ask me, I'm just going by what the episode said) caused a power surge which created a "short circuit" so to speak, overloading and overheating the Enterprise's warp core and making it explode. The crew prevented it by reversing time (or something).


Fourth Time: USS Enterprise ("All good things..." - TNG)

Reason: Three Enterprises from three time frames merged into one, in the middle of a Q created anomaly involving time travel and all sorts of weird stuff. The crew realised what would happen but did it anyway, to save the universe. Act of Q (kinda).


Fifth Time: USS Enterprise ("Star Trek: Generations" - TNG)

Reason: A Klingon bird of prey's torpedo impacted in the Engineering hull (they could shoot through the shields - again, don't ask) and ruptured the coolant tanks. Uncertain as to exactly what happened, but presumably with no coolant, the core overheated. A saucer separation was performed and the stardrive section was destroyed.


Sixth Time: USS Odyssey ("The Jem'Hadar" - DS9)

Reason: 3 Jem'Hadar ships attack the Odyssey with the ability to penetrate the shields directly. After a prolonged battle, one of the Jem'Hadar kamikazed itself into the Odyssey's star drive section. Uncertain what happened, but I'm sure it's pretty much due to a battle-bug exploding whilst inside the engineering section. A chunk flew off of the warp naecelle and ... well, boom.



I can't think of any more times? ("Disaster" ?)

Possibly in Cause and Effect, when the Boseman collided with the Enterpise's warp engines? I can't remember if that was a breach.


I am uncertain why many people consider galaxy class ships to have a design flaw in the warp core. With the exception of Generations (which had mitigating circumstances, and to be fair, if Riker had been competent and, I dunno, fired more than once in the entire battle instead of sitting there looking brave, the ship would have survived), and possibly Timescape (although how they were meant to know the Romulan black hole had aliens giving birth in it is beyond me) every other instance has been very exceptional circumstances and certainly not what the ship was designed for (2x Q, ancient computer virus and a ship colliding with the warp core etc).


One big design flaw that I will acknowledge is that a lot of the time, the ejection system seems to be offline / go offline right when they need it.


IMO, Galaxy class ships in TNG (it seems to be a "TNG" phenomenon) were the "big thing". Of course it happened to the Enterprise more often than would be normal - that's the point of the show - put the ship and crew in danger etc.

I do not accept the "sneeze and it'll blow up" attitude a lot of people show on some websites.

Anyway:


Total Galaxy Class ships in canon destroyed by Warp Core Breach: 3

USS Enterprise: Torpedo (effectively with "shields down") disabled the coolant system. Warp Core overheated.

USS Yamato: Ancient computer virus removed / deleted / re-wrote (whatever) the computer's programming. The containment field system was removed / deleted/ re-written. Uncontrolled matter/anti-matter reaction explodes in the Warp Core.

USS Odyssey: Jem'Hadar ship collides with Engineering section (warp core?). Combined warp cores (or just one) detonate. Both ships destroyed.


That's three. Three in... (does maths... 2002 [has it been 5 years since Nemesis???] - 1987 = 15 years.

[Captain Seafort]

The fact that the core blows up at all is a good indication that it's badly designed. "Cause and Effect" is probably the worst offender - a grazing hit to the nacelle caused the entire ship to blow up. "Disaster" was a definate case, as was "Thine Own Self", (this was a simulation, but there's no point in a simulation if it isn't accurate), "Yesterday's Enterprise", "The Next Phase" and "Emergence". On all of these occasions the ship was at risk of blowing up.

The biggest problem with Fed warp core design is that they rely on active safety systems. This is best shown by the Yamato, when the computer malfunction prevented the core ejection. You claim that the problems demonstrated were "exceptional". I say that when the thing blows up, or threatens to blow up, on a regular basis, it ceases to be exceptional.

[Weyoun the Dancing Borg]

The fact that the core blows up at all is a good indication that it's badly designed. "Cause and Effect" is probably the worst offender - a grazing hit to the nacelle caused the entire ship to blow up. "Disaster" was a definate case, as was "Thine Own Self", (this was a simulation, but there's no point in a simulation if it isn't accurate), "Yesterday's Enterprise", "The Next Phase" and "Emergence". On all of these occasions the ship was at risk of blowing up.

The biggest problem with Fed warp core design is that they rely on active safety systems. This is best shown by the Yamato, when the computer malfunction prevented the core ejection. You claim that the problems demonstrated were "exceptional". I say that when the thing blows up, or threatens to blow up, on a regular basis, it ceases to be exceptional.

I mean no disrespect, but I disagree.

I don't want to make this a ST vs debate, but you could say the same of any Sci-fi show or indeed anything in real life.

When a tank is hit by a RPG and blows up, is that a design flaw? Surely not. Unrelated, yes, but I think it's analogous.

When the twin towers were hit, was that a design flaw? Was that not exceptional?

"On a regular basis" - it's not regular. It happens occasionally. Each time, there were circumstances to explain it.

In Generations, the Ent-D didn't blow up because it was under attack - it blew up because it's shields were effectively non-existent. Any ship, or tank, or submarine or what-have-you, will blow up / sink / die if enough fire-power is put into it.

In Yesterday's Enterprise, there wasn't a "warp core breach", so that example is out. However, that said, it was out gunned and it did have the capability to withdraw - it didn't - KNOWINGLY, but the commanding officer.

Cause and Effect - Well, I am uncertain. I don't have the script to hand. Was a warp core breach mentioned?

Disaster - Well, it didn't blow up. The premise was that if the containment field did fail, then it would blow up. But that's the same as a nuclear power plant - you don't cool it, it'll melt-down or blow up. That doesn't mean it's a bad design, it just means that given a set amount of circumstances, then X will happen.



As I said, I do admit that the emergency systems are themselves badly designed. The "eject" command seems to fail more often than the actual warp core. That's a problem with the ejection systems rather than the warp core itself.


To say that it's a design flaw that the ship is "at risk of blowing up", I think is unfair. Any ship in Scifi - SG1, ST, SW, B5 etc, is "at risk of blowing up" when you shove fire-power at it, or overload this or that.

Please be specific with regard to warp core breaches. My thread is for warp core breaches, not ship destruction.

[Mikey]

I have to agree with Seafort. These ships are built purposely to go into "exceptional" situations, but their warp cores aren't. Look at your example from "Contagion." What are the odds that a starship will attempt communication with an alien race, or attempt to upload information from an extinct one?

That was sarcasm - the chances are like 100%. Yet, a virus in that communication - a likely occurence - can destroy your warp core AND knock out your chance of saving the ship.

[Teaos]

I like to think it is just a problem you get when you start building really large warp cores. Thats why we havent seen bigger ships. Infact all the new ships are smaller.

[Captain Seafort]

When I saw "blow up" I mean either warp core breach or AM containment failure. Neither of which should happen in a well-designed reactor. Both the WTC and tank examples are irrelevent - in both cases the explosion was due to the warhead, not the target. In the case of a well-designed nuclear reactor, a failure will result in the reactor shutting down, not a meltdown - if the power fails, the control rods drop and the reaction is halted. In the case of a GCS, if the power fails the ships blows up. This reliance on active, rather than passive, safety systems is the core of the whole problem.

[Captain Seafort]

I like to think it is just a problem you get when you start building really large warp cores. Thats why we havent seen bigger ships. Infact all the new ships are smaller.

Everything we've seen/heard suggests that the Sovereign class is more powerful than the Galaxy, but it doesn't seem to have the same problems. Indeed, in Nemesis, the E-E was struck on the nacelle by a lump of Warbird, apparently a lot harder than the E-D was in "Cause and Effect", and didn't blow up.

[Teaos]

We have seen other ships have problems with their warp cores. It would make sense that a matter anti matter engine would be more prone to blowing up than others. But it is a price they pay for space travel.

[Teaos]

Everything we've seen/heard suggests that the Sovereign class is more powerful than the Galaxy, but it doesn't seem to have the same problems. Indeed, in Nemesis, the E-E was struck on the nacelle by a lump of Warbird, apparently a lot harder than the E-D was in "Cause and Effect", and didn't blow up.

Thats just becuase it is more efficent not bigger. Its like fine tunning a smaller petrol engine to give better results than a larger desiel.

[Captain Seafort]

We have seen other ships have problems with their warp cores. It would make sense that a matter anti matter engine would be more prone to blowing up than others. But it is a price they pay for space travel.

Have we though? Off the top of my head I can't think of a single unintentional warp core breach/anitmatter containment failure other than in a Galaxy.

[Captain Seafort]

Thats just becuase it is more efficent not bigger. Its like fine tunning a smaller petrol engine to give better results than a larger desiel.

The E-E's core certainly looked a lot bigger to me, and I don't recall any mention of greater efficiency, just that it was more powerful.

[Weyoun the Dancing Borg]

I have to agree with Seafort. These ships are built purposely to go into "exceptional" situations, but their warp cores aren't. Look at your example from "Contagion." What are the odds that a starship will attempt communication with an alien race, or attempt to upload information from an extinct one?

That was sarcasm - the chances are like 100%. Yet, a virus in that communication - a likely occurence - can destroy your warp core AND knock out your chance of saving the ship.

But surely that's more of a computer security / firewall problem than the warp core?

The warp core in Contagion was not the problem. It was the software that let them down.

[Weyoun the Dancing Borg]

We have seen other ships have problems with their warp cores. It would make sense that a matter anti matter engine would be more prone to blowing up than others. But it is a price they pay for space travel.

Have we though? Off the top of my head I can't think of a single unintentional warp core breach/anitmatter containment failure other than in a Galaxy.

Voyager? ("Day of Honor [sic]" for one, although luckily for them, the ejection system seemed to be in a good mood that day.

Several shuttles?

Enterprise in "TMP" (not a warp core breach, as such, but a serious problem with a "warp core imbalance")


I state that it's not the warp cores themselves that are the problem. It's the software behind them and/or the ejection systems that are the problem.

The Warp Cores themselves never randomly go "boom". When they do explode, there's always a reason - software deleted, containment failure (due to software or something else) etc.

It's not the actual core, rather than the machinery around the core that's the problem.

[Captain Seafort]

But surely that's more of a computer security / firewall problem than the warp core?

The warp core in Contagion was not the problem. It was the software that let them down.

The very fact that they were relying on the computer to eject the core demonstrates the stupidity of the design. It relies on everthing working perfectly, or the ship will blow up. Safety systems should be triggered by a malfunction, not disabled.

[Teaos]

Well they seem to have learned from their mistakes at the very least.

It may be stupid but since they intended it to be an explorer maybe they didnt pay to much attention to safety design.