Federation Design Safety Discussion

[Sandy River DL]

To prevent a derail in For the Empire, I'm bringing the tangential discussion on Federation design safety and the TNG episode Contagion here.

In my mind, Contagion revealed two major design flaws in the Galaxy-class starship. These flaws being the singular computer system and the fail-deadly antimatter storage. There are others, but these are the fatal duo in this episode. Let's substitute the Enterprise and Yamato for a pair of theoretical USAF Orion Drive Battleships, which will be labeled Orion 1 and Orion 2.

Orion 1: We've received a transmission from the planet. Primary Comms System is now down due to an apparent cyberwarfare program. Currently running a factory reset to purge it.
Orion 2: Roger that.

Ah, the wonders of isolated systems. Lose one, you only lose that one. Redundancy helps too.

Now, on to the fuel storage problem. Antimatter is stupid dangerous and requires active containment, so it is critical to have a fail-safe to prevent it from turning the ship into incandescent plasma. The simplest, if not ideal for combat, solution is to mount the antimatter stores on the outer hull in tanks secured by electromagnets. Cut the power, and the tanks separate from the ship. The actual annihilation reactor is also rather problematic due to excess reactivity. Your powerplant really should not contain enough fuel at any given time to obliterate the ship if something goes wrong.

 

[AKuz]

To prevent a derail in For the Empire, I'm bringing the tangential discussion on Federation design safety and the TNG episode Contagion here.

In my mind, Contagion revealed two major design flaws in the Galaxy-class starship. These flaws being the singular computer system and the fail-deadly antimatter storage. There are others, but these are the fatal duo in this episode. Let's substitute the Enterprise and Yamato for a pair of theoretical USAF Orion Drive Battleships, which will be labeled Orion 1 and Orion 2.

Orion 1: We've received a transmission from the planet. Primary Comms System is now down due to an apparent cyberwarfare program. Currently running a factory reset to purge it.
Orion 2: Roger that.

Ah, the wonders of isolated systems. Lose one, you only lose that one. Redundancy helps too.

Now, on to the fuel storage problem. Antimatter is stupid dangerous and requires active containment, so it is critical to have a fail-safe to prevent it from turning the ship into incandescent plasma. The simplest, if not ideal for combat, solution is to mount the antimatter stores on the outer hull in tanks secured by electromagnets. Cut the power, and the tanks separate from the ship. The actual annihilation reactor is also rather problematic due to excess reactivity. Your powerplant really should not contain enough fuel at any given time to obliterate the ship if something goes wrong.

Click to shrink...

Ah yes. The controversial and little heard from "Use our incredibly destructive fuel source as ablative armour" design school. The one that also necessitates either putting all of your antimatter requiring internals on the outside as well; or running big asslong antimatter pipes thoughout the ship that provide more points of failure and still fucking fail deadly when the power cuts out and the AM in the pipes meet your walls.

You could probably just not use an AM reactor, but then you either gotta use an also dangerous Singularity drive, something else exotic as fuck, or slowboat between systems while we run rings around you.

The Romulan Star Empire supports your design choices Federation architect! o7

 

[Sandy River DL]

Ah yes. The controversial and little heard from "Use our incredibly destructive fuel source as ablative armour" design school. The one that also necessitates either putting all of your antimatter requiring internals on the outside as well; or running big asslong antimatter pipes thoughout the ship that provide more points of failure and still fucking fail deadly when the power cuts out and the AM in the pipes meet your walls.

You could probably just not use an AM reactor, but then you either gotta use an also dangerous Singularity drive, something else exotic as fuck, or slowboat between systems while we run rings around you.

The Romulan Star Empire supports your design choices Federation architect! o7

Click to shrink...

I did say that that arrangement is not suited for combat. And who said I was a Federation ship designer?

 

[Nicholai]

To prevent a derail in For the Empire, I'm bringing the tangential discussion on Federation design safety and the TNG episode Contagion here.

In my mind, Contagion revealed two major design flaws in the Galaxy-class starship. These flaws being the singular computer system and the fail-deadly antimatter storage. There are others, but these are the fatal duo in this episode. Let's substitute the Enterprise and Yamato for a pair of theoretical USAF Orion Drive Battleships, which will be labeled Orion 1 and Orion 2.

Orion 1: We've received a transmission from the planet. Primary Comms System is now down due to an apparent cyberwarfare program. Currently running a factory reset to purge it.
Orion 2: Roger that.

Ah, the wonders of isolated systems. Lose one, you only lose that one. Redundancy helps too.

Now, on to the fuel storage problem. Antimatter is stupid dangerous and requires active containment, so it is critical to have a fail-safe to prevent it from turning the ship into incandescent plasma. The simplest, if not ideal for combat, solution is to mount the antimatter stores on the outer hull in tanks secured by electromagnets. Cut the power, and the tanks separate from the ship. The actual annihilation reactor is also rather problematic due to excess reactivity. Your powerplant really should not contain enough fuel at any given time to obliterate the ship if something goes wrong.

Click to shrink...

Honestly the whole issue with anti-matter gets a little silly when you think about it. They have casual matter replication. Great! They also have casual matter destruction through the same replicators. That means they can break down matter for energy.

With me so far? Okay, how much energy would it take to create anti-matter with a replicator? Combine that with how much energy it would take to create the anti-matter's opposing particle? (Let's say hydrogen and anti-hydrogen for this example.) If the costs of both of those are less than the amount you get from the ensuing anti-matter reaction then you're net positive. And, oh yeah, if the power turns off you don't have live anti-matter stuck on your starship.

Note I assume that this design would require a lot of space. You'd replace a single, large anti-matter reaction chamber with a lot of little ones that have attached, paired replicators.

 

[Tasrill]

Honestly the whole issue with anti-matter gets a little silly when you think about it. They have casual matter replication. Great! They also have casual matter destruction through the same replicators. That means they can break down matter for energy.

With me so far? Okay, how much energy would it take to create anti-matter with a replicator? Combine that with how much energy it would take to create the anti-matter's opposing particle? (Let's say hydrogen and anti-hydrogen for this example.) If the costs of both of those are less than the amount you get from the ensuing anti-matter reaction then you're net positive. And, oh yeah, if the power turns off you don't have live anti-matter stuck on your starship.

Note I assume that this design would require a lot of space. You'd replace a single, large anti-matter reaction chamber with a lot of little ones that have attached, paired replicators.

Click to shrink...

You just described device that gives you more energy than you put into it aka breaking the first law of thermodynamics. Remember that you are describing creating both matter and antimatter from energy and then trying to convert it back into energy. However if you only create the antimatter on demand you might have something. It wouldn't be a good as carrying around fuel but the loss in efficiency is sure made up for by only having on demand booms for civilian ships. I should note there is debate as to if replicators create matter or simply shuffle around atoms to make things.

 

[firefossil]

These flaws being the singular computer system and the fail-deadly antimatter storage.

Click to shrink...

There is no way to avoid fail-deadly energy storage when you have the following pre-reqs:
1: As much energy as possible.
2: Stored in as little space as possible.
3: Which can be released as quickly as possible when needed.
Of which antimatter is a very high extreme for all of the above.

Honestly the whole issue with anti-matter gets a little silly when you think about it. They have casual matter replication. Great! They also have casual matter destruction through the same replicators. That means they can break down matter for energy.

With me so far? Okay, how much energy would it take to create anti-matter with a replicator? Combine that with how much energy it would take to create the anti-matter's opposing particle? (Let's say hydrogen and anti-hydrogen for this example.) If the costs of both of those are less than the amount you get from the ensuing anti-matter reaction then you're net positive. And, oh yeah, if the power turns off you don't have live anti-matter stuck on your starship.

Note I assume that this design would require a lot of space. You'd replace a single, large anti-matter reaction chamber with a lot of little ones that have attached, paired replicators.

Click to shrink...

Why would you bother creating antimatter in the first place if you have a device that can turn matter into energy at will and apparently store enough of it to create significant amounts of matter? Just hook up the stardrive to a replicator with a feed of tungsten or osmium or something.

 

[Nicholai]

You just described device that gives you more energy than you put into it aka breaking the first law of thermodynamics. Remember that you are describing creating both matter and antimatter from energy and then trying to convert it back into energy. However if you only create the antimatter on demand you might have something. It wouldn't be a good as carrying around fuel but the loss in efficiency is sure made up for by only having on demand booms for civilian ships. I should note there is debate as to if replicators create matter or simply shuffle around atoms to make things.

Click to shrink...

Given one of the power sources in Star Trek involves a singularity that somehow doesn't affect anything around it (the Romulan reactor) I'm not sure relying on the laws of thermodynamics is required in Star Trek. Still, your point about creating both is definitely valid at the very least. Given the choice between carting around storage tanks of inert matter or antimatter I know which one I'd pick.

Why would you bother creating antimatter in the first place if you have a device that can turn matter into energy at will and apparently store enough of it to create significant amounts of matter? Just hook up the stardrive to a replicator with a feed of tungsten or osmium or something.

Click to shrink...

That would depend on the energy efficiency of the technologies involved. If creating antimatter was more efficient then why not? If destroying tungsten, osmium, or something else was more efficient again, why not? The downside to the heavy materials is that you have to source those things. Scooping up random asteroids and annihilating them for energy is easier than finding those rare materials. Conversely you could just set up something like a Dyson sphere of solar panels around an uninhabited star and use that energy to replicate the fuel for your starships. In effect using a low, constant, passive power production system to store energy for later use in physical form.

 

[Tasrill]

Given one of the power sources in Star Trek involves a singularity that somehow doesn't affect anything around it (the Romulan reactor) I'm not sure relying on the laws of thermodynamics is required in Star Trek. Still, your point about creating both is definitely valid at the very least. Given the choice between carting around storage tanks of inert matter or antimatter I know which one I'd pick.

Click to shrink...

Gravity on spaceships makes no sense 99.9% of the time anyway. The fact that anything beyond the hull of every single Trek ship is in zero g already makes no sense because gravity falls off over distance. I put gravity in the same bin as FTLs relationship to causality aka don't think about it because no one else has and it isn't actually important.

 

[chriswriter90]

In my mind, Contagion revealed two major design flaws in the Galaxy-class starship. These flaws being the singular computer system and the fail-deadly antimatter storage. There are others, but these are the fatal duo in this episode. Let's substitute the Enterprise and Yamato for a pair of theoretical USAF Orion Drive Battleships, which will be labeled Orion 1 and Orion 2.

Click to shrink...

It's the Galaxy-class. Something was going wrong on the Enterprise practically every other episode.

The Constitution, NX, and Defiant may not have been as flashy but at least they worked.

 

[CV12Hornet]

IIRC, a big part of the problems with the Galaxy class' warp cores was that they were an entirely new, high-power next-gen design that in hindsight probably underwent inadequate testing.

 

[Jakinbandw]

Gravity on spaceships makes no sense 99.9% of the time anyway. The fact that anything beyond the hull of every single Trek ship is in zero g already makes no sense because gravity falls off over distance. I put gravity in the same bin as FTLs relationship to causality aka don't think about it because no one else has and it isn't actually important.

Click to shrink...

Honestly I figured they were just another application of force fields. A large thick field that only pushed people down. I figure their inertial dampeners work the same way.

 

[Nicholai]

Honestly I figured they were just another application of force fields. A large thick field that only pushed people down. I figure their inertial dampeners work the same way.

Click to shrink...

Consider the amount of computer processing they'd need for every stray object on the ship. Plates, utensils, food that people cook for fun (Hi, Captain Sisko!), things like carpet lint, and so on. That's a lot of computer processing. As for the inertial dampeners that wouldn't work. The crew would still be subject to the force from the acceleration. You'd see the same kinds of effects that fighter pilots have to deal with in real life - all the blood rushing to the wrong parts of their bodies for example.

 

[Jane Dough]

Consider the amount of computer processing they'd need for every stray object on the ship. Plates, utensils, food that people cook for fun (Hi, Captain Sisko!), things like carpet lint, and so on. That's a lot of computer processing. As for the inertial dampeners that wouldn't work. The crew would still be subject to the force from the acceleration. You'd see the same kinds of effects that fighter pilots have to deal with in real life - all the blood rushing to the wrong parts of their bodies for example.

Click to shrink...

I don't see how that would require immense computing power. Literally just 'apply downward force equal to 1 G over this area'.

 

[Triggerhappy]

Consider the amount of computer processing they'd need for every stray object on the ship. Plates, utensils, food that people cook for fun (Hi, Captain Sisko!), things like carpet lint, and so on. That's a lot of computer processing. As for the inertial dampeners that wouldn't work. The crew would still be subject to the force from the acceleration. You'd see the same kinds of effects that fighter pilots have to deal with in real life - all the blood rushing to the wrong parts of their bodies for example.

Click to shrink...

Depends on how a forcefield works. Is it applying a point force to a spot on the object, or is it applying a unfiorm force to every atom within the field?

In the case of the latter, g-force becomes moot since every atom in your body is being accelerated equally.

 

[Nicholai]

I don't see how that would require immense computing power. Literally just 'apply downward force equal to 1 G over this area'.

Click to shrink...

Depends on how a forcefield works. Is it applying a point force to a spot on the object, or is it applying a unfiorm force to every atom within the field?

In the case of the latter, g-force becomes moot since every atom in your body is being accelerated equally.

Click to shrink...

You two seem to be making assumptions about how force fields in Star Trek work. So far in canon!ST we have seen shields on ships (which might be related,) force fields around secure areas, force fields around hull breaches, and force fields around hazardous environments / terrain / radiation. In all of those cases the force field is either a flat plane or a bubble of some kind. It is never shown to be a wide area field that has depth to it.

If they work the way you are suggesting, great! If not then there's a lot of processing that needs to happen to keep every strand of someone's hair behaving as if it was exposed to gravity. (Or their tea in its cup or whatever.) It might also require a huge number of individual force field projectors to make that work.

 

[Tasrill]

Honestly I figured they were just another application of force fields. A large thick field that only pushed people down. I figure their inertial dampeners work the same way.

Click to shrink...

Evidently in the enterprise days ships had a point in the vague center of the ship that had inverted gravity called the sweet spot.

Depends on how a forcefield works. Is it applying a point force to a spot on the object, or is it applying a unfiorm force to every atom within the field?

In the case of the latter, g-force becomes moot since every atom in your body is being accelerated equally.

Click to shrink...

Force fields in ST seem to be more membranes then fields. So yeah you will need a great many layers of force fields just to keep pushing down on things and in general being bisected by a force field means you are going to have a very bad day.