Who is like God arbour wrote:
As I have already said,
Who is like God arbour wrote:If we assume, that photon torpedos have shields,
- and in consideration of the fact, that torpedos are able to fly into a sun (TNG: Half a Life or Star Trek Generations) or are able to penetrate through the surface of a planet (TNG: Pen Pals) and their glowing after they are fired (Regarding Photon Torpedo Glow), a not unreasonable assumption, it is to conclude, that, because of these shields, a photon torpedo is not that easily destroyed by enemy weapons fire.
But my point has not changed. If small shield surfaced allowed such feats, it would just be a matter of using a patchwork of small shields, and you'd have supertough ships.
Unsurprisingly, it's not the case.
That torp crashing into the ground, I don't know what happened in detail. The shield could be part NDF, or the soil soft. I assume the torps were, once again, modified for a specific mission.
Same for those fired into the sun in Half a Life. It seems to stick out so much compared to the rest of Trek.
First, some
data about the modifications brought to the torps.
DATA
The modifications that you have
made on the torpedo's guidance
systems are remarkable, doctor...
...
TIMICIN
(humble)
It has taken forty years of my
life to develop the programming
which will control your photon
torpedos... it has been my life...
my only wish has been to find a
way to revive our sun before I
die... thank you for giving me
this opportunity.
...
LWAXANA
Of course I was, dear.
(to Timicin)
You really must let me do
something to relieve the tedium
of all this work, work, work...
...
TIMICIN
I'm afraid I'm expected in
Engineering. I'm really terribly
sorry...
...
13 INT. ENGINEERING
It's clearly been a long session; the pool table is
littered with PADDs and styluses. As Timicin, Geordi,
and Data examine a schematic of a photon torpedo
displayed on a monitor...
...
13 CONTINUED:
GEORDI
(mid-discussion)
Is that why you reset the torpedo
sustainer engines to run on less
reactants?
TIMICIN
Exactly... once we were able to
protect the triggering mechanism,
the flight engine power levels
could be minimized...
(moving to another
console)
... now if we take a look at
another simulation, you'll see
that the temperature should
stabilize at two-twenty...
...
LWAXANA
Now now now, you've been shut up
in here for hours; perfectly
ridiculous.
...
16 EXT. SPACE - THE ENTERPRISE (OPTICAL)
The great ship approaches a red giant star.
PICARD (V.O.)
Captain's Log, Stardate 44807.5.
The Enterprise has arrived at the
Praxillus system, where we will
conduct Doctor Timicin's helium
ignition test.
...
GEORDI
Torpedoes now entering the stellar
core.
TIMICIN
Their shields are holding.
Guidance systems normal.
GEORDI
Ignition sequence... six
seconds... three seconds... Now.
Now, the pictures:
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... =95&page=3
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... =95&page=4
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... =95&page=5
A few words from wikipedia about
red giants:
"A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass that is in a late phase of its evolution, with nuclear fusion going on in a shell outside the core but not in the core itself. The core matter is electron degenerate and extremely compressed, so the outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius immense and the surface temperature low, somewhere from 5,000 K and lower. The appearance of the red giant is from yellow orange to red, including the spectral types K and M, but also class S stars and most carbon stars.
The most common red giants are the so-called Red Giant Branch stars (RGB stars) whose shells are still fusing hydrogen, while the core is inactive helium. Another case of red giants of interest are the Asymptotic Giant Branch stars (AGB) that produces carbon by the triple-alpha process from helium. To the AGB stars belong the carbon stars of type C-N and late C-R.
Prominent bright red giants in the night sky include Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri), Gamma Crucis and Alpha Vulpeculae (Lucida Anseris)."
...
"Red giants are evolved from the main sequence stars with masses in the range from about 0.5 solar masses to somewhere between 4 and 6 solar masses.
Red giants are stars with radii hundreds of times larger than that of the Sun which have exhausted the supply of hydrogen in their cores and switched to fusing hydrogen in a shell outside the core. Since the inert helium core has no source of energy of its own, it contracts and heats up, and its gravity compresses the hydrogen in the layer immediately above it, thus causing it to fuse faster. This in turn causes the star to become more luminous (from 1,000 to 10,000 times brighter) and expand; the degree of expansion outstrips the increase in luminosity, thus causing the effective temperature to decrease. In stars massive enough to ignite helium fusion, an analogous process occurs when central helium is exhausted and the star switches to fusing helium in a shell, although with the additional complication that in many cases hydrogen fusion will continue in a shell at lesser depth — this puts stars onto the asymptotic giant branch. The decrease in surface temperature shifts the star's visible light output towards the red — hence red giant, even though the color usually is orange. Main sequence stars of spectral types A through K are believed to become red giants.
Very low mass stars are thought to be fully convective and thus may not accumulate an inert core of helium, and thus may exhaust all of their fuel without ever becoming red giants. Such stars are commonly referred to as red dwarfs.
Very high mass stars instead develop to supergiant stars that wander back and forth horizontally over the HR diagram, at the right end constituting red supergiants. These usually end their life as type II supernovae.
If the star is heavier than 0.4 but less than 2.57 solar masses, the addition of helium to the core by shell hydrogen fusing will cause a helium flash — a rapid burst of helium fusing in the core, after which the star will commence a brief period of helium fusing before beginning another ascent of the red giant branch. Stars more massive than 2.5 solar masses, but less than about 4 to 6, enter the helium fusing phase of their lives much more smoothly. The core helium fusing phase of a star's life is called the horizontal branch in metal-poor stars, so named because these stars lie on a nearly horizontal line in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of many star clusters. Metal-rich helium-fusing stars do not lie on a horizontal branch, but instead lie in a clump (the red clump) in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.
Actually, such stars are not big red spheres with sharp limbs (when one is close to it) as displayed on many images. Due to the very low density such stars may not have a sharp photosphere but a star body which gradually transfers into a 'corona'."
So this is supposedly a red giant (script), dying and not displaying any intense luminosity. Its photosphere bears noticeable dark regions.
But red giants aren't supposed to have such distinct surfaces, implying that it's not that giant at all.
Besides, luminosities attributed to red giants don't match what we see here.
Still, let's get numbers.
On the
Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, a red giant would be roughly hundred times more luminous than our sun (which is clearly not the case in the episode here).
Since the episode talked about messing up with hydrogen, we'd be dealing with RGB stars, those with inactive cores.
So, let's get an idea of the energy intensity at the "surface" of a red giant (even if there shouldn't be a distinct surface for the heaviest ones).
Our sun's luminosity: 3.846 e26 W
Its radius: 0.696 e9 m
Aldebaran, for example, is a red giant with a luminosity of 150 Lsun, and a radius of 2.65 e10 m.
I = 3.846 e26 x 150 / 4 x pi x (2.65 e10)²
I = 576.9 e26 / 88.25 e20
I = 6.537 e6 W/m²
Now taking the visuals over the script, we then work with a red sun that has a well identifiable surface and dark red hues. So we aim at a small and weak red star.
Using the
stellar classification, we know the following values:
Class: M
Conventional color: red
Apparent color: orange red
Radius: 0.4 Rsun
Luminosity: 0.04 Lsun
I = 3.846 e26 x 0.04 / 4 x pi x (0.696 e9 x 0.4)²
I = 1.5384 e25 / 0.974 e18
I = 15.8 e6 W/m²
These intensities are those we'd obtain in the most active regions of the sun. It's rather obvious that the shields wouldn't have to cope with that much energy during the whole trip.
In both cases, we're in the low megajoule range per square meter, and as far as red giants are concerned, this number is supposed to decrease to some degree as you get close to the core, since you've passed the most active region of the sun.
Unless I made a mistake somewhere, we could understand that the torps' shields wouldn't need to be so strong to survive in such a milieu, and any phaser on a capital ship could easily overwhelm such shields.
The range itself is not far from some cardassian rifles rated at more than 4 megajoules per burst.
I concede, that it doesn't seem to be, that the phenomenon
photonic shockwave is commonly known. But the impression could be wrong. We know only, that Harry Kim hasn't known it. But he is an engineer and scientist and no weapons expert and he has not much experience. It may be, that older officers with more experience and tactical education know that phenomenon.
It would be something a science engineer would know fairly well. Especially when you're supposed to work on antimatter cores and all that jazz, and routenily called to modify a ship's systems and work on weapon alteration.
I don't think his lack of terrain experience could explain such a glaring lack. But who knows?
The photonic shockwave, as I said earlier, would be a good explanation at first hand, but fails when you explore the power of phaser-detonated-antimatter-torpedoes if it was so well known.
It's most obvious that it's a kind of secret.
And even if not, we know nevertheless from
Q Who [
DATA: Without our shields -- at this range there is a high degree of probability that a photon detonation could destroy the Enterprise.] ...
They had lost their shields, were near powerless, and at a very close range of the cube if I'm correct. Any normal explosion would be dangerous in such conditions.
... and
The Nth Degree [
RIKER: We can't use photon torpedoes. An explosion this close to the ship could cripple us.], that a photon torpedo explosion could cripple or even destroy the own ship, if the torpedo explodes too close.
I don't see how it relates to blasting a torp with a phaser, unless that was the plan in The Nth Degree. If not, they're just adressing the problem of a mere photonic explosion's "backdraft".
Nothing fancy here.
Insofar, a small distance to your enemy would assure, that if he fires torpedos at you, he would get damaged too.
These examples don't adress any special increase of yield though. They're just talking about the danger of blasting a torpedo in an omnidirectional way.
I remember that until a certain time, even Data had to modify torps manually to shape their explosion. It makes most sense that a multi megaton omnidirectional explosion would be dangerous, and it would be even more relevant if they were used to shaped charges, which usually deal all of their damage forward, onto the target.
And we know from
A Matter Of Honor [
RIKER: Then I recommend you do not fire until you are within forty thousand kilometers. - KLAG: Why? - RIKER: It will reduce their response time.], that a small distance reduces the response time of the enemy.
That would also be enogh to explain, why Star Trek battles are a short range affair.
It's quite obvious that the closer to your enemy, the less time he'll have to react.
That said, notice that Riker considers that a range of 40,000 kilometers is being enough to significantly reduce response time, while we know that torps hardly move that fast.
It speaks badly of the target's sensors. Possibly they didn't expect such an attack, and thus only had passive sensors on?
The script makes it sound like it's a surprise long range attack.
That said, none of this even remotely deals with the photonic shockwaves.
Who is like God arbour wrote:
Am I that difficult to undertand? I have already explicit said, that »I don't call call into question, that disruptors are big shiny glowy bolts, which can easily be seen with the naked eye as soon as they emerge from the cloacking field«.
I have called into question, that »today's fire control sensors and computers would be able to easily detect the disruptor bolt's point of origin as Scimitar fires, feed the sensor data into weapons control computers and fire back.« One eyes are not fire control sensors. But Maybe you are able to plug your eyes on a computer.
And even if one would consider your system, one would have to position on nearly each window of the Enterprise a crewman, that reports immediately when it sees big shiny glowy bolts emerging from a cloacking field. It would not be enough, to look out of one or two windows. And even the main screen, that can look in each direction, would not be enough, because it can only look in one direction a once. If they look forward and are noticing impacts on their rear end, they have first to program the new direction, in which they want to see. But when they notice impacts on their rear end, the Scimitar has already finished to fire and would start a new attack run from another direction.
Then, the direction has to be feed into the computer and only then can the computer start to aim the phasers and program the torpedos and fire. But in that delay, the Scimitar, as long as her helmsman is not totally incompetent, would already have changed her course.
Hey, that's not bad at all. I suppose that each team would write on paper the coordinates they observed with goggles, and then send them by fax to the Central Bureau of Coordinates Correlation, which in turn would provide a streamlined mail to the Tactical Office of Operations (responsible of many things, including mundane tasks such as the management of human resources, notably those of the "press fire" department), containing the much necessary vector to enter into the steam powered computer. With a bit of luck, they may already use pierced datacards! *crosses fingers*
Or... they can start by using visible-light friendly sensors, for example... say... laser based ones, but they could use passive ones only... maybe three of them, placed according to a triangular pattern I suppose... I mean, that would be a good starting point, don't you think? Then they'd triangulate the position of the beam, its vector, and admitting that Starfleet uses computers a tad more powerful than a Commodore 64, they would feed the acquisition program with the much necessary solution vector. Of course, we'd expect all of this to be sufficiently automatized to happen within a picosecond without much assistance from the crew.
After all, the enemy ship is cloaked, but the most obvious fluo beam that emits light is not. Ahem.
Who is like God arbour wrote:No, there is a satisfying explanation. Torpedos have exceptionally strong shields, that are even able to protect a torpedo, that is flying into a sun or making high speed impacts on a planet. These shields are only supposed to hold for a few seconds. But in that time, even a strong phaser blast is not able to overcome the shield and destroy the torpedo.
Considering that this one bit has been blasted to oblivion, we can move on to the real meat and potatoes...
That's why it is not usefull, to »replicate the design all over a ship's hull«, even if a so erected shield would be as strong as a torpedo shield, when it has to cover a whole ship. The shield generators would only work for a few seconds and would burn through after it. Furthermore, such a strong shield could interfere with sensor signals and could render a ship nearly bilnd with only a few sensors still effectiv.
So first, the shield generators suddenly burn now, and secondly, a patchwork would actually enable any engineer to place holes for the sensors like he wants. Therefore, strong shields wouldn't be a problem.
Besides, I'm fairly sure that Trek species have found a solution to let the megaton repellent shields accept the feedback from not that intense radio signals, or even subspace signals, y'know. ;)
Oh, by the way, I don't know why you're having such a fixation on the
- tag, but if you could please use a bit less fancy code, it would just make the quoting easier and clearer. Thank you.
