Who is like God arbour wrote:In all instances, I can remember, there was never a suddenly loss of anti-matter containment. It was always a matter of minutes and in the most cases, it was enough time to stabilise the containment.
In TNG "Disaster", while the containment failure was not immediate, the only people aware of the problem (leaving the perplexing question of why Engineering was completely unmanned at the time) were unable to correct it. Their control connections were limited: they had no ability to eject the anti-matter containers from the bridge -- the best they could manage would be to separate the saucer from the engineering section. Obviously there was no automatic system to eject the anti-matter containers of the field strength dropped too low. They were left with just hoping someone would show up in Engineering to reroute power to the containment units.
Who is like God arbour wrote:Even if not, there would be enough time, to eject the warp core or the anti matter pods.
How can you make that unqualified assertion?
Who is like God arbour wrote:There is no need for someone to push a button. The order can be given by voice to the computer.
Assuming there is someone authorized to perform the ejection and that person is not incapacitated or unaware of the problem. In any case, in three or four warp-core breach incidents, we've never seen anyone attempt this by voice command.
Who is like God arbour wrote:It is even probably, that the computer would eject the warp core or anti matter pod by itself, if the remaining time is nearing the end and nobody has repaired it until then.
There is absolutely no evidence this is the case. Not in "Disaster", not in "Yesterday's Enterprise", not in "Cause and Effect", not in
Generations.
Who is like God arbour wrote:The problem with a dead man's switch is, that it is not only possible, that the warp core or the containment pods are ejected sooner than you might want. In a battle, in which the ship is shaken and it has to deal with huge amounts of energy and damage, it is very probably that the death man's switchs are released.
That would depend on the design of your dead-man's switch, wouldn't it.
Who is like God arbour wrote:And there was my objection from the TNG episode ""11001001". Would it really be better, if the warp core would have been ejected in the star base?
That's a good question. The docking bay of the starbase was quite large. It's impossible to say whether the explosion of a warp core would have critically damaged it. I'm inclined to say that if a starship's warp core exploded inside the starbase, it wouldn't make much difference whether it was inside the ship or outside when it blew.
Who is like God arbour wrote:Or a ship in a dock, which is repaired: If there is a dead man's switch, there is a huge danger, that it is released by mistake during such repair work.
A ship in dock for repairs should probably have it's containers removed or emptied in advance if there's a significant risk that the work will affect containment or automated ejection systems.
Who is like God arbour wrote:It is correct, that the fusion reactors from the impuls drive provide some energy too. But that is not the main power system as far as I know. The lights in the corridors, the life support and terminals would probaply need only a tiny fraction of energy. The most would be used from the main systems, like weapons, shields, navigation deflector, and warp drive.
As I said, warp propulsion unquestionably requires warp power, but most of the ship's other functions can be powered by the impulse engines. Of course, you don't have as much power available to pump through systems like phasers and shields without warp power, but that doesn't mean they won't function.
Who is like God arbour wrote:In ST:TMP, the pasers was powered by warp energy. Through this they would have been more powerfull. But because the warp drive has had a malfunction, which has caused the worm hole, they couldn't use the phasers. It would have destroyed the Enterprise.
I don't know what would have happened if the phasers were fired during an anti-matter imbalance, but the point is moot, because they
couldn't fire phasers under those conditions. An automated system shut them off. That's why Decker belayed Kirk's order to use phasers on the asteroid that was in the wormhole with them; they simply wouldn't have worked. They only working weapon system was the torpedoes.
Who is like God arbour wrote:Admiral Kirk has ordered, that a bypass from the impuls drive is installed to the phasers. He has refered to the many instances, the Enterprise has lost its warp drive and has needed its phasers. Later, he has seen, that Decker has already begun to install such a bypass.
I don't recall anything of the sort happening in the movie. Was it in the novelization or something?
Who is like God arbour wrote:In TNG, there is a
electro-plasma distribution network (EPS). That get its energy mainly from the warp core, but from
the fusion reactors of the impulse drive too. The phasers in TNG would draw their energy from this energy grid. If the main power is shut down, the phasers would have only the energy provided by the fusion reactors and would be significant weaker. Against an enemy, who has its weapons and shields energized by its main power, that wouldn't be enough and could be deadly
Could be, but having your ship blow up because of a warp core breach or anti-matter containment failure would unquestionably be deadly. At least against an enemy, you have the option of surrendering.
Who is like God arbour wrote:If you "would employ the "dead man's switch" principles wherever possible, so that a system is ideally activated by a failure condition", you would install such switches in the fusion reactor too. They can explode too and would destroy the whole ship then.
You would employ them appropriately in the fusion reactors as well, but they're actually far less of a risk. It would be hard to make a fusion reactor explode on purpose, let alone by accident. In stall one seal that will blow if the internal pressure gets too high, and the loss of containment will kill a fusion reaction almost instantly.
Who is like God arbour wrote:The problem with a dead-man's-switch is, that then, the fusion reactors would shut down too, if their switchs are released by the same event, that has released all other switches on a ship.
Why would every system have the same failsafe mechanism. The hazardous conditions for a fusion reactor are nothing like those for a matter-antimatter reactor, and it's failsafes should be entirely independent.
Who is like God arbour wrote:The next problem would be, that a ship without main power could not retreat. But it could still have its main power, if it wasn't ejected in the battle because the dead man's switch was released.
Federation starships have no less than three separate power systems: the warp engines, the impulse engines, and a battery system. If you've been so badly mauled by the enemy that you've lost all of these, you can't expect to escape or reverse the situation.
Who is like God arbour wrote:And even if the containment was weakening, the crew could heve been able, to stabilise it.
Maybe, maybe not. It would depend on why containment was failing and how quickly, wouldn't it?
Who is like God arbour wrote:But we will never hear what happened with the ship and its crew, becaus a "competent" engineer has employed the dead man's switch principle wherever possible and now, the ship is destroyed and the crew is dead.
A competent engineer will employ the dead-man's-switch principle appropriately to every system that requires it. That especially means systems that store, move, or utilize anti-matter, because a containment failure leads to the immediate destruction of the ship.
Other systems will have separate failsafe measures. Why are you acting like the tripping of one failsafe will leave the ship completely powerless?
Who is like God arbour wrote:Knife1138 wrote:[...]I distintly remember a TNG where Picard ordered 'warp power to the shields' indicating that normal shield power came from another source.
Or that the shield systems aren't built to operate with so much power like the warp drive is using. Nevertheless, they would draw their energy from the energy grid, which is energised by the warp core and the fusion reactors from the impuls drive.
The episode that Knife1138 recalls -- "Hero Worship" -- plainly showed that Federation starships don't routinely use warp power to sustain their shields; they can, but they normally don't.