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Would a Photonic Cannon actually work against the Borg?

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    starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    Funny thing here, one of David Drake's series, RCN (which, by the way, reads an awful lot like a hard sci-fi rewrite of TOS), has several alien species in it, few of whom ever bother to interact with humans because, as they don't have the same atmospheric or dietary requirements, there's no competition between them for real estate.
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    mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    starswordc wrote: »
    > @k20vtec said:
    > Sooo... we got no confrimation that warp speeds even work that way some people assume and they got saying starfleet is dumb for not follow their assumption on how fictional space physics work?

    By all accounts, a ship traveling at warp is still present in normal space-time and can still interact with sublight matter, otherwise they wouldn't need a navigational deflector.

    Yes, but what is it's kinetic energy? We don't know, because by any theory that we have available, it would be infinite, and you needed infinite energy to get there. We can be relatively certain that this isn't true in the Trek physics, but it doesn't help us answer the question what would really happen. We have to assume however that the people that can basically turn rocks into replicators would not completely overlook the destructive potential of collisions at warp if it was useful. Certainly not against an opponent like the Borg.



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    legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,280 Arc User
    at object at warp has the same kinetic energy it would have at that speed during impulse...the ship does not move while at warp - SPACE is the thing that's moving, hence WARP​​
    Like special weapons from other Star Trek games? Wondering if they can be replicated in STO even a little bit? Check this out: https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1262277/a-mostly-comprehensive-guide-to-star-trek-videogame-special-weapons-and-their-sto-equivalents

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    starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    at object at warp has the same kinetic energy it would have at that speed during impulse...the ship does not move while at warp - SPACE is the thing that's moving, hence WARP​​

    A distinction without a difference as far as this topic is concerned. If I drive past a tree at 45 mph, it is equally valid to say that the tree is moving past me at 45 mph. Relative to any other object present in the vicinity, the ship at warp is in motion and has not transited to some other plane of existence, and still needs secondary technology, the navigational deflector, to prevent harmful interactions with other objects. It therefore follows that should it strike an object, it would impart energy to the object. QED.
    "Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
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    legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,280 Arc User
    yeah, it would impart energy - but not the amount an object of infinite mass would impart, because the ships don't HAVE infinite mass at warp​​
    Like special weapons from other Star Trek games? Wondering if they can be replicated in STO even a little bit? Check this out: https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1262277/a-mostly-comprehensive-guide-to-star-trek-videogame-special-weapons-and-their-sto-equivalents

    #LegalizeAwoo

    A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
    An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
    A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
    A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"


    "It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
    "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
    Passion and Serenity are one.
    I gain power by understanding both.
    In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
    I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
    The Force is united within me.
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    jonsillsjonsills Member Posts: 10,367 Arc User
    starswordc wrote: »
    at object at warp has the same kinetic energy it would have at that speed during impulse...the ship does not move while at warp - SPACE is the thing that's moving, hence WARP​​

    A distinction without a difference as far as this topic is concerned. If I drive past a tree at 45 mph, it is equally valid to say that the tree is moving past me at 45 mph. Relative to any other object present in the vicinity, the ship at warp is in motion and has not transited to some other plane of existence, and still needs secondary technology, the navigational deflector, to prevent harmful interactions with other objects. It therefore follows that should it strike an object, it would impart energy to the object. QED.
    I believe Shadowfang may be assuming that we're using an Alcubierre-White warp, in which the craft itself does not actually move (as it is impossible, according to both special and general relativity, for any object with mass to even reach c, much less surpass it), but instead the space around the warp bubble contracts and expands, "moving" the bubble across distances (as there's nothing in relativity about how quickly space itself can propagate, and in fact inflationary theory requires that it be able to expand at virtual speeds that would exceed that of light if space were an object).

    However, the travel exhibited by Star Trek warp drives isn't really consistent with Alcubierre's theories, as the ship would be causally separated from normal space/time while the drive is activated. (If we should ever find that Alcubierre and White have described a real phenomenon, rather than merely a self-consistent theory, the first engineering challenge will be to manufacture seven hundred kilos of exotic matter. The second will be finding out how to initiate a warp bubble. The third will be finding out how to shut it down once initiated, as it looks like it might be self-sustaining. Then we can work out things like how to harmlessly dissipate the Hawking radiation that has built up in the wavefront...) Instead, warp-drive ships appear to occupy a bubble of normal space-time that gets shunted into a subspace realm with some very different laws of physics, including a dramatically higher value for c. (The bubble of normal space is required because life in our universe requires our physical laws - change the base values of certain constants, and you'll kill everybody on board.) Normal-space objects must still be avoided, as their gravitational influence appears to extend into that subspace realm (as seen in TMP, where the new engines weren't properly balanced to account for the gravity of the Sun and created a temporary wormhole).

    Overall, I personally would rather use the amazing impulse drives available in Trek to accelerate, say, a medium-sized asteroid to a substantial fraction of c - around .7 or .8 would be more than sufficient, I imagine - aimed directly at my target. The asteroid doesn't put out any EM fields to detect, and isn't self-illuminated, so there's a fair chance the target wouldn't have time to do anything about it once detecting the object itself. (That's also why we don't want anything too massive, otherwise its gravitational field would be too easy to detect.)

    Oh, and don't point this weapon at a planet unless you're pretty sure you're not going to need the ecosystem for a few thousand years, because you're going to mess that puppy up. For that matter, you'd best have a plan for what to do if the enemy does dodge the rock. Remember the lecture on the Everest's railgun system in Mass Effect 2? ("I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty! Once you fire this hunk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime!")
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    antonine3258antonine3258 Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User
    Question: given the mitigating effects of an upper atmosphere, how much of an antimatter spread do you need to seed to finish off with a lethal dose of radiation whatever the shockwaves of megaton-grade explosions don't?
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    starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    jonsills wrote: »
    starswordc wrote: »
    at object at warp has the same kinetic energy it would have at that speed during impulse...the ship does not move while at warp - SPACE is the thing that's moving, hence WARP​​

    A distinction without a difference as far as this topic is concerned. If I drive past a tree at 45 mph, it is equally valid to say that the tree is moving past me at 45 mph. Relative to any other object present in the vicinity, the ship at warp is in motion and has not transited to some other plane of existence, and still needs secondary technology, the navigational deflector, to prevent harmful interactions with other objects. It therefore follows that should it strike an object, it would impart energy to the object. QED.
    I believe Shadowfang may be assuming that we're using an Alcubierre-White warp, in which the craft itself does not actually move (as it is impossible, according to both special and general relativity, for any object with mass to even reach c, much less surpass it), but instead the space around the warp bubble contracts and expands, "moving" the bubble across distances (as there's nothing in relativity about how quickly space itself can propagate, and in fact inflationary theory requires that it be able to expand at virtual speeds that would exceed that of light if space were an object).

    However, the travel exhibited by Star Trek warp drives isn't really consistent with Alcubierre's theories, as the ship would be causally separated from normal space/time while the drive is activated. (If we should ever find that Alcubierre and White have described a real phenomenon, rather than merely a self-consistent theory, the first engineering challenge will be to manufacture seven hundred kilos of exotic matter. The second will be finding out how to initiate a warp bubble. The third will be finding out how to shut it down once initiated, as it looks like it might be self-sustaining. Then we can work out things like how to harmlessly dissipate the Hawking radiation that has built up in the wavefront...) Instead, warp-drive ships appear to occupy a bubble of normal space-time that gets shunted into a subspace realm with some very different laws of physics, including a dramatically higher value for c. (The bubble of normal space is required because life in our universe requires our physical laws - change the base values of certain constants, and you'll kill everybody on board.) Normal-space objects must still be avoided, as their gravitational influence appears to extend into that subspace realm (as seen in TMP, where the new engines weren't properly balanced to account for the gravity of the Sun and created a temporary wormhole).
    Never mind the TMP thing, if the warp drive worked like an Alcubierre drive, we wouldn't be able to see into or out of the warp bubble. In other words, no FTL sensors. For all intents and purposes the Alcubierre drive does shunt the ship into a different plane of existence from the rest of reality.
    jonsills wrote: »
    Overall, I personally would rather use the amazing impulse drives available in Trek to accelerate, say, a medium-sized asteroid to a substantial fraction of c - around .7 or .8 would be more than sufficient, I imagine - aimed directly at my target. The asteroid doesn't put out any EM fields to detect, and isn't self-illuminated, so there's a fair chance the target wouldn't have time to do anything about it once detecting the object itself. (That's also why we don't want anything too massive, otherwise its gravitational field would be too easy to detect.)

    Oh, and don't point this weapon at a planet unless you're pretty sure you're not going to need the ecosystem for a few thousand years, because you're going to mess that puppy up. For that matter, you'd best have a plan for what to do if the enemy does dodge the rock. Remember the lecture on the Everest's railgun system in Mass Effect 2? ("I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty! Once you fire this hunk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime!")

    Which turns into an amusing and plot-relevant brick joke later when we find out somebody in an earlier Harvest cycle fired a huge surface-to-space mass accelerator at a Reaper, mission-killed it, and the shot left a canyon behind on a planet in a completely different star system.
    "Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
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    Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
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    markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    Question: given the mitigating effects of an upper atmosphere, how much of an antimatter spread do you need to seed to finish off with a lethal dose of radiation whatever the shockwaves of megaton-grade explosions don't?
    Given the nature of the radiation emitted by mass/anti-mass detonations, well, enough to cook who ever is on the planet.
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    k20vteck20vtec Member Posts: 535 Arc User
    More megaton rockslamming should do. Anyway, guys its fictional space physics calm down.
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    mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    jonsills wrote: »
    Overall, I personally would rather use the amazing impulse drives available in Trek to accelerate, say, a medium-sized asteroid to a substantial fraction of c - around .7 or .8 would be more than sufficient, I imagine - aimed directly at my target. The asteroid doesn't put out any EM fields to detect, and isn't self-illuminated, so there's a fair chance the target wouldn't have time to do anything about it once detecting the object itself. (That's also why we don't want anything too massive, otherwise its gravitational field would be too easy to detect.)
    That might work, though it's not really clear how amazing impulse drives really are based on on-screen evidence. The speeds we see are not that impressive, really, though their estimates on how long it takes to get anywhere without warp seems to suggest they can reach high sublight speeds.

    The Enterprise technical manual suggests however that even impulse drives only can reach the high sublight speeds by using subspace generators. (The manual is really fond of this subspace thing. Even the Computers on the Enterprise D supposedly use subspace fields to enable faster than light processing). It's always debatable whether such things count for a discussion on the technology, but... really, that applies to everything on screen, too, since it can be contradictory.

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    antonine3258antonine3258 Member Posts: 2,391 Arc User

    The Enterprise technical manual suggests however that even impulse drives only can reach the high sublight speeds by using subspace generators. (The manual is really fond of this subspace thing. Even the Computers on the Enterprise D supposedly use subspace fields to enable faster than light processing). It's always debatable whether such things count for a discussion on the technology, but... really, that applies to everything on screen, too, since it can be contradictory.

    It's a very small rocket for a very large craft unless they're cheating physics somehow, on the impulse engines.

    Though on computers - given the current limits being approached in computer technology (processing speeds are so high the speed of electricity across a chip is becoming a factor, as well as heat density), I always thought a FTL-acceleration of a light-based system made sense, given Trek tech.
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    markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    k20vtec wrote: »
    More megaton rockslamming should do. Anyway, guys its fictional space physics calm down.
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    k20vteck20vtec Member Posts: 535 Arc User
    Impulse drive, not the specific rocket nozzles, have driver coils not unlike those on the nacelles. Impulse power cant go FTL but it can go to very high speeds. Impulse power is more than just spewing stuff out of the nozzle to push the ship
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    starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    After you cut the technobabble down to plain English, an impulse engine is a fusion rocket — simply put, a fusion reactor with an exhaust vent on one side so the plasma can be used for propulsion — combined with a mass-lightening field.
    "Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
    — Sabaton, "Great War"
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    legendarylycan#5411 legendarylycan Member Posts: 37,280 Arc User
    and that field is the sole reason it's capable of getting up to .5 the speed of light at full impulse​​
    Like special weapons from other Star Trek games? Wondering if they can be replicated in STO even a little bit? Check this out: https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1262277/a-mostly-comprehensive-guide-to-star-trek-videogame-special-weapons-and-their-sto-equivalents

    #LegalizeAwoo

    A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
    An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
    A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
    A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"


    "It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
    "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
    Passion and Serenity are one.
    I gain power by understanding both.
    In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
    I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
    The Force is united within me.
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