posted
Um. Watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, a question came to me ...
Why didn't the Enterprise just blow up the Reliant when they picked up the Genesis Wave? Surely the destruction of the Reliant would've stopped the Genesis Torpedo from "detonating", right?
------------------ Star Trek Gamma Quadrant Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted) *** "Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" -Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001 **** "The candidate who slimed John McCain in the primaries and smeared Al Gore in the general election is now the president who pledges to elevate the nation's tone and bring civility to our discorse. Kind of like Michael Corleone brought peace to the mob by killing the heads of the other four families." --Paul Begala, Is Our Children Learning?
posted
I think the appropriate answer to this question is: Shh!
BUt perhaps they were worried that blowing up the Defiant would cause the device to go off prematurely, and would rather expend their efforts on the most viable alternative - getting the heck out of range. Alternatively, it may have been able to engulf the Enterprise regardless of how much the Genesis Wave had built up...
Mark
------------------ "Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"
------------------ Star Trek Gamma Quadrant Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted) *** "Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" -Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001 **** "The candidate who slimed John McCain in the primaries and smeared Al Gore in the general election is now the president who pledges to elevate the nation's tone and bring civility to our discorse. Kind of like Michael Corleone brought peace to the mob by killing the heads of the other four families." --Paul Begala, Is Our Children Learning?
posted
Good question, but I think the answer is in the movie. Spock picks up the Genesis wave from the Reliant. Kirk says that they've got to go over there and stop it. David Marcus said that it couldn't be stopped. I bet that blowing up the Reliant would have caused the detonation anyway. It always struck me that the countdown was just a time delay to get everyone out of the area.
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posted
It may also be that Kirk somewhat belatedly noticed that he was too close to the Reliant, and that a "mercy shot" would create such a big blast that the Enterprise would be engulfed in it, Genesis or no Genesis. Remember that the Enterprise had no shields at this point. So the first prerequisite for all action was to move as far away as possible - and the maximum distance Sulu was able to put between the ships before Spock repaired the warp engines simply wasn't enough for a safe shot, nor for escaping the Genesis wave.
We saw Kruge's BoP survive a proximity blast in ST3 when the Enterprise was scuttled, but perhaps that scuttling was more controlled than the explosion that would be expected if Kirk fired at the already-damaged Reliant?
In other instances, shieldless ships have not survived if another starship has exploded in the immediate vicinity. Except perhaps for a couple of Defiant cases, and that tought little ship has body armor...
posted
Yeah, IIRC, he said it couldn't be stopped anyways so a "get the hell out of dodge" manuver was the best option.
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posted
No matter what, we cannot escape the fact that the Reliant had a very powerful weapon sitting on its transporter pad. I mean, the damn thing sucked in a nebula big enough for two starships to play hide-and-go-seek and converted it into a planet. I certainly wouldn't try to blow up the ship it was sitting in unless I had full shields and an aft torpedo launcher so that I shoot off a volley while getting the hell out of there.
I don't think that the Reliant blowing up without the Genesis device would have created about the same size explosion as the Enterprise did. In fact, it might even have been less taking into account the smaller size of the Miranda-class vessels. Of course, we don't know what all happened during Enterprise's demise. Did she dump her matter and antimatter or not? The explosion, in my mind, seemed to be a bit "ineffective." And I mean that by referring to large hunk of Enterprise that survived the big boom.
------------------ Nic: She's not a practicing lesbian. We need PRACTICING lesbians! Me: I have a camcorder. Nic: But no lesbians. Me: Ahhh... no. Nic: DAMN IT MAN! WE NEED LESBIANS! LOTS AND LOTS OF LESBIANS!
posted
I think the Enterprise had two types of self-destruct.
One is by mixing the matter and anti-matter, completely destroying the ship. For obvious reasons, this method is not employed when near a planet or other friendly starships/facilities, for fear of damaging said facilities.
Since the Enterprise was in planetary orbit, the computer probably switched from a matter/anti-matter mix to a self-destruct method utilizing explosive charges throughout the primary and secondary hulls. Perhaps the charges in the secondary hull couldn't be "instructed" by the computer to explode due to the damage inflicted by Khan and then Kruge's attacks.
------------------ Star Trek Gamma Quadrant Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted) *** "Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" -Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001 **** "The candidate who slimed John McCain in the primaries and smeared Al Gore in the general election is now the president who pledges to elevate the nation's tone and bring civility to our discorse. Kind of like Michael Corleone brought peace to the mob by killing the heads of the other four families." --Paul Begala, Is Our Children Learning?
posted
I agree completely. The antimatter pods would be jettisoned into space (home on nearby star?)(emit homing beacon? - the stuff is valuable). We see in Generations what happens when just the warp core blows (although that could also be one or more of the pods rupturing as well).
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posted
How do you know there was any antimatter on board? The ship had been completely powered down while in Spacedock, and would presumably be towed to wherever it would be decommissioned. They wouldn't just leave all that destructive power unattended, and surely any monitoring systems they did have would detect Scott's reactivating the ship.
Sure they needed some to power the vessel, but not a full load. . .
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posted
We have seen a starship blow up via matter and antimatter mixing. The Enterprise-D suffered a warp core breach near a planet. The only detrimental effects I saw were that the explosion damaged the saucer's propulsion system and pitched it into a collision course with the planet's surface.
I kind of doubt that the Enterprise-nil ejected any antimatter pods prior to destruction. After the big boom, the ship falls away and enters the planet's atmosphere. Don't we get a pretty clear view of the underside of the secondary hull? If someone has the movie handy, we can check and see 1) if the underside is visible and 2) if there is a hole where it looks like a hull plate blew off and allowed the pods to eject.
Jeff and Lee: you both bring up interesting points. Kruge's ship did deal a pretty good blow to the Enterprise's computer systems. The destruct signal may have not been able to reach those ordinance packages. But I think that it is more reasonable that that the ship may not have had a vast supply of antimatter onboard. She was being decommissioned and was probably in the process of being stripped of the good parts. Plus, Scotty may that statement that he wasn't planning on Kirk taking them into battle. The shields were useless they opted for photon torpedoes instead of phasers (the latter being dependent on warp energy).
------------------ Nic: She's not a practicing lesbian. We need PRACTICING lesbians! Me: I have a camcorder. Nic: But no lesbians. Me: Ahhh... no. Nic: DAMN IT MAN! WE NEED LESBIANS! LOTS AND LOTS OF LESBIANS!
posted
Just a side note: the phasers of the ship in ST3 were no longer dependent on warp power. Kirk fired them from "just the batteries" in ST2. Presumably, both "batteries" and "auxiliary power" would have been viable power sources for the phasers at the time of ST3 (assuming somebody hadn't already removed the damn things from the ship altogether).
posted
Question is, could they manage warp speed on batteries/auxiliary power alone? Either all the antimatter had been removed, or none - can't believe they'd just take some, unless the job was only part done when the ship was stolen.
------------------ "I rather strongly disagree, even if I share the love of Dick. Speaking of which, that would be the most embarrasing .sig quote ever, so never use it."
posted
I thik that if Kirk had fire weapons at the Reliant that the resulting explosion would have engulfed and destroyed the Enterprise which at this time had no sheilds or Warp drive. The distance Sulu managed to get out of the Impulse engines was 0.5AU even this wasn't enough to keep out of the Destructive blast
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