quote:Last night, I was reading my TNG tech manual because...well, I'm not ashamed to admited it: Starfleet technology makes me horny. Really, I get hot thinking about it.
Anyway, I was reading about the warp system & thought about something: PLASMA. In the book, it has a separate injector that fires up at each individual coil from...the bottom? Into the middle from a big "injector strip" that runs through the middle of the coils? Thne in "Eye Of The Beholder," we saw the top-and-bottom single injector (which is dumb for the sheer fact that how does the plasma get to the TOP of the nacelle? That's just dumbness.) & then fired down the middle of the nacelle through the coils in a big single stream.
OK, so the energy in the plasma activates the coils which in turn creates the radiative energy (key word here: RADIATIVE) that becomes our happy little friend, the warp field.
{Lewis Black} BUT WHAT HAPPENS TO THE PLASMA? W-ww-wwwhere does it GO? {/Lewis Black}
Is it collected in the back of the nacelle for eventual dumping like a chemical toilet at a starbase? Is this then the source of "trilithium resin? Is the plasma like the giant pots of fryer grease I have to deal with at work, leaving the warp equivalent of "grease meat" at the bottom of the pot? Or is this just another effect of "transtator physics" where the plasma is magically "transtated" from its plasma-y form into the actual warp field, thus disappearing & being taken bodily up into to heaven to absolve humanity for its sins in breaking the laws of physics forever & ever amen?
This troubles me severely.
I still prefer to think of the injector setup as described in the manual rather than what we saw in "Eye of the Beholder", and I had always assumed that the plasma was just simply absorbed by the warp coils. What are y'all's thoughts?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
The Plasma flows into my tummy.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Well, plasma is simply what happens when you heat something up so much that electrons start flying right out of the atoms. So, it's just a gas where the particles are ionized. When it cools back down, it becomes a normal gas (or liquid, or solid, depending upon how cool it gets). I would assume that it gets collected and pumped back into the deuterium storage tank for reuse.
Given the amount of plasma they appear to go through, I don't know that a ship could last for multiple years in space without refueling, unless there were some recycling. Obviously, it isn't 100%, since some of the deuterium gets annihilated in the reactor. And, presumably, they can't recollect all of it from the engines.
Posted by tricky (Member # 1402) on :
It would make sense to recycle the plasma, it would depend what it's a plasma of. Deuterium they can get from space, it's just floating around and the bussard ramscoops at the front on the nacelles can gather more of that, (although by the way voyager's naccelles move behid the saucer as warp and clear and impulse, the scoops are used at sublight only). If it's anti duterium plasma, then you can definatly re-use that as fuel.
Another question would be is where the plasma comes from? If the Anti-matter/matter reaction converts totally, all that would be left would be energy, so some of it must convert back to matter or anti-matter to create the plasma. Maybe that's where the crystal comes in?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I think the crystal would be converted to plasma, though it couldn't be turned back into a crystal once used. That would explain why in some episodes a lack of dilithium crystals would be such a big deal especially when the ship was in far part of the galaxy.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
quote:Originally posted by Siegfried: I'm posting this for a friend of mine. Really.
quote:Last night, I was reading my TNG tech manual because...well, I'm not ashamed to admited it: Starfleet technology makes me horny. Really, I get hot thinking about it.
You realize that if this were a female friend, all of the single men here would instantly come to death.
Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: You realize that if this were a female friend, all of the single men here would instantly come to death.
Maybe all the single straight men. It's unlikely that 100% of the readership here are 0s on the Kinsey Scale. Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
The dilithium crystal is just a made-up device to explain why the matter/anti-matter reaction doesn't just blow the whole ship up as soon as it starts. Of course, since it serves that purpose, it can't evaporate into plasma, or the ship would, in fact, blow up.
The way you get plasma is to pump more matter into the reactor than anti-matter. The anti-matter annihilates with an equal amount of matter and creates a crapload of energy. This energy is what heats up the excess matter, turning it into a plasma.
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
The friend that I posted for is a male, so everyone having erotic fantasies about a Linda Parkesque woman excitedly thumbing her manual better put a penis on that fantasy figure.
I remember something about a matter/antimatter ratio of 1:1 from "Coming of Age" and (possibly) the technical manual, but I have access to neither so I can't be certain if I'm remembering correctly.
Could the plasma also contain trace amounts of elements from the dilithium crystals? Moderating the matter/antimatter reaction has to do something to the crystals that causes it to decrystalize. Could a few atoms of whatever makes the stuff be in the plasma mix?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"I remember something about a matter/antimatter ratio of 1:1 from 'Coming of Age' and (possibly) the technical manual, but I have access to neither so I can't be certain if I'm remembering correctly."
Yes, I believe they do mention it in both those places, but, frankly, it doesn't make sense.
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
IIRC, from the TNG tech manual, the matter and anti-matter plasma streams come together in the crystal, combining to make an M/MA plasma stream, so perhaps the crystal acts as a catalyst producing an actual 6th state of.. um.. matter.
Don't forget that they crystal does decrystalize, which was a big deal in the TOS era (and ST: IV), though they are commonly recyrstalized in TNG (relics)
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I always understood the crystal's use to be one of channeling and control. The matter and antimatter come together and produce a violent energy discharge. But instead of going everywhere and destroying the ship, it's channeled through the crystal and focused into a plasma stream, which then goes up the conduits into the nacelles. The coils then, energized by the plasma, form the warp field.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
The plasma setup in the nacelle could be one where each coil is washed with "positive" plasma inserted from below by the injectors we see in the manual and sucked out from atop, whilst "negative" plasma flows through the middle of the row of coils from bow to stern, the streams together creating the desired excitation effect. I don't mean the streams would have opposite electric charges or anything, of course... Perhaps the middle stream is merely the most convenient place for a "return loop" for plasma that has been fed onto or into the coils?
Since some kind of forcefield technology is obviously at play in shaping the plasma into these streams in midair, we can easily assume that the forcefields create closed loops in which no plasma is vented (except in emergencies), but rather is recharged with energy pulsating from the warp core. The shape of the plasma forcefields may change according to engine status: at idle, only the "outside" flows are open; at activation, a narrow stream shoots through the middle; and at full speed, a weird peristaltic field makes the interior throb with exotic plasma shapes.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)