Mark

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"Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?"

- Carl Sagan, "Contact"

The Enterprise used her warp drive in The Search for Spock, so we know that she was using her main power source. Which means, she needed antimatter to do that.

So we're left with either the antimatter had been removed and partially refilled or that the antimatter hadn't been touched prior to the theft. Either one could work. The Spacedock Docking Bay workers didn't seem to be too attentive to their posts. In fact, the shots of the control room show NO ONE in the room. Hence, the space doors went unsecured (as the computer was instructing). So it could have been possible for Scotty to start a refueling. He may not have had time to finish or simply did not see the necessity of a full load.

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"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."

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted)
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"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
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"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?

As far as I can reason, the topedo system installed on the Enterprise at that time utilized empty shells that were filled and primed on demand. Otherwise, why bother with that complex two deck loading approach? Therefore, again, antimatter for torpedoes had to come from the main bottles.

To reply to the very original post. If the situation was realistic, and the Enteprise was truly something like 4000 km away, and she had fired torpedoes, the resulting explosion would have caused severe damage to the Enterprise as well. We can assume that the Reliant still somehow maintained AM containment and so had a full supply on board. So if the Reliant was fired on by the Enterprise, presumably this antimatter would be released. Ship make big BOOM!

I would put forth that firing the torpedoes and the changes in ship's systems that occur at red alert status and a rush jury-rigging job contributed to the Enterprise's demise. She went to red alert, fired torpedoes at Kruge's ship, and suffered a direct hit to her automation center.

On a side note, it looked like part of the shields were raised. Chekov's little shield monitor showed some of the dots lit up (thereby indicating shields in some areas).

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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!

--

Due to the damage sustained from Khan's original attack, the blast doors from the above deck effectly cut off the Warp Core from the Warp Engines. We don't know for certain how much damage was done to the working parts of the engine room i.e. the engineering computer network itself. We do know that Scotty's engineers had alot of patchwork to do on the exterior hull, as well as inside damage.

Scotty: "I've got her bypassed like an Xmas tree. So don't give me too many bumps."

Enterprise took further damage while in the Nebula. Something (too many bumps?) clearly caused the radiation leaks in Engineering. Who is to say the shields would even have worked when they left the Nebula?

The fact that Starfleet wasn't planning to follow-up any of Scotty's repairs, made the trip in ST: III that much more of a challenge. With no engineering crew, the ship couldn't possibly be prepared for unplanned encounter's. Let alone the 'plasma torpedo' (this was the intention when models/special effects were filmed prior to script changes) discharge that arced across the Enterprise. Its no wonder poor Enterprise was fryed...

Purrrrr.....

--Jonah

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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."

--Col. Edwards, ROBOTECH

Shields or "defense screens" and the navigational deflector are two entirely seperate systems. Explain to me what you meant there.

Also, if Scott had not fully attached the shield system to the automation center, why did he not say so when Kirk asked Chekov to raise shields? I hoghly doubbt he would have forgotten such an important detail. If he went through all the trouble to load and prime several torpedoes and hook the system up, common sense follows that he hooked up the shields as well. It seems shields are already partly computer operated, so why would there be a problem with doing that?

Yes, there were little dots on the screen. Chekov attempted to raise the shields and they would not go up all the way. This was, by the way, BEFORE Kruge fired on the Enterprise.

Who ever said that the entire computer system overloaded? It is more likely that only the automation center was not able to handle all that was required of it when torpedoes were fired and thus jammed when it was asked to raise the shields. If the main computer failed, then the entire ship would have shut itself down. The main computer DOES regulate such things as power distribution, life support, etc., correct? There is no "manual" operation for systems so complex.

If we follow this line of reasoning, the self destruct system does not require that the AUTOMATION center be fully operational does it? Because it runs off of the computer core. As a matter of fact, it may have safeguarded sections of the computer core entirely dedicated to its operation. Thus it could be fully operational to scuttle the ship if neccessary in a true "no-win" scenario.

Someone please define what WARP plasma is as apposed to "normal" plasma. How would you "ignite" either if it is a superheated gas?

Now, what Khan repaired was auxiliary power. That doesn't give warp speed, so one might say the nacelles of the Reliant weren't even energized when Kirk hit the port one. Thus, no chain reaction of the sort that has destroyed TNG Galaxy class starships often enough. Yet Khan wouldn't have ejected his antimatter fuel at this point, even if it was useless to him - surely he was hoping that he would regain warp later on, even if his repair crews were woefully understaffed and inexperienced. So the Reliant was a flying bomb when Kirk was sitting mere megameters away from her in the shieldless Enterprise.

What Spock repaired was partial main power. This was a superbly smart move, since although it perhaps didn't make the Enterprise as sublight-battleworthy as Khan's ship, it did bring the Enterprise very close to regaining warp drive. Had Khan decided to make a run for it instead of chasing Kirk into the nebula, Kirk would still have won - he could have finished the warp drive repairs and picked Khan like an overripe plum as he puttered along at pitiful impulse speeds.

• Bird-of-Prey's cloaking distortion is spotted; red alert status ordered; photon torpedoes are armed. See note
  
• Bird-of-Prey decloaks and prepares to fire; Enterprise fires two torpedoes first. Torpedoes score direct hits on the Bird-of-Prey.
  
• Kirk orders that the shields be raised; Chekov reports that the shields are non-responsive. Scotty explains that he wasn't expecting Kirk to take them into battle.
  
• Bird-of-Prey's rights herself and fires one shot on Enterprise. That shot scores a hit somewhere on the aft saucer section and knocks out the automation center.
  
• Kirk and company set the self-destruct sequence and abandon ship. Seconds later, the Enterprise explodes and plunges into Planet Genesis's atmosphere.
  

Now, I am going to try and explain myself and my logic to you, Daniel. I hope this answers all of your questions!

The automation center was knocked out. Not the main computer (or at the very least, not part of it). Daniel, I interpretted your saying "...an action that which effectively overloaded the computer jury-rig Scott had set up" as meaning that you thought the computer suffered a system-wide overload. If that is not the case, I misunderstood.

Yes, the computer monitors the overall functioning of power distribution, life support, etc., but I bet that a lot of that was also routed through the automation center. The Enterprise seemed to need a lot more crew interaction to run that ship than the Enterprise-D. We've seen the Enterprise-D being completely controlled by one or a small group of individuals. Picard and Riker handled the ship in "1100100," Data seized total control in "Brothers," the medical/science divisions ran it in "Descent, Part II," and Dr. Crusher was in control in "Remember Me." However, The Search for Spock made a big deal out of Scotty having to do extensive work on the ship to be able to have their small group run the ship for a simple recovery mission.

Knocking out the automation center knocked out a few systems. This is evident from the crew stations on the bridge. Scotty's station sparked, and the monitors on the auxiliary systems station behind Kirk became filled with static. Fortunately, the science station's link to the main computer was intact, and the communications' station retained control of communication functions. It would seem that it is easier for the computer to manage communications and computer control without crew interaction than managing the defense/offense systems without crew interaction. We know that there is a lot of crew interaction thanks to the previous movie. Saavik gave the order to energize the defense shields. We were then treated to shots of crew members located elsewhere than the bridge turning dials and pressing buttons. Later on, after Kirk et al are retreived from Regula, we see a sizeable crew presence in the torpedo bay as she prepares for battle.

Now, a lot of functions were routed through the automation center. Scotty had a short amount of time to do all of this. He wasn't expecting the Enterprise to be taken into battle, so I don't think that he connected all of the defense/offense systems. They were only planning on retreiving Spock's body so priority would be propulsion, navigation and guidance, transportation, and crew support. With this logic, I do not think that it is unreasonable that Scotty did not do a thorough connection of the shields and weapons. And with the already poor state of the Enterprise the automation center suffered the same fate as my computer does when I request a lot of it: it freezes and gives me the blue screen of death. The automation center froze (hence non-responsive shields) and was then knocked out. I think we agree on the automation center freezing.

Now for my statement of the deflector shields and the navigational shields: I misinterpretted what the TNG Tech Manual was saying on the matter. I was going to change that in my last post, but I have been denied access to the forums since the time I wrote that post (don't ask me why, all I got was a "Cannot Find Server" message). So, scratch that from the record.

Manual operation has to be possible for systems like life support and power distribution. If the main computer system were to actually die, the crew would need some way to take over control. We've also had references to life support and other systems being placed under manual control (one instance that comes to mind is in TNG's "Disaster"). It would be foolish to construct a system that is primarily computer controlled without offering the option of the crew taking over control in an emergency. Thus, I say that manual operation is possible.

The ship's self-destruct sequence is handled by a secure part of the computer system. The Voyager episode where the Kazon comandeer Voyager shows that a specific set of processors had to be knocked out to disable self-destruct. There is also (probably) a dedicated and highly protected communication network between those destruct ordinance packages and the self-destruct processors.

Torpedo casings are stored empty. When the order to arm torpedoes comes in, the torpedo casing is picked out of storage, primed with antimatter and matter, and then shoved in the launch tube. The example of the Reliant's torpedo pod is a good example of that.

I have to agree with Timo that the Reliant's nacelles were not energized. She was on auxiliary power. Furthermore, after the nacelle is detacted, we should be seeing a pretty steady and thick stream of plasma leaking from the pylon. All we see is a little trail. I think that proves what Timo's saying.

I think that these connections helped lead to the demise of the Enterprise. According to the Tech Manual, when the Enterprise-D goes to red alert, the computer automatically performs several actions: raising shields, running diagnostics, energizing phasers banks, and arming two photon torpedoes. A similar set of procedures could have been in effect for the original Enterprise. Since the connections were minimal, the automation center and computer would have had difficulty trying to perform these actions. System resources would be stressed and the result would have been the automation center freezing.

As for the preloading of the photon torpedoes, I have a wild idea about that. Going into the Genesis system, there seemed to be an implication that the Grissom could be a difficulty. Didn't someone wonder whether the Grissom was going to greet them as a friend or foe? As a precaution, two torpedoes could have been primed and loaded to be used as a bluff. If the Grissom had given the Enterprise problems, Kirk could have threatened to disable the Grissom if he hadn't been allowed to beam down to the planet. I think that this could be possible since as a group, they had sabotaged the Excelsior, performed unauthorized repairs and modifications to the Enterprise, procured the access code for the Spacedock doors, threatened and subdued an officer, disobeyed direct orders of the Starfleet Commander, stole the Enterprise, and a whole lot of other stuff. Since the Oberth-class starship would have been no match with the Constitution-class starship, Esteban would have been forced to relent given that threat. It's a wild idea, but it explains the torpedoes and could be possible.

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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!