posted
Then again, there shouldn't be a galaxy to explore in spinoffs if the Enterprise could travel 990.7 lightyears in a day. It's not always easy to reconcile 23rd and 24th century technologies.
I don't really see the threat to the Federation since the power of those weapons degrades with distance. Just keep your ships far enough and fire a whole bunch of photon torpedoes on the Romulans. It's also possible the Federation shields were improved later on.
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
I'm not at all willing to subscribe to the theory that, because of that line, the Romulans didnt have warp drive.
I could hardy imagine an interstellar empire that could exist cohesively without interstellar travel. I recognize that conceivably they could, but would they be able to bring the Federation a horrible interstellar war? Doubtful.. theyd have had to launch the ships decades earlier in preparation and would have a damn hard time catching up to NX-01.
-------------------- "Are you worried that your thoughts are not quite.. clear?"
OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
TSN, we already know that plasma plays a large role in creating warp fields in the first place and specifically (according to TNGTM) that plasma is responsible in some way for creating a warp field. Perhaps there is some way to play a warp field off of the plasma 'torpedoes'. When the torp is launched, it's as cohesive as they can make it. But as it travels, entropy takes over and the warp field starts to lose said cohesiveness.
As for tracking, maybe the torp's warp field seeks some sort of natural equilibrium in it's immediate area. The decaying torp's warp field seeks an equilibrium with the strongest warp signature in the area. If the Rommies turn their warp core to 'low', then the strongest signal is naturally an enemy ship. That is, if the ship doesn't know how the torp works.
Obviously, Kirk didn't know this. Later, somebody else figured it out, and figured out how to avoid them, like using thrusters or whatnot to side step them or creating a misleading warp field or using *GASP* Newtonian physics by getting a good speed up and then shutting the warp core down entirely.
Thusly, a defense against the dreaded plasma torps is created and the Federation is saved.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
posted
Plasma doesn't create a warp field. Plasma is nothing but a gas that's so hot its atoms have begun to ionize. If I rememeber my TNGTM correctly, the plasma energizes the warp coils (which are made out of some funky fictional substance), and those warp coils create the warp field.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
My point isn't that the plasma torpedo represents some sort of awesome threat. Obviously it didn't. It's that if the Romulans had such a mastery of subspace physics as to allow them to spontaneously generate warp fields without any mechanical apparatus, plasma torpedos would be the least of anyone's problems.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Romulans aren't that interested in invading foreign territories -- they kept quiet for a hundred years after the 2150s war, then another fifty after the Tomed Incident. Yet every time we saw them "return", they had technology that at least matched that of the Federation. First, the cloak and plasma torpedoes, and then the warbirds in the 24th century (which, as I recall, were quite a match for Galaxy-class starships).
posted
It's because people inferred that unnecessarily. The theory that makes the most sense, and is, I think, becoming more widely accepted, is that "simple impulse power" is just that: their power. In other words, they use a fusion reactor (to Starfleet types, this would be akin to their impulse reactor) to power their ships, rather than a M/AM reaction. So, they'd still have less power, so they'd probably be slower than the Enterprise, but it doesn't mean they can't go to warp speeds.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Watch Star Trek: Insurrection. The admiral in that movie mentions a very direct comment to the Romulans. He stated that the Romulans didn't have warp drive prior to 100 years before the events of the movie.
So, we have two canonical pieces of evidence that the Romulans were not a warp drive society prior to circa 2270-"Balance of Terror" and Star Trek: Insurrection.
I feel that if you going to argue on points in Star Trek, then I believe that the argument should consider all canonical facts, i.e. facts as found in the aired material, with the possible exception of the 2nd series (TAS).
posted
Well back to square one... if the Romulans didn't have Warp Drive in 2150's then the Romulan War could not have occured, it's just plain silly to think so. Best fix:
#1: Romulans have warp drive by at least 2150's. #2: Romulans are powered by Fusion until 2270's.
The first takes care of common sense, the second combines the best of both worlds [hehe], accepting the fact that they had to have Warp Drive, but not necessarily Warp Drive powered by M/ARs [which is what the good admiral in Insurrection was speaking of (not the actual acquisition of Warp Drive, but getting Warp Drive with M/AR, which the Federation probably considers true Warp Drive)].
-------------------- Later, J _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ The Last Person to post in the late Voyager Forum. Bashing both Voyager, Enterprise, and "The Bun" in one glorious post.
posted
When people say that a "torpedo" consisting of just plasma and a warp field sounds too advanced, I'm tempted to think that it's actually more primitive than anything the Feds have.
I'm reminded of guided missile development in general. More and more of the "intelligence" of the weapon system is moved from the launching end to the actual weapon as technology advances. First, it's just a roughly aimed cannon with an inert projectile. Then aiming gets better and the projectile gets a fuze. Then there comes onboard propulsion, maneuverability and guidance, but at first it's through wires, with an actual human squeezing a joystick. And gradually the "eyes" move from the controller to the missile, and then the "brain" follows, bit by bit.
A system wherein the launching ship projects a warp field and possibly can also manipulate it after projection would be similar to a primitive wire-guided missile in many ways, but also to a primitive cannon in others. If the ship is responsible for generating the field, then what is being propelled doesn't matter. It could be a solid projectile, it could be a cloud of plasma, it could even be the enemy ship if the firing vessel gets lucky...
Such a weapon would only require lots of raw power (something the Romulan ship seemed to be short of, but perhaps only because this weapon sucked up so much power), not much finesse. And the firing vessel would be a sitting duck throughout the procedure, since this would not be a fire-and-forget weapon.
As for the photon torpedo mysteries, I think the glow is indeed best explained as a "leaky", "coarse" warp field, with the color varying for the same reason the warp nacelles of different races glow in different colors. The black casing color would simply tell of the natural color of the superhard material the casings are primarily made of.
posted
Don't overlook the possibility that there are FTL drives other than "warp drive." If the Romulans had a slow-moving hyperdrive, shunt drive, jump drive, or X-drive powered by impulse reactors, then the acquisition of faster, more-efficient warp drive from the Klingons in the 2260s could still be important.
posted
One problem there, J. As far as we know, Romulans never used M/AM reactions. Later Romulans used an artificial singularity...
Registered: Mar 1999
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