-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Getting back on track, why wouldn't a water-filled ship need dampening systems? Is water somehow immune to inertia?
I've also missed a couple of episodes due to my VCR dying on me. Are the aquatic Xindi water or air breathers? Either way would make for an interesting life support design (imagine trying to oxygenate a starship-sized fish tank!).
-------------------- The difference between genius and idiocy? Genius has its limits.
Registered: Aug 2001
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Well, the whole point is that water cushions objects that are suspended in it. So water on a space ship would be nothing more than a natural IDF, basically.
Not sure if it could realistically provide sufficient force against the kind of acceleration that's involved in Trek ships (i.e. 1/4th the speed of light, etc), but it's still a possibility.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: That kinda kills the point of a blooper reel doesn't it?
Indeed. There are bloopers that make it into episodes (Kirk's phaser falling off his belt in Space Seed) and those that end up in the Goody Reel, (Kirk, "Mister Spack hahaha").
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
Registered: Feb 2001
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You can weld underwater using Magnesium Torches so it's entirely possible for the Xindi Aquatics to construct vessels in the normal fashion except of course they would be filled with water. They could shape metals in volcanic vents.
As for alternate methods someone already mentioned genetically engineering a bio-ship.
They could have discovered or created some material that is maleable under normal circumstances and can be combined molecularly with another substance but when the right catalyst is applied it hardens stronger then steel or tritanium or whatever the metal flavor of the month is in the future. Sort of like Play-Do that hardens into whatever shape you choose.
Or perhaps they put on environment suits and hover packs and construct there vessels out of the water though that would seem to be time and cost prohibitive to me.
One method could be to have an inflatable double-walled membrane that you keep pressurized while you build the interiors of the ship inside it using robots or by going in with spacesuits. Once you've constructed the interior you fill the layer between the two walls of the membrane with some non-pourous substance that hardens, like a better non-air pourous version of concrete. It's basically like a hard-shelled derigible in space.
Maybe they've evolved psionic abilities to manipulate objects though the fact that they have manipulating arms and hands would seem to counteract the nescessity for that. But if they were genetically engineered by an older race they may have both.
-------------------- "You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and..." -- Data "I will feed him" -- Worf (Phantasms)
Registered: Sep 2003
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