posted
Why has everyone seemed to neglect how much this episode sucks? I mean, the fact that the used the wrong technobabble totally screwed up the rest of the episode. If you lose a single warp field coil, even the first one in the nacelle [presumably the primary?] you just shut off the first one in the other nacelle and continue on. There is nothing drastic about that.
Now, as it should have been, they would have said the Warp Core is beyond repair, "we don't have enough material to repair the cracks in it." And then we can say that the alien's warp core could have been melted easily to fill in those. But this doesn't make much sense either unless they needed top speed. Trip could have easily run Power Conduit through the corridors from the Impulse Generator. Then to a point where they could connect with the Power Transfer Conduits and powered the nacelles that way. It would have been easy and would have given them 3.2 at least maybe even 4.
There would have been no need to show the aliens unless they wanted to give Archer some conflict. Offering that option to Archer would have made him consider compromising himself. But in the end, he would have not stolen their warp drive's interior lining stranding the aliens and returning ENT to "normal"... and they would have to deal with this in the future, meaning repairing their warp core.
The episode also sucks because of T'Pol's little B-plot, at least Mayweather and Hoshi had more than two lines! But, the fact that they used the wrong plot device [Warp Coils instead of Warp Core] and that they totally went about fixing that wrong plot device in the wrong way [stealing another "coil" from aliens instead of shutting off the corresponding mate in that pair!], it's the kind of thing that ticks me off--- It's not bad Trek, it's bad story telling. Know your medium before writing a story.
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The Xindi's "FutureLady", for those who haven't seen it, but are wondering.
Did she have the same makeup as the guy from the SphereBuilder race? One of the Xindi asked her if she was of that race, and she evaded. But I can't remember what the other SphereBuilder guy looked like.
Registered: Mar 1999
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The Xindi's "FutureLady", for those who haven't seen it, but are wondering.
Did she have the same makeup as the guy from the SphereBuilder race? One of the Xindi asked her if she was of that race, and she evaded. But I can't remember what the other SphereBuilder guy looked like.
That episode rerun like a couple weeks ago, didn't he kind of have that "crackled" face look...sorta reminiscent of the Corvallens.
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Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
I think I actually like the idea that a single scratched warp coil ruins the whole drive. This could be quite an intricate business, really: if you swap the places of coils 1 and 4, you get 50% less warp thrust, and if you swap 1 and 12, you blow the ship up. Much like firing the shells of a big naval gun out of order...
Removing one coil per nacelle might work in some situations, but should have some really drastic effect, such as a new top speed of warp 1.1 or so.
posted
But they didn't replace a coil. They stole the entire frikkin *warp core* off the alien's ship. And then, as if by magic, Tucker 'fixes' the Enterprise with it. We don't see how or what he has done.
What's even weirder, the NX-01's M/ARA works after he Tucker does his magic.
I really don't have a clue about what was going on, and neither did the writers.
OTOH, I did notice that in the schematics shown of the alien vessel, the *coils* are very clearly highlighted. It seems Okuda got his tech right
posted
Perhaps the Warpcoil is part of the Warpcore and not the field coils in the nacelles.
Prior to the hijack, we see the Starboard nacelle only half lighted... maybe they needed a single warp coil, in the forward part of the nacelle, for it to make a warp field.
Without warp drive, the other ship is 3 years from home. That would mean they are probobly less then 10 light years away (maybe only 3) and they didn't seem to familiar with their neighborhood, so they may very well may have had only a single warp coil in their drive, while the Enterprise may have a dozen.
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Registered: Nov 2002
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posted
So, maybe the coil is part of the warp core and different from the field coils in the nacelles. That WOULD explain the half-lit nacelles and the warp 3.2.
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posted
The whole time they kept mentioning the warp coil, I was reminded of the episode of Voyager where they steal a transwarp coil from that Borg flying cigar thing. B&B probably messed up there in the first place and figured it would be the same for regular warp on the NX-01.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Timo: Removing one coil per nacelle might work in some situations, but should have some really drastic effect, such as a new top speed of warp 1.1 or so.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo, you're disappointing me... it's really hurtful. I'm wheeping over here man!
Warp Drive 101 Let us review how a Warp Drive works. Power from a generation source*1 is exposed to the forward most pair of warp field coils, and then in a matter of nanoseconds to the next pair back. This continues on until the end of the nacelles then is repeated again. Thus the warp field coils are energized and the veritium corinide produces an assymetrical*2 subspace field. The very nature of the subspace field is what propels the ship*3. > TO END
*1 Any source of significant power is capable of working. Fusion is limited to the amount of power it can reasonably produce, however it is capable of producing enough for warp power. M/AR within the presence of dilithium crystals for tuning the plasma is the most common form of generation for Federation and even Alpha Quad vessels.
*2 A symmetrical field can assumably be produced by a) only doing one set of coils, or b) all the coils at once.
*3 While the assymetrical field is produced with the wider end at the front of the ship and the thinner at the back in normal operations, it isn't unreasonable that a ship can reverse the firing sequence and go in Reverse Warp. Also, turning is achieved by an offset in coil charge. Turning left/port is achieved by firing sooner or a higher charge into the starboard side nacelle, this creating a controlled imbalance in the field just as forward motion is a controlled imbalance.
< END
Now what in the world makes you think that requires any specific set of coils? Maybe, just maybe there is a factor of length to coil number, but I've honestly never seen that. But at the same time, it certainly isn't that the first set of coils is the only one that reaches the forward parts of the ship, this can't be true. Each coil pair has to support the entire ship, and not just a small part of it, otherwise the ship would be torn apart in literal spahgettification.
Yes, it would certainly be a lot harder to reach Warp 5, and I would go as far to say impossible... but such a drastic reduction to Warp 1.1 is completely unreasonable, there's just no way. I'd see 4.5 as a good place to go---
... no no no... I'm feeling better now, see ... whaaaaaa
-------------------- Later, J _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ The Last Person to post in the late Voyager Forum. Bashing both Voyager, Enterprise, and "The Bun" in one glorious post.
posted
Well, there's one problem with your explanation. The energy generated by fusion, M/AM, etc. is used to heat hydrogen into a plasma, which is what gets sprayed at the warp coils. They don't just shoot an electrical arc at the coils, or something.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Yeah, that's something I left out because I thought it was understood... it's usually easily understood. While how warp drive works isn't.
-------------------- Later, J _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ The Last Person to post in the late Voyager Forum. Bashing both Voyager, Enterprise, and "The Bun" in one glorious post.
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