posted
TerraZ, what made you think that the plasma is ejected from top AND bottom? I thought ir runs from bottom to top...
BTW, I think the cutaway is from the "fact files"; the guys how composed that picture probably watched "Eye of the Beholder" and took a close look at the Dhunter's pic.. and I still don't think that one proves that there are only 2 injectors. I believe the Technical Manual.
posted
Well, in "EOB" plasma is ejected from the top and bottom injector, colliding in the middle and sent toward the front of the nacelle.
Otherwise, I don't see why, coming from the bottom one, it would suddenly separate in mid-air, one stream going foward and another one going up through the upper injector (which would no longer BE an injector) and end up nowhere.
Perhaps the colliding plasma stream are part of the warp field creation. Didn't Diana say that the warp field present when the guy jumped in the plasma was responsible for having his thoughts imprinted in the bulkhead even the though they weren't travelling at warp? By the way, I don't remember seeing that pic on screen. Do you think it's from the model?
------------------ -If you ask me, I think continuity is highly overrated... *Brannon Braga*
-Where were you when the brains were handed out? *Sonic the Hedgehog*
posted
Okay, here's a way to figure out where the injectors are (front or back)... In that nacelle cutaway pic, there's a vidcap from EotB. Unfortunately, Troi is blocking most of the view. Do we ever get to see clear to the other end of the nacelle in such a way that we can tell if the blue grills get wider there (as they do at the front of the nacelle), or if they just go straight on (making that the back, meaning the control room is at the front)?
------------------ "...more people buy Harry Potter novels than the works of Alexander Pope, but that's no measure of their quality." -Tom Aylward-Nally, December 29, 1999
posted
Actually, the Tech Manual doesn't say anything about a control room, it only says that the docking port under the nacelle near the back allows officers to enter the nacelle, but the top view of the interior of the nacelle doesn't have room for a control room in the back (there's some sort of off-axis field controller there instead).
And as for the blue grills, the edges of the warp coils end up just beside the blue grills. So even it it gets bigger, we wouldn't be able to see it because them. I suppose with all the evidences we have, the location of the control room is now a matter of choice unless someone can get some picture from the show to resolve the issue.
------------------ -If you ask me, I think continuity is highly overrated... *Brannon Braga*
-Where were you when the brains were handed out? *Sonic the Hedgehog*
posted
I didn't notice until yesterday that I actually have that episode on tape... I watched it and there is one scene were you can see the blue grills very clearly (sorry, no pic). They don't seem to get any wider.
Anyway, I don't think the control room can be in the front. In EOTB, they get into the nacelle through a Jeffries tube which ends just behind the control room's door. If this tube runs through the nacelle's pylon, it can't end in the front of the nacelle (it' a vertical tube).
posted
Well, that logic would but the control room in the middle of the nacelle.
Presumably, the Jeffries tube runs vertically up the pylon, then turns horizontal (either fore or aft, but I prefer fore), then goes back to vertical when it comes even w/ the control room.
------------------ "...more people buy Harry Potter novels than the works of Alexander Pope, but that's no measure of their quality." -Tom Aylward-Nally, December 29, 1999
posted
But I remember Worf climbing up at least four decks at the very beginning of the episode. I don't think the nacelle has vertical tubes spanning more than two decks, if there are any at all.
posted
Paramount doesn't have a vertical Jeffries Tube set four decks high, so there are bound to be cuts in that scene. And if there are cuts, then there can also be horizontal sections we missed because of the cuts...
The Tech Manual shows injectors on every coil, but IIRC, they are not between the coils - they are UNDERNEATH them! Or then inside the coil ring. They only become visible because parts of the coils are cut out in the picture.
Perhaps in drive mode these eighteen individual injectors fire from "below", "into" the coils, energizing them from "outside", and the one injector we see in the episode when the engine is on idle is just a sort of a "negative pole" that generates the nonpulsating inside plasma stream. The individual injectors take care of the pulsating effect that creates a proper propulsive field.
I can't understand what Mike and Rick were thinking when drawing the injectors "below" the nacelles - except if they are intended to fire "into" the nacelles. Or am I remembering the drawing incorrectly?
posted
Hm... I like your idea, if I'm understanding you correctly. Are you saying that the individual injectors at each coil are the ones that fire in succession, front to back, to make the ship go forward, while the big one in front is the one that stays active constantly, keeping the subspace field around even when they aren't in warp? I mean, we know there's still some sort of subspace field outside of warp, since the nacelles keep glowing, and there isn't any time dilation at impulse speeds. This could even explain why the control room might be at the back of the nacelle. If the big injector is not the one creating the moving field, it doesn't need to shoot from front to back.
------------------ "The Earl of Sandwich invented the sandwich. Samuel Morse invented the Morse Code. Plato invented the plate." -Holly, Red Dwarf: "Parallel Universe"
posted
That's exactly what I'm thinking. I think that the individual injectors are under the coils and "heat" them like the burners of a gas stove, in a pulsing peristaltic order, and the horizontal stream in the middle stays more or less static and serves as a sort of a "negative pole" to the "positive poles" of the excited coils.
It's pretty obvious that the engine doesn't work by constantly creating new plasma and pumping it through the nacelles like so much water or gasoline - if that were true, then the ship would be venting used plasma all the time. Instead, the warp core apparently just excites an existing plasma loop so that waves of energy travel along it to the nacelles. Of course, some residual plasma is created in incomplete annihilation and parasitic fusion reactions, and some is vented or used as impulse propellant. Mostly, though, it's the same plasma suspended in one place or perhaps being circulated.
The individual injectors firing on the undersides of the coil segments simply fire the energy - they do not constantly pump out volumes of plasma. Or perhaps the plasma somehow flows along the outer surface of the coil from bottom to top, to "plasma drains" we haven't seen yet? (It can't go inside the coil since a segment isn't hollow...)
As a ship reaches warp one, a huge white flash is created. I think this flash is the mark of an active subspace field (as is the red glow of the photon torpedoes). The blue glow that is also present on idle isn't the color of a warp field IMHO, but just plasma glow seen through a grille that lets "subspace radiation" and incidentally also blue visible light pass through. "Idle" subspace fields that keep Einstein sedated are probably more or less invisible to the naked eye.
posted
Kudos, Timo! Once again, you got the basic idea of what I was going to say in a LOT MORE DETAIL! That 'heating' of the coils is the most viable in my opinion.
posted
Well, I haven't got the TNGTM, so I can't look this up and I may be wrong, but...
I thought that the blue glow was supposed to be an indication that the coils were "active" (generating a subspace field).
Also, I was under the impression that the subspace field was a direct result of the contact between the plasma and the verterium cortenide (sp?) in the coils. Therefore, the stream shooting down the middle wouldn't have much contact w/ the coils, and thus wouldn't produce much of a field. However, the individual injectors at each segment would be shooting plasma right onto the coils, making a much more potent field. As for what happens to the plasma, it probably cools back down into a gas and either recycled or, if the plasma/coil interaction somehow makes it unusable, vented invisibly out of the nacelles. The few times we have actually seen plasma being vented, it could either be the fact that it is plasma, thus hot, thus glowing, making it visible, or it might be that it would normally be invisible, but they show it to us on TV so we get a better effect (kinds like sound in space; we know it isn't there, but we accept it as something added in for effect).
------------------ "The Earl of Sandwich invented the sandwich. Samuel Morse invented the Morse Code. Plato invented the plate." -Holly, Red Dwarf: "Parallel Universe"
posted
All very good ideas. Perhaps the role of the centrally firing horizontal plasma stream is not so much to excite the coils but to serve as a "return loop" of sorts? Since the plasma that hits the coils must travel on their surface instead of inside them, perhaps some leaks away, and is collected in a centrally mounted forcefield "drainpipe" which feeds it back to the overall plasma loop? I'd still be happier if the horizontal stream had an active role in transmitting energy, though.
The only cases where we see the grilles of TNG-era ships black are when the ship is completely shut down, crippled, or changing its dilithium crystals as in the beginning of "Skin of Evil" (although a "hot swap" later becomes a possibility). Even quayside ships (like the E-D at DS9) usually keep their grilles lit. The Defiant seems to be turned off when docked, though.
I'd assume that the blue glow is directly related to presence of plasma in the nacelles but not to other status of the nacelles (idle, sublight, warp). When powered down, the ship purges the plasma loops completely so the grilles go black. When on idle, plasma is present in the loop but not firing at the coils, just flowing through the nacelle horizontally - enough to cause the blue glow. When active, plasma begins to fire at the coils, too. Ultimately, the warp flash results.
posted
BTW, I think the blue glow at the side the nacelles results from the Cherenkov Radiation emitted by the plasma stream (I remember the TechManual saying something like this).
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