posted
Your question about the refit enterprise. other than to much romulan ale beeing drank by the people who did the work on the refit design. I could not figure out why put the warp core in one room and the dilithum in the next. so untill I hear something beter I have gone to thinking that maybe the dilithum in that Pedistal is used in some sort of EPS tap feeding the main systems like the IDF (inertial damping field). If the dilithum was out of wack the tap does not work and the IDF has no power so the warp engines do not work due to some sort of safty design. not the best but hey I am still working on it.
------------------ Tribbles and warp cores dont mix
posted
Alternately, the dilithium is supposed to go into the core, but primitive 23rd century tech cannot build a safe hatch that would open *directly* into the core. Instead, they build this teleoperated system where you first enter a radlock, then open the end of a "tubemail" system and insert the dilithium (already in its frame) into a carriage in the tube, then send it along the tube into the core somewhere belowdecks.
The same would apply to the TOS ship: the dilithium would go to the (unseen) core along a teleoperated line, and one terminal of that line would be the thing sitting on the center of the engine room floor (corresponding to the pedestal in the refit-ship). The thing wasn't there in the early episodes, so apparently it was installed in place of some even more secure system that didn't even have an interface point in the engine room.
Similarly, the radlock system only appears on the refit ship after ST:TMP. Presumably, that ship also had a supersecure system at first, with the dilithium entry hatch stashed away somewhere distant, but by ST2, it had been moved closer to the core and equipped with that radlock.
posted
Strangely though, the dilithium, er, box from the TOS Enterprise wasn't there at the beginning. In one ep of the first season, someone gets Dilithium from a drawer on Scotty's computer.
The Dilithium chamber didn't appear until (I think), the ep with Lazarus. Of which the name escapes me.
------------------ "I am in one of those rare periods of life where I am convinced I am a sexy devil."- Simon "Sol System" Sizer
posted
Er, I wasn't exactly serious about the disapparating plasma. What I was getting to, is that I don't believe that the dilithium pedestal actually *has* any physical connection to the intermix shaft. First of all, since the intermix shaft doesn't appear to have an upper deuterium injector, that means that its only antimatter in the system, or the matter is mysteriously injected somewhere else and the whole core is containing a wild, uncontrolled anhiliation of matter and antimatter.
Second, the dilithium can't pop down a tube and dissapear into the appropriate place in the intermix shaft. That means there is no cause for the radiation leakage that knocked out Scotty and killed Spock. It also means that the plasma transport tube to the nacelles is on the wrong level. The dilithium must be right there at the connect point for the plasma stream to travel at a perpendicular angle to the engines.
Also, about the original E's dilithium containment thingy. That double cylindrical thing with the articulation frame, I assume, is what you were talking about. That seems to be referred to as the matter antimatter integration unit, or old tech talk for the warp core. This is the only phyisical manifestation of it that we ever see on the original E. I assume that those two pressure domes on the top are there because the matter and antimatter streams are being redirected by who-knows-what at a perfect 90 degree angle to intercept the dilithium in the articulation frame. Those streams are probably pretty strong. Anyway, that's my crazy little theory.
posted
I don't see why there couldn't be a connection between the warp core and the standoff "dilithium injectors" we see in the post-"Alternate Factor" TOS ship and the post-TMP refitted ship. The radiation leak would simply be a leak of radioactive gas along the "tubemail" path. The path would not be so badly damaged that Spock couldn't beckon the dilithium carriage from the core to the pedestal and realign the dilithium there, but it was damaged enough to not seal completely at the core end, so it kept spitting radioactive deuterium and helium at Spock's face.
Also, I see no reason for the plasma conduits to be at 90 degrees to the core. After all, the conduits make weird turns when they snake their way towards the pylons, so why couldn't they make weird turns when they depart the reaction chamber? It's just one (rather practical) engineering solution to have them sprouting directly from the sides of the dilithium chamber itself at straight angles.
Actually, I don't think the vertical thingy aboard the refitted ship was a real "warp core" at all. It was IMHO just a vertical plasma conduit, branching off to the impulse engines and the warp nacelles. The actual "core" core was the lower, unseen part of the vertical section, somewhere on the lower decks. The reaction chamber and the dilithium were down there, too, along with the antimatter pods.
This would also be nicely consistent with the fact that the TMP-style "core" serves as a plasma conduit in the E-D engineering set.
posted
I know I've dragged this on way too long, and probably no one will post a reply, but bear with me. I read Timo's last post, and the tubemail thingy DOES make some sort of sense. If the dilithium reaction chamber is at the very base of the secondary hull, where the antimatter storage is, then the plasma created could just shoot up the intermix shaft.
But there are several problems. One, is that in ST II, the Enterprise didn't take damage to the bottom of the secondary hull, but along Deck O, or the second deck of the econdary hull. If the tubemail system is indeed how it all works and the dilithium reaction vessel is down on deck 21, then it remained untouched and there was no reason to realign the dilithium. I don't believe it can be jostled out of position. If that was the case, every time the Enterprise was hit by anything, the warp drive would shut down.
This brings up the question of why main engineering is ON Deck O in the first place. If the primary components of the engines, the dilithium and the matter/antimatter injectors are on deck 21 or somewhere therabouts, wouldn't it be more logical to put main engineering down there with it? It certainly isn't any more dangerous than it is on deck 15.
One point, the reason why the PTC's of the Enterprise D snake around, is because they use magnetic peristalsis, pusing the plasma along like food is pushed down the esophogous. They can't make weird turns directly after they depart the reaction chamber. The energetic plasma, if thet's really what it is, has to depart in a stream of some sort. We have to assume the dilithium, through some mysterious property of its chemical makeup, has the ability to not only suspend M/AM reactions in its lattice but also deflect the resulting plasma. This plasma can't just run into a wall and be deflected in another direction. This is why I think there exists a impulse deflection crystal on board the refit Enterprise and her peers. To make a direct 90 dgree turn to the impulse engines, it needs a nonreactive crystalline object to refocus the plasma stream. Admittedly, there are flaws with this too.
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