Misapplied Phlebotinum?

posted on February 13th, 2011, 12:59 pm

Does anyone reckon Star Trek uses its tech wrong? There's a page on TV Tropes about tech being misused, a page that lists an example of misuse as not using FTL engines to ram for massive damage or using transporters to send a warhead into a base.

Misapplied Phlebotinum

posted on February 13th, 2011, 1:52 pm

Yeah ive thought about a lot of these before, like 'why isnt the transporter used as a weapon' 'why is there still need for vehicle based transport so much' etc

The site really does strike a hard blow to star trek tech. I mean, Im a critic in that area myself, but I havent conceived of half the possibilities of star trek tech that they come up with ( transporter effect as an emergency life-restorer..damn ).

All in all, we should probably just learn to deal with the fact that trek isnt always realistic..or logical. lol

[Quatre]

posted on February 13th, 2011, 2:41 pm

Last edited by Quatre on February 13th, 2011, 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My personal love:
Does anybody remember that Picard hat an transporter incident making him a child with all the knowledge he had before?

vs

Star Trek (9): Insurrection

posted on February 13th, 2011, 2:52 pm

well you cant beam a torp into their ship until their shields (if they have them) are dropped. by which time u have probably won anyway lol.

also u cant beam without dropping your own shields, so if u take down their shields and try beam a torp, they could do the exact same thing back lol.

also if u beam torps to them enough they will devise a quick way to beam out any stuff u beam in. or they will turn on transporter jammers.

FTL ramming sounds interesting in general, but doesnt warp drive put you in subspace, where you wouldnt collide with a ship?

posted on February 13th, 2011, 2:57 pm

Nope, thats why warp in starsystems is not god .

posted on February 13th, 2011, 3:02 pm

The lack of Warp in a starsytem is a dubious claim, it's happened several times and no indication of any problem at all outside of them claiming it's bad. That one's probably more of a 'better safe than sorry' thing.

posted on February 13th, 2011, 3:09 pm

yea, just an act of safty first. In a System is much more you could collide with.
But if needed, shields up and full speed 

posted on February 13th, 2011, 3:43 pm

Not sure why that article says...

...And that's not even getting into the fact that, because of the way relativity works, FTL travel is logically equivalent to Time Travel...

posted on February 13th, 2011, 3:59 pm

i think this stems from the idea that it would require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate a bog standard particle to the speed of light. ive heard it quoted before, i dont think it makes much sense.

[Quatre]

posted on February 13th, 2011, 4:15 pm

Last edited by Quatre on February 13th, 2011, 4:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The nearer you are at the speed of light the slower the time will pass by for you in relation to the normal slow universe.
For you the time will be normal fast. But when you are stopping, you will see, that tway more time has passed in the universe then for you flying near at the speed of light.

Maybe the theory is, if you are faster then the light time will go backward technically (not for you but you will fly backward through the time).

But I don't know Einstein good enough to confrim.

posted on February 13th, 2011, 4:18 pm

I have heard a theory that time slows down if you go fast enough for interstellar travel, so less time passes for the traveller. Never heard of time-travel by simply moving really fast, though.

posted on February 13th, 2011, 4:20 pm

Simply because it is "fact" that nothing can be faster then the light because the needed energy would be unlimited.
FTL = timetravel is just one idea in this context.

posted on February 13th, 2011, 4:28 pm

Hm, I'm not sure it's an infinite amount of energy...

E[sup]2[/sup] = (mc[sup]2[/sup])[sup]2[/sup] + (Pc)[sup]2[/sup] (where mc[sup]2[/sup] is the rest energy, and P =γmv). As a consequence, as your velocity increases and you keep a certain mass, and you need to overcome your current velocity, the energy needed goes up quite a bit...

posted on February 13th, 2011, 4:48 pm

i'm glad i studied maths and not physics lol.

[Megaman3321]

posted on February 15th, 2011, 1:16 am

Last edited by Megaman3321 on February 15th, 2011, 1:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

FTL in Star Trek work by warping space, not by attempting to use conventional accceleration. Warping space in a meaningful way (the sun warps space by about 1/800 of a degree if memory serves), although it would still require a vast amount of power/mass, is not impossible, as proven by black holes.

However, due to the nature of space and time, you could theoretically manipulate space to move you back in time using a warp drive. Warp drive= time travel if you use it in a certain way.

Just my 2 cents worth of stuff

As for FTL ramming, I'm betting that most Trek ships put out some sort of FTL-inhbity-doohikeystuffs field that prevents a ship from going to warp within a certain radius, but doesn't affect the effects it has in space, i.e., you still need to have weaps with special properties to get past the warp field, such as photon torps or phasers.

Which explains why there aren't many MACs in trek, aside from FO rommies (who IMO have the most advanced tech of all the races):  Too expensive (energy/ resequencable particles are far more plentiful than matter in space), too inefficent (putting a warp drive on a bullet kinda defeats the purpose of a bullet), and too damn slow for anything but PDP. Again, this excludes the romulans, who can power starships with black holes, and by extention can use those as fuel in their bullets, making them uberdense and powerful.