Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

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Yeah I have to say Measure of a Man was probably one of the best Trek episodes too.

Q Who was when Q gave Riker powers, right?
 
L50LasPak said:
The conventional explosives inside a thermonuclear warhead are what trigger the fission, which then is hot enough to trigger the fusion. I assume phasers are hot enough that they just skipped the conventoinal explosive part and straight up triggered the fission process.
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Generally speaking, a weapon fired at an atomic bomb would break it without causing a nuclear explosion of any type, but we certainly see one happen in this episode.

A fission bomb is an encapsulated, fully-automated forge that uses explosives to weld several subcritical masses of metal into a single, spherical, supercritical mass. This all has to take place so quickly that the energy being released doesn't blow the sphere apart prematurely (a fizzle). It's an incredibly precise bit of engineering. If the conventional charges were detonated by an outside force, it's unlikely the explosion would be optimal, but I agree, you could possibly get a fizzle, especially if the weapon is a simple (as nuclear weapons go) gun type like the U-235 "Little Boy" or Plutonium "Thin Man." "Thin Man" was not actually built in WWII because of problems with its length, but it's a workable design.

If phasers incorporate fast neutrons, it is possible they would induce a local criticality in the nuclear fuel and again, cause a fizzle. This is also the case is the weapon is a fission-fusion-fission device basically encased in plutonium.

I'm dubious phasers would induce a fusion reaction, since that requires encapsulation in a layer that reflects x-rays and I'd expect the phaser fire to tear that up to the point it wouldn't work long before a fusion reaction would start. Still, it might be possible.

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L50LasPak said:
Possibly even the fusion part, phasers are ridiculously powerful in some of their appearances. Maybe a nuclear nerd could correct me on this, but I figure a weapon than can blow continents off a planet can easily trip a nuclear device.
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It could easily have enough energy to trigger a nuke, but the problem is that nukes are incredibly complicated devices. An attack from outside is much more likely to break it instead of setting it off.

Still, IIRC Enterprise was 150m from the charge when it went off. It's not too implausible it could survive a small fizzly hiccup at that range.
 
BScCollateral said:
Generally speaking, a weapon fired at an atomic bomb would break it without causing a nuclear explosion of any type, but we certainly see one happen in this episode.

A fission bomb is an encapsulated, fully-automated forge that uses explosives to weld several subcritical masses of metal into a single, spherical, supercritical mass. This all has to take place so quickly that the energy being released doesn't blow the sphere apart prematurely (a fizzle). It's an incredibly precise bit of engineering. If the conventional charges were detonated by an outside force, it's unlikely the explosion would be optimal, but I agree, you could possibly get a fizzle, especially if the weapon is a simple (as nuclear weapons go) gun type like the U-235 "Little Boy" or Plutonium "Thin Man." "Thin Man" was not actually built in WWII because of problems with its length, but it's a workable design.

If phasers incorporate fast neutrons, it is possible they would induce a local criticality in the nuclear fuel and again, cause a fizzle. This is also the case is the weapon is a fission-fusion-fission device basically encased in plutonium.

I'm dubious phasers would induce a fusion reaction, since that requires encapsulation in a layer that reflects x-rays and I'd expect the phaser fire to tear that up to the point it wouldn't work long before a fusion reaction would start. Still, it might be possible.


It could easily have enough energy to trigger a nuke, but the problem is that nukes are incredibly complicated devices. An attack from outside is much more likely to break it instead of setting it off.

Still, IIRC Enterprise was 150m from the charge when it went off. It's not too implausible it could survive a small fizzly hiccup at that range.
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So many times this thread makes me wish we had a

NEEEEEERRRRRDDD!

rating.

Though it would have to count as both positive and negative. That was very informative (always love the doomsday weapons), but nerdy.
 
Flexo said:
So many times this thread makes me wish we had a

NEEEEEERRRRRDDD!

rating.

Though it would have to count as both positive and negative. That was very informative (always love the doomsday weapons), but nerdy.
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I tend to use :drink: as both a positive and negative rating. I'm not sure which it actually is though.
 
tigergrinder said:
DS9 would never have made it as a series if it weren't for Odo and Quark.

There. I said, I'd say it again.
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You needed the whole horse and caboodle to make DS9 work and they had it all. I can't imagine the series without any one of the characters except maybe Jake, but he still gets his great episodes and works towards developing Sisko's character.
 
tigergrinder said:
DS9 would never have made it as a series if it weren't for Odo and Quark.
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Chilson said:
You needed the whole horse and caboodle to make DS9 work and they had it all. I can't imagine the series without any one of the characters except maybe Jake, but he still gets his great episodes and works towards developing Sisko's character.
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Yeah I think its really difficult to narrow down which characters were more important than others since the cast had such great chemistry. Hypothetically you could go through the early three seasons and pick out the weaker characters such as early Bashir, but by Way of the Warrior all of the characters were very fleshed out and well-rounded. Maybe with the exception of Kassidy Yates, who I think the writers just had trouble coming up with stuff for her to do. Ezri might count too, but she was a late arrival to the series.
 
Chilson said:
You needed the whole horse and caboodle to make DS9 work and they had it all. I can't imagine the series without any one of the characters except maybe Jake, but he still gets his great episodes and works towards developing Sisko's character.
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Yeah you'd think that, then you realize you'd lose "The Visitor" and realize, nope, nobody could be spared.

Sole exception being that Dukat should have died after Waltz.
 
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