Star Trek

10608 readers

100 users here now

r/startrek: The Next Generation

Star Trek news and discussion. No slash fic...

Maybe a little slash fic.

New to Star Trek and wondering where to start?

Rules

1 Be constructive

All posts/comments must be thoughtful and balanced.

2 Be welcoming

It is important that everyone from newbies to OG Trekkers feel welcome, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, religion or race.

3 Be truthful

All posts/comments must be factually accurate and verifiable. We are not a place for gossip, rumors, or manipulative or misleading content.

4 Be nice

If a polite way cannot be found to phrase what it is you want to say, don't say anything at all. Insulting or disparaging remarks about any human being are expressly not allowed.

5 Spoilers

Utilize the spoiler system for any and all spoilers relating to the most recently-aired episodes, as well as previews for upcoming episodes. There is no formal spoiler protection for episodes/films after they have been available for approximately one week.

6 Keep on-topic

All submissions must be directly about the Star Trek franchise (the shows, movies, books etc.). Off-topic discussions are welcome at c/quarks.

7 Meta

Questions and concerns about moderator actions should be brought forward via DM.

Upcoming Episodes

Date	Episode	Title
11-21	LD 5x06	"Of Gods and Angles"
11-28	LD 5x07	"Fully Dilated"
12-05	LD 5x08	"Upper Decks"
12-12	LD 5x09	"Fissue Quest"
12-19	LD 5x10	"The New Next Generation"

Episode Discussion Archive

In Production

Strange New Worlds (2025)

Section 31 (2025-01-24)

Starfleet Academy (TBA)

In Development

Untitled comedy series

Wondering where to stream a series? Check here.

Allied Discord Server

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Kinetic impulse weapons (startrek.website)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"Full Impulse" is generally considered to be 0.25c.
The force of an impact of a Voyager-sized (700 kilotons) mass at that speed would be many times greater than that of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.
And I think its reasonable to assume that 0.25c isn't a hard limit, but rather an agreed-upon speed limit for starships.
If you could make an object go even faster, that energy goes up by a few orders of magnitude.
0.9c sounds doable. I don't know about any faster, but maybe?

At that speed, the force of Voyager hitting a planet would be at least hundreds of times greater than the aforementioned asteroid. This sounds like it would completely sterilize the planet.

Which begs the question, why don't we see weapons like this in star trek? I'd figure the Federation wouldn't use them, but the Federation isn't alone.

One argument I tend to see when this comes up is, that the shields would block it. Which then makes you think, if they could block that, then what couldn't they block? It makes them pretty much invincible. So I don't think that's it.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My head canon at least is that impulse engines don't work alone to drive a 700 kilotonne ship to 0.25c. The deflector uses subspace to effectively lower the mass of the ship to something capable of being driven to those spreads. Otherwise Einstein comes and fucks with you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is an in universe hint of this in ENT 3x10, where the whole NX-01 Enterprise needs a force of 2500 Kilodynes to be pulled from a nebula. Which, if you do the math, results in the whole ship only weighing about 158 kg. Most of the times this is interpreted as a writing error, but could also be the result of some arcane technology such as inertial dampeners or the deflector dish.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You also have Emissary where the deflector is used to reduce the mass of the station.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Which in turn was a redux of Geordi changing the gravitational constant of the universe