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 Post subject: What effect would breen energy dissipater weapon on ISD.

Posted: 2011-03-24 01:54pm 

While I do not see it effect the outcome any war between the Empire and the UFP. What happen UFP upgrade all their starships with Breen energy dissipator weapon.

 Post subject: Re: What effect would breen energy dissipater weapon on ISD.

Posted: 2011-03-24 02:50pm 

As with everything: depends. In this case, it depends whether dissipator can affect Star Wars vessels. Answer is quite problematic, considering we don't know how blasted thing works.

 Post subject: Re: What effect would breen energy dissipater weapon on ISD.

Posted: 2011-03-25 07:52am 

Just look at how the Alpha Quadrant Alliance dealt with that weapon. The Klingons could make the weapon completely ineffectual just by fiddling around a bit with the settings of their engines, at no cost of performance to boot. After capturing the weapon, the rest of the Alliance managed to do the same, rendered the weapon harmless without having to upgrade or change their engine structure in any major way and without sacrifices. That seems to say that the weapon merely exploited certain quirks and backdoors within the ST engine architecture and considering that SW has a completely different one, it's doubtful to have any effect.

BTW, this whole arc was for me like the equivalent of Zulu warriors capturing a gatling gun from the British causing them to be bulletproof in the next battle. El cheapo extremo.

 Post subject: Re: What effect would breen energy dissipater weapon on ISD.

Posted: 2011-03-25 11:34am 

I'm inclined to say no, it wouldn't work. This video suggests that it drains power, though with ISDs there's a helluva lot more power to drain, there has to be an upper limit to how much one shot can drain. We also do not know how quickly it recharges between shots and whether multiple hits would be any more effective than just one.

 Post subject: Re: What effect would breen energy dissipater weapon on ISD.

Posted: 2011-03-25 11:41am 

Given how easy it was to re-calibrate Federation technology to be immune, i doubt it would work on a completely foreign technology at all.

 Post subject: Re: What effect would breen energy dissipater weapon on ISD.

Posted: 2011-03-25 01:01pm 

wouldn't the breen weapon be similar to the ion canons on star wars?

 Post subject: Re: What effect would breen energy dissipater weapon on ISD.

Posted: 2011-03-25 02:07pm 

Possibly a similar effect, but done in a very different way (I believe). The breen weapon appears to do it by shutting down the engines, while an ion cannon overloads electronics all over the ship.... no?

 Post subject: Re: What effect would breen energy dissipater weapon on ISD.

Posted: 2011-03-25 02:51pm 

Perhaps the engines on Star Trek craft are simply too closely wired to the warp core and other power generating and distribution systems and the weapon uses that to short circuit the ships.

It makes sense when you consider things like the absolutely huge warp nacelles and just what we know about real world starships. And as far as I understand even impulse engines work by somehow technobable draining power from the ships power grid and transforming it into thrust. So draining power from the engines or even just plain overloading them could wreak havoc on said power grid.

The fallowing is purely speculation but what if the draining weapon works by draining power from the engines only. The engines in turn drain power from the rest of the ship trying to get enough power to keep working. However the weapon drains that energy away as well and what you end up is a ship with empty batteries so to speak.

 Post subject: Re: What effect would breen energy dissipater weapon on ISD.

Posted: 2011-03-25 03:32pm 

The Enterprise D had several fusion reactors as well as the warp core, in "Hero Worship", Geordi stated that "I've transferred fusion reactors four through nine into the shield array", we don't know if the Defiant had any similar reactors, though the Defiant was said to be overpowered for her size, Sisko said this in "The Search": "it's overgunned and overpowered for a ship its size. During battle drills, it nearly tore itself apart when the engines were tested at full capacity."

 Post subject: Re: What effect would breen energy dissipater weapon on ISD.

Posted: 2011-03-25 04:36pm 

Um, energy can't just 'disappear', even in Star Trek. Your idea makes no sense, because if it was really 'dissipating' away the energy we ought to see it (unless you want to suggest it magically transforms the energy into some other form, which is even more complex and silly than just making it disappear.)

Given the 'tritium intermix' stuff, the best we coudl guess is that it damages the ability of the ship to transfer fuel and/or power (assuming Klingongs and others use something similar to EPS.) Without really knowing about the weapon, we can only guess from observation (ships seem to go dead in space rapidly) and hints (the 'tritium intermix" thing.)

Also, why are people assuming it is just an either/or thing? Engineering is usually complex (at least when it comes to big ships) and there's alot of stuff that can always go wrong. It's quite possible other universe' ships might suffer totally, not at all, or just to varying degrees (EG reactors go down, but the power transfer system can still keep the guns and engines and shit operating, at least temporarily.)

 Post subject: Re: What effect would breen energy dissipater weapon on ISD.

Posted: 2011-03-25 08:12pm 

Yes, it doesn't really make sense for the energy to disappear, it could also cause the reactors to shut down, though in that case if anything the Romulan ships should be unaffected, as they use artificial singularities. It does raise the question, do Imperial ships use EPS or anything similar? Given the huge amounts of energy a hypermatter reactor releases, how is it transferred to the various systems on the ship?

 Post subject: Re: What effect would breen energy dissipater weapon on ISD.

Posted: 2011-03-25 11:46pm 

Why would a singularity matter? I admit I havent read up on such phenomena in a long long time, but as I recall singularities can evaporate if they don't have any sort of fuel to keep them existing (I recall vaguely discussions about tapping black holes as a power source and the lifespan of a singularity depending on its mass.) for all we know the romulans use a tiny, short lived singularity and must keep feeding it matter to keep it going.




Magic pixies as far as we know. I just vaguely remember that whatever medium they use, the conduits are damn thick (at least to some systems, like the weapons.) I think they woudl just use electricity though, and use magical tech to trasnfer and store it.