Can someone explain this incident?

[TurboPhaser]

ST TNG episode 'The Nth Degree'.

The Enterprise is confronted by a probe that looks like a piece of dog poo. The probe interferes with computer systems and naturally Picard does not wish his ships computers fried.

He orders 1/4 impulse reverse but the probe follows. Then he orders full about and 1/2 impulse.

At that point the Enterprise is a decent 10 - 20 Km away from the poo probe.

Riker says the cant fire photon torpedoes because they are too close and the resulting explosion would 'cripple them'.

From what I've seen of TNg the torps simply dont seem that powerful. So what gives!?

A similar incident like this happened in 'Q Who', but their shields were not up then.

[Lord Pounder]

The ship was unshielded and the blast of a torp would damage them? Most likely becasue the writter was a dick.

[Howedar]

Act of Plot

[CorSec]

Unless I miss my guess, they weren't worried about the explosion of the photon torpedo. They were worried about the chain reaction of the probe exploding. (The probe had very high 'energy' readings which I took to mean when it go boom it would make a very big boom.)

[Eframepilot]

Hmm. I see several possible explanations.

1) Photon torpedos are much more powerful than we give them credit for.

2) Picard and Riker have no idea how tiny the actual dangerous blast radius of their own torpedos is (see ST5:TFF).

3) Due to time travel, spatial anomalies and Q being a dick, reality is so fractured and inconsistent that photon torpedo yield varies widely across many orders of magnitude and their explosions produce unphysical effects (see "fireball" in "Skin of Evil", "atmospheric shock waves" in "TDIC", "For the Uniform", and the ever-popular temporal rifts).

4) Make up your own explanation, it'll probably be better than mine.

[Master of Ossus]

The best explanation for this particular incident is the danger of having the probe "cook off," and damage the E-D. However, this does not really explain "Q Who," in which a proximity blast from the ship's own torpedoes threatened to destroy them!

[Howedar]

5. Photon torpedos do in fact have directional warheads, but some dipshit in the Starfleet engineering corps had them all mounted backwards.

[Darth Wong]

Tactical predictions on the bridge are made via astrology.

[Howedar]

Whoa, they make tactical predictions?

[TurboPhaser]

The best explanation for this particular incident is the danger of having the probe "cook off," and damage the E-D. However, this does not really explain "Q Who," in which a proximity blast from the ship's own torpedoes threatened to destroy them!

Yes, that seem the most likely.

ST: TFF incident is questionable.

IIRC Kirk said 'listen carefully' to the Enterprise. Could he have been telling them to lower the torpedo's yield so he and crew wouldnt be splattered?

[Uraniun235]

The best explanation for this particular incident is the danger of having the probe "cook off," and damage the E-D. However, this does not really explain "Q Who," in which a proximity blast from the ship's own torpedoes threatened to destroy them!

That was after the shields had been lowered. Granted it still does not speak well of the E-D, but it's better than Nth Degree, where the shields were up full.

[TurboPhaser]

The best explanation for this particular incident is the danger of having the probe "cook off," and damage the E-D. However, this does not really explain "Q Who," in which a proximity blast from the ship's own torpedoes threatened to destroy them!

That was after the shields had been lowered. Granted it still does not speak well of the E-D, but it's better than Nth Degree, where the shields were up full.

It may speak well for the E-D, depending on your viewpoint. It may indicate very powerful torps, or pathetically weak hull.

Uh no, the shields were not up full. They were still up, but weakening due to the probe's energy field.

[Hethrir]

...They were worried about the chain reaction of the probe exploding...

yes, also remembering that everything in the Trekverse spontaniously combusts/forms deadly chain reaction, you can never be too careful where you sneeze

[Ted C]

IIRC, the problem was they they didn't think their shields could protect them from the blast of a full spread of maximum-yield photon torpedoes at the given range. No one made any mention of potential damage from the probe itself, and they couldn't have known how much energy its destruction might release, anyway. Barclay eventually solved the problem by diverting a massive amount of power from other systems to reinforce the shields.

A full spread from the E-D is five torpedoes, so a proximity blast of just a few megatons (based on limits derived from "The Pegasus") would be enough to seriously damage a shielded Galaxy-class starship.

We know that the Federation starships worry about flanking maneuvers, and we've seen that they can be more vulnerable to certain angles of attack, so I'd suggest that the aft shields of a Galaxy-class starship are relatively weak.

Note also that the energy output from the probe itself (in excess of 3.2 TW) was depleting the shields fast enough to bring them down in 47 seconds, so they had to deal with that problem at the same time.

EDIT: The Enterprise was running from the probe at warp speed when they identified the problem with using photon torpedoes, so much of the ship's power was going into propulsion. Barclay dropped the ship out of warp and diverted that energy to the shields to allow them to fire torpedoes. Both this episode and "Hero Worship" indicate that Galaxy-class starships don't normally dump power from the warp engines into the shields.

[Master of Ossus]

Since, in both incidents, the ships involved were at warp, I would suggest that the warp nacelles interfere with the aft shields?

In any case, the ST:V incident is almost always dismissed if only because it's so blatantly inconsistent with what we see elsewhere in the show (except, possibly, for Riker's statement in "Conundrums").

[Uraniun235]

"A full spread from the E-D is five torpedoes"
The E-D fires a volley of six in "Survivors", just FYI.

"so I'd suggest that the aft shields of a Galaxy-class starship are relatively weak."
Perhaps there was some truth to Ensign Ro's statement about the impulse engines creating a weakened area of the shields in the episode where she infiltrated the Maquis?

[Master of Ossus]

"A full spread from the E-D is five torpedoes"
The E-D fires a volley of six in "Survivors", just FYI.

"so I'd suggest that the aft shields of a Galaxy-class starship are relatively weak."
Perhaps there was some truth to Ensign Ro's statement about the impulse engines creating a weakened area of the shields in the episode where she infiltrated the Maquis?

I guess that would explain both incidents.

[Ted C]

Since, in both incidents, the ships involved were at warp, I would suggest that the warp nacelles interfere with the aft shields?

If the other incident you mention is in "Q Who", the Borg weapons have drained the shields to near zero when they start worrying about the potential effects of a torpedo explosion on the Enterprise itself.

The E-D fires a volley of six in "Survivors", just FYI.

That still doesn't increase the total yield beyond a few megatons.

Perhaps there was some truth to Ensign Ro's statement about the impulse engines creating a weakened area of the shields in the episode where she infiltrated the Maquis?

I wouldn't be at all surprised. We saw that Jem'Hadar "bugs" have a similar weakness in "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River".

[seanrobertson]

We know that the Federation starships worry about flanking maneuvers, and we've seen that they can be more vulnerable to certain angles of attack, so I'd suggest that the aft shields of a Galaxy-class starship are relatively weak.

Good thinking.

I don't remember the E-D's orientation, though. Surely they didn't go to warp "backwards," with their fore quarter always facing the probe! (I think they backed up a bit, turned "away" from the probe, then went to warp as it started chasing them. That would partly explain why their phaser blasts didn't have much effect; at that angle, the E-D could only bring some of her smallest strips to bear.)

EDIT: The Enterprise was running from the probe at warp speed when they identified the problem with using photon torpedoes, so much of the ship's power was going into propulsion. Barclay dropped the ship out of warp and diverted that energy to the shields to allow them to fire torpedoes. Both this episode and "Hero Worship" indicate that Galaxy-class starships don't normally dump power from the warp engines into the shields.

YES!!!!!

Very good. I have noted this, as well. Throughout TNG-VGR, using the warp core to power any non-propulsive systems required a direct order from the commanding officer. From that, I conclude that standard operating procedure dictates that tactical systems are fed by their fusion reactors. (This is substantiated by something Riker says in "BOBW," to the effect that in combat against the Borg, the Enterprise would greatly benefit from the saucer's extra power.)

Another point: Warp-powered defense systems were almost unheard of in TNG; and though, as previously noted, it still wasn't standard procedure in DS9/VGR, we did hear such things as "warp power to phasers" much more often.

Also in DS9/VGR, we observe ships with somewhat greater endurance under fire and/or wielding a little more firepower, even in spite of greatly reduced size; e.g., Defiant.

Therefore, I further conclude that, sometime between early TNG and late VGR, Starfleet did something to many ships' power distribution networks to accomodate greater power flow, allowing them to start using warp power for weapons and shields on occassion. LaForge's work on the PDN in "BoBW" might've contributed to these improvements (and it would seem that Galaxies in the Dominion War benefitted from something similar, since they did serve as the fleets' battleships).

Before anyone thinks otherwise, I wouldn't say this translates to vastly superior weapons/shields; between TNG's first season and VGR's last, Federation ships clearly aren't a full order of magnitude more powerful in combat. But I would argue that we see a measurable increase in all tactical systems, perhaps largely for this reason...one need only compare the potentially far more powerful USS Odyssey's initial performance against Jem'Hadar bugships vs. Defiant's to see what I'm talking about. (Recap: D shreds a J'H ship with a ~1.5 sec. burst from her cannons. The Oddy, OTOH, did dick to them with ~1 sec. phaser shots--shots which, incidentally, were drawn from a huge phaser strip, one that would very easily DWARF Defiant's small cannons.)

Interestingly enough, TOS and TMP-era ships used an appreciable amount of warp power to their tactical systems; we see this in Decker's belayment of a phaser order in TMP, citing that the phasers were fed directly from the warp engines or somesuch (and that would only complicate matters with the wormhole...? I can't remember. Doesn't matter).

As such, I cannot posit that Starfleet has only recently been capable of using warp power to weapons/shields--just that Starfleet has never used warp-powered phasers etc. on such a large scale. Still, that begs the question: why did Starfleet stop using the most powerful energy source available to juice their guns?

Could it be that w. core-fed phasers were always a risky procedure, but Starfleet felt power-at-all-costs was necessary to combat Klingon-Romulan threats?

I think heavy reliance on warp powered defenses might be partly endemic of a militarized Starfleet. I definitely think fusion sources became more cost-efficient as well, seen as doubly beneficial because a very large, GCS-type ship could use most or all of its badly-needed AM for propulsion and, ergo, deep space exploration; meanwhile, the secondary reactors take care of life support, impulse power, and so on. Moreover, their fusion can easily accomodate most of their needs--prior of course to the much-improved Romulans' D'Deridex Warbirds, Dominion and Borg.

I mean, neither phasers or shields seem to draw much power--4.2 GW is enough for a small bank ("Who Watches The Watchers"), Scotty regarded "spare gigawatts...for these [shield generator] puppies" as noteworthy ("Relics")--so this was an understandable transition for a more peaceful Starfleet to make. It wasn't as if their weapons were big enough yet that they really NEEDED warp power, as is apparently beginning to be the case by TNG-VGR. Coupled with the inherent risk of dealing with antimatter, this is even more understandable.

Well, something like that. I am distracted, and badly want to return to Knights of the Old Republic.

Added note: three, not five or six, torpedoes were fired in "The Nth Degree," FWIW. And I think the probe was a good bit closer than 20 kilometers, Turbo I'd say it was maybe 5 klicks away IIRC.

[Uraniun235]

citing that the phasers were fed directly from the warp engines or somesuch (and that would only complicate matters with the wormhole...?

No, the problem was that the wormhole was caused by an "imbalance" in the warp engines. This event caused an automatic cutoff of the phasers.

The novelization says that Decker and Scott began work on a bypass so that the phasers would be available in any situation where the warp drive was inoperative... quite fortunate given the situation in ST2.

[seanrobertson]

citing that the phasers were fed directly from the warp engines or somesuch (and that would only complicate matters with the wormhole...?

No, the problem was that the wormhole was caused by an "imbalance" in the warp engines. This event caused an automatic cutoff of the phasers.

The novelization says that Decker and Scott began work on a bypass so that the phasers would be available in any situation where the warp drive was inoperative... quite fortunate given the situation in ST2.

Ah, okay.

My concern was whether or not the ship's phasers were fed by the warp core itself.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

The best explanation for this particular incident is the danger of having the probe "cook off," and damage the E-D. However, this does not really explain "Q Who," in which a proximity blast from the ship's own torpedoes threatened to destroy them!

Starfleet gives explicit instructions to its starship design teams to build GCSs as flimsy as possible, so that it can assign unpopular captains to them in the hopes that one of the little kids on board will wander into Engineering and take a leak on the warp core, thereby alleviating Starfleet of one more whining, useless idiot with four pips.

[TurboPhaser]

Added note: three, not five or six, torpedoes were fired in "The Nth Degree," FWIW. And I think the probe was a good bit closer than 20 kilometers, Turbo I'd say it was maybe 5 klicks away IIRC

Well possibly so. I judged 10 to 20 when the E-D turned around and ran and then the probe came into view. Then again, I have never seen a 600m long starship at any distance before, so I wouldnt be able to make an exact guess.

Also, how the crud could the E-D reverse at impulse? Its impulse engines are at the back arent they?

[Ender]

citing that the phasers were fed directly from the warp engines or somesuch (and that would only complicate matters with the wormhole...?

No, the problem was that the wormhole was caused by an "imbalance" in the warp engines. This event caused an automatic cutoff of the phasers.

The novelization says that Decker and Scott began work on a bypass so that the phasers would be available in any situation where the warp drive was inoperative... quite fortunate given the situation in ST2.

Ah, okay.

My concern was whether or not the ship's phasers were fed by the warp core itself.

It was not until the DS9 era that the Federation began drawing directly upon the warp core to power phasers and shields instead of fusion reactors. This allowed for great improvement in ships defensive and offensive power.

[Crazedwraith]

No, the problem was that the wormhole was caused by an "imbalance" in the warp engines. This event caused an automatic cutoff of the phasers.

The novelization says that Decker and Scott began work on a bypass so that the phasers would be available in any situation where the warp drive was inoperative... quite fortunate given the situation in ST2.

Ah, okay.

My concern was whether or not the ship's phasers were fed by the warp core itself.

It was not until the DS9 era that the Federation began drawing directly upon the warp core to power phasers and shields instead of fusion reactors. This allowed for great improvement in ships defensive and offensive power.

Didn't the connie-refits usee warp powered phasers? which is why in ST:TMP they could use phaser to blow up the asteriod in the warp-gone-wrong scene?