Star Trek Into Darkness... Spoilers Ahoy

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1. Didn't see the reboot.
2. For some reason, I'm suddenly feeling better about this version after seeing this trailer.
 
Personally, I loved the reboot. Sure, there are quite a few convenient coincidences, but overall, I liked it.

But seriously, Dear JJ Abrams, enough with the lens flare already.
 
That one reviewer on Yahoo obviously doesn't remember much about TOS, because Kirk was routinely pushing the limits when it came to the Prime Directive.

And you do have to wonder - is the USS Enterprise amphibious?
 
Conceivable. Obviously it'd have its own oxygen supply, and a hull that can resist air pressure from within could plausibly also resist water pressure from outside.

How well do warp nacelles work underwater though?
 
They don't or wouldn't need to, the warp nacelles are where the warp coils are housed and that shit isn't being used inside of an atmosphere, let alone under water.
 
It's risky to engage warp drive in the upper atmosphere, and suicidal closer to the planets surface:

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_drive

Pretty sure you wouldn't want to engage it while under water. Fortunately thrusters aren't based on warp technology.

There are two basic needs for waterproofing. Water is a solvent, so anything used must be non corroding in water. The second is water ingress through holes and crack.

Presumably it is both watertight (since its space tight) and it isn't easily corroded because it was built largely on earth, and can readily stay inside the atmosphere, which is heavily laden with water vapor.

Therefore I expect it is waterproof enough to dive to some depth. The crush strength of the hull comes into play at that point. But being able to dive to the few hundred feet necessary to submerge the whole thing shouldn't be that difficult.

But I imagine it'll come up in the movie. When has a Star Trek movie been made where someone didn't question the ships ability to perform some maneuver or feat? The enterprise is as much a character as Kirk is.
 
Fry: Professor, how many atmospheres of pressure can the ship take?

Farnsworth: Well, it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one.
 

fade

Staff member
It's risky to engage warp drive in the upper atmosphere, and suicidal closer to the planets surface:

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_drive

Pretty sure you wouldn't want to engage it while under water. Fortunately thrusters aren't based on warp technology.

There are two basic needs for waterproofing. Water is a solvent, so anything used must be non corroding in water. The second is water ingress through holes and crack.

Presumably it is both watertight (since its space tight) and it isn't easily corroded because it was built largely on earth, and can readily stay inside the atmosphere, which is heavily laden with water vapor.

Therefore I expect it is waterproof enough to dive to some depth. The crush strength of the hull comes into play at that point. But being able to dive to the few hundred feet necessary to submerge the whole thing shouldn't be that difficult.

But I imagine it'll come up in the movie. When has a Star Trek movie been made where someone didn't question the ships ability to perform some maneuver or feat? The enterprise is as much a character as Kirk is.
It's directly proportional to the number of times Scotty asks the ship to hold herself together.
 
Consider it's entirely conceivable that you'd run into water in space (though unlikely, due to temperatures in some areas), it's likely that it's liquid tight. I know some shuttles are at any rate, because they used one in water in Voyager (in a very, VERY dumb episode).

That being said, I doubt you'd ever want to do it. Moving through water at a too high a speed would rip the ship in half from the resistance of the water.
 
In one of the old technical manuals my dad had when I was younger I remember reading something about how the ships aren't meant to operate in atmospheres at all. They obviously abandoned that kind of stuff since then.
 
In one of the old technical manuals my dad had when I was younger I remember reading something about how the ships aren't meant to operate in atmospheres at all. They obviously abandoned that kind of stuff since then.

I have no idea how the engines on the enterprise are supposed to work, but it doesn't look like it should be able to generate any kind of lift.
 
I have no idea how the engines on the enterprise are supposed to work, but it doesn't look like it should be able to generate any kind of lift.
They've got a matter/antimatter energy source for virtually unlimited power, and plasma thrusters.

But even if that weren't enough, they can generate gravity.

No, none of this is very plausible, but that's why it's science fiction.
 
Well, they have warp drive and sub-light impulse (which uses a huge magnetic coil in conjunction with the warp drives mass altering to propel the ship at tremendous speeds) and it has maneuvering thrusters (which are basically just as we have now, only Star Trek super advanced). The whole messing with the fabric of space thing the warp drive and the impulse engines do would probably be a shitty idea to do in an atmosphere. They could use the thrusters inside an atmosphere but the ship design itself would lead me to believe that that's the last thing you would want to do. Imagine the stresses on the neck pylon thing on most Federation ships in gravity.
 
Well, they have warp drive and sub-light impulse (which uses a huge magnetic coil in conjunction with the warp drives mass altering to propel the ship at tremendous speeds) and it has maneuvering thrusters (which are basically just as we have now, only Star Trek super advanced). The whole messing with the fabric of space thing the warp drive and the impulse engines do would probably be a shitty idea to do in an atmosphere. They could use the thrusters inside an atmosphere but the ship design itself would lead me to believe that that's the last thing you would want to do. Imagine the stresses on the neck pylon thing on most Federation ships in gravity.
They've got shields that can keep their internal air pressure inside during a hull breach, I'm sure they can extend a shield around the ship to protect it from air turbulence.

Or just reverse polarity on the deflector dish. That thing can do anything.
 
They could use the thrusters inside an atmosphere but the ship design itself would lead me to believe that that's the last thing you would want to do. Imagine the stresses on the neck pylon thing on most Federation ships in gravity.
They apparently build ships that can land on planets (like the Intrepid class), and shuttles do it somehow without using thrusters for getting around in atmospheres, so there is clearly something keeping it going. My best guesses?

- Structural Integrity field keeps the thing together from normal forces of movement.
- Deflector dish moves gases away from the ship, essentially keeping it in a vacuum bubble.
- The shields do the same thing as the deflector dish.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
There are structural integrity fields to keep the ship from shaking itself apart when maneuvering/taking damage, and other shit too. Yes, they're stretching disbelief to the breaking point in the name of "rule of cool," but really...

Bounce a graviton particle beam
Off the main deflector dish
That's the way we do things, lad
We're makin' shit up as we wish
The Klingons and the Romulans
Pose no threat to us
'Cause if we find we're in a bind
We just make some shit up.

Honestly, I don't think it's consistent with canon for the Enterprise to be submersible, but let's be honest, it's not the most egregiously retarded thing star trek writers have pulled out of their ass.
 

fade

Staff member
There are structural integrity fields to keep the ship from shaking itself apart when maneuvering/taking damage, and other shit too.
Only good guy ships have them though. The bad guy ships will literally explode into nothingness with a single well-placed, but difficult to launch torpedo. Apparently, the warhead is charged with desperation.


On the physics side, it always bugged me when people say, "there's no gravity! You can make the ship any shape you want!" Yeah, well there's still inertia in space.
 
/supernerdglasses

From the episode Space Seed you can see that Khan's ship is a Nuclear Sub fitted with some form of thrusters... the thought behind that was as rugged and air tight a sub is, it could handle outer space. So in that time line some of the first sleeper ships were just converted subs.
 
On the physics side, it always bugged me when people say, "there's no gravity! You can make the ship any shape you want!" Yeah, well there's still inertia in space.
No, there isn't, thanks to Inertial Dampers. Basically, these things make warp travel possible as depicted in the show, as they keep everyone from dying the instant they jump to warp, as they'd slam in the walls the moment it activated and turn them into chunky salsa. It also serves as a convenient excuse for why the heroes don't run when they really don't have any reason to fight.

I'm sure they break like 16 rules of physics.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
No, there isn't, thanks to Inertial Dampers. Basically, these things make warp travel possible as depicted in the show, as they keep everyone from dying the instant they jump to warp, as they'd slam in the walls the moment it activated and turn them into chunky salsa. It also serves as a convenient excuse for why the heroes don't run when they really don't have any reason to fight.

I'm sure they break like 16 rules of physics.
Inertial dampeners just keep the contents of the ship from experiencing inertia with respect to the perspective of outside the ship - the structural integrity field is what allows spaceships to be oddly shaped such as enterprise without the stresses of the engines shearing off their pylons or the torsion from maneuvering causing the hull to rupture.
 
There are structural integrity fields to keep the ship from shaking itself apart when maneuvering/taking damage, and other shit too. Yes, they're stretching disbelief to the breaking point in the name of "rule of cool," but really...

Bounce a graviton particle beam
Off the main deflector dish
That's the way we do things, lad
We're makin' shit up as we wish
The Klingons and the Romulans
Pose no threat to us
'Cause if we find we're in a bind
We just make some shit up.

Honestly, I don't think it's consistent with canon for the Enterprise to be submersible, but let's be honest, it's not the most egregiously retarded thing star trek writers have pulled out of their ass.
Eh, Voyager can cruise around in a liquid universe full of Borg killing CG abominations, I'm sure the thing can handle being under water.
 
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