Basic overcurrent protection? In my sci-fi?
Next you're gonna tell me you can't just "re-route power" by pressing buttons on a screen and not, you know, actually unhooking any wires!
75Building everything to be able to re-route to everything is WHY all the consoles are constantly exploding.
63O'Brien constantly breaking good cardassian engineering with infernal federation secondary backups.
14Exactly, sure you could have relays or Automatic Transfer Switches like we use from generators. But if you're just slamming more power at stuff than it's meant to use, where's your overcurrent protection?
3
one of my favorite jokes about this is on TNG. i think it's the episode where the bridge gets cut off from the rest of the ship, and Troi is in charge of running the ship. O'Brian makes a comment to Ro about how you can't 'just reroute power from things'.
it's a funny little nod from the writers.
40I don't know about you people, but personally, I always write programs at work by removing boards from my computer and plugging them in a different order.
34How do you know the buttons don't trigger relais or the like which then actually unhook the wires?
31Judging from what things look like when they open up the walls, they could just be telling the system to use a specific circuit path. It looks like everything is just a bunch of blocks or cards with super dense computer chips on them and half the repairs we ever see are just these being unslotted and replaced. The other half being waving fake tools around.
17
you can't just "re-route power" by pressing buttons on a screen and not, you know, actually unhooking any wires!
High-voltage switches might be a bit complicated. One I've seen requires you to tighten a spring and then have it released extremely fast to prevent sparking. Still, there should be a way to do it safely, without having to go near or touch the wiring.
7
wait till they rediscover seatbelts
69If bracing for impact is good enough for the Enterprise, it's good enough for my Hyundai.
49Everyone else in the minivan:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4d/b2/ee/4db2eedb2235018f827398503423a9ec.jpg
13In my CRV I'll often initiate attack plan omega.
1
That's what the inertial dampeners are for!
... if they were working
19"Inertial dampeners have failed."
Many times someone will say this while the ships is performing combat maneuvers at several hundred kilometers per second.
If that were true, everyone onboard would instantly become "chunky salsa." (Obscure Trek-related quote, for anyone that can place it.)
17Have you tried diverting power from life support yet?
16
and start actually putting on space suits when they should.
10THEY DO HAVE THEM! Every once in a while a trek will show seatbelts and then proceed to forget about them later.
7Isn't there a joke about that in Nemesis?
4
Once again I remind you all that these consoles are not powered by a substance as boring as regular electricity. Oh no. It has to be highly energetic tuned plasma...straight to the user interface consoles...for, uh, reasons.
62The reason is because the engines produce this material as a waste product. So instead of venting it into space it's processed and funneled back through the ship to power everything from lights to equipment.
Very efficient and very VERY dangerous. Many Vulcans retired from the VSA because Humans pulled shit like this.
33All I'm saying is, there's no way this would pass a MIL-STD-882 safety assessment in the twenty first century. So I have no idea how they got their spaceworthiness certificate.
10
Gotta have a way to effortlessly kill redshirts. Whoops! Another plasma conduit blew out. Poor Gary.
20
Battle shorting the practice of negating the fuses in a ship or other war machine because a blown fuse disabling a key system could lead to the loss of the whole ship in battle, and the equipment can maybe work over its rated limit for a time when necessary. Cathode Ray Dude did a video about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpJ_6LCly4A
55"In a battle or emergency, where the survival of the vessel (or other protected asset) is dependent upon the continued operation of the equipment, it is sometimes wiser to risk equipment damage than have the equipment shut down when it is needed. For example, the electrical drives to elevate and traverse the guns of a combat warship may have "battleshort" fuses, which are simply copper bars of the correct size to fit the fuse holders, as failure to return fire in a combat situation is a greater threat to the ship and crew than damaging or overheating the electrical motors."
Huh. Learn something all the time.
70Something can probably be done though with matter synthetiser and teleporters.
2
If only they had Space OSHA.
31That would be so cool a sci-fi adaption of forklift-driver Klaus (warning, a bit gory but hilarious):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJYOkZz6Dck8
Another problem is about where to redirect the overcharge. In space there is no ground where the current can go. Yet you need to dissipate the energy somewhere.
21It's probably grounded to the hull somewhere, put in a couple electric gizmos and feed the power back into your batteries. Now the enemy is charging your ship while they blow it up because you didn't turn on your sheild.
9
Oh great, now what am I supposed to do with all these extra damage-accentuation rocks?!?
18Do we have fuses that can safely dissipate like 350Megajoules? I don't remember which specific episode it was, but I remember on DS9 they were going to overload the warpcore to stop something and someone said the only system on the station capable of absorbing that much raw electrical energy was the shield system, since that's literally what it is; a giant fuse.
16Fuses don't dissipate electricity. They pass electricity and then blow when exceeded. Blowing is either flipping off (like your breaker) or breaking (like replaceable fuses). The point of a fuse is to be the weakest link so if a surge occurs it doesn't damage equipment or wiring.
In the case you described, they were looking for a load (where energy is used or dissipated to do work) to absorb that much energy at once. There might be a fuse that could withstand that kind of load; there was wiring that could afterall. But if the shield system could absorb the full power of an overloaded warp core, it might not have needed one if there was no downside to overcharging it.
21Do we have fuses that can safely dissipate like 350Megajoules?
A 350 Megajoule fuse oughta do it
8
Maybe don't put so many things that can catch fire on the bridge too.
15In the 24th Century they discovered that liquid napalm was a highly efficient electrical conductor ... so they used it to wire their ships.
14
When you consider that the bridge is on the top and center of the saucer section and a very enticing target the constant explosions make a bit of sense. It's not that the enterprise got shot in the ass and it sent a current up to the computer that monitors shift rotations, no the high powered energy weaponry is aimed right on the other side of the wall. Structural integrity fields, shields, ablative armor, and other technobabble keep the the whole bridge from popping like a balloon when something bad happens.
It's like if your tv is plugged into a house with breakers and safely on a surge protector it's not going to keep your tv from getting fried if zeus decides to target that outlet specifically and strike it.
11Why not put the bridge somewhere internal, then? It's not like it needs windows.
8The enterprise c did have a battle bridge that they used mostly for saucer separations, but there were times when they used it saucer in place and there are some ships which have more protected configurations.
Disregarding the IRL reasons of that's just where it always goes, I believe the in universe reason is that starfleet at its core does not like to identify as a true military organization. It's why the enterprise C is built like a cruise ship and why despite being a swift science vessel voyager is also very spacious and sleek and elegant on the inside. They do make plenty of starships that are top in class and capable of holding their own against anything else out there, but starfleet is not in the business of making warships. They overtly mention this in DS9 when it is mentioned that the Defiant is officially an "escort vessel" even though it is a very no frills combat vessel.
Of course they can get away with this concession because generally the shields do most of the work when it comes to absorbing hits anyway. Once shields are down if another vessel wants to go for the kill it wont take long for it to tear through the hull. In theory the centralized location also means that the bridge can get additional protection by tilting the saucer away from the enemy(sorry lower decks).
7
that what*
10Resettable fuses and circuit breakers!
8
