Talk:Inertial damper
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This article states that "If a starship were to jump to warp speed without using inertial dampers, the members of the crew would almost certainly die as the rapid acceleration would throw them back in to the consoles and rear walls killing them instantly. Conversely, they would also be killed if a ship were to come out of warp but in this instance the crew would be thrown forward." However, in the definition of warp drive, its says that it works by creating a "warp bubble" (contraction of spacetime in front of the vessel and expansion behind it), and the vessel sits in a relative fixed point in space without any acceleration whatsoever, while the spacetime bubble is what's actually moving. If you consider the theory for warp drive to be correct, then the crew would feel no acceleration effects at all with when engaging or disengaging warp drive even with intertial dampers turned off. Am I the only one who sees a conflict here?
- Although the inertial effects of being at full warp may be negligible, being inside the warp field's bubble, the inertial dampers are still necessary for sudden thrusts, which may occur as the starship enters warp.--Mike Nobody 02:51, 29 Oct 2005 (UTC)
- Even at impulse, the crew of a starship could end up as chunky-style salsa.--Mike Nobody 02:54, 29 Oct 2005 (UTC)
- So does the article for warp drive need to be altered as such, to reflect that fact, if not to preserve continuity within Star Trek? I realize impulse, and for that matter, modern rocketry (I will refer to all engine types henceforth as "conventional" meaning movement through spacetime utlizing Newton's law of action and reaction eg. rockets or impulse, and exotic, meaning warp or temporal drive, etc.) accelerates a spacecraft through spacetime itself. BUT, warp theory and other exotic means of propulsion in the star trek universe is sometimes vague and contradictory. Modern real life theories on the subject, such as the Alcubierre Drive (exotic), state that a vessel undergoes no acceleration when engaging this type of engine, owing to the fact again that the vessel is not actually moving at all, but rather spacetime around it is.
- The dialogue from "The Ship" has O'Brien speculating that the inertial dampeners failed and that all on board were killed when the ship accelerated. He doesn't say anything about going to warp. So the contradiction is avoided, at least for now. I wouldn't be surprised to see it come up again in another reference though. I'll change the article. --9er 04:32, 29 Oct 2005 (UTC)
- I dont believe that inertial dampening would be required for warp, only for impulse and other sub-light speeds (but still very high velocities, also direction changes, etc) - a kind of inertial dampening would also be required for weapons, shuttles, and everything else which might put any kind of force on the ship. By this, I'm talking about like a shock absorber for torpedo launches, etc. Although their effectiveness in a vacuum could would be debatable (however easily testable). Without those, a torpedo launch could potentially send the ship flying in the opposite direction. This could be countered with a small thrust on the opposite side of the ship. Given all of this, inertial dampers would have to be a kind of blanket term for a large system of various methods and techniques for countering various forces which would affect the ship's velocity. --ShadowBlade989
- So does the article for warp drive need to be altered as such, to reflect that fact, if not to preserve continuity within Star Trek? I realize impulse, and for that matter, modern rocketry (I will refer to all engine types henceforth as "conventional" meaning movement through spacetime utlizing Newton's law of action and reaction eg. rockets or impulse, and exotic, meaning warp or temporal drive, etc.) accelerates a spacecraft through spacetime itself. BUT, warp theory and other exotic means of propulsion in the star trek universe is sometimes vague and contradictory. Modern real life theories on the subject, such as the Alcubierre Drive (exotic), state that a vessel undergoes no acceleration when engaging this type of engine, owing to the fact again that the vessel is not actually moving at all, but rather spacetime around it is.
- Even at impulse, the crew of a starship could end up as chunky-style salsa.--Mike Nobody 02:54, 29 Oct 2005 (UTC)
- The article is fine as-is. No further speculation is necessary, unless someone has a reference explaining how inertia could be suspended without some warp in space-time. Although real life facts and theories are good to measure against the accuracy of Star Trek canon. It's not a substitute at M/A. Leave real-life in real-life, for the most part.--Mike Nobody 04:34, 29 Oct 2005(UTC)/
[edit] Going to warp without the IDF
What canon says:
- Kim: Could we go to low warp under these conditions?
- Paris: The ship might make it without inertial dampers, but we'd all just be stains on the back wall. (from "Tattoo")
[edit] Confusion
I'm a little confused as to the exact necessity of inertial dampers. Are they required when a ship is travelling at constant high speed or only when it accelerates/deccelerates? – 81.154.232.137 17:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
- Both, I would imagine. They prevent the people aboard a starship from becoming bloodied paste on the back of the wall when the ship is in warp. This includes acceleration and deceleration. They also prevent impacts from shaking the ship too violently. For example, in "Timeless", the entire crew of Voyager was killed when the ship crash-landed because the inertial dampers were off-line. --From Andoria with Love 01:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Nova: My thinking so far - very thrown-together, so please feel free to pick it apart:
replicator/transporter tech gives you the ability to manage, not just the matter > energy > matter sequence, but also the ability to cause a body or object in transition to hold its form: we don't see people being transported from the top down on the way out, or bottom up on the way back to matter, like pyramids being built - so we can assume that the transporter can hold atoms/subatomic particles in their correct spatial positions during transportation/replication.
They're not like your gran making socks from a knitting pattern, a stage at a time and sequential - they know where things should go, and they hold particles in transition until the entire body is transported safely. And this is only an incidental function of what they actually do.
It's therefore not above belief that each ship can create a kind of lock/hold effect for all particles - crew, shipboard equipment, engines etc - ie an energetic sling/cradle, that holds each particle in place, compared to the reference point it's located at - during manoeuvres, even sub-warp, and this could be placed in the centre of the ship to protect the outer hull, thus explaining the ST series' reliance on saucer-shaped hulls for the main ship?
Or, this could correlate to the "gravity plating" we're told ST ships have? Nova7 19:52, 28 September 2008 (UTC)Nova
