| Photon Torpedoes Star Fleet developed the basic photon torpedo design in 2271. Variable amounts of matter and antimatter are broken into many thousand minute packets, effectively increasing the annihilation surface are by three orders of magnitude, from the original design, developed in 2215. The two components are both held in suspension by powerful magnetic field sustainers in the casing at the time of torpedo warhead loading. They are held in two separate regions of the casing, however, until just after torpedo launch, as a safety measure. The suspended component packets are mixed, though they still do not come into direct contact with one another because of the fields surrounding each packet. At a signal from the onboard detonation circuitry, the fields collapse and drive the materials together, resulting in the characteristic release of energy. While the maximum payload in a standard photon torpedo is only about 1.5 kilograms, the released energy per unit time is actually greater than calculated for a Galaxy class antimatter pod rupture. The multimode sustainer engine is not a true warp engine due to it's small physical size. Rather, it is a miniature M/A fuel cell, which powers the sustainer coils to grab and hold a hand-off field from the launcher tube, to continue at warp if launched during warp flight by the starship. The cell, a cylinder 20 cm in diameter and 50 cm in length, is limited to a narrow warp field frequency range and cannot add more than a slight amount of power to the original hand-off field. The maximum crusing velocity will follow the formula Vmax=VI+0.75VI/c, where VI is the launch velocity. Other flight modes are triggered according to initial launch conditions. If launched during low-impulse flight, the coils will drive the torpedo up to a 75% higher sublight velocity. If launched at high sublight, the sustainer will not cross the threshold into warp, but will continue to drive the torpedo at high relativistic velocities. If required, the maximum effective range can be extended, but with a loss of detonation yield, as the sustainer engine draws reactants from the M/A tanks. The basic external configuration of the photon torpedo carried onboard Deep Space 9 and its attached starships have changed little from 2271 to 2375. The body is an elongated elliptical tube fabricated from gamma-expanded duranium and a plasma-bonded tritanium outer skin. The current casing measures 2.1 by 0.76 by 0.45 meters and masses 186.7 kilograms dry weight, slightly less than the previous design. Penetrations by phaser cutter are still provided for warhead reactant loading; hard-line ODN connections, and propulsion-system exhaust grills. The standard internal components include deuterium and antideuterium supply tanks, central combiner tank, and their respective magnetic suspension components; target acquisition, guidance, and detonation assemblies; and warp sustainer engine. The hafnium-titanide supply and combiner tank shells have an increased capacity of 5 percent, resulting in a slightly higher explosive yield, now rated at 18.5 isotons. Reduced optronics component complexity had driven the tankage increase. The warp sustainer engine benefits somewhat from the increased tankage in the form of increased range, to an upper limit of 4,050,000 kilometers, depending on maneuvering capability balanced against sustained power flight time. This is only applicable to firings from starships at warp. In launches from Deep Space 9, the initial velocity remains at high sublight, and will never reach warp 1. Quantum Torpedoes The quantum torpedo is the first Starfleet follow-on weapon to replace the standard photon torpedo first developed in 2268. During upgrade testing of the Mark-IX warhead, it was determined that the theoretical maximum explosive yield of 25 isotons had finally been reached for a matter-antimatter reaction. Existing and future threat force conflicts drove the development of new defensive standoff weapon that could be deployed on specially equipped starships, starbases, and planetary-surface fortifications. Advances in rapid energy extraction from the space-time domain known as the zero-point vacuum eventually led the Starfleet R&D facility on Groombridge 273-2A to test a prototype continuum-twist device with a calculated potential of 52.3 isotons. As in the history of laser-induced fusion, zero-point energy generation began with a negative energy balance, requiring a greater input of high-temperature EPS plasma to initiate the reaction than what was actually produced by the zero-point field device. The basic mechanism, first operated experimentally in 2236, involved the formation of an eleven-dimensional space-time membrane. A cousin of the super string, the membrane was twisted into a string with a topology of Genus 1 and pinched off from the background vacuum, calling into existence a new particle. The process of creating large numbers of new subatomic particles liberated correspondingly large amounts of energy. Calculations quickly showed that a relatively small volume of ultra clean vacuum carried aboard a torpedo warhead could place a highly explosive energy release on a target. A similar, albeit larger, event created most of the mass of the universe in the big bang. The pinch does not, as some researcher initially believed, occur at the same interface between this universe and the big bang's remnant domain, though such a continuum pinch may lead to even greater energy releases. The quantum torpedo consists of a pressure-molded shell of densified tritanium and duranium foam, trapezoidal in cross section and tapered at the forward end for atmospheric applications. A 7-millimeter layer of plasma-bonded terminium ceramic forms and ablative armor skin for the foam hull, over which is bonded a 0.12-millimeter coating of silicon-copper-yttrium rigid polymer as an antiradiation coating. Beyond the necessary cuts and welds for propulsion and warhead hardware installation, minimal penetrations are made by phaser cutters, so that the hull may be rendered as near to EM-silent as is technologically possible. All seals around extended components are treated with a suspension of force-matrix ferrenimide, which establishes a minute amount of duonetic field activity, effectively blocking EM leakage. All active and passive sensor pulses are channeled through machined cavitiesin the inner hull at approximately twenty-six-centimeter intervals in all three axes. The heart of the current system is the zero-point field reaction chamber, a teardrop-shaped enclosure fabricated from a single crystal of directionally strengthened rodinium-ditellenite. The chamber measures 0.76 meters in diameter by 1.38 meters in length and 2.3 centimeters in average thickness. The assembly is penetrated by a single opening in the tapered end, cut by a nanometer phaser in an inert atmosphere of argon and neon. Two jacketing layers, one of synthetic neutronium and another of dilithium, control the upper and lower extremes of the energy-field contours. Attached tot he taper is a zero-point initiator consisting of an EM rectifier, waveguide bundle, subspace field amplifierm and continuum distortion emitter. The emitter creates the actual pinch field from a conical spike 10-16 meters across at the tip. The zero-point initiator is powered by the detonation of an up rated photon torpedo warhead with a yield of 21.9 isotons, achieved through increased matter/antimatter surface area contact and introduction of fluoronetic vapor. The M/A reaction occurs at four times the rate of a standard warhead. The detonation energy is channeled through the initiator within 10-7 seconds and energizes the emitter, which imparts a tension force upon the vacuum domain. As the vacuum membrane expands, over a period of 10-4 seconds, and energy potential equivalent to at least fifty isotons is created. The energy is held by the chamber for 10-8 seconds and is then released by controlled failure of the chamber wall. |
| Torpedoes |