creating a ship impervious to energy weapons Options

[GoVols]

I just finnisehd watching an eipsode of Star Trek TNG where the Enterprise was chasing a ship. The ship flew into an asteroid that was hollow and the inside of the asteroid was lined with mirrors. They found the ship by firing their phasers until it hit a solid object, the ship they were looking for. This got me thinking.....which can be dangerous at times....... Why dont Earth build ships whit hulls made from mirrors?

A mirror can be made from almost any metal if you polish it enough, obviously glass would be too fragile for construction of a hull of a space ship. I have never heard mentiond in any science fiction where a ship uses reflective materials to deflect all if not most of the energy in a beam form of an energy weapon. Do we have the technology to build such a ship and would that actually work?

[Janos]

Glass Melts. Everything that can be made into a mirror melts.

[Dafmeister]

I have never heard mentiond in any science fiction where a ship uses reflective materials to deflect all if not most of the energy in a beam form of an energy weapon.

It was used in Bablyon 5 on the Whitestars and in Babylon 5: Crusade on the Excalibur.

It s unlikely anything could be built as it is unlikely there are any materials which can dissipate the heat released by energy weapons or the phyical impact made by projectile weapons.

[CluckChicken]

It was used in Bablyon 5 on the Whitestars and in Babylon 5: Crusade on the Excalibur.

The White Stars like the Vorlon ships used organic armor (see Backplot point 4).

[Andorian15]

I saw that episode of voyager (if thats what your talking about) and I don't think they were actually mirrors. But if you asked a scientist to shoot a laser at a mirror it would probably reflect it for a short time (and I mean a fraction of a second) but it would quickly shatter due to the heat.

[Protoziggy90]

I saw that episode of voyager (if thats what your talking about) and I don't think they were actually mirrors. But if you asked a scientist to shoot a laser at a mirror it would probably reflect it for a short time (and I mean a fraction of a second) but it would quickly shatter due to the heat.

I'm pretty sure he meant TNG because I've seen the episode hes talking about...

By the way, a BIG hint there would have been the fact that he said it was TNG and that it was the ENTERPRISE and not Voyager that was being chased...

[Andorian15]

Well what episode was it then i thought i saw all of the tng episodes.

[CluckChicken]

I saw that episode of voyager (if thats what your talking about) and I don't think they were actually mirrors. But if you asked a scientist to shoot a laser at a mirror it would probably reflect it for a short time (and I mean a fraction of a second) but it would quickly shatter due to the heat.

It would all depend on the power of the laser and the quality of the reflective surface.

I'm pretty sure he meant TNG because I've seen the episode hes talking about...

By the way, a BIG hint there would have been the fact that he said it was TNG and that it was the ENTERPRISE and not Voyager that was being chased...

I think Vols is confused. The episode he is discribing is one of the first episodes of Voyager. This is the episode: http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/seri...sode/68828.html

[GoVols]

It would all depend on the power of the laser and the quality of the reflective surface.

I think Vols is confused. The episode he is discribing is one of the first episodes of Voyager. This is the episode: http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/seri...sode/68828.html

Yep you got it, i must have been thinking about the episode of TNG where they use a cloaking device inside of an asteroid, just got the two confused.

By the way, it wouldnt be a mirror like you have in your bathroom, it would be something JPL would have to work on for like 5 years or something, high tech mirror....

[Rogue Ashrak]

I was under the impression that all a mirror could really reflect was light itself. All the energy that went with the blast wouldn't reflect off a mirrored surface anymore than a non-mirrored surface made from similar material.

If you really want to go and rip-off unpenetrable armour from other sci-fi series, you may as well go the whole way and use the Sun Crusher's quantum armour (from Star Wars). In literary terms, quantum armour was a completely over the top plot device which made the Sun Crusher absolutely invincible. The armour was so dense, nothing could scratch it, not energy or particle weapons. Even tossing the ship down the gullet of the gas giant Yavin couldn't destroy it. The only way they did end up finally getting rid of it was by sending it into a black hole.

But even if the theory behind quantum armour was sound (and I'm not sure that it is), there is no way that TPTB would ever include it or something like it in SG, simply because of the much cliched "it would give Earth too much of an advantage" spiel.

[OdinisThor'sDad]

I was under the impression that all a mirror could really reflect was light itself. All the energy that went with the blast wouldn't reflect off a mirrored surface anymore than a non-mirrored surface made from similar material.

If you really want to go and rip-off unpenetrable armour from other sci-fi series, you may as well go the whole way and use the Sun Crusher's quantum armour (from Star Wars). In literary terms, quantum armour was a completely over the top plot device which made the Sun Crusher absolutely invincible. The armour was so dense, nothing could scratch it, not energy or particle weapons. Even tossing the ship down the gullet of the gas giant Yavin couldn't destroy it. The only way they did end up finally getting rid of it was by sending it into a black hole.

But even if the theory behind quantum armour was sound (and I'm not sure that it is), there is no way that TPTB would ever include it or something like it in SG, simply because of the much cliched "it would give Earth too much of an advantage" spiel.

The problem being...technology in Stargate doesn't work around black holes.
Technology in Star wars is all bullsh*t anyways. How do you realisticaly mine a blackhole?

[Rogue Ashrak]

I'm not disputing that the SW writers pulled the the quantum armour idea out of their asses, but what does it have to do with mining black holes or technology not working? All they did was send the ship on auto-pilot towards a black hole, once it passed the point of no return, bye bye ship.
The same principle would work in any sci-fi universe, blackhole + being too close =dead.
Unless it's a replicator ship (in which case you can miraculously escape), or your name is Vala (in which case you just end up in a different galaxy).

This post has been edited by Rogue Ashrak: May 14th 2006, 11:09 PM

[GoVols]

I'm not disputing that the SW writers pulled the the quantum armour idea out of their asses, but what does it have to do with mining black holes or technology not working? All they did was send the ship on auto-pilot towards a black hole, once it passed the point of no return, bye bye ship.
The same principle would work in any sci-fi universe, blackhole + being too close =dead.
Unless it's a replicator ship (in which case you can miraculously escape), or your name is Vala (in which case you just end up in a different galaxy).

If your name is vala, you end up knocked up in another galaxy....


Back to the mirror reflecting the energy in the weapon.... I have no idea if it could, in reality we have never created a beam weapon powerfull enough to test this. But i believe that it would reflect a good portion of the energy in the blast, which would give the ship a longer life in a fire fight, maybe long enough to take the shields off line and recharge them or something. It could be a tremindious edge in a space fight.

And sence we are the only ones who dont use energy weapons, depending only on their kenetic energy, it would be practical armor for us to use.

[KillerMarv]

Instead of thinking at mirrors which as much as you want will never-ever reflect energy, because it's physically impossible, I say we should be thinking at the armor that Anubis warrior carried, which was capable of resisting atacks from energy weapons, the material should be exploited, and the technology should be explored... Maybe there is a way to build a hull impervious to energy weapons from that...

Although I don't really agree with any idea said in this topic so far, not even this one...

The quantum armor had some good physical explanation, that would not reflect the energy (because as I said it's impossible), but rather capture it at particle level (that is why it was probably called 'quantum').

[GoVols]

Well we have the material from the super soldiers, but can we duplicate it is the only thing. Its not that simple to just duplicate things that are far ahead of you. But sometimes in the sci fi world it is.


And if you think it is as simple as doing a chemical annaylasis on the materal and replicating it, its not. It can be done though, with the help of the Asgard perhaps, doubtfull with out it.

[KillerMarv]

I didn't say it was easy to do that, it definitely would be very hard, because this material would have to expand to a whole ship, I mean millions as times bigger... But if it is possible (only with Asgard help as you said), it can be done... although I doubt they'll ever think at this one... let's say that building a ship from such a rare and hard to use material could be very expensive at least.

[GoVols]

well the fact that we built a weapon to defeat the armor based on Ancient tech really makes me think the resources would be better spent somewhere else. As the Ori are indeed ancients. It probibly wouldnt matter. It would take years of r&d and only give us an edge (if you can call it that, we still cant destroy Ori ships) for only a short time.

[Rogue Ashrak]

We were never able to defeat the armour itself, we were only ever able to build a disruptor used to negate the rejuvenation energies keeping the warrior inside it alive. That's why when Daniel shot the then disguised Vala with the weapon in Prometheus Unbound, it didn't have any effect.

If they could mass produce the stuff, I see no reason why it would not work, as armour for capital ships. But then the weapons and other equipment on the surface of the ship, that for practical reasons could not be made out of the armour material, would become vulnerable by themselves, potentially creating a weak spot.

This post has been edited by Rogue Ashrak: May 15th 2006, 7:28 PM

[GoVols]

We were never able to defeat the armour itself, we were only ever able to build a disruptor used to negate the rejuvenation energies keeping the warrior inside it alive. That's why when Daniel shot the then disguised Vala with the weapon in Prometheus Unbound, it didn't have any effect.

If they could mass produce the stuff, I see no reason why it would not work, as armour for capital ships. But then the weapons and other equipment on the surface of the ship, that for practical reasons could not be made out of the armour material, would become vulnerable by themselves, potentially creating a weak spot.

Ahhh yes as weak as the rest of the ship is currently....

[OdinisThor'sDad]

I'm not disputing that the SW writers pulled the the quantum armour idea out of their asses, but what does it have to do with mining black holes or technology not working?

What does it have to do with black holes? Er everything. Where do you think they got the quantium armor from? They mined a black hole for super dence particles to create the armor with.

[Rogue Ashrak]

They did? I don't remember reading that. Oh well if you say so, then yeah looks like they pulled the Quantum Armour out of a deeper part of their ass than I thought.

[Thors Puppeteer]

They did? I don't remember reading that. Oh well if you say so, then yeah looks like they pulled the Quantum Armour out of a deeper part of their ass than I thought.

Wouldn't that be a brown hole though?

[GoVols]

Wouldn't that be a brown hole though?

That has to be the single most funny thing i have ever read on this web site ever. lol that was great.....


However if you armord a ship with the material from a black hole, wouldnt the ship its self have a huge gravitational pull? If you flew into a solar system wouldnt it just screw up the entier thing?

[KillerMarv]

That would most likely happen, the dense particles that compose a black hole, also compose neutron stars, which have a gravity about thousands of time bigger than normal stars... A single particle extracted from a black hole, isolated from the other paticles, would still cause enough field effect to capture more particles around it, and destroy any bonds disconnecting it from the other particles in the vecinity, thus creating a great gravitational pull for both the inner ship and the outer ship... Enough of this, and the ship would look like a mini-neutron star...