Self Replicating mines!?!

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:28 pm

While we should be able to clone organs within a few decades at the outside, that doesn't mean Trek can.

In some ways they're a lot more primitive than we are - look at the 3.5" floppy disks TOS used for data storage for example.

Captain Picard's Hair · Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:36 pm

Heh, they don't seem to store much information, either, judging by how many of them are used. Right now we've got IPods with a capacity well into the gigabytes.

Post by **Graham Kennedy** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:19 pm

I've only glanced through the thread, but here's the best I can come up with for how the minefield works.

Each mine has a cloak, a sensor, some sort of thrusters, a bussard collector, a replicator, a tractor beam, and a little fusion powerplant to power it all.

Ship comes in, the mines swarm around it and overload their fusion reactor to make a bomb of it. Ship destroyed.

Nearby mines, sensing this (the mines must be networked so they can coordinate the swarm thing anyway), use their tractor beam to bring wreckage of the ship in. They use their replicators to turn that debris into a new mine and set it on its way. Pretty soon most or all of the ship is converted into new mines and the field is stronger than before.

All the while the mines are sucking up hydrogen via the bussard collector to power themselves and the replicators.

How can we defeat the field? Well you could just try and blast through it... assemble a fleet and blast away. Sooner or later that would work, because there's no debris for the mines to replicate replacements. You can imagine each mine having a stockpile of matter, maybe enough to make two or three new mines (those new ones not having that initial stockpile). That would make it hard, but sooner or later you would win, unless the mines could find some new matter source to use.

But space is big and the mines are small. Blasting away at random isn't likely to score hits. And how will you ever know when it's safe? Send a ship in now and again... if it dies you know you've not won yet, but you also know you're back to square one because you just gave them material for many new mines. If it lives... well maybe THAT ship didn't get close to a mine you missed, but what about the next one, and the next one... mines today can be set to wait for several targets to go by before exploding, just because it makes it that much more exciting for the enemy to wonder if that's about to happen.

And all the time, even a couple of dozen mines missed means you are back to square one again.

Personally I find it unlikely that you could fit that kind of tech into a thing as small as those mines. But it's at least conceivable in my mind.

kostmayer · Post by **kostmayer** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 1:09 am

I'd have thought the easiest way to defeat the minefield would be to interfere with whatever way the mines were communicating with each other.

I'm assuming that when they disabled the replicators on the mines, they also disabled the cloaking device - the mines were visible when they fired on one and detonated the field.

When they did detonate the field, they fired on one mine, and the rest detonated pretty quickly. I'm not sure how quickly the mines can replicate, but I can't see how they could replicate themselves quicker then the minefield detonated.

Post by **Graham Kennedy** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 6:45 pm

kostmayer wrote:I'd have thought the easiest way to defeat the minefield would be to interfere with whatever way the mines were communicating with each other.

That would certainly drop their effectiveness to nuisance level. But if we are talking some sort of active jamming system, how sure can Dukat be that it is going to be 100% effective indefinitely? Not very I would guess.

mlsnoopy · Post by **mlsnoopy** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:20 pm

THe best way to dismantel the minefield was just the way that they did it on screen deactivate the whole field and than blow it up.

Post by **Graham Kennedy** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:53 pm

It's always great when the writer gives you a solution that just involves [TECHING] the [TECH] so that all the mines just [TECH] and explode.

Post by **Mikey** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:49 pm

You HAVE seen Star Trek before, yes?

Post by **Graham Kennedy** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:15 pm

Mikey wrote:You HAVE seen Star Trek before, yes?

Not sure... is that the one with Luke Skywalker?

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:18 pm

GrahamKennedy wrote:Not sure... is that the one with Luke Skywalker?

No, no, no, it's the one with Jack O'Neill, isn't it?

Reliant121 · Post by **Reliant121** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:20 pm

What in hell are you two on about?

Post by **Graham Kennedy** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:42 pm

Captain Seafort wrote:
GrahamKennedy wrote:Not sure... is that the one with Luke Skywalker?
No, no, no, it's the one with Jack O'Neill, isn't it?

No, that's Buck Rogers you are thinking of. Star Trek is the one where Luke Skywalker is lost in space on the Jupiter 8.

Blackstar the Chakat · Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:47 pm

GrahamKennedy wrote:
Captain Seafort wrote:
GrahamKennedy wrote:Not sure... is that the one with Luke Skywalker?
No, no, no, it's the one with Jack O'Neill, isn't it?
No, that's Buck Rogers you are thinking of. Star Trek is the one where Luke Skywalker is lost in space on the Jupiter 8.

No no you're both wrong. It's the one with Lone Star on the Eagle 5.

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:48 pm

GrahamKennedy wrote:No, that's Buck Rogers you are thinking of.

You sure?

Isn't Buck Rogers the pupet one with the robot, Dr. Venus, and the catchy theme tune?

Post by **Graham Kennedy** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:56 pm

Captain Seafort wrote:
GrahamKennedy wrote:No, that's Buck Rogers you are thinking of.
You sure? Isn't Buck Rogers the pupet one with the robot, Dr. Venus, and the catchy theme tune?

No, that's Space 1999 you are thinking of, with the blue police box that travels in time.