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It's a rather glib response by the writers to just say "the mines can reproduce," while ignoring a lot of complicated physics that mucks things up. What powers the replicators? Where does the MASS of the replicated new mines come from? Presumably the mines are powered by antimatter, where does this come from?

Yet another classic Hair post (TM) that just occurred to me!

The only way I can see it, and I may be wrong, is they also have some sort of transporter suspender to store the extra mass needed for the replicated mines. Then, if one blows up, the neighbors replicate another one out of their transporter stores. Although in Star Trek physics, perhaps you can get something for nothing, like zero point energy. I could be way off, though.

well that has no canon explination, but here is an idea off the top of my head.

The energy and matter are gathered from the energy of the denarios belt, the energy resulting in 'charged plasma storm'. I'm not sure about the matter. In fact isn't there supposed to be rules the writers follow that prevent replicating highly complex items. I think self-replicating cloaked mines would be included in the 'too complex' catagory. Speaking of which, where did they get the cloaks from? The federation isn't even supposed to have cloaking technology. Normally I support the writers and canon, like during the MVAM arguements, but even I have to admit the minefield was too much.

OK, taking a step beyond the completely ludicrous physics of the things... how long can self-replication be perpetuated? The Dominion responds to the mines as if there were a virtually limitless source of new mines that would make breaking through the minefield "the hard way" implausible. If this is what the writers were thinking, they really have lost their minds!

If Rom/Dax were concerned that the Dominion could just break through the minefield, then a self replicating minefield would have to have very broad limits to be a deterrent, if it had limits. Otherwise, the Dominion could just throw across a bunch of automated robot ships to break through. All these ships would need is engines and a control system - there's no complicated engineering involved in strapping some rockets onto a box and sending it through the wormhole!

I'm sure I can come up with something if I had to.

But that stupidity kinda pissed me off. Shoulda just had the wormhole entities lay into the ships or something.

sunnyside wrote: Shoulda just had the wormhole entities lay into the ships or something.

Which they did in the end, anyway!

The explanation suggested by the DS9 TM is that each mine contains a matter reserve which, when the mine is detonated, is used to contribute part of the mass of its replacement. Matter is transported from across the entire network, so each new mine only reduces the total reserve capacity of the minefield by a fraction. Once the total reserve is reduced to 85%, the minefield starts using tiny Busard collectors to draw stray hydrogen from the surrounding space to top itself up.

sunnyside wrote:But that stupidity kinda pissed me off. Shoulda just had the wormhole entities lay into the ships or something.

The Prophets are not exactly renowned for intervening in the affairs of "linear life forms", even when asked to. Even in "Sacrifice of Angels", they only intervened when confronted with the prospect of Sisko's death, on top of his representations on behalf of Bajor.

That explanation still doesn't resolve the issue of antimatter/power supply.

It's one of those things that just doesn't make sense, and simply cannot be rationaly explained without there being major holes. Another case of the writers not having a clue what they're talking about.

Fusion reactor. Why use antimatter if you can use something more simple.

mlsnoopy wrote:Fusion reactor. Why use antimatter if you can use something more simple.

Energy density - antimatter releases more energy per unit mass than anything else, giving it a major advantage over other forms of power generation.

Captain Seafort wrote:

mlsnoopy wrote:Fusion reactor. Why use antimatter if you can use something more simple.

Energy density - antimatter releases more energy per unit mass than anything else, giving it a major advantage over other forms of power generation.

Do you need a lot of power. And when you consider the size, they were bigger than a PT but were a lot less powerfull.

The mines had to be at least comparable to PTs in yield in order to destroy ships coming out of the wormhole.

As far as mass goes, if you lose a mine, its mass is still there, just in pieces. And hopefully, you've got even MORE mass in the form of a destroyed ship.

Power is a lot trickier. I have no new ideas there.