FTL moment.

"I don't need oxygen, just enough power for the lasers... Oh."

I never understood the "divert power from life support" trope of Star Trek.

I mean, how much power could that possibly be?

We essentially already sustained prolonged life support by using a tiny batch of primitive batteries and fuels cells during multi-day trips to reach the moon in the sixties.

With efficient 23th century tech, life support should be almost self-sustaining using ambient waste heat or something.

Always has been one of the major suspension-of-disbelief efforts for me...

Air-conditioning is pretty power intensive and The Enterprise is a big ass ship. That's not even counting the other things life support does (like heat and CO2 scrubbing), just the air circulation.

But even on the show, there's been a couple times where they mention the power from life support is nearly negligible. 🤷‍♂️

That bridge is huge it would take hours or days for them to suffocate, also, how power hungry is that life support system that often is enough to make a difference? Do they use replicators instead of fans?

Air-conditioning is pretty power intensive

Even that should still be minuscle compared to getting rid of the waste heat from a huge antimatter reactor.
Feels like trying to get your Ferrari faster by switching of the cockpit instrument illumination. Not even worth giving the command.

Data just looking back, unaffected.

It's just written in to add weight to a tense moment.

Also a very CEO thing to say.

This guy treks

They use AI everywhere. That’s power hungry stuff (and people will deny it is).

How does transferring heat out of a ship work? On the one hand, it's really cold in space, but on the other, there's no substrate to absorb and transfer the heat.

I assume since they are on a ship for several years that life support also handles bio waste, CO2 scrubbing, and anything else to keep the ship habitable. It would probably still be negligible but maybe rearranging molecules takes a fuckload of power, idk.

It’s just written in to add weight to a tense moment.

I know the reason why they did it.

Still annoys me slightly. Actually even more than the techno-babble that is mentioned by most as a somewhat annoying thing written in.

But I don't watch Star Trek for its scientific accuracy, so it's ok.

As already said: It is still manageable by suspension of disbelief to enjoy the strong aspects of the show, which mostly are not the specifics of the science-based things being shown (in contrast to the underlying ideas - those are often great!)

Air-conditioning is pretty power intensive

And then, when life support fails everybody freezes for some reason.

Wouldn't gravity generation and inertial dampners be part of life support? Going max impulse after turning those off is likely to end up with a lot of raspberry jam coating the walls.

Yeah, but think how fast they'll be!

From a thermodynamical standpoint, the whole Enterprise is something of a mess.

But, hey, if you already have a "Heisenberg-Compensator", also having a "Boltzmann-Compensator" is probably not that implausible... ;-)

Thermal Radiation, you send it somewhere else. It’s how the sun heats our planet.

Inertial dampeners probably not; that just stops the ship when not giving any thust because there's nothing to slow the ship down in space once it has momentum. The fake gravity on board tho, may be part of it. Not sure how the gravity plating is supposed to work; but I would be willing to bet there is technical documentation about it somewhere. Unless they just, like... Constantly barrel roll to create "gravity" that way 🤔 (gravity in quotes as it would actually be centripital force).

Isn't thermal radiation kinda slow, though? It's basically air cooling, but without air or fans.

And you can always re-arrange the sensor arrays if you're ever really in a pinch, but it'll take some time.

I realize now I should have answered the question differently. The life support uses power by a reverse band of takiyons to a flow emitter. This then spread across the ship via a neutrino wave to a tungsten pulse generator.

That's why it uses so much power they have to divert it at times.

IIRC, they use the plasma manifold for the warp nacells to heat the ship like a radiator. I know they use that plasma for more than just the engines, but not 100% on how.

I would consider reversing the polarity first!

My own head-canon that I subconsciously develop while watching those parts of the show, is actually strikingly similar to what you just said! ;-)

Everyone knows you turn off your A/C in your car to get it to go faster!

I'm pretty well convinced that gravity plating has to be negligible power draw or possibly even passive technology, since they've boarded centuries-old derelict ships that still have artificial gravity. Maybe the gravity plating contains some exotic space-warping material that generates a gravity field. That could also explain the times when someone becomes intangible and can walk through walls, but don't fall through the floor.

But that could destabilize the tachyon field; is it worth risking a temporal anomaly?

Maybe if we invert the thingamajigger coils we could prevent that.

Inertial dampers are how the crew can survive high-g maneuvers, they'd be pinned to the back wall and have their skulls crushed by their own faces if they suddenly went to full impulse or warp without them active.

A bold maneuver but also wise

It is, yes. A large fraction (about a quarter?) of what looks like solar panels on the ISS are actually dedicated radiator panels. The solar panels are angled to face the sun, and the radiators are angled at 90 degrees from the sun, to face empty space.

How did Picard get all the way over there?

If you have a shitbox, it can.

So, anything before 2010? Got it.

There is an episode where Voyager is looking for a fuel source because they are dangerously low.

They cram all the staff into two decks and pull all life support from the other thirteen. It only gets them an hour of propulsion at one-quarter impulse thrust.

I wouldn't know. I've never owned or drove regularly anything that was made after 99.

This is realistic in that they divert power from anything before gravity generation.

Inefficient is maybe the right word? If you have more stuff to absorb the radiation I believe you can transfer it faster. So maybe tethering and tossing asteroids or something could be viable?

"Why can't we route power from gravitational engines?"

"The show's budget cannae afford such excess, Cap'n"

"What's that, Scotty?"

"The- uh- the dilithium core only works properly in a gravity field, Cap'n. We'd lose more power than we'd save."

"Ah yes, that makes sense"

My old 2008 Ford Focus was like that. Really weird. Guess it was just harder on the system. Ah well. It's in a better place now

Related: I passed out after sex once. lol

It's not weird at all, it's actually normal. You're running a compressor alongside your transmission when you turn on A/C. Modern systems are more efficient but there's no such thing as free energy, it will still have an effect, especially on fuel efficiency.

It's in a better place now

The Netherlands?

He did his bridge shake hula with EXTRA pizzazz!

Moreover, what exactly is the life support system doing that means near-instant death if you turn it off? Breathable air and heat should last for hours at least.

Bragger!

On the plus side all of the fires went out.

They could, because grav plating holds a residual charge so they'll be able to maintain gravity for a period of time before people start floating

The artificial gravity is a byproduct of the inertial dampeners. You don't mess with the inertial dampeners unless you want the crew the slam into a bulkhead at .999C.

Ahahah! I wish. I had to sell it for scrap. The bottom was all rusted, and the frame was slightly bent. It kept leaking moisture inside.

The stereo sounded amazing though, for a stock one.