Timeless - Facing Structural Collapse if they don't Land?

[eepruls]

I thought I would post this question as I've wondered about it for a while! In 'Timeless', when Voyager exits the slipstream prematurely, Tuvok states that if they don't land the ship, they're risking structural collapse.

Wouldn't the stress of entering a planet's atmosphere and landing on it further the structural collapse and be worse? I always figure that staying in space where there's no atmosphere and gravity would be better. Tuvok basically says if they stay floating in space they'll have a structural collapse but what about the actual process of landing? Wouldn't that be worse?

 

[Guy Gardener]

PARIS: Captain, we're just a few parsecs from the Alpha quadrant.
JANEWAY: Not exactly how I wanted to cross the finish line.
TUVOK: Hull breach on decks five through ten. We're losing life support. If we don't land the ship we're risking structural collapse.
PARIS: I'm reading a planet nine million kilometres ahead. It's class L.
JANEWAY: Do it. We're coming in too fast! Reverse thrusters. All hands, brace for impact!

There's doohicky they've been using and talking about for years in Star Trek called a "Structural Integrity Field" which I can only imagine are a shit load of lode bearing forcefields which keeps the impossible shape of a starship together in flight.

Physical Damage like Tuvok was talking about was probably rather more endemic of the power loss or/and broken stuff which was keeping the structural integrity field from doing it's job as much as the changing shape of the structure from damage was confusing the Structural Integrity Field.

 

[Akiraprise]

I always thought the same thing. Only thing I can figure is the ship was tearing apart and the hull breaches and what not would have killed the crew if they didn't land on a breathable planet.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdG_kxttT0M[/yt]

 

[Crewman47]

How did Voyager even survive that crash intact? The way it came crashing onto the ground there seemed like the Saucer should've dislodged from the neck and the lower engineering sections should've crumbled on impact.

I know how the structural integrity system works(limited understanding of course), and it's been a while since I seen this episode but was the system failing completly?

 

[Guy Gardener]

The snow was lightly packed powder?

You gotta assume that the unreal nonNewtonian physics they use for impulse speeds probably means that "air breaks" (Have you see (the trailer from the 80s even) for Ernest Saves Christmas?) can actually cause voyager to stop on a dime (once it's in sync with the rotation of the planet which can take a few seconds, note how real astronauts have to wait hours or days for "windows" to pop up before they can return to earth at the right speed and inclement.) and if it felt like it, hover like a helicopter (thinking of 1960's warner brothers animation here.), so Voyager might have only been inches off the ground when everything finally stopped working and he ship made its rather heddy landfall.

 

[TheGodBen]

While Voyager is in a vacuum there is a great pressure build-up on the interior of the hull forcing out into space, but in its normal state this isn't a problem because the ship was designed to handle this pressure. Once the hull is weakened this pressure has the possibility of blowing out the hull and the best way of resolving this is to normalise the interior and exterior atmospheres in order to minimise the pressure on the hull. In other words, they needed to get out of a vacuum fast and into a planetary atmosphere of similar density to the ship's atmosphere.

Entering the atmosphere in a modern day spacecraft would cause damage due to high-speed friction with the atmosphere, but there is a possibility in the Star Trek universe that the deflector dish or the shields was able to push the atmosphere out of the way so that there was no direct friction on the hull, and it was noteworthy while viewing that video that the ship's hull didn't glow with the heat. (When the E-D's saucer crashed into Veridian III its hull glowed orange, but they were missing their deflector dish and their shields had been compromised.)

So there you have it, this is the one situation where Voyager's science actually makes some sense.

 

[eepruls]

While Voyager is in a vacuum there is a great pressure build-up on the interior of the hull forcing out into space, but in its normal state this isn't a problem because the ship was designed to handle this pressure. Once the hull is weakened this pressure has the possibility of blowing out the hull and the best way of resolving this is to normalise the interior and exterior atmospheres in order to minimise the pressure on the hull. In other words, they needed to get out of a vacuum fast and into a planetary atmosphere of similar density to the ship's atmosphere.

Entering the atmosphere in a modern day spacecraft would cause damage due to high-speed friction with the atmosphere, but there is a possibility in the Star Trek universe that the deflector dish or the shields was able to push the atmosphere out of the way so that there was no direct friction on the hull, and it was noteworthy while viewing that video that the ship's hull didn't glow with the heat. (When the E-D's saucer crashed into Veridian III its hull glowed orange, but they were missing their deflector dish and their shields had been compromised.)

So there you have it, this is the one situation where Voyager's science actually makes some sense.

Wow. Now that's an explanation! So why wasn't the deflector damaged the way the Structural Integrity Field was?

I always wished the ship would have broken apart to really show that they died on impact (as mentioned in the episode). I never really understood why they hit the ice hard but then just slid along like they were on a runway. All we see is the port nacelle coming apart (not even breaking away from the ship). When an aircraft comes in hard but is able to slide to a stop on the runway, nobody dies from the impact, but rather from the breakup or fire afterwards.

When Chakotay finds them all dead years later, they're all sitting in their seats or on the floor, frozen. We didn't really see any injuries. So how exactly did they die on impact when there was no breakup, no fire, no loss of oxygen, etc.?

 

[exodus]

While Voyager is in a vacuum there is a great pressure build-up on the interior of the hull forcing out into space, but in its normal state this isn't a problem because the ship was designed to handle this pressure. Once the hull is weakened this pressure has the possibility of blowing out the hull and the best way of resolving this is to normalise the interior and exterior atmospheres in order to minimise the pressure on the hull. In other words, they needed to get out of a vacuum fast and into a planetary atmosphere of similar density to the ship's atmosphere.

Entering the atmosphere in a modern day spacecraft would cause damage due to high-speed friction with the atmosphere, but there is a possibility in the Star Trek universe that the deflector dish or the shields was able to push the atmosphere out of the way so that there was no direct friction on the hull, and it was noteworthy while viewing that video that the ship's hull didn't glow with the heat. (When the E-D's saucer crashed into Veridian III its hull glowed orange, but they were missing their deflector dish and their shields had been compromised.)

So there you have it, this is the one situation where Voyager's science actually makes some sense.

Wow. Now that's an explanation! So why wasn't the deflector damaged the way the Structural Integrity Field was?

I always wished the ship would have broken apart to really show that they died on impact (as mentioned in the episode). I never really understood why they hit the ice hard but then just slid along like they were on a runway. All we see is the port nacelle coming apart (not even breaking away from the ship). When an aircraft comes in hard but is able to slide to a stop on the runway, nobody dies from the impact, but rather from the breakup or fire afterwards.

When Chakotay finds them all dead years later, they're all sitting in their seats or on the floor, frozen. We didn't really see any injuries. So how exactly did they die on impact when there was no breakup, no fire, no loss of oxygen, etc.?

I figured they all hit the ceiling before hitting the floor again. During space battles, Janeway is always falling out of her seat depending on how hard the ship gets hit. So on with the force Voyager hit the ice, they be bounced upward before breaking their necks hitting the floor.

I also think by showing Voyager hit the snow and still stay intact, relates back to how structurally sound an Intripid class ship is and why it holds up to a Borg vessel.

I also assume the deflector dish wasn't damaged because unlike the ENT., Voyager is designed to land and was in the process upon their crash.

 

[KiraDax]

Cerebral hypoxia of sorts? Hard to believe that everyone could have sustained knock around injuries of such force that they immediately died or lost consciousness and eventually succumbed to hypothermia. Plus, they should have been more sprawled and bloody. Looked more like they just passed out in the middle of thinking 'Oh crap!' Though I don't know how that would gel with the bulkheads holding so well.

 

[eepruls]

Cerebral hypoxia of sorts? Hard to believe that everyone could have sustained knock around injuries of such force that they immediately died or lost consciousness and eventually succumbed to hypothermia. Plus, they should have been more sprawled and bloody. Looked more like they just passed out in the middle of thinking 'Oh crap!' Though I don't know how that would gel with the bulkheads holding so well.

That was my problem too. I can understand some people breaking their necks or whatever from the initial impact. But everyone? Everyone died of that at the same time everywhere in the ship? Nobody survived to send a distress call? It was so forceful to kill everybody immediately but not forceful enough to knock any chairs over? There weren't even any serious injuries.

It just doesn't seem plausible to me the way it was shown. If the ship broke apart or was shown destroyed like crazy inside with heavy beams everywhere and ceilings collapsing and all that, with the crew obviously seriously injured, then it would make sense that they died on impact. In the episode the ship is fine except for a bit of frost on everything. The computer panels still work when Harry activates one! They don't even say something like, "Careful Chakotay, the ceiling on deck whatever could give out at any moment!" It just wasn't shown as a catastrophic event.

 

[exodus]

Cerebral hypoxia of sorts? Hard to believe that everyone could have sustained knock around injuries of such force that they immediately died or lost consciousness and eventually succumbed to hypothermia. Plus, they should have been more sprawled and bloody. Looked more like they just passed out in the middle of thinking 'Oh crap!' Though I don't know how that would gel with the bulkheads holding so well.

That was my problem too. I can understand some people breaking their necks or whatever from the initial impact. But everyone? Everyone died of that at the same time everywhere in the ship? Nobody survived to send a distress call? It was so forceful to kill everybody immediately but not forceful enough to knock any chairs over? There weren't even any serious injuries.

It just doesn't seem plausible to me the way it was shown. If the ship broke apart or was shown destroyed like crazy inside with heavy beams everywhere and ceilings collapsing and all that, with the crew obviously seriously injured, then it would make sense that they died on impact. In the episode the ship is fine except for a bit of frost on everything. The computer panels still work when Harry activates one! They don't even say something like, "Careful Chakotay, the ceiling on deck whatever could give out at any moment!" It just wasn't shown as a catastrophic event.

I think you're expecting too much.

DS9's ep. "The Ship" shows a Jem Hadar ship turned upside down and embedded in a rock wall, yet the inside is intact and the crew are dead showing no serious injury either.

TNG has shown people buried under tons of fallen debris yet they have no internal injuries or fatal laserations what so ever.

Death in Trek has never been realistic.