TOS D-7 Nav Deflectors and Bussard Intakes

[Timo]

Well, the Feds even put them on their shuttlecraft. Apparently, the tech is even more vital than weapons or navigational deflectors. For the Feds anyway - but the Klingons seem to ape Starfleet in so many other respects that I'd really wonder if they didn't have some sort of a parallel technology in use in this case as well.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Robert April]

Not all Federation shuttlecraft have them, only the bigger ones (it's even debatable whether or not the Galileo had them, although I can see a better argument for a shuttlecraft having them than a full-blown starship).

Frankly, if any of the features on the D-7 looks like some sort of intake, it's the grills along the forward sides of the main hull. And the bits on the front of the nacelles have already been established as disruptor banks.

 

[Timo]

It's quite difficult to find a Federation shuttle that wouldn't have obvious ramscoops, or reddish "radomes" that look identical to what commonly are considered ramscoops on the nacelles of big starships. Really, only the tiny TNG and DS9 shuttlepods and the Type 6 shuttles clearly lack bow "windows" from their nacelles, and even they do have the yellow multiple rings that on other occasions have been accused of being the ramscoops.

The D-7/K't'inga model in turn has so much greebling on the nacelles (in any but the original TOS incarnation) that there's plenty to spare for disruptor banks and ramscoops both... Although the very front end of the nacelle is also a smooth semicylinder surface of distinct coloration, potentially a Fed-style ramscoop window.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Robert April]

I just think it's a bit silly to assume that alien ship designs would follow Federation designs so closely. And as I said, those big grills make a lot more sense as ramscoops than the relatively dinky features on the nacelles.

 

[Timo]

True enough. Which makes one wonder a lot about why the Feds choose to have seemingly less sensible ramscoop designs. Which in turn takes one back to the issue of what the scoops actually do, and how vital it is for the ships.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Timo,

Actually it isn't really. Most aircraft designs if you look at them often have many of the same features, because they are designed for similar purposes.

It would be logical to conclude that most spaceships and starships would have similar parallels as well in their design features

 

[Longinus]

Those red orbs fed ships have are probably used for other things as well, considering that even Phoenix had them and it absolutely makes no sense at all for it to have ramscoops.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Those red orbs fed ships have are probably used for other things as well, considering that even Phoenix had them and it absolutely makes no sense at all for it to have ramscoops.

Which, again, is why I assume the warp nacelles are also the primary component of the ship's deflector shields. After all, under impulse power those huge warp engines would be just a little more dead weight the ship has to carry around; the only way to justify them is if Starfleet ships have ridiculously powerful deflector shields to make up for the otherwise flimsy construction of their space craft.

That may also explain why Klingon ships have such puny nacelles. They don't bother with robust deflectors, they just slap their ships with a few thousand tons of reactive armor.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Those red orbs fed ships have are probably used for other things as well, considering that even Phoenix had them and it absolutely makes no sense at all for it to have ramscoops.

You might be on to something there. I'm not going with the deflector shield idea, but maybe something to do with the warp plasma injection system...

 

[Timo]

Well, we know for sure that these devices are called "Bussard collectors" and that they can spit out hydrogen. But that's basically all we know of them. We don't even have confirmation that spitting out hydrogen means a reverse mode of operations. For all we know, it is the normal mode instead.

For all we know, Rebecca Bussard in the Trek universe invented a way to collect waste gas from magnetically contained plasma and then harmlessly exhaust it without losing plasma containment in the process, greatly increasing the efficiency of things like fusion reactors and, later on, warp engines. This is why the Bussard collectors must be next to the warp nacelles from which the hydrogen is collected. But not every engine uses a turbocharger, and Klingons might have other ways of boosting their warp engine performance.

Timo Saloniemi