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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!mhuxj!houxm!ihnp4!hplabs!jin
From: jin@hplabs.UUCP (Tai Jin)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: Destruction of the Enterprise
Message-ID: <1271@hplabs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Dec-84 16:25:04 EST
Article-I.D.: hplabs.1271
Posted: Sun Dec 16 16:25:04 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Dec-84 04:15:06 EST
References: <1@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto CA
Lines: 20

> How about this theory about why the antimatter in the engines didn't
> make a big bang the way it should have - there are (at least) 2 modes
> of self-destruct - I will call them "Big bang" and "little bang"
> The "big bang" is for when you have to self-destruct and you want to take
> as much with you as possible (such as in deep space surrounded by an
> army of Romulans) you let the antimatter loose and let it do its thing.
> The "little bang" is for when you merely want to destroy the ship, not
> anything nereby (such as a planet)  you somehow jettison the antimatter,
> then allow conventional explosives (or whatever) destroy the ship.
> This is what you saw in TSFS.  The antimatter could be aimed at some
> asteroid or something so no one will bump into it by accident.
> Any comments?
> 
> "There's a madness to my method."		Mike Moroney
> 					..decwrl!rhea!jon!moroney

the "big bang" you mention...isn't that the corobomite bluff?  so i thought
it wasn't for real.  anyway, isn't their power derived from the dilithium
crystals?  i don't know the mechanism, but i think the antimatter is derived
from the crystals.  does anybody know?