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From: john@moncol.UUCP (John Ruschmeyer)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Cold Antimatter and the Destruct Sequence
Message-ID: <157@moncol.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Jan-85 00:12:12 EST
Article-I.D.: moncol.157
Posted: Sat Jan 12 00:12:12 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Jan-85 02:52:03 EST
Organization: Monmouth College, West Long Branch, NJ 07764
Lines: 29

At the risk of re-opening a nearly dead discussion, I'd like
to give my opinions on "non-explosive" destruction of the
Enterprise in STIII:TSFS.

A few evenings ago, our local station aired "The Naked Time".
In this episode, Reilly goes bezerk, locks himself in Engineering,
and shuts down the warp engines. Spock and Scotty must try 
an experimental fast restart of the engines before the ship
crashes into a planet.

Part of the problem with restarting the engines is that the
anti-matter is "cold". Hmm...

Could it be that there is type of "inert" state for anti-matter
where it does not readily combine with matter and go "VOOM"?
If so, then it is likely that the automation system Scotty
installed in STIII would shut the engines down, thus cooling
off the anti-matter, when the ship was damaged. (It would have
to, there'd be noone there to stop a runaway reaction.) 
Therefore, the destruct would have to proceed by more conve~tional means.

Well, does this sound plausible?
-- 
	John Ruschmeyer		...!vax135!petsd!moncol!john
	Monmouth College
	W. Long Branch, NJ 07764

Kirk:   You ought to sell a manual of instructions with these things.
Cyrano: If I did, Captain... what would happen to the search for knowledge?