Antimatter
- Matter with electrical charges which are the opposite of "normal"
matter.
When a particle of
antimatter is brought into contact with an equivalent particle of
normal
matter,
both particles are annihilated, and a considerable
amount of energy is released.
The controlled annihilation of matter and
antimatter
is used as the power source
for the warp drive systems aboard most starships.
"The Naked Time" [TOS]
The swirling pinkish light behind the grill on the
"control panel" side of the
warp reactor is evidence of the collision of matter
and antimatter.
"Cold Front" [ENT]
Photonic torpedoes use antimatter warheads with
a variable yield.
"The Expanse" [ENT]
The Valakians didn't have the technical expertise
to build a warp engine, nor any experience working
with antimatter. It is doubtful they realized
how dangerous it is.
"Dear Doctor" [ENT]
Voyager's antimatter supply began to be drained
when they hit some subspace turbulence after
exiting a plasma drift. It turns out that
the subspace fluctuations actually duplicated all the matter
in the ship, in effect creating another
Voyager.
However, even though the effect duplicated all the
matter, it did not duplicate the antimatter -- the
two ships were forced to share the one source of
antimatter. The 2 Voyagers attempted to merge,
but the duplicate Voyager's antimatter drain became a
"hemorrhage" and would have been drained in 30
minutes
unless they started the proton bursts again.
"Deadlock" [VOY]
Dejaren says that it's too dangerous on the lower
deck because it is flooded with antimatter radiation;
Torres does a scan later and discovers that Dejaren
is lying to them about this.
"Revulsion" [VOY]
The Malon ship is loaded with over 90 million
isotons
of contaminated antimatter; the Malon have
been using the Void as dumping ground for their
antimatter waste; Torres says that Voyager's
residual antimatter is processed in a transkinetic
chamber where it is broken down on the subatomic
level.
"Night" [VOY]
SEE Also: positron
Antimatter cascade - A chain
reaction
destruction of the antimatter-control devices on the ship.
Engineering
suffers an "antimatter cascade" which started with an overload of
the impulse relays, then the cylinders on the port
wall of Engineering
explode in sequence; the cascade stopped when it
reached a
damaged antimatter junction,
otherwise it would have continued
through the transfer conduit into the warp reactor
and severely
damaged the ship.
"Cold Front" [ENT]
Antimatter container - Voyager ejects an antimatter container and
then
detonates it with a photon
torpedo in order to disable the Vidiian ships and beam the
antiviral
serum on board.
Resolutions [VOY]
Antimatter
Constrictor Coils - Element of the warp
drive system of an NX class starship.
"Doctor's
Orders" [ENT]
Antimatter
Containment -
When containment fields are failing, Adm. Forrest
wondered if they could vent the antimatter. When
they could not, there was three minutes till a
reactor
breech.
"In A Mirror Darkly, part 1" [ENT]
In warp drive propulsion systems, antimatter
containment
refers to the use of magnetic seals and
confinement fields to prevent antimatter from
physically touching the surface of the storage pod or
any other part of
the starship.
Failure of antimatter containment is a catastrophic
malfunction, generally resulting in total destruction
of the spacecraft.
See also: antimatter pod
The starship Yamato was destroyed in 2365 when its
antimatter containment failed because of the
Iconian computer
weapon.
"Contagion" [TNG]
The Enterprise-D suffered several catastrophic
losses of antimatter
containment of stardate 45652
when it repeatedly impacted the starship
Bozeman while both vessels were trapped in a temporal
causality
loop.
"Cause and Effect" [TNG]
The Enterprise-D almost lost antimatter containment
many times.
"11001001" [TNG], Violations
[TNG], Cost of Living [TNG],
"Disaster" [TNG], and Force of
Nature [TNG].
The Enterprise-D lost antimatter containment in 2371
in a combat situation with a Klingon vessel.
No crew fatalities resulted due to a successful
saucer
separation maneuver, but the ship's stardrive
section was destroyed in
a
warp core breach. "Generations" [ST#]
In 2372, while the Defiant was in the Gamma Quadrant
to observe a subspace inversion of the
Bajoran wormhole, a power surge of the ship's
warp core threatened to cause a breach.
"The Visitor" [DS9]
Antimatter
converter - Tahna Los stole one from the Cardassians to use
in combination with bilitrium
to destroy the wormhole.
"Past Prologue" [DS9]
Antimatter converter assembly - Component of
starship warp drive systems,
including those used in
Constitution-class vessels such as the original
U.S.S. Enterprise.
Antimatter
fireworks - In the slipstream reality, they were used to
honor chakotay & kim's return to
the Alpha Quadrant Timeless [VOY]
Antimatter Flow Regulators -
A Klingon virus disabled the antimatter flow
regulators,
locking them open. It caused a malfunction in
the intermix chamber which made the plasma pressure
rise to critical levels.
"Affliction" [ENT]
Antimatter
Inducer - Element of the warp drive
system of an NX class starship. In an alternate timeline
Captain Archer devised an improvement to the
antimatter inducers which allowed Enterprise to travel
farther on less fuel.
"Twilight"
[ENT]
Antimatter Injector
- One of the Ferengi tries to pull loose the port antimatter injector,
and jumps back
from a flash-bang. Later Krem directs Archer
to the offending panel; explaining that "warp core parts are in
high demand". Archer tells him he'll have
to shut down the "injection assembly" to remove the "antimatter
injector".
"Acquisition" [ENT]
Liana tells Tucker that they are ready to start
realigning the antimatter injectors.
"Oasis" [ENT]
Enterprise lost 3 antimatter injectors during their
fight with the Klingons. Tucker said that if they loose
any more that they would be in big trouble.
"The Expanse" [ENT]
Andorian antimatter injectors in use in the mid 22nd
century used variable compression nozzles, a technology
which NX class starships lacked. Tucker asks
Shran for one of their antimatter injectors
with a "variable-
compression nozzle." Although that's sensitive
technology, Shran agrees to give
him one.
"Proving Ground" [ENT]
The Skaalar's ship was damaged and needed a new
antimatter injector to repair it.
"Bounty" [ENT]
The antimatter injector on Voyager freezes; Seska
says that there should have been a warning such as
a drop in the core temperature or a magnetic
constrictor alarm before this happened.
"Basics, part 2" [VOY]
The aliens steal 2 antimatter injectors from
Voyager using their
transporter beam.
"Concerning Flight" [VOY]
Janeway orders Kim to open the antimatter
injectors to 120% to
try to prevent Voyager from being
pulled into the singularity.
"Hunters"
[VOY]
Antimatter junction
- Silik sneaks away, opens a panel on the underside of the port
transfer
conduit, and
tears loose a cable. Trip shows Archer that a conduit to the
antimatter junction has been damaged. The
conduit was a two-inch
fiber-filled cable that Silik snapped inside the
rectangular transfer-
conduit. I'm guessing it is a means of
computer control for the
antimatter junction and when disconnected the
normally open
junction went closed. The
disconnection
of the conduit prevented
an antimatter cascade from reaching the warp
reactor.
"Cold Front" [ENT]
Neutralizing Antimatter -
Antimatter can be "neutralized".
Enterprise lost "potency" in their antimatter pods
causing them to become completely inert. At first,
Scotty surmised that it might have had something
to do with the abnormal electromagnetic field
around the planet. It turned out to be
something
like a beam or transmission from the surface of a
type Scotty had never seen before.
Once Vaal was deactivated, potency began to return to the
antimatter
pods.
"The Apple" [TOS]
According to a theory by Mortimer Harren, the
tertiary
product of stellar consolidation would be a
comet-like assemblage of dark matter. This
dark-matter proto-comet would be attracted to any source
of antimatter, but especially to the antimatter
in the detonation chamber of a warp core, and neutralise
it upon
contact.
"Good Shepard" [VOY]
Antimatter Pod - SEE: Antimatter Storage Pod.
Antimatter Reactor
- Device that harnesses the collision of matter and antimatter to
produce
large quantities
of energy. Neutrino emissions indicate the possible presence of
an
antimatter reactor.
The reactor turned out to be a self-contained
cylindrical
affair about 2-m tall. Garos
claimed that his antimatter reactor powered "a
fabrication
device" to make food and
clothing. Trip makes an offhand comment that
it's overpowered for that purpose,
and could clothe half the continent. The
Malurians
were actually using it to power
their underground mining operation on the Akaali
homeworld. Enterprise beamed
the reactor into space to use as an explosive which
disabled the Malurian vessel.
"Civilization" [ENT]
Chakotay is able to sabotage the antimatter reactor
which shuts down Voyager's warp drive.
"Displaced" [VOY]
Antimatter Relay - The mine
foreman
wanted a half liter of liquid platinum in trade to see the Xindi miner.
Since the lining of the ship's antimatter relays
are all coated with a platinum-cobalt alloy, Trip was able
to strip them down and separate the metals.
It took 6 men half the night (till the afternoon of the next
day) to strip more than 200 relays to get that
half-liter
of liquified platinum.
"The Xindi" [ENT]
In 2366 the non-corporeal
Koinonians drained antimatter from the containment pods to use it as
energy
to create their replica of Marla Aster. This was
stopped by increasing the shield harmonics to match the
antimatter containment effectively severing the
Koinonian beam. (TNG: "The Bonding")
Later that year, radiation that had leaked from
Doctor Nel Apgars station in orbit of Tanuga IV
threatened the USS Enterprise-D's
antimatter pod. If the radiation had surged in or near them, it
would have destroyed the ship. (TNG:
"A
Matter of Perspective")
In 2369, Commander Benjamin Sisko ejected the
antimatter pod of the USS Yangtzee Kiang just
before the runabout crashed on a
moon in the Gamma Quadrant. (DS9: "Battle Lines")
Later that year, while traveling back to the Enterprise
by runabout, the starboard antimatter pod has
been completely drained, despite
the fact that there was no leak and all of the other engine systems
were fully operational. It turned
out that the runabout had entered a region of temporal fragments
that made the antimatter pod work
longer than the rest of the shuttle had. (TNG: "Timescape")
In 2372, while Captain Janeway and Commander
Chakotay were trapped on a planet, Lieutenant
Tuvok had to fight off several
Vidiian warships. To do so, he released an antimatter pod and let it
get close to the ships, and then
fired a photon torpedo at it, casusing an explosion which severely
damaged the enemy ships. (VOY: "Resolutions")
In late 2372, the crew of the Voyager escaped from a
Vidiian attack by ejecting an antimatter pod,
then detonating it with a photon torpedo. The
resulting explosion was successful in disabling the
Vidiian
ships.
"Resolutions" [VOY]
It was vital that
antimatter pods be self-contained, so that their containment fields
would continue to function
even after being ejected from the
starship. (VOY: "Resolutions")
Starfleet Regulation 3287.0 compelled their use
aboard Starfleet vessels. (TNG: "Night Terrors")
We can assume that antimatter pods are self-contained and survive some sorts of disasters aboard starships, such as the destruction of the starship, uncontrolled entry into an atmosphere, etc. This is because vehicles in the Star Trek universe do not consistently explode on every single occasion a vessel is catastrophically damaged. It is probably safe to assume that each pod has its own battery, or other power source to maintain the containment field, and/or some kind of post-exhaustion flush method. This way, it is believable that a free floating antimatter pod from a destroyed starship, or a pod remaining in a derelict hulk, could remain intact until such a time as all of the antimatter within was expended.
Antimatter Stream - The
Enterprise
faked a malfunction in which the antimatter stream was
compromised, so that the Suliban would be convinced
that a reactor breach was imminent and tow
the ship away from the
Helix.
"Shockwave, part 2" [ENT]
The antimatter stream can be disrupted from junction
42 alpha.
"The Catwalk" [ENT]
Tucker wanted to reroute the system taps to compress
the antimatter stream before it reaches the
injectors. But you need to be traveling at
warp 4.9 to get the plasma hot enough to compress the
stream. The stream compression has the effect
of reducing warp field fluctuations dramatically.
(which makes for a smoother and more stable ride
at warp 5).
"Similitude" [ENT]
Firing up the antimatter stream is one of the last
steps in restarting the warp reactor.
"Divergence" [ENT]
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