"klingons and tribbles are natural enemies! like klingons and humans! or klingons and vulcans! or klingons and other klingons! damn klingons! they ruined Qo'noS!"
The best explanation would be that the bombs are capable of harvesting matter from asteroids in the Bajor system, which is distributed throughout the network and stored within each bomb. It's simple, all the mass needed for a self-replicating minefield comes from the Space Mines' space mines.
I assume the mines gather energy and matter from ships they destroy. And they're so hard to detect that it's very difficult to pick them off from range.
What about harvesting the debris of destroyed Jem'Hadar ships? There are so much material on those ships that the total number of mines could increase every time they destroy a ship. They could also "recycle" material from detonated mines that aren't completely destroyed.
My head-canon for the mines: they draw their replicator power from the wormhole's ambient energy field. The wormhole exists outside normal spacetime, so it can radiate huge amounts of energy without regard for the physical laws of normal reality.
They solved the problem of material scarcity. Offer tribute to the dominion from the minefield replicators provided they return to the delta quadrant. War over? Or is the paranoia of the changlings insurmountable?
I don't remember seeing anyone trying to lift one of those mines, but they look pretty heavy. Let's say 300 kg each, which I think is probably an underestimate. That is a mass energy of 2.7×10^19 J. If you want to (somehow) create these out of radiative energy, you will also create 300 kg of antimatter for each one, which I guess escapes, so we really need to double it. To make one mine per minute (a rate much slower than assumed in the show), they would need a sustained power of 9.0 × 10^17 W, or 900 PW. By comparison, if we made the whole Earth black so that it reflected no light, it would absorb a total of only 173 PW of power from the Sun. Let's just say that approach is not going to be fruitful.
The antimatter would help with the mine being the explosive, so no need to double the mass estimate. A factor of 2 makes no significant difference to the estimate of the order of magnitude anyway.
Perfect. I think a better refinement of your theory could be that each initial self-replicating mine simply carried a chamber containing a single tribble and a store of quadrotriticale, the tribbles then start to reproduce, and the mines simply use the mass of the reproducing tribbles (both live and deceased) as their store of matter for replication.
Umm, you are going to wake up on a Section 31 Holodeck soon if you keep this up. But seriously there is no way those mines could work without violating conservation of energy. The only way would be if each mine contained a certain X times its own mass worth of ultra compressed matter with extra storage of raw electrons and neutrons to pump in to make the heavy elements a bomb would need to work. Then you have a central control mine that continually has matter transported to it and disperses it as needed to the others while the field is being built. Then after the mines are all initially planted, refill them all with raw matter so they can replicate replacements for detonated ones.
If something unexplained happens in DS9, it's the Prophets. Considering they live outside of linear time, my theory is that there is only a single mine, but the Prophets just sent it to a slightly different point in spacetime, repeating the process a thousandfold, or however often was necessary. There only APPEARS to be many mines, and if one mine detonates or is neutralized, they simply go back in time a millisecond before the explosion, grab it and reposition it.
This idea is definitely problematic, but I love it. It reminds me of the Wheeler-Feynman one-electron universe postulate, which hypothesizes that the universe contains only a single electron/positron, which experiences existence alternately in both forms as it moves forwards and backwards in time, traversing the entire universe's timeline repeatedly manifesting as each instance of the particles we observe. That's why they're all identical: there's just one, zipping back and forth through all of history, taking turns playing the role of every such particle.
Every mine had to have the internal energy and material stored in to both operate for probably a couple years in observation/armed mode, and be linked with the rest to make at least one mine. Knowing the "ingredients" and energy required to convert the matter through one replicator to recreate one or two mines would be easy to figure out. Putting it into practice may not be as hard either. Hmmmm, if a replicator can also convert a battery into itself for energy storage for extra power to make more mine could be set in with the box mix of components to make more mines as well. If the energy stores could also be the explosives THAT would be a neat trick. Planes have used their own fuel to act as coolant before too so it may not be impossible.
Hey, speaking of DS9, I was watching S1E3 Past Prologue, and in the cold open, we are introduced to one of the best TV pairings in history, Dr Bashir and Garak. They have a lovely conversation, and at the end Garak stands up, puts his hands on Bashir's shoulders, says "I'm so glad to have made an interesting new friend today," and then Garak LOOKS RIGHT AT THE AUDIENCE. Does Garak know he's a secondary character on a TV show? Does he ever break the 4th wall like this again? PS You were right about the "it is time" guy, he does make a Look.
When Ryan said there's something else that also violates conservation of energy, I thought he was going to mention Odo. Changeling-powered mines, perhaps? Imagine: using the Dominion's own biology against them! Well, in addition to that _other_ way they did that already...
Odo's a little bit four-dimensional. When his species change their mass while shapeshifting, they actually extend parts of their bodies off into four-dimensional structures, so the remaining three-dimensional body seems lighter. A 4D being living in a 3D world has access to practically unlimited energy, which "explains" why Odo never needs to eat.
But the energy from the explosion comes from the mine itself, and therefore each new generation of mines would be weaker. In theory if you could harness the energy/matter of the exploding SHIP or it's hull then that is an input of energy to the system. But there is no such thing as an infinite energy loop/ Even if 100% of the energy and matter in a mine was converted into usefull collectable energy (which it isn't), there is no 100% efficient way to collect that energy. Not even the mater/antimatter reactor is 100% efficient in it's energy collection (as engineers compete for efficiency in the 90'% range)
This is hilarious. My own theory was more pedestrian. Maybe they somehow had transporter tech that could beam in matter from nearby asteroids and then use that to replicate more mines.
I guessed that each mine might mass 100kg, that seems reasonable. Creating 100kg of mass from energy would require... 8,987,551,787,368 mega joules of energy. So we'll round it up and call it 9 trillion MJ of energy per mine.
Counterpoint: Nothing violates conservation of energy if you simply don't understand where it is drawing its energy from. 😉 And we have a severe deficiency in enlightenment in that area. ... On the level where it's like calling a wind power plant a perpetuum mobile and thus impossible.
Argument from ignorance outside of a discussion of religion? I never thought I'd ever witness that. Windmills aren't exactly new technology, and even without knowledge of thermodynamics it is obvious that wind is carrying energy, seeing how sailing ships work. The problem with the self-replicating mines is that there is nowhere near enough energy to draw from for them to replicate fast enough. You'd need time travel to explain that. Or tribbles. Tribbles work, too, but you'd need time travel to acquire some.
@@davidwuhrer6704 I'm not sure what your first paragraph is trying to express, but I am pretty sure what it ends up expressing, considering what follows.
For all we know, they could have some sort of nuclear fusion batteries. If they could capture majority of the energy from some fusion reaction, I wonder how much matter they could derive.
@@KurtRichterCISSP Uranium is used in nuclear fission reactors. Nuclear fusion reactors use deuterium. Either way you don't get out more mass than you put in.
They're based on Replicator technology. No, not the food slots in ship quarters, the other Replicators from Stargate SG-1. They simply gather any matter nearby - including the thin space dust in the void - and convert it into more mines.
The interplanetary medium has a density of about three protons per cubic metre. Space is big, and the matter lumps up, there is enough dust in a cubic light year to form at least three major stars, but, well, space is big, and "nearby" is relative. The replicators did seek out mass concentrations like passing starships and planets for food to replicate. Not unlike tribbles, come to think of it.
@@davidwuhrer6704 The self-replicating mines were placed at the Alpha terminus of the Wormhole, which is located in the Denorios Belt of the Bajoran system, so there was more than enough matter and energy to utilize for either replicator or Replicator technology.
@@davidwuhrer6704 _An_ asteroid belt, maybe, but the Denorios Belt is well known to be much denser than the average asteroid belt and is a significant navigational hazard due to the presence of dense fields of energized and exotic particles (most likely a side effect of the Wormhole's presence and/or waste products from the Wormhole's creation by the Prophets). There's a reason the Cardassians never discovered the Wormhole in the 50 years they occupied Bajor - they wanted to stay as far away from the belt as possible. The replicator technology in the mines would easily be able to harness that to make more of themselves.
@@Dargonhuman It is still an asteroid belt. Not dense enough to clump into something resembling a proper planet. Even if the fields between them are navigational hazards. And space is big. Really, really big. You wouldn't believe how mind-boggingly big space is. You probably think it is a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that is just peanuts to space. Listen: Each mine would have to be more dense than any asteroid, because asteroids don't have exploded bits that cover a volume of space in excess of their Dalton spheres. So you'd have to increase the density in that volume of space that is the mine field by a factor of enough to form a small planet. The mass required has to come from somewhere. If the asteroid belt provides all of it, the mass cannot exceed the mass of the asteroid belt. If you can gather all that mass, it would be simpler to just put the resulting small planet there. (A the asteroids in the Solar asteroid belt together have only a tiny fraction of the mass of the smallest planet, Mercury.)
They likely have tanks of disposable, easily re-purposed matter like hydrogen or some shit, then converted into whatever else is needed. Idk I can hear laforge saying that
Приколы
Gowron: You are using the enemy of the Klingon empire to destroy another enemy of the Empire?! (Intense stare)
Glory to you Rom, and your house!
Would that be the house of Qwerk, I mean Quark?
"klingons and tribbles are natural enemies!
like klingons and humans!
or klingons and vulcans!
or klingons and other klingons!
damn klingons! they ruined Qo'noS!"
Didn't know that Rom could be so sadistic
Or, more sinister, they allow the Tribble to reproduce and then break down the organic material and use it to materialize the new mine.
This is the best Trek theory I've heard in a long time! Well done! Now we know why the Great Tribble Hunt was so important.
The best explanation would be that the bombs are capable of harvesting matter from asteroids in the Bajor system, which is distributed throughout the network and stored within each bomb. It's simple, all the mass needed for a self-replicating minefield comes from the Space Mines' space mines.
Oh, that's punny.
Ash Williams fighting the deadites in his eighties: This is my boom-bladder!
I assume the mines gather energy and matter from ships they destroy. And they're so hard to detect that it's very difficult to pick them off from range.
What about harvesting the debris of destroyed Jem'Hadar ships? There are so much material on those ships that the total number of mines could increase every time they destroy a ship. They could also "recycle" material from detonated mines that aren't completely destroyed.
My head-canon for the mines: they draw their replicator power from the wormhole's ambient energy field. The wormhole exists outside normal spacetime, so it can radiate huge amounts of energy without regard for the physical laws of normal reality.
This is what I thought.
9 trillion megajoules of energy per mine, assuming each mine has a mass of 100kg which seems reasonable to me.
They solved the problem of material scarcity. Offer tribute to the dominion from the minefield replicators provided they return to the delta quadrant. War over? Or is the paranoia of the changlings insurmountable?
Sure. This theory checks out...
obviously the energy from the explosion is harvested by a neighboring mine, for the new mine
Tribbles could be used to stop food shortages, but could also cause them
I wonder if tribbles evolved from the creature that hatched from the moon in Doctor Who?
Talk about violation of the laws of conservation of energy...
"the warp drive violates the laws of physics"
-Trip, Star Trek Enterprise
The moon was obviously dimensionally transcendental.
Their boom bladder! So freaking funny!
Imagine if they put one of those in a barrel. The Klingon empire would be wiped out.
This is now my head canon
Don't you mean your head boom bladder?
This is the best kind of Star Trek analysis content on RUclips right now.
You are a mad genius. I love it.
I don't remember seeing anyone trying to lift one of those mines, but they look pretty heavy. Let's say 300 kg each, which I think is probably an underestimate. That is a mass energy of 2.7×10^19 J. If you want to (somehow) create these out of radiative energy, you will also create 300 kg of antimatter for each one, which I guess escapes, so we really need to double it. To make one mine per minute (a rate much slower than assumed in the show), they would need a sustained power of 9.0 × 10^17 W, or 900 PW. By comparison, if we made the whole Earth black so that it reflected no light, it would absorb a total of only 173 PW of power from the Sun. Let's just say that approach is not going to be fruitful.
The antimatter would help with the mine being the explosive, so no need to double the mass estimate.
A factor of 2 makes no significant difference to the estimate of the order of magnitude anyway.
Worf...... Arm the Quantum Boom Bladders and fire!!
I always hated self replicating mines. Next they’ll be making self replicating starships.
Strg-V Fleet to the rescue !
The Vorlons in B5 had living space ships, so why not? Self-replicating space whales are more plausible than rapidly self-replicating mines.
Good physics lesson, Ryan
Your logic is flawless.
Perfect. I think a better refinement of your theory could be that each initial self-replicating mine simply carried a chamber containing a single tribble and a store of quadrotriticale, the tribbles then start to reproduce, and the mines simply use the mass of the reproducing tribbles (both live and deceased) as their store of matter for replication.
Umm, you are going to wake up on a Section 31 Holodeck soon if you keep this up. But seriously there is no way those mines could work without violating conservation of energy. The only way would be if each mine contained a certain X times its own mass worth of ultra compressed matter with extra storage of raw electrons and neutrons to pump in to make the heavy elements a bomb would need to work. Then you have a central control mine that continually has matter transported to it and disperses it as needed to the others while the field is being built. Then after the mines are all initially planted, refill them all with raw matter so they can replicate replacements for detonated ones.
😂 Dude... what? I love this.
More ST troll science please.
If something unexplained happens in DS9, it's the Prophets. Considering they live outside of linear time, my theory is that there is only a single mine, but the Prophets just sent it to a slightly different point in spacetime, repeating the process a thousandfold, or however often was necessary. There only APPEARS to be many mines, and if one mine detonates or is neutralized, they simply go back in time a millisecond before the explosion, grab it and reposition it.
This idea is definitely problematic, but I love it. It reminds me of the Wheeler-Feynman one-electron universe postulate, which hypothesizes that the universe contains only a single electron/positron, which experiences existence alternately in both forms as it moves forwards and backwards in time, traversing the entire universe's timeline repeatedly manifesting as each instance of the particles we observe. That's why they're all identical: there's just one, zipping back and forth through all of history, taking turns playing the role of every such particle.
But if they go back in time to reposition it before the explosion, it never explodes.
Boom Bladder...great band name.
Every mine had to have the internal energy and material stored in to both operate for probably a couple years in observation/armed mode, and be linked with the rest to make at least one mine. Knowing the "ingredients" and energy required to convert the matter through one replicator to recreate one or two mines would be easy to figure out. Putting it into practice may not be as hard either. Hmmmm, if a replicator can also convert a battery into itself for energy storage for extra power to make more mine could be set in with the box mix of components to make more mines as well. If the energy stores could also be the explosives THAT would be a neat trick. Planes have used their own fuel to act as coolant before too so it may not be impossible.
Hmm.. could be, could be... Or Worf's klingon opera
Hey, speaking of DS9, I was watching S1E3 Past Prologue, and in the cold open, we are introduced to one of the best TV pairings in history, Dr Bashir and Garak. They have a lovely conversation, and at the end Garak stands up, puts his hands on Bashir's shoulders, says "I'm so glad to have made an interesting new friend today," and then Garak LOOKS RIGHT AT THE AUDIENCE. Does Garak know he's a secondary character on a TV show? Does he ever break the 4th wall like this again? PS You were right about the "it is time" guy, he does make a Look.
Odo also violates conservation of energy
When Ryan said there's something else that also violates conservation of energy, I thought he was going to mention Odo. Changeling-powered mines, perhaps? Imagine: using the Dominion's own biology against them!
Well, in addition to that _other_ way they did that already...
Odo's a little bit four-dimensional. When his species change their mass while shapeshifting, they actually extend parts of their bodies off into four-dimensional structures, so the remaining three-dimensional body seems lighter. A 4D being living in a 3D world has access to practically unlimited energy, which "explains" why Odo never needs to eat.
@@Amaritudine ok, so that's what the mines do
@@Amaritudine So that is how Superman is able to fly. He doesn't fly, he just keeps himself aloft with an extra arm in the fourth dimension.
self replicating mines work on MAGIC, like everything else in DS9
At first I thought this was the stupidest thing I'd heard of in my life. But honestly it makes sense.
Nah. They could just convert the matter and energy from a mine exploding and destroying a ship into new mines. Simple matter/energy conversion.
But the energy from the explosion comes from the mine itself, and therefore each new generation of mines would be weaker.
In theory if you could harness the energy/matter of the exploding SHIP or it's hull then that is an input of energy to the system. But there is no such thing as an infinite energy loop/ Even if 100% of the energy and matter in a mine was converted into usefull collectable energy (which it isn't), there is no 100% efficient way to collect that energy. Not even the mater/antimatter reactor is 100% efficient in it's energy collection (as engineers compete for efficiency in the 90'% range)
Mind. Blown. 🤯
...tribble blown
You're forgetting that the transporters work across a subspace domain where matter can be stored indefiinitely.
You're just making words up now.
This is hilarious.
My own theory was more pedestrian.
Maybe they somehow had transporter tech that could beam in matter from nearby asteroids and then use that to replicate more mines.
Have the mines transporter replicator tech be able to use the trashed ships caught in the explosion too.
From nearby asteroids? That's not enough mass, even if you neglect the energy needed for the transport.
Why not mine the central star instead?
So is it a Trib-borg or a Cy-ble
I guessed that each mine might mass 100kg, that seems reasonable. Creating 100kg of mass from energy would require... 8,987,551,787,368 mega joules of energy. So we'll round it up and call it 9 trillion MJ of energy per mine.
Whoa! Hold up. That is H Jon Benjamin at 0:48 as a science officer. What, when, where, is that tell me?! I am flabbergasted.
Short Treks 2x02, The Trouble With Edward
@@RyansEdits I've been trying to find it. What platform is it avalible on?
Tactical Tribbles.
The Klingon Empire will not be happy if they find out about this.
In a world with Q, anything is possible.
Who ever said they were solar? Mini fusion reactors are a thing in Star Trek... They generate more energy than they use.
Counterpoint: Nothing violates conservation of energy if you simply don't understand where it is drawing its energy from. 😉 And we have a severe deficiency in enlightenment in that area. ... On the level where it's like calling a wind power plant a perpetuum mobile and thus impossible.
Argument from ignorance outside of a discussion of religion? I never thought I'd ever witness that.
Windmills aren't exactly new technology, and even without knowledge of thermodynamics it is obvious that wind is carrying energy, seeing how sailing ships work.
The problem with the self-replicating mines is that there is nowhere near enough energy to draw from for them to replicate fast enough. You'd need time travel to explain that.
Or tribbles. Tribbles work, too, but you'd need time travel to acquire some.
@@davidwuhrer6704 I'm not sure what your first paragraph is trying to express, but I am pretty sure what it ends up expressing, considering what follows.
@@Dowlphin I seriously doubt that.
@@davidwuhrer6704 Naturally you would.
It's just science, people!
Boom bladder!!
Someone's obviously never heard of dark matter
aka the exact thing the writers needed to explain this kind of thing
For all we know, they could have some sort of nuclear fusion batteries. If they could capture majority of the energy from some fusion reaction, I wonder how much matter they could derive.
Matter->matter. That's just regular manufacturing with extra steps.
@@gehrehmee well, I'll grant that uranium into steel is matter to matter, but calling it simply "extra steps" undercuts to challenge a bit ne? 🤣
@@KurtRichterCISSP Uranium is used in nuclear fission reactors. Nuclear fusion reactors use deuterium.
Either way you don't get out more mass than you put in.
@@davidwuhrer6704 theoretically one can make a lot of smaller atoms from one uranium or plutonium atom 🤷♂️
Holy shit
I want to believe
So you accept a universe with warp drive, teleporters, and interspecies reproduction, yet you balk at self-replicating mines and tribbles?
Conservation of energy shall not be violated!
I seem to be a week late.
They're based on Replicator technology. No, not the food slots in ship quarters, the other Replicators from Stargate SG-1. They simply gather any matter nearby - including the thin space dust in the void - and convert it into more mines.
The interplanetary medium has a density of about three protons per cubic metre.
Space is big, and the matter lumps up, there is enough dust in a cubic light year to form at least three major stars, but, well, space is big, and "nearby" is relative.
The replicators did seek out mass concentrations like passing starships and planets for food to replicate.
Not unlike tribbles, come to think of it.
@@davidwuhrer6704 The self-replicating mines were placed at the Alpha terminus of the Wormhole, which is located in the Denorios Belt of the Bajoran system, so there was more than enough matter and energy to utilize for either replicator or Replicator technology.
@@Dargonhuman You seem to vastly overestimate the mass density of an asteroid belt.
@@davidwuhrer6704 _An_ asteroid belt, maybe, but the Denorios Belt is well known to be much denser than the average asteroid belt and is a significant navigational hazard due to the presence of dense fields of energized and exotic particles (most likely a side effect of the Wormhole's presence and/or waste products from the Wormhole's creation by the Prophets). There's a reason the Cardassians never discovered the Wormhole in the 50 years they occupied Bajor - they wanted to stay as far away from the belt as possible.
The replicator technology in the mines would easily be able to harness that to make more of themselves.
@@Dargonhuman It is still an asteroid belt. Not dense enough to clump into something resembling a proper planet. Even if the fields between them are navigational hazards.
And space is big. Really, really big. You wouldn't believe how mind-boggingly big space is. You probably think it is a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that is just peanuts to space. Listen:
Each mine would have to be more dense than any asteroid, because asteroids don't have exploded bits that cover a volume of space in excess of their Dalton spheres. So you'd have to increase the density in that volume of space that is the mine field by a factor of enough to form a small planet.
The mass required has to come from somewhere. If the asteroid belt provides all of it, the mass cannot exceed the mass of the asteroid belt.
If you can gather all that mass, it would be simpler to just put the resulting small planet there. (A the asteroids in the Solar asteroid belt together have only a tiny fraction of the mass of the smallest planet, Mercury.)
I can find no fault with this theory
They likely have tanks of disposable, easily re-purposed matter like hydrogen or some shit, then converted into whatever else is needed.
Idk I can hear laforge saying that
It would only work for the first generation of mines, though, because they would use those stockpiles to make the next.
“like hydrogen or some shit”
- Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge, Chief Engineer
@@Havron “it makes the field...variance do the..fuckin thing, you know, go fast”
💥 💥 💥 💥 💥
(5 stars you rock!)
Easy explanation, a Prophet did it...
/r/daystrominstitute BTFO
This is so stupid that I'm unsubscribing.