How did the Phoenix Warp With No Dilithium?

So the last few videos covering warp and dilithium raised some interesting questions, chief among these was something that I hadn't noticed before...
How did Zefram Chochrane's NX Phoenix achieve warp 1 in 2063 with no Dilithium crystals?
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This Video is for critical purposes with commentary.

[@thanqualthehighseer]

You don't need dilithium to go to warp. You don't even need antimatter. You just need ENERGY for the warp coils.

[@beridot2615]

Romulan ships come to mind.

[@The_Lucent_Archangel]

Both of you have the right idea. Too much head canon hand-waving meant to justify or rationalize the horrendous writing in STD has people claiming that even the singularity core on a warbird needs dilithium for some reason, among various other BS thrown out into the ether by these newer "productions".

[@ancapftw9113]

Exactly. There is a story where Janeway ended up on an alien ship that skimmed stars for power using solar panels on its hull, and stored the power for its warp jump in tile capacitors in the ship. I think it could manage warp 5.

[@vidlink]

@@The_Lucent_Archangel: Exactly

[@oldmanjim2376]

Dilithium is only used in a Matter/Antimatter Reactor Assembly (M/ARA) it makes for a more efficient reactor and is in fact needed for those types of ships to go above a certain speed.

[@brettcooper3893]

I just have always assumed that The Phoenix was nuclear and produced the necessary 1.21 jigawatts.

[@bigal3055]

Are you telling me that this sucker is NUCLEAR?!

[@brettcooper3893]

@@bigal3055 no, no, it's electric.

[@Tezunegari]

It was nuclear. But instead of fission it used fusion.

[@Helbore]

@@Tezunegari Not fusion. Mr. Fusion.

[@bigal3055]

@@Helbore Great Scott!

[@gerrymichaud3851]

I was reading a Star Trek TOS novel and when Dilithium was discovered, museums went through their quartz samples to see if any were Dilithium.

[@RonJohn63]

Yet more proof that _most_ science fiction writers have a serious dearth of science knowledge.

[@MoreBollocks-ui2zs]

@@RonJohn63 I suspect no more so than most of their audience though.

[@soniclore]

As the saying goes, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat”. The SS Valiant was equipped with something called “atomic matter piles” and managed to reach the edge of the galaxy. Ion drive made Scotty jealous in one of the old series episodes. Heck, the Romulans don’t even use matter/antimatter reactors - they just create little black holes!

[@simonjones7727]

I never understand that saying. What is the other way?

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

And the romulans use a singularity instead of a matter-antimatter reactor

[@scifywriter9768]

@@simonjones7727 well, speaking from a taxidermy perspective there are several ways, depending on how you want to pose it. Lol. The saying is meant to convey that there is more than one way to do a thing. There are many variations and they all sound weird. Lol

[@samiraperi467]

The person who came up with Romulans using singularities failed to understand what kind of tech level that requires. That allows basically weaponising black holes.

[@DarthObscurity]

@@samiraperi467 I don't think you do, either. In-universe they are artificial and require specific tech to keep them open. In reality, you'd have to dump so much energy/mass into it that it would never be feasible as a power source. How the hell can you weaponize something that you can't direct? You could send it at enemies as a sort of 'bomb' but the same is true for any of Star Trek power generating technology. Matter/antimatter technology is going to be much, MUCH harder to develop into usable power generation, we can already generate electricity with gravity right now, which is the only way a black hole could be utilized for electricity.

[@colormedubious4747]

Dilithium: A compound mineral formed by the high temperature and extreme pressure of a writer's need to create a challenge to be overcome by the story's protagonists.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

Textbook definition!

[@colormedubious4747]

@@MonkeyJedi99 Thank you, sir.

[@lockwoodthexton]

*see also: unobtainium, adamantium. Related: the Spice Melange.

[@colormedubious4747]

@@lockwoodthexton Completely agree re the first two, but Melange is merely Space Petroleum.

[@Monni95]

Dilithium is for lithium what diamond is for carbon... In our time, diamonds are used in optics, electronics and electric appliances.

[@falcardeckion]

They used Folger's Crystals. Mrs Olsen hand picked only the best crystals, delivered by Juan Valdez.

[@nunya3163]

The best power source known to mankind.

[@EJRichardsonFubara]

Sounds like the "there's coffee in that nebula" assertion still has legs :)

[@gent_Carolina]

Myb that's why Nellie Olson was always so irritable...overcaffeination. 😉

[@Henchman314]

This must have been the major innovation in Voyager's design. 🤔

[@EJRichardsonFubara]

@@gent_Carolina LOL😁

[@jacksonheathen2092]

Yes, I read that Prime Directive novel about 20 years ago. If I remember correctly, they said 1 or 2 percent of the quartz crystals on Earth were actually Dilithium (part of the lattice structure extended into the 4th dimension). We just didn't realize the difference.

[@666styxxx666]

I remember reading the book ( if memory serves me well there was a part that read that after the discovery museums and other places were raided for the crystal in the rush for space - "I might be paraphrasing here but it's been forever since I read prime directive ) I recall something about a warp bomb and some angry dude who became a cybernetic crazy prats after Cochrane who taunted him saying he knew how to create one or it was another book 🙅 can't remember

[@YesTHATJohnSmith]

'Twas entitled "Federation" by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens.

[@robertt9342]

Just need an energy source and a component to create and control a warp bubble, such as the warp coil.

[@YesTHATJohnSmith]

Yeah, before DILITHIUM 💎💎 were discovered (as Mr. Heathen described, above) Dr. Cochrane used plain old LITHIUM 💎💎.

[@RonJohn63]

Idiocy like this is why I stopped reading SF.

[@colinhare3998]

Another possibility is the DS9 time travel episode "Little Green Men". Remember the crashed Ferengi shuttle had a warpdrive and was in the hands of the U.S. Military for some time off screen during the episode. There is a possibility that the military took some while trying to figure out what powered the ship and had it stored. Chochrane may have gotten his hands on it during his early subspace studies.

[@Oatmealism]

If the US military did have dilithium they lifted off a crashed ferengi ship, they likely tried to make a bomb out of it, and what was the phoenix made out of but a unushed ICBM, bet if it had a dilitium warhead that's where the got his reactor from.

[@JoducusKwak]

that would be funny, how much Ferengi complain, especially Quark, about those silly Hoomans, imagine Quarks face would he find out he is responsible for Humans reachinf interstellar flight

[@nonya1366]

@@JoducusKwak "It's time to sue humanity for stealing our technology" -Some Ferengi Lawyer.

[@nickthane]

Got to confess, the idea that the Vulcans controlled the supply of dilithium in Enterprise fits so perfectly with what we’re shown I honestly thought it was explicit cannon from the show

[@jesusmora9379]

they don't, dilithium was found in one of the moons of saturn. the vulcans controlled humanity because their technology was so much more advanced. they had transporters, shields, phasers and faster warp drives. the vulcans helped humanity with technology as long as diplomatic channels were maintained, as opposed to what happened with the klingons who got all the technology from the vulcans and then turned into a warmongering empire and a danger to all other species. this is why it took humanity 100 years to go into deep space with a warp 5 ship, vulcans rewarded patience with technology and protected earth, and once humans travelled into deep space, they could trade for these technologies, but became open to attacks and war, and vulcans would remain neutral.

[@IceWolfLoki]

@@jesusmora9379 Vulcans didn't have transporters.

[@redapol5678]

@@jesusmora9379 you say “dilithium was found on one of the moons of Saturn” as if it were a fact in canon. I cannot remember any episode or movie stating or implying this (but maybe I missed it or have forgotten). Where do you get this piece of information? If it’s from beta canon - a novel or fan theory etc, that’s great. It’s possible. It’s speculation. But that wouldn’t be a fact, it would just be another possibility, just like the possibility that the Vulcans controlled the supply of dilithium

[@jesusmora9379]

@@IceWolfLoki they had transporters in the first episode of enterprise.

[@IceWolfLoki]

@@jesusmora9379 Starfleet had them they were invented by Humans (Emory Erickson). We never saw Vulcan's using them and in the Andorian Incident the Andorian's weren't expecting transporters. I doubt the Vulcan would trust a human invention when even the humans were skittish about it.

[@MedalionDS9]

Dilithium is NOT required to achieve warp but it is the most efficient material to do so...and to achieve faster warp speeds

[@Rick_Cleland]

👀

[@thunderbird0024]

Dilithium is anti-matter Neutral, it was used to control the anti-matter stream and form the plasma temp to go though the warp coils. The coils of the engines are basically Giant magnets that bend space.

[@Lunas2525]

Technically speaking dilithium is the control rods of an antimatter reactor.

[@EJRichardsonFubara]

I believe that I remember a TOS based novel that addressed the issue. In that story, it was claimed that the matter/antimatter reaction could be achieved without the dilithium chamber. The fastest the ship could travel that way was stated to be warp 2.5, though. I guess it'd be analogous to running a V-8 with fewer active plugs... less power and less efficient - but still possible.

[@thunderbird0024]

@@Lunas2525 kinda like it, more like a lens to focus to the anti-matter to hit the matter.

[@lars1701again]

Years ago i read a book on early star trek ships (i forget the name) that many of the early ships didn't use Dilithium crystals but couldn't get past a certain speed and it was discovered by accident.

[@stevenlitvintchouk3131]

I think it was "Starfleet Spaceflight Chronology." The book got in a sly allegory about the present day when it described a Starfleet scientific conference in the mid-22nd century that predicted limits to growth: "We'll never be able to build a ship that can travel faster than warp factor 4." Then as you say, dilithium focusing was invented, and once again, the pessimists were blindsided.

[@sinz52]

@@derektaylor2941You do realize we're discussing a possible continuity error in the Star Trek franchise? That's no different from discussing any other continuity error or plot hole in fiction.

[@39KHall]

John M. Ford (of happy memory) discussed this in the excellent _The Final Reflection_ . At the time of the novel the best shipwrights in both Starfleet and the Klingon Navy could get about Warp 4.8 out of their ships. It was discovered that dilithium "...could focus and channel the energy from antimatter annihilation reactions...." That was the key to pushing warp drive to Warp 6 (using the TOS warp scale, where Warp 6 = 216*C) and beyond. The Klingon protagonist near the end remarked that a new generation of battlecruiser -- the D6 -- was on the ways that would make full use of the dilithium focus. 😁

[@acmenipponair]

Well most likely the Vulcans didn't knew about making warp with matter-antimatter-reactions either. Why not? a. their ring design of their warp drive shows that they use a particle accelerator for ramping up the energy they need b. their cousins, the Romulans, never used antimatter either c. what is more logical? Gambling on a highly explosive reaction or just evolving existing technology? Don't forget, that Vulcans didn't even believed in time travel, because they didn't realized, that it isn't a proof that they never found an involvement of time travellers, because as the time travellers are from the future they know exactly what they have to destroy/replace to not get caught. If Daniel had wanted, he could have replaced his room on the NX 01 all the time - but he wanted Archer as an ally for the temporal war, that's why he left his stuff in his room. After the end of Season 3s Nazi Reptiloid finals his room disappeared and was never mentioned again ;)

[@jaredharris1970]

The way Picard touched the warp reactor made me think imagine going back in time to witness the Wright brothers first successful flight and not being able to tell them anything about how their work changed the world

[@aerisgainsborough2141]

and telling them about MSFS2020 being invented 120 years from then...How would you start???

[@michaelsasylum]

Picard was touching the fuselage of the delivery rocket, not even the phoenix itself.

[@seanm4095]

​@@michaelsasylum Nickpicker!!

[@ouknow1446]

They put an engine on a glider. It was bound to happen sooner or later. An interesting question is which was more important to flight? The glider or the engine that made it practical? Imagine standing next to the first combustion engine with its inventor and not being able to tell him the countless applications his engine would have.

[@BierBart12]

@@aerisgainsborough2141 By showing them. I don't think that 100yo or older geniuses would be less capable of understanding computers if introduced to them like a child It'd blow their mind beyond compare

[@vovacat1797]

I prefer the idea that you can power a warp drive with any kind of energy, it just so happens that matter/antimatter reactions (which need dilithium, probably more to create the high-energy plasma than to regulate the flow) are the best way to get the power you need. Otherwise of course you can use a fusion reactor to power a small warp 1 drive.

[@translucentsquirrelofdarkn7138]

yeah. Scientifically speaking, Matter-antimatter mixing is the most energy-dense fuel possible, wherein all mass of the matter and antimatter is converted into energy with no waste product. Antimatter is the best fuel possible for powering anything that requires obscene amounts of energy such as a warp drive.

[@oldmanjim2376]

They dont actually need dilithium. It just makes a more efficient reaction, so is needed above certain speeds or it would require too much reactants

[@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t]

@@translucentsquirrelofdarkn7138 And phaser banks, shields...

[@christopherg2347]

You do not need Dilithium for a Warp 1 shuttle. Which is what the Phoenix is. But the NX was a few orders of magnitude bigger and faster then that. And it was a small fry compared to a 1km ship like the 1701-D

[@translucentsquirrelofdarkn7138]

@@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t those too. But i don't think the phoenix had 'em.

[@TheBillzilla]

I didn't mind that warp scene, what bothered me more was how did they make a safe landing on Earth after that?

[@kilemeinocalvire9898]

Apollo style?

[@TheBillzilla]

@@kilemeinocalvire9898 - That's the most likely.

[@STho205]

@@kilemeinocalvire9898 Yep. That audience assumption seems worked into the prop model.

[@STho205]

A bigger question is how'd they get back to Earth in space? You've never flown in a warp field in subspace ...you are on the other side of Neptune when you return to normal space. You point the nose and hope? Star Trek never even addressed navigation and relative dilation in Impulse... Much less Warp. You go 0.98 C in normal space... distance shrinks toward zero as does time. So by the time Kirk says Woah Mr Sulu Woah! You're on the other side of the galaxy, and it is: 102266CE When I say Woah i mean WOAH!

[@kellyBorgman]

@@STho205 Woah Camel !

[@lafortya]

I love the description of dilithium from the book How Much for Just the Planet. I don't remember the exact quote, but it's something like... "To cut dilithium it's not just that you have to hit it hard. You have to hit it hard now, last Tuesday, and a week from Thursday, all at the same time! "Acording to my calendar, it's time to strike this crystal now. "Wow! That was something wasn't it. "That man will be okay because he got prompt medical attention. But don't try this at home kids."

[@39KHall]

Ford's untimely death was a tremendous loss to us all.

[@rcslyman8929]

That quote's almost spot on from what I remember. The idea that dilithium contains the annihilation effect over time, rather than space, was fairly ingenious.

[@tungstentaco495]

I like the idea of the Vulcans being the suppliers of dilithium early on. It would explain how they were able to slow down Earth's warp program despite being just passive advisors. It's a good solution to a lingering plot hole with Enterprise.

[@this.is.a.username]

it was never a plot hole

[@tungstentaco495]

@@this.is.a.username yes it was.

[@this.is.a.username]

@@tungstentaco495 no, it wasn't.

[@tungstentaco495]

@@this.is.a.username yes, it was

[@JoducusKwak]

i think that the complaints about Vulcans slowing them down was more about the Vulcans often going "look thats a bad idea, you should start from scratch dont even think about reworking this one" and imo, it was actually not even good advise, they where just biased towards there own ship design using a warp ring rather than warp nacells Vulcans at the time wanted to forge humans in to something like them self, technology and society

[@finregan9322]

Simple.....Fusion. Romulans don't have dilithium so their early ships were powered by fusion reactors. Then they switched to quantum singularities.....Basic stuff

[@andromidius]

Well their Warbirds don't use dilithium at least. Considering they've fought wars over it in the past its likely they use it for other purposes like smaller patrol vessels or cargo transports or city power plants. Or they just want it to stop others having access to it, or to trade. But their Warbirds definitely don't, for sure.

[@finregan9322]

@@andromidius Indeed

[@attila535]

@@andromidius Yep, the dilithium mines on Remus existed for a reason.

[@toomanyaccounts]

@@attila535 to put the Remans there? I thought that was why the Remans were there

[@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870]

@@andromidius Well, according to much fan analysis, the primary advantage to singularities isn't efficiency or even stealth, but logistics. A warbird using a singularity can fuel it with basically any kind of matter. From deuterium to office chairs. While antimatter reactors can too be fueled with almost anything, to achieve the best performance dilithium and hydrogen (both matter and antimatter) must be used. The former we don't exactly know why, but the latter is because hydrogen is the smallest possible atom, which makes it easier to mix and annihilate. The fact Starfleet uses deuterium actually negatively impacts efficiency, but since it's also the best fuel for fusion, it might be again a question of easing logistics. Anyway, the artificial singularity allows warbirds to act like nuclear submarines. They never need to head back to port for refueling, and can remain cloaked for extensive periods of time.

[@SchneeflockeMonsoon]

I’d guess it has to do with the fact that warp drive and warp cores are unrelated, as atomic reactors can supply enough power for a warp 1 engine, if only barely.

[@vidlink]

And to think, over hundreds of years they never invented anything better than an antimatter reactor to power the core of their warp drives and ships.

[@Eshanas]

This was basically the assumed old beta canon: Fusion reactors (and maybeee negative energy or so, but never saw it) could get a warp ship to low warp speeds. It's how United Earth and the Romulans fought their war, and 'Impulse' was often taken to just be 'Fusion' power. But the show itself barely, if ever, put the two together.

[@christopherg2347]

@@vidlink It is a complete Annihilation Reactor. 100% Efficiency. What better is there?

[@vidlink]

@@christopherg2347: It's sci-fi, use your imagination and look at current scientific theories for inspiration. For example, look into quantum mechanics, plenty of interesting ideas there.

[@The_Lucent_Archangel]

How about a design that doesn't 100% hinge on a rare material which can't be replicated, and which apparently can be rendered inert by hurt feelings, genius?

[@MartinDeHill]

I really like the idea that the first warp jump was just completely unregulated. I mean, most real-world machines that need to be regulated will work for a short time on a low setting without that regulator. Just don't push them too hard and don't run them for too long or they'll explode. Also really fits First Contact's Cochrane's character.

[@seanthornton4382]

The book goes into more detail. Used the warhead as an energy source. Gave an idea of how crazy Cochrane is supposed to be.

[@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870]

Because dilithium is only a vital component of the antimatter reactor design known as Warp Core. It isn't even necessary for an ordinary antimatter reactor, only in the high-efficiency Federation and Klingon design. And to power a Warp Drive, all that's needed is high energy plasma. The Warp Core generates that plasma, but so do Romulan artificial singularities, and fusion powered impulse engines. Since we know the latter can be used to achieve low Warp speeds, it's possible the Phoenix was powered by a fusion generator.

[@DOOMocrat]

The energy harnessed through a singularity still uses dilithium as a regulator for the conversion to warp plasma, or at least in STO.

[@chrissonofpear1384]

@@DOOMocrat Is that new STO source material, say?

[@jonasklose6472]

I think in Star Trek First Contact it was mentioned to be a fusion reactor. Or at least strongly suggested. I need to watch that movie again...

[@xheralt]

Sorry, not true. There was absolutely no mention of warp cores in TOS, TAS, or tabletop games of the pre-TNG era (Star Fleet Battles or FASA's Star Trek Starship Combat Simulator), which featured dilithium. The nacelles were the energy sources. You may think of that as "beta" canon, but for those of us who grew up with it, it was simply THE canon and there was no other. TMP introduced a centralized "intermix chamber", and TWoK introduced lethal "warp plasma", both as plot devices. These were melded together, for TNG production, to create the "warp core" as we now know it, which is simply not "just" the powerplant that generates 1.21 jig-a-whats, but is somehow _also_ integral to the warp cycle. ST:E, being produced after TNG, retconned warp cores into pre-TOS mythology. I personally wish they hadn't. The less said about ST:D, the better.

[@MNsLegoChannel]

if the Romulans used artificial singularities, why did they need to enslave the entire Reman population to mine dilithium (from Nemesis...oh wait...)? I doubt to sell it 🤔🤔🤔...

[@firstnamelastname2552]

I always assumed the Phoenix used nuclear fission as its fuel. As far as I'm aware you don't need a matter/antimatter reaction to produce a warp field. You just need lots of energy from wherever you can get it.

[@TheRogueX]

IIRC the Star Trek world had fusion reactors by the time of the Phoenix launch, so it was likely that instead of fission.

[@firstnamelastname2552]

@@TheRogueX I'm open to that idea but I checked Memory Alpha and the earliest reference is from the Enterprise episode Anomaly. Is there something in canon about fusion reactors on earth at the time of the Phoenix?

[@SilvaDreams]

Warp cores are a bit of a misnomer, they are the power core for powering the warp coils (and the rest of the ship) with a highly efficient mater/anti-matter power core and the dilithium crystals are essentially the equivalent of the control rods for a nuclear reactor.

[@Oatmealism]

@@firstnamelastname2552 iirc the enterprise d used fusion reactors for its impulse engines.

[@stevenlitvintchouk3131]

You probably need a matter/antimatter reaction to produce the kind of warp 6+ field that the NCC-1701 can produce. Cochrane's prototype ship probably couldn't even reach warp 2.

[@davewar9098]

I remember something about the Jem' Hadar using Ion drive adapters in their engines to achieve warp 9.6. I think there were other references to Ion Drives in other episodes. A slow energy build up to achieve warp speed or a stored energy build up to obtain short high speed travel at warp.

[@alexslgato1735]

People at Star Trek Discovery forgot that Dilithium is not the only way to achieve a good warp drive speed, it's energy - Klingons and the Federation used the Dilithium as a regulator because their warp engines used a similar warp core with matter-antimatter reactions and simplified a lot with their energy generators; but before that there were Yoyodyne Nuclear Reactors. The El-Aurian refugee ships from Star Trek Generations used those reactors instead of the matter-antimater ones and could reach warp factor 4. Not to mention the Romulans used a warp core based on an artificial micro-singularity that could reach warp 9 normally in the TNG Romulan Warbirds without issues.

[@Big_Loo]

I always thought that the antimatter reaction didn't actually make the warp field, but was used to produce the incredible amount of energy needed for it, and that the dilithium either regulated the reaction (like control rods in a fission reactor) or in some way harnessed the energy (e.g. like some sort of piezoelectric crystal) to power the warp coils. In this case, any form of power plant of sufficient output would be enough to power the coils and generate a warp field.

[@worldtraveler930]

I like your thinking!

[@nobodyimportant2470]

This also explains why small shuttles can go to low warp without an antimatter reactor. The Warp Core is just the antimatter reactor that powers the ship. The bigger the ship the more power you need to generate a field and you very quickly hit diminishing returns for anything else as more reactors means more mass which needs more power.

[@widders1]

Same, they don't have anti-matter mines or resupplies. I've always assumed they use the fusion generators to produce anti-matter either because an anti-matter/matter reaction is required or just to be able to provide enough power fast enough for the warp core to function. Then the fusion generators they can power with easily attainable hydrogen, helium etc.

[@kaitlyn__L]

👍

[@steakslave]

This is essentially correct. Dilithium Is instrumental in channeling and amplifying the reaction for the warp coils to use most efficiently. Antimatter warp can be achieved without dilithium, but you're going nowhere fast in relative terms since most star systems are at least a few lightyears apart. Dr. Cochrane most likely used some type of highly ionized crystals, or as the video suggests, structurally reinforced or crystalized lithium.

[@2bituser569]

It warped the same way the Romulans did in “Balance of Terror” on pure simple impulse power. Not to be confused with Impulse only engines. To get high warp you need more energy than simple impulse which I believe is powered by fusion reactors.

[@DarthSpock1]

Also interesting considering their 24th century Warbirds used singularities instead of M/AM reactors. I have wondered about the dilithium mines on Remus though, if that indicates the crystals are more integral to warp field generation than raw power production, or if they used M/AM in other class vessels. The Romulans don't strike me as the type to freely trade such a critical resource outside the empire to potential rivals, they are NOT the Ferengi after all.

[@user-nf9xc7ww7m]

@Robert Loper I can see this. Cruise ships and yachts are not allowed to use nuclear power, but military ships, such as aircraft carriers, are allowed to.

[@Jamex07]

@@DarthSpock1 Certifiably Ingame mentioned in a previous video that the singularity core inside Romulan Warbirds still relies on dilithium. Otherwise Ni'Var wouldn't have lost warp capability following the burn.

[@deusexaethera]

@@user-nf9xc7ww7m: Non-military ships can use nuclear power, but they require government-certified nuclear engineers to run the reactors, and thus far only the Russians have seen fit to actually bother with this. They have a couple civilian nuclear-powered icebreakers.

[@deusexaethera]

@@Jamex07: It makes no sense for a singularity to rely on dilithium, or antimatter at all. The accretion disk around a singularity will produce high-energy plasma without either of those things. STD broke canon and should be ignored on this point.

[@patsk8872]

Nice to know it's been explained 5 entirely different ways. I liked your explanation the best.

[@kittyyuki1537]

Having the Phoenix use Fusion power instead of AM/M reaction seems more believable progression of technology, and that's also probably why it took so long to go from barely above Warp 1 to Warp 2. Since Fusion is reaching its limits they knew they needed to develop a new reactor; the Antimatter/Matter Reactor but without Dilithium they will have a lot of difficulty in progressing on that front. A few years before the Warp 2 program they have become aware of the existence of Dilithium and the Humans learned that everyone else including the Vulcans is using Dilithium. But the Vulcans wouldn't give the Humans any (that's also probably why Archer has a resentment towards the Vulcans) so Earth needs to find its own. Eventually since they now know how to look for signs of Dilithium they eventually found some either on the South Pole, Within the Solar System or even one of the Colonies. And that Dilithium is what made the Warp 2 project possible. With access to Dilithium the progress from Warp 2 to Warp 5 was very fast, it only took around 8 years from the breaking of the Warp 2 barrier to the launch of the NX-01.

[@schwarzerritter5724]

"Warp core" is just a nickname for antimatter reactors. That suggests "warp plasma" is just a nickname for highly energy rich plasma. So you can have warp speed if you have another, although probably less efficient, way to generate warp plasma.

[@dreed100]

Romulans use micro black holes for energy. So yeah. No need for dilithum

[@lucasbachmann]

A matter/antimatter reaction generates gamma rays. Dilithium is known to convert photons into mechanical energy (TNG: Pen Pals) - which is basically turning the gamma rays directly into heat. For whatever reason the plasma that runs through warp coils produces a stronger field when hot. (opposite how a superconducting magnet needs to be keep ultra cold). Presumably the plasma is optimized for high temperatures and field coil interactions just like car oil.

[@jimskywaker4345]

@@lucasbachmann so the plasma is effectively coolant for the warp core?

[@lucasbachmann]

@@jimskywaker4345 I'd say warp plasma is acting like the copper wire in an electromagnet. Shooting the plasma through warp coils creates the subspace field. But the plasma needs to be super hot to work - which is where the warp core reaction comes in. But it doesn't care how it gets hot - coal, antimatter, black hole are just energy sources for heating the plasma.

[@JoducusKwak]

@@lucasbachmann now i want to see a warp ship in star trek powered by Coal ... not that it would realistically get hot enough i would asume but you can always go "here is this super space coal named quadrupelCoal" or something

[@KatrinaLeFaye]

He also hit warp 1.1 on the original Warp Scale, and just barely at that with help. The Bajorians broke the warp barrier with solar sail ships after all.

[@andrewmalinowski6673]

Glad to hear a mention of "Federation: First 150 Years" because that was my first go-to, but according to an Enterprise episode which specifically mentioned dilithium relating to warp propulsion humans didn't utilize it for their M/A reaction given a comment regarding it as an "unknown element" within the periodic table. It's likely that at least up to the NX-class humans traded dilithium among other commodities but didn't know about it for warp-reaction until at least post-2153 and while it's mentioned as existing in small quantities on Earth there was little dialogue or in-universe mention of it's use within pre-22nd century warp drives

[@odonovan]

He didn't use dilithium. He used medical grade lithium. He still got to warp speed, he just did it a lot slower and more calmly.

[@StevenHouse1980]

In the Enterprise-D the Dilithium is placed in the Matter/Antimater intermix chamber. Gordie made agustments to the Dilithium crystaline matrix so that it could be manipulated wile still being inside the chamber, ajusting the intermix ratio for greater controle of the mater antimatter power output. Spliting the energy frequancey's for multipul overlaping power flows came later in the EPS Conduits.

[@nunya3163]

The issue with this is that the only ratio for matter: Anti-matter is 1:1.

[@SilvaDreams]

@@nunya3163 Best way to think of it is to think of Dilithium crystals like the control rods for a nuclear reactor.

[@LoT945]

I've always viewed it as Dilithium Crystals as being needed to control the antimatter reaction, the Matter-Antimatter reactor is needed to provide the massive amounts of energy to achieve the higher warp speeds for large ships but speeds like warp 1-3 could be achieved with fusion reactors or even just a high output capacitor charged by the mothership akin to how the smaller shuttles in TNG could achieve warp speeds for short ranges, Runabouts being the smallest vessels to equip their own Matter-Antimatter reactor thus the smallest classification of starship.

[@STho205]

Eventually dilithium became "The Spice" It produced a conflict or crisis plot point analogous to what a 60s audience may view Uranium for the real USS Enterprise or in the 80s how people saw oil after the US had started importing it instead of producing it.

[@minorityofthought1306]

Yes. This my head cannon as well. The warp coils only need power/energy to operate. Plasma (any plasma) is used to energize the Verturium Cortinide coils through electromagnetic induction. But the Verturium Cortinide has special properties that when they reach a threshold (warp one) the electromagnetic field begins to couple with gravity into extra dimensions i.e. subspace. That interaction creates gravitational waves that warp space and time. By collapsing the field in front of and around the ship, then swelling the field behind it; warp travel is achieved. This is why I also think that the deflector dish isn't used during warp. Because the ship isn't moving at all. The ship is in a region of flat space inside the warp bubble. Even large objects in normal space are warped around that 'flat space' bubble. and only if the ship accelerates within the bubble will inertial dampers be needed as well.

[@ragebrick]

2:18 Always nice to see the Sternbach 'Bonaventure' from the old Space Flight Chronology.

[@spikedpsycho2383]

Fusion. You don't need dilithium for warp, just really way way wayyyy more efficient. Dilithium is durable Phoenix ran on fusion engine which was tech available in 2020's (star trek time) Phoenix entered warp it's speed was probably warp 1.1, translight threshold. Phoenix was anti-matter cataylzed propulsion

[@grey5626]

@spikedpsycho man made fusion has existed since at least the Farnsworth Fusor in 1964. As of 2021, no man made fusion reactor is "net energy efficient" (meaning it requires more energy going into it than can be harnessed as output). However, we already know that Starfleet ships do not have indefinite power. Therefore, we can conclude that whatever reactor technology Starfleet uses, is also not net energy efficient. Even stars eventually die, so they too, seem to fail the net energy efficient criteria. The question is: can Starfleet get significant energetic output from a warp engine to sustain sufficient travel before they can resupply necessary fuel sources? By all appearances: yes.

[@Lightman0359]

I like your "just a fusion reactor" idea, since it ties in with the explanations for the script error in TOS: The Balance of Terror, where Scotty mocks the Romulan BoP for having "only Impulse drive". The technobabble there was, while it obviously [in design and in quoted speeds] had warp nacelles and could attain low to mid warp speeds, it was running the nacelles off of the fusion reactors that power Impulse thrusters. Because of this it was no threat to the Enterprise due to not having the vast reserves of power provided by a M/ARA

[@paxzin8501]

I remember something from around 40 years ago, I can't remember if it was the Star Fleet Technical manual, or another reference. But the first dilithium was found in quartz. An unusual, but normal formation of the quartz crystal would sometimes form a different lattice. Similar as to how Edison tried everything under the sun to create a lightbulb filament, there were some that were testing this new matrices with mostly unnoticeable results. Almost to the point that it was considered to be 'trash quartz'. Parallel to the research of quartz and the odd matrix, was the anti-matter containment process, which had issues with the controlled magnetism of the magnetic bottle, used to contain and control the flow of anti-matter protons. Much like the Edison experiments, many different materials were explored and tested, but failed to some degree or the other. It was only when someone, on a whim, decided to try this 'trash quartz' which not only held it's matrix, but created a plasma beam of immense power (causing great damage) to the laboratories. It seemed that this rare matrix of quartz if properly aligned, would allow for the flow of anti-matter to matter conversion, where the resulting plasma could be converted into a power sizeable to approach the power requirements of 'warp field generation'. Such a discovery that dilithium was often found in common quartz led to a mad rush to collect, identify, and refine existing quartz, on the chance of discovering more of this new matrix, this 'dilithium crystal'. Eventually, it was found that only this dilithium was stable enough to allow for the anti-matter conversion process. So while the story of Cochran isn't familiar to me (aside from the movie), the reference material I read that eventually, the scientist of this time began experiments designed into creating a warp field, not just for 'shield generation' barriers, but for propulsion. This lines up with Cochran's experiment and after several unmanned projects, it was decided to test this with a manned mission. Which resulted in those 'little green men' aka Vulcans, taking notice enough to passively observe Earth. So no, according to the source material, they did not come down for some hot-dogs and beer, as we saw in the movie. The Vulcans continued to monitor our progress, until it seemed clear that soon the humans would attempt to travel beyond our solar system. It was at that stage were they announced themselves (after having sufficient time to study our language and culture) and met in space by 'voice communication only'. According to the old stories, Vulcans were always envisioned as the 'alien grays' that we've had in our historical myths. Yes, the same grays that abduct people, mutilate cattle, make crop circles, and probe our hiney's. But creating a body, in the 60s to represent the 'grays' was out of the question, so they were changed to what we now see with Nimoy's adaptation.

[@grey5626]

One thing that sticks out is a memory of being invited to the TNG set before the show ever aired, and being given a tour by one of the technical advisors. As he pointed out the blinkenlights that made up the Warp Core set of the NCC-1701-D, where he explained that was supposedly where the matter and anti-matter mixed, but he made an off hand remark that: "one misunderstanding that a lot of people have is that star ships are propelled into warp. That is not correct, they are *pulled* into a warp. Impulse power is propulsion, warp is something else." He didn't really explain it much more than that, but it stuck with me decades later. Nonetheless, no Star Trek movie or book or episode I have ever encountered has explained warp theory to me in more detail than that occasion.

[@darthdragonborn1076]

4:27 i actually found that book at my grandpas last month. He let me keep it and i cannot stop reading it

[@xpgx1]

Gr8 video Ric! I think it's like a few of the other comments say - the key is you need _energy_ to create the bubble. _How_ you obtain it, shouldn't be that relevant. Your theory fits nicely into the whole story, all angles considered. Yeah, like it =) Also gives us a bit more context as to exactly how and what the Vulkans witheld from us.

[@roberts.1050]

I like the idea that it was a predestination paradox. Enterprise-E always gave them a seed supply of dilithium to regulate the reaction. It was always part of the history and them discovering that they were going back in time to foil the borg and help get the Phoenix going always happened.

[@michaell1473]

According to the Enterprise D manual released in the 90's, the thing about dilithium is that it doesn't annihilate with anti-hydrogen. So the crystals were used to focus the antimatter and matter beams in the reaction chamber and control the reaction. That reaction produces high energy plasma which is fed to the warp coils in the nacelles generating a subspace field. (This is by memory, I don't have a copy of that manual handy). The TOS era movies fudge this a bit by suggesting that the crystals themselves were energetic and drove the reaction. Given the amount of thought put into the technical manual by Sternbach and Okuda, I'd say it is probably the more definitive source.

[@1TakoyakiStore]

This is a particularly fascinating episode! I had no idea that there was this much ambiguity to dilithium crystals in early earth warp developments. I guess I had assumed that Zefram Cochrane had grown dilithium crystals but the process was too slow to be practical enough to make warp capable ships commercially available.

[@G3rain1]

In engineering in general there's usually never just one way of doing things. So the most mundane explanation is that it's entirely possible to regulate a matter-anitmatter reactions in other ways, It's just that dilithium happens to be a really good way.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

He just used the patented Chochrane-style Warp Reaction Manual Control Device, also known as "joystick"

[@mancubwwa]

there is. It can be regulated using electro-magnetic fields-we can do this today actually. It's just a really inefficent, and at our level requires village-sized particle accelerators.

[@patrickradcliffe3837]

Dilithium has the interesting property of not reacting with anti-matter due to its unique subspace properties. This was used to precision focus the matter and anti-matter streams. It reduces the amount of unwanted radiations reducing the amount of baffle plates to protect the crew. With this precision focus the power output increased tremendously giving access to higher speeds. The Romulan warbird is able to go to warp with just simple impulse reactors.

[@RurouniKalainGaming]

Never gave much thought to this either, thanks for it! A fun exploration.

[@worldtraveler930]

I seem to remember Uhura and Checkoff having to steal radioactivity from the aircraft Carrier Enterprise to recristalize the Artificial dilithium crystals that are utilized on board the Klingon bird of prey.

[@TheBrewjo]

It makes sense, in the real world, we have five generations of nuclear reactors (and various sub categories) all on paper by the early 60's. So fast forward to ST's era and it's not hard to imagine they had various fusion reactor designs and just picked the best option they could get at the time.

[@masterpython]

They didn't know it would be perpetually 20 years away

[@grey5626]

​@@masterpython Ah yes, that joke. The reality is, that while man made fusion has existed since at least the Farnsworth Fusor in 1964, the canard is the "net energy efficient" criteria (namely that more energy is harnessed from the fusion, than is put into the reactor). However, no other energy sources humans use seem to be evaluated by that same metric. Are coal furnaces, net energy efficient? No! They require deadly mining operations to fuel coal fires, which release significant amounts of pollution (and even more radiation than most fission reactors) to boil water to spin turbines. Nonetheless, the power produced from the turbines, seems to make enough idiots happy to keep polluting the planet with them. Are enriched uranium fission reactors, net energy efficient? No! They require deadly mining and refinement to fuel uranium reactors which produce plutonium, utilized in weaponry, and they also, like coal furnaces, boil water to spin turbines. Nonetheless, the power produced from the turbines, and the plutonium from the fission, seems to make enough idiots happy to keep polluting the planet with them. Are solar panels, net energy efficient? No! By most accounts, more energy is put into manufacturing photovoltaic cells, than they ever will produce in their operating lifetimes. Still, for some off grid utilizations, or space travel, they seem to make enough idiots happy to keep polluting the planet, while we explore others with them. Are stars net energy efficient? No! By most accounts, stars eventually die, yet for reasons that should seem obvious by now, only human made fusion is evaluated by different criteria, even though humans have come no where close to harnessing the energy of one naturally occurring fusion reactor we orbit (namely: the Sun) but they are still idiotic enough to theorize about Dyson spheres, and civilizations which presumably pollute solar systems en masse while they explore the galaxy. Humans: really dumb, for a lot longer than 20 years.

[@snapper69996666]

I learn so much about the tech stuff, thank you

[@wonkothesane8691]

As my Daddy used to say, before he left this cold, cruel world: ''There's more than one way to fillet a tribble.''

[@UnknownUzer]

If I remember correctly Dilithium is special due to it being the only known matter that can come into contact with antimatter without mutually annihilating each other. Without such a substance the only way to hold/store antimatter is within a magnetic field that suspends it from contacting with matter. However this is extremely dangerous for several obvious reasons, but science is not always safe. IMO, it is possible that Cochrane's design generated antimatter directly into a magnetic field which is then attenuated to extrude the antimatter into the reaction chamber to collide with matter to make the reaction needed . What say you? Does this seem plausible? Please, anyone, feel free reply with any critiques or additions to this theory.

[@The_Lucent_Archangel]

Seems plausible on the face of it, but he did this in 2063 which is not that far away now. We can't produce more than a fraction of a gram of antimatter in our largest, most advanced particle accelerators, never mind not having the millions of dollars expended to do so fizzling away in an instant. Granted, Trek pretty obviously doesn't take place in our real world timeline the way something like Stargate was meant to, but it makes me think that warp plasma can be produced by a fusion reaction as well. Maybe not to the scale of a matter/antimatter reaction, but perhaps enough to hit Warp 1 at least. Even that is a little problematic from the out-of-universe perspective though - we've been "ten years away" from controlled fusion power for decades now.

[@djolds1]

Lots of Beta Canon authors have made a hack of things.

[@toomanyaccounts]

@@The_Lucent_Archangel we couldn't produce that much aluminum at one point hence why it was more expensive then gold. a relatively short period in historical terms introduced a much more efficient way of extracting it from ore reducing the price down to double digits per pound then a few dollars per pound when yet again a more efficent way of extracting the metal from the ore was devised. who is to say a much more efficient way of generating anti-matter will not occur in a few decades to make it practical?

[@The_Lucent_Archangel]

@@toomanyaccounts That's apples and oranges. One was a case of an efficient process for extracting a pure element from bauxite needing to be developed. The other one involves actually altering the charge of subatomic particles or stimulating a decay chain that will en masse produce enough positrons, antiprotons, and antineutrons for a practical amount of antihydrogen (or antideuterium in this case) to result. It can't be overstated just how much more complex and insane the latter is compared to the former. Barring some sort of insane breakthrough in particle physics, it's not happening anytime soon - which couldn't be said for figuring out how to process ore. We've been doing that in one form or another since we were hunter-gatherers thousands of years ago. Nuclear science is still relatively in its infancy by comparison. But let's carry that analogy a bit further, shall we? Even if we hadn't cracked the aluminum problem in a timely manner, odds are we still would have figured out composites. Carbon fiber and similar materials come to mind. We have figured out other lightweight materials with enough strength to produce constructs which typically required metal. Now back to Trek; why in the heck would the majority of two galactic quadrants rely on just ONE material to produce the requisite energy for faster-than-light travel for hundreds of years? Seems pretty stagnant by comparison.

[@kamenriderblade2099]

@@The_Lucent_Archangel I'm thinking the same thing, given the size of Cochranes Fusion Reactor, he could generate enough Electro-Plasma to barely hit Warp 1 for a brief jaunt. Later on, they can probably use a larger vessel and a more efficient Fusion Reactor to maybe get up to Warp 2. But after that point the amount of Electro Plasma needed to go past Warp 2 wasn't easily generatable by any Fusion Reactors they had at the time. So they learn of M/A-M reactors & Dilithium and that allowed the big jump due to how much Electro-Plasma it can make and how compact it was. Ergo technology scaled better in terms of Reactor Size + Logistics.

[@philly83]

Dilithium is just used to regulate the reaction for higher warp speeds. It's not a fuel source so it's not needed to reach low warp speeds.

[@workonesabs]

Dilithium, as said is a regulator, but using less power for shorter periods from the warp core, you can get away with M/AM reaction, like in stargate, the Tauri ships used a buffer to regulate the FTL drive, and when the buffer was damaged, FTL is still perfectly attainable, but any overload can cause a core breach - which it did.

[@robsquared2]

One of the books I read just suggested that for very low warp speeds you use lithium, instead of dilithium. It was called Star Trek Federation by Reeves-Stevens.

[@balrighty3523]

The dilithium isn't necessary for the warping part of the warp drive, just the smooth reaction of matter and antimatter necessary to reach higher warp speeds. Conventional magnetic containment can channel the reaction of matter and antimatter sufficient for lower speeds. And while I don't doubt that some of the beta canon establishes warp 2 as the limit (or at least, humanity's limit) of what can be achieved without dilithium, I remember the TOS novel Memory Prime. It established that appr. warp 4 is what a starship can do without the dilithium crystals in use (indeed, the Enterprise is spared a catastrophic malfunction because Scotty had the crystals out for the mission, which was in the heart of Federation space and didn't need higher speeds available anyway). And when Enterprise came out and featured the NX-01 as Earth's first warp 5 ship, I took that as implicit confirmation (as in, if we suppose that Henry Archer's big accomplishment was the discovery of dilithium, or at least its theoretical role in allowing warp engines to channel more fuel safely, then that could have been what made the warp 5 engine so special).

[@Salsuero]

Where does Cochrane get the antimatter? It's not like they sell that stuff at Walmart. Look at his facility. Where is he making antimatter? Where is he storing it? How is he storing it? They're in a post-WWIII era and he's got antimatter facilities churning out enough antimatter to... matter? We can't make but a tiny amount of it in our best laboratories. It is erased from the universe once it does its job. So... he needs a replenishable supply. I just don't see it. There's no way the Phoenix achieved "warp" speed. We saw it happen in the movie. But you don't get a stable warp field from nuclear power alone. I can't see how it happened in the environment it did with the technology shown.

[@STho205]

@@Salsuero like all of Star Trek since 1966, the writer made it happen. They travelled at the speed of plot. 1966 The Enterprise didn't have dilithium... They had lithium crystals treated like fuses or vague energy lenses. It has always been fantasy... with science sounding jargon. Star Trek contributing greatly to the modern religion of Scientism....

[@Salsuero]

@@STho205 ​ @S Tho Ok... no one said it wasn't fantasy. We're discussing this in terms of the Star Trek universe, not our own real one.

[@STho205]

@@Salsuero but the fact that it is a dozen TV shows with many episodes from contributing writers, and a dozen movies spread over 55 years.... And... It is future fantasy... Means there is no real consistency, no basis in actual science principles, and about as realistic as Buck Rogers stories if the 20s and 30s relative to their written decades.

[@STho205]

@@Salsuero most of the "technical" rules people are discussing here were created by 1980s and late 70s college kids playing Star Trek RPGs. Not the show scripts or directors-editors notes. In the series all the stuff was very vague and the physics rules kept changing script to script. They had two reactors on the ship. Antimatter and matter was at least involved in the warp core reactor. I don't recall them ever discussing fuel for the impulse reactor. Matter antimatter were seperated by a "magnetic bubble" There is a high energy plasma stream Lithium then dilithium crystals were mentioned sometimes as routers, sometimes as fuel The ship systems (life support, heat, lights, computers and weapons) must have run on the impulse reactor or some other unmentioned reactor... Because they worked when the warp drive was broken. In naked time they couldn't stabilize their orbit or leave because Riley turned the reactor off. Since intermix was matter/antimatter and took them into a time warp... That script forgot about the impulse engines and reactor. This doesn't even bring up the mid 60s writing mistakes about decaying orbits because the engine dies (obviously a ship heading foe a reef or big plane losing engines writing trope) Or the obvious ignoring of General and Special Relativity. Or the distance between real stars which is often referenced incorrectly. Forbidden Planet did a better job with that that Star Trek did (Except The Cage)

[@inthestudy]

I feel like DS9 Emissary also supports your conclusions. In that episode (at least, if I recall correctly), a Fusion-powered space station is able to produce a subspace field using it's shield emitters - with no antimatter or dilithium involved.

[@phillipthorne8363]

Well, a shield is already an application of subspace principles. Most of Trek's magic tech (force fields, artificial gravity, sensors, comms, etc.) uses subspace in one way or another, and can evidently be modulated to have alternative effects -- although presumably at a loss of efficiency.

[@sixoffive]

I think in an early episode they actually moved the station closer to the worm hole by generating a bubble. I guess they made a small jump.

[@inthestudy]

@@sixoffive Yes. It was in Emissary, and I described it in my comment. :)

[@robertrosenthal7264]

The old Star Trek publications had a timeline that warp drives were developed, but then dilithium crystals ability to manipulate energy was discovered. It was then used to greatly increase the efficiencies of warp drives. Later warp drives were built to make the most of the dilithium crystals and so required it to function. Also, Zephram Cochrane (guessing at the spelling, I'm terrible at spelling) was known as Cochrane of Alpha Centauri since Alpha Centauri was the human colony where he lived. He was also in an episode of the original Star Trek, but I can't remember what that episode was called. The movies got him wrong, but Star Trek has never been any good at maintaining any continuity in it's information. Heck, they even used Corblemite in multiple episodes of the original Star Trek, and the same coordinates for multiple star systems, though most fans don't realize that either. :)

[@zacharygimpel9041]

So according to the Star Trek TNG technical manual, dilithium was used as the only crystal that could allow antimatter to pass through without causing a reaction with the crystal. It was able to allow matter and antimatter to collide and regulate the reaction.

[@STho205]

How did Kirk do it in 2066 (1966) with lithium crystals? Not having them keeps your impulse reactor from working too, when you're orbiting s lithium mine or a dead planet with a parallel dimension portal borrowed from The Great Gazoo or George Jetson. Star Trek has always been ever changing BS

[@QuestionDeca]

The Phoenix doesn't have a Matter/Anti-Matter reactor, the Dilithium is primarily used as a moderator in such a reactor (ie. Warp Core).

[@AokiNamiYou]

High power batteries or small reactor. Don't need anything material for warp, just energy for the coils

[@xaenon]

An old STAR TREK novel ('Chain of Attack', I think?) includes a brief discussion of primitive warp drive. Up to warp factor four was possible without dilithium crystals, but higher warp factors required the energy focusing properties of dilithium. We know from the original series that the crystals have to be physically shaped precisely. to properly channel the energy flow. There was also some discussion about dilithium and its properties in another novel called ' How Much For Just the Planet?'' Since that novel was basically written for humor, I don't know how 'canon' it could be considered.

[@maschwab63]

One of the early 1990s Star Trek books had an experimental time adjustment field installed. If it failed while Dilithium was used to power engines, the ship would be blown up. So the Enterprise travelled at Warp two with the Dilithium removed toward Memory Alpha. When the field failed, the Entreprise was stopped, repaired the engine, then traveled to Memory Alpha at warp 6 with Dilithium in use and without the field.

[@Allangulon]

No Anti matter means no need for dilithium!

[@qubex]

Warp Cores are generic power generation (actually release, since antimatter needs to be manufactured using energy and is therefore only an energy storage method, but I digress). Warp propulsion depends on warp coils creating sub space warp fields. I think the energy generation device can be pretty generic. I never really understood why they’d be injecting plasma into the cavity of these coils, though, nor where the plasma is vented to once it’s been thusly employed.

[@worldbestt-shirtshoodie-go6184]

Electromagnetic waves simply cannot penetrate subspace, only if for subspace radio. Thats why plasma need to be used. Plasma is rarely vented, only in some situations. Basically plasma enters subspace and makes the bubble around the ship, which is also bit used in the ahield generation, same mannerism of work.

[@VestedUTuber]

One correction, you can theoretically collect naturally-occuring antimatter. In fact, it's far more efficient to do this rather than trying to create it in a lab. Sources of naturally occurring antimatter include positrons released from thunderstorms and trapped antimatter particles within the inner edge of a planet's Van Allen belts.

[@qubex]

@@VestedUTuber In the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual (that I read sometime back in 1992) mentions that the Federation supposedly makes antimatter at fusion or star-powered facilities.

[@VestedUTuber]

@@qubex I was just noting what's possible. I'd argue that it's a bit odd that Starfleet didn't bother with collecting antimatter, but we didn't even know that you could find antimatter in the van allen belts until 2012.

[@atigerclaw]

Dilithium, as expressed by the TNG Technical manual (that book people keep saying doesn't count at all despite being written Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda, the technical advisors to Star Trek: The Next Generation), is used as a focusing and tuning unit in the middle of the M/AM Reactor Core of federation ships. It doesn't allow for warp drive, it makes the reactors more efficient, allowing a reactor a fixed size to produce more power for the warp coils. Thus, making warp _better._ Back in the TOS era, it's just a writing McGuffin that simulates an aspect of naval warships wherin certain parts of a ship's engine are kinda' difficult to fabricate due to exotic materials and extremely difficult manufacturing processes for a ship to carry. But space has an abundance of every element known to man, and space magic like transporters and replicators make fabricating 'regular' ship parts easy, so something has to be introduced to provide a form of scarcity that drives drama. Enter di-lithium. A regularly molecularly impossible crystal most likely thought up in relation to nuclear fusion because of things like Lithium Deuteride. Dilithium cannot be replicated, is hard to find, and thus has an importance similar to oil in Star Trek. It is the center of schemes and innovation experiments, it is the heart of territory disputes and resource wars, it is mined to the point of the mining operations being critically dangerous... It is THE Space McGuffin. And of course, on ships like Enterprise, it is essential, because even if you CAN get warp without your dilithium, your reactor and engine assembly are built AROUND it. It will run worse than a car with vacuum hose leaks everywhere.

[@winterplays665]

If I remember correctly. This dude was listening to Steppenwolfs Magic Carpet Ride while taking off into space XD respect

[@NimbleTack]

I'm sure I read somewhere a very long time ago (might have been in Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology, which came out after the first film) about "Dilithium focus" which caused a jump in engine efficiency taking ships from a fairly slow Warp 4 all the way up to Warp 7. Though I might have just been imagining it.

[@balrighty3523]

That would seem to line up with the NX-01 being the first warp 5 ship (if we assume dilithium was the big thing that made it special), which, at least according to the NX-01 refit model, got shortly upgraded to a warp 7 ship. And it also fits the novel Memory Prime, where Scotty says the same thing (and then demonstrates it by having the dilithium crystals out of the warp drive while the ship is cruising at warp 4).

[@chrissonofpear1384]

@@balrighty3523 I don't believe the Chronology's specific dates match up, but in a very broad stroke, it can somewhat cohere. In The Final Reflection novel, breaking warp 5 was still uncommon for Starfleet by 2244, for one case.

[@STho205]

@@balrighty3523 why did Kirks ship originally rely on Lithium... Not dilithium Sounded cooler when they added the extra syllable or prefix like Laser is boring Phaser is cool

[@balrighty3523]

@S Tho Early installment weirdness, I guess. Same as Kirk's middle initial being R and the Enterprise operating as part of the UESPA.

[@Noms_Chompsky]

If I'm remembering correctly, they used something else for awhile in TOS before they started using Dilithium

[@STho205]

Lithium crystals. High grade ore. Wonder if they'd swap some chicks for it. You can also phase shift to another parallel universe with a starfleet cut lithium crystal. Lucky the fitment was the same.

[@bear8696]

i seem to recall from the 80's in one of the many paperbacks i read back then that you could do warp one or warp two if you had enough power without dilithium crystals. but that was the upper limit.

[@Penfolduk001]

In the Star Trek Next Generation technical manual (published before the film) they skirted the issue in two ways. Firstly that Cochrane's first drive was not a "true" warp drive, but a super-impeller that straddled lower than light speed and just faster than light speed so rapidly it appeared to travel on average at light speed. Secondly, the Warp scale is logarithmic, with the amount of power required per second increasing exponentially with each warp factor. So you rapidly end up with needing a power source that gives maximum bang per unit time. In the case of the Federation matter/antimatter reactions regulated via dilithium crystals. Or the forced singularities used to power 24th Century Romulan Warbirds.

[@RaindropWorksPDX]

Have to admit, I really like the idea of dilithium being the difference between intrastellar and interstellar travel

[@ozelhassan8576]

This is so uncanny I have been thinking this recently and imagining I had created warp drive 42 years before Zefram Cochrane, creating a primitive runabout using ion propulsion for sublight and a radioactive core for the Warp nacelles and it travels 17 light years to Vulcan and back.

[@tkgsingsct]

my headcanon: *most* quartz on Earth (whatever kind Elaan of Troyius was wearing) IS dilitium, only after the discovery of subspace sometime during or before Cochrane's time was its usefulness understood. I love your rationalizations of the canon 🤷‍♂️

[@MegaWetwilly]

If you read Spaceflight Chronology, they didn't use dilithium until the time NCC 1701 was launched, before that it was just matter/anti matter and maxed out at warp 5

[@stevenlitvintchouk3131]

I think your recollection is a bit off. They started using dilithium on a few earlier classes of ships (not that many) before the Constitution class.

[@Aragorn7884]

If Discovery can use 'space mushrooms' _anything_ is possible in lore 😬🙄🙄

[@yazanbaddawi9683]

Shrooms 🤪🥴

[@vidlink]

Yep, let's just power warp drives with space leprechauns and space pixie dust. There's no need for even a half rational pseudoscience explanations anymore.

[@yazanbaddawi9683]

@@vidlink me lucky charms 😂

[@Aragorn7884]

@@yazanbaddawi9683 🇨🇮

[@yazanbaddawi9683]

@@vidlink I bet Snoop Dogg would enjoy a ride in Discovery 🤣🤣🤣

[@kelvin1291]

I was under the assumption that Dilithium was a “focusing” device that made warp more efficient. Without it you can only just break the speed of light. There’s other ways to go to warp without it, but either consumed other exotic elements or would be really slow

[@kamenriderblade2099]

Dilithium is a "Reaction Control" device that makes generating massive amounts of Electro Plasma in a short time frame (e.g. 1 second) very safe and controllable while being in a fairly compact physical form. That has knock on effects for Reactor Design which affects StarShip design. Look at how tiny the Prime Timeline StarShips are compared to JJ-verse ships. Look at the reactor core they filmed at CalTech to control Matter/Anti-Matter reactors. Those were MASSIVE compared to how tiny the Reactors in the Prime-Timeline.

[@danieltilson4053]

The purpose of the Dilithium is to help regulate the matter/antimatter reaction in a standard Warp Core. If it was a more standard fusion reactor, rather than an antimatter reactor, dilithium would not be necessary.

[@SumBrennus]

Going back to my training in fusion and particle physics, there are some pathways of fusion that can create anti-protons. Free neutrons will decay into positrons and protons. You don't always have exclusively hydrogen, deuterium or Helium 3. I seem to remember that Beryllium- Hydrogen fusion creates antimatter but not neutrons, leading to no (or greatly reduced) radioactivity. However, I think I need a refresher as it has been over a decade since I worked on plasma and fusion theory. The main problems would be 1) separating the anti-protons and positrons from an active plasma, 2) getting enough antimatter from the process, and 3) injecting that into the warp core. That is one way you could get energy AND antimatter out of a fusion core. But you get a lot less energy than Deuterium-Tritium or He3-hydrogen pathways because there is less binding energy. Not knowing more about the construction of warp coils and the theories of subspace,(which is the fictional theory) I can't figure out the mechanics involved. Presumably this is where Cochran's unique genius comes into play. He had access to the first physics theories about subspace and probably just solved the technical requirements (fusion system, fuel ratio, antimatter transport, magnetic confinement, materials, etc...). My head-canon is that Cochran was either and applied physics or engineering physicist who used cutting edge physics to solve engineering problems.

[@JB-ym4up]

Any scifi power source can always fall back on plotonium as a fuel. Once used as fuel the depleted plotonium can be fashioned into invisible armor plates, commonly called plot armor.

[@johnbockelie3899]

So, Earth has dilithium. but since quartz looks almost the same it's easy to confuse the two." That's quartz, dilithium fools gold."

[@Big_Loo]

Lmao, I legitimately thought you misspelled plutonium .

[@ianbailey4667]

Could they have used Lithium as there was a Lithium cracking station on Delta Vega (TOS: Where No Man Has Gone Before)

[@xheralt]

Lithium and dilithium are not related to each other in any way. Go read the Memory Alpha article on the Lithium Cracking Station to see how the ordinary lithium crystals were used. Dilithium is a fictional element with a multidimensional crystal matrix that cannot be synthesized; part of its scarcity was because it could only be found, not created.

[@xaenon]

@@xheralt But apparently it CAN be recrystalized (ST:TNG, Relics).

[@louisalectube]

@@xaenon And ST IV: The Voyage Home 8-)

[@chbu7081]

In Mudd's women, the Enterprise was powered by lithium crystals/ The cracking station was likely used to alter lithium to make it useful for use in warp drives. Lithium and dilithium are not really the same thing.

[@user-nf9xc7ww7m]

Old tech. We use quintilithium now ❄

[@DavidChilson]

The runabouts in DS9 had Warp capability but it was mentioned they had a "primary fusion core" that used Deuterium as fuel (The Maquis: Part II)

[@blackjac5000]

The Enterprise-D also ran on deuterium and antideuterium.

[@jameskennedy8030]

One of the things Cochrane and Lily Sloane was using Lithium Crystals in the Phoenix in the First Contact book before the Borg attacked....

[@KerbalSpaceCommand]

Where'd he get the verterium cortenide for the warp field coils?

[@marksmadhousemetaphysicalm2938]

Seems like an equally big problem doesn't it...

[@oliverfranke7650]

@@marksmadhousemetaphysicalm2938 Not at all. Verterium Cortenide is used by Federation starships. It's never said to be the only compound available and usable.

[@donaldseale2700]

In Voyage Home, Scotty used nuclear energy to rebuild a Dilithium crystal. Maybe Cochran used the nuclear aspect of the warhead to create crude form of Dilithium that was just stable enough to break the warp barrier.

[@fik_of_borg]

Dilithium is used by the Federation as a matter-antimatter medium to mix and get energy, but i't's not "required". What always have bugged me is not how did she fly but how did she LANDED: getting off is relatively easy, you just push all you can until you reach orbit, after all that's (almost) what ICBMs were designed for. Getting back is the hard part, it's not the fall that kills you but the crash and all that, and it's not even mentioned with a throw-away line.

[@HTH2408]

I remember It mentioned in one of the old series books that you dont actually NEED dilithium for warp travel. it only becomes useful if you wanna go faster than warp 4 (kirk time old warp scale)

[@maisiesummers42]

Dilithium simply helps to control the anti-matter/matter reaction in the engines. Fusion reaction doesn't need it. Romulans used a small singularity - they didn't need dilithium. That was a big plot hole in Discovery, IMO.

[@oliverfranke7650]

Much like the rest of Duhscovery is a big plot hole.

[@glenn6820]

The issue I always had was how did they re-enter the atmosphere?

[@1MinuteFlipDoc]

slowly. other trek vehicles were designed to be able to land on planets. voyager is one of them i believe. so warp field bending (supposedly) can also be useful in lowering a ship to a planets surface.

[@thomasschulz2167]

I believe it was one of the technical manuals where I read that the Phenix used "nested plasma waves" to induce the warp field effect in the driver coils. So high energy plasma was defiantly used, so that explains the radiation. But I don't recall a fusion reactor being on board. From a systems point of view it would make more sense to have the plasma generator housed underground at the launch site with a load of plasma "fuel" loaded on board seconds before launch. Save space and weight something that's at a premium on board a titan missile.

[@jeffhallam2004]

Excellent video!!!

[@Daknor]

Can you talk a bit more about the difficulty of Warp 2?

[@marvenlunn6086]

Didn't Scotty say they could only go warp 4 without dilithium

[@STho205]

No

[@aqdrobert]

The first warp drive used Unobtanium excited by crossed proton beams fed through a flux capacitor.

[@russellharrell2747]

I thought the beta canon was that Dilithium was only used in M/AM reactors since it was able to regulate the reaction by allowing the antimatter to pass through without annihilation of the crystal structure. Eventually dilithium lost its integrity (i guess the reaction eventually breaks down something in the crystal) thus requiring a steady supply. We saw dilithium crystals in TOS being burned out like it was a circuit breaker or fuse, dilithium ‘cracking’ stations and even particles collected from 20th century fission reactors used to ‘fix’ dilithium crystals that were ‘broken’ during warp-assisted time travel. It’s crazy stuff. At any rate, the ‘warp 2 barrier’ requiring antimatter and dilithium to achieve true interstellar warp speeds seems to jive with the original pilot The Cage When the Enterprise crew tells the ‘survivors’ on Talos 4 that the ‘time barrier’ was broken, the colonists must have been on an early warp ship with a top speed below warp 2.

[@j.j.9511]

It flew using Plot.. Plot was it's power source.

[@thomasjenkins5727]

I would just like to remind everyone that Star Trek is, and always has been, very liberal with the concept of canon, and how its technology works. That includes the use of magic space rocks. If you're not willing to accept contradictions in the lore, then you're watching the wrong franchise.

[@TheRogueX]

I mean, except for the fact that they've never ever stated that dilithium was required for warp. Just vast amounts of energy. It doesn't matter how that energy is generated.

[@thomasjenkins5727]

​@@TheRogueX The problem with your statement is the word "except." What you said doesn't contradict my comment at all. Very little about the magic space rocks has been explained, except Star Fleet and other ships need them.

[@pepe6666]

another great episode ive been rick. cheers

[@user-mx5ub9zf1k]

I don't know about the Phoenix, but in one of the earlier (like, first 10, no higher) Star Trek OE books, Captain April is piloting a ship that can go up to Warp 4 (as I recall - this has been a long time for me) using EM-Pulse Drive. Now - I know that everyone thinks that this is IMPULSE Drive - but in this book, it calls it EM-PULSE. And that, as I recall, was without Dilithium.