[Zardoz]

Originally Posted by Capt. Chip

Has any starship ever had a total power failure? The closest thing would be the TNG episode when that cosmic string hit the enterprise and everything shut down (one of my more fav episodes btw) but even then there was still some emergency power to run the most critical systems like life support and at least some of the computers, if not the main one. If an energy shield is how the radiation is blocked, I think it would be a critical enough system to be tied into the emergency power.

Of course, this is all conjecture and theory. Does Mem Alpha or any of the trek manuals talk about radiation shielding?

Nope...nothing on point sadly...

[DNA-1842]

Originally Posted by Capt. Chip

Has any starship ever had a total power failure? The closest thing would be the TNG episode when that cosmic string hit the enterprise and everything shut down (one of my more fav episodes btw) but even then there was still some emergency power to run the most critical systems like life support and at least some of the computers, if not the main one. If an energy shield is how the radiation is blocked, I think it would be a critical enough system to be tied into the emergency power.

Of course, this is all conjecture and theory. Does Mem Alpha or any of the trek manuals talk about radiation shielding?

If there was a total total total power failure? it has to happen sometimes, unless one has complete mastery over infinite improbability calculations and an appropriate generator.

[Gunny1]

Originally Posted by Zardoz

Nope...nothing on point sadly...

The navigational deflector (also called the deflector dish, the deflector array or the nav deflector) is a component of many starships, and is used to deflect space debris, asteroids, microscopic particles and other objects that might collide with the ship. At warp speed the deflector is virtually indispensable for most starships as even the most minute particle can cause serious damage to a ship when it is traveling at superluminal velocities.

I've always more or less assumed it could deflect low-order EM energy, as well...

[DNA-1842]

Originally Posted by Gunny1

I've always more or less assumed it could deflect low-order EM energy, as well...

A fair assumption indeed.


What is there to stop the radiation in the event that all devices fail?

[Zardoz]

Originally Posted by DNA-1842

A fair assumption indeed.


What is there to stop the radiation in the event that all devices fail?

The Hull???

[Capt. Chip]

DNA, if there were ever a complete and total failure of every power system on board the ship then that would mean life support, food replication/synthesization, water, and every other life-neccesary function on the ship would die, and you would be dead with them within a few hours anyway, so the radiation doesn't matter much. You can ask the "but what if everything failed?" question for any system on any machine, and no matter what type of technology you have the answer is always "if everything goes to hell, you're going with it."

[DNA-1842]

If you are in the middle of a solar system, nowhere near a planets protective magnetic field but close enough to the resident star to be dangerous immediately, and your power and emergency power go, and there is no special protection at the windows to account for this. Your most immediate problem would be radiation, would it not? Without life support systems you can survive for a while, but people standing near windows are going to fry... (Not literally...)

[Capt. Chip]

Real-world example: The Russian submarine K-19 had a faulty reactor and nearly went Nagasaki on itself. A handful of the crew volunteered to make the repairs necessary to keep the reactor from exploding. Sadly, this repair involved the crew making direct contact with the reactor and they had to bear the full force of its radiation. They didn't even have radiation suits, because an idiot in port had stocked the ship with chemical suits instead (which don't block radiation one bit).
-Even though these crew members faced direct exposure to the radiation of a super-critical nuclear reactor, it was several hours (days for some of them) before they eventually died.

So, no... the radiation would not necessarily be an immediate problem... that stuff doesn't just vaporize you.

Alternate postulate: As seen in FC, radiation sickness is something easily inoculated against. Perhaps all starfleet personnel are routinely 'vaccinated' against the common types of radiation before they are allowed to serve duty.

[Gunny1]

As I mentioned earlier, the 'easiest' way to guard against radiation, IRL, is a very fine gold-mesh grid. It can be installed in windows, with no more loss of vision that a typical window screen, and even as a layer in the ship's hull.

[Zardoz]

Originally Posted by Capt. Chip

Real-world example: The Russian submarine K-19 had a faulty reactor and nearly went Nagasaki on itself. A handful of the crew volunteered to make the repairs necessary to keep the reactor from exploding. Sadly, this repair involved the crew making direct contact with the reactor and they had to bear the full force of its radiation. They didn't even have radiation suits, because an idiot in port had stocked the ship with chemical suits instead (which don't block radiation one bit).
-Even though these crew members faced direct exposure to the radiation of a super-critical nuclear reactor, it was several hours (days for some of them) before they eventually died.

So, no... the radiation would not necessarily be an immediate problem... that stuff doesn't just vaporize you.

Alternate postulate: As seen in FC, radiation sickness is something easily inoculated against. Perhaps all starfleet personnel are routinely 'vaccinated' against the common types of radiation before they are allowed to serve duty.

Also, we have seen in Trek they have innoculations for Radiation posioning, but maybe not in the 23rd century...since they obvously ddin't rescue Spock after his exposure.

If there was a treatment then even in that senario flooding the compartment shouldn;t have been an issue...hmmmm...