This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Ununnilium: I think the TNG example should just be taken out - it's incredibly weak, compared to the rest.
Seanzo: I don't see any point to the quibbling over deuterium vs. hydrogen, or the invoking of Techno Babble/handwaving. Deuterium is one part in 6500 of hydrogen, which on a cosmic scale, and considering the abundance of hydrogen, is bountiful. Anyway, who cares about deuterium — where are they getting the antimatter from?
Seven Seals: Well, that at least shouldn't be a problem if you've got a running antimatter drive and copious amounts of Applied Phlebotinum. Let an equal amount of matter and antimatter react, and you end up with enough energy to synthesize back the antimatter you lost this way and still have half left (or rather, less, since you'll lose some energy to containment, resynthesis and waste heat). Of course, if you could actually do this in real life, you'd be rich, but at least it's consistent within the show's logic.
BT The P: The Enterprise D had an antimatter plant on-board, and supplemental materials (the Technical Manual from 1993) says it's the second-heaviest single part of the ship, after the warp coils, located at the very "bottom" of the drive section. The same book says that they need to burn seven kilograms of deuterium in their impulse reactors to convert a single kilogram to anti-deuterium. Gathering deuterium is no problem, since those red spots on the front of the warp nacelles are magnetic fuel-gathering scoops called Bussard collectors. Gathering from empty space, especially when flying at warp-speed, can yield a lot of fuel, but not as much as flying through nebulae or in the gas-dense region around a star.
However, Voyager's a smaller ship, so I think it's less reasonable to assume that they home-brew. Of course, if they very logically ran as efficiently as possible as soon as they became stranded, using their standard fusion reactors for power as much as they could, they might have been able to get by with just a few refuels from those rare encounters with non-hostiles. The antimatter load of a starship can carry it for several years without refueling, according to the same sources.
Mister Six: Took out the Cowboy Bebop subversion because it's covered in Perpetual Poverty.
smith2000: When it comes to superheroes, it is Justified Trope actually.Someone like DC´s Firestorm can create gold and silver (and anything else from thin air), Superman has his squeeze coals to diamonds-trick and book called The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence Krauss explains how telepath or precog could easily become quite wealthy. Since many superpowers can be used commit undetectable crimes Offscreen Villain Dark Matter is equally justifiable.
arromdee: Wonder Woman's invisible plane is not (ignoring the invisibility) a normal plane and there's no evidence it needs fuel or maintenance, though the exact details of what it is depend on the version of Wonder Woman.
Micah: Most of the content of this page seems to have disappeared, even from the history. What's going on?
