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star trek - What happens to a TNG-era Romulan Warbird power core when it is destroyed in combat or decommissioned?


As I understand it, the TNG-era Romulan Warbird is powered by an artificial quantum singularity - a synthetic black hole.


When such a ship is taken out of commission or the power source is replaced, what do you do with a spent artificial black hole? Is it stored, or dismantled or something else?




Answer



You may not be aware of this but singularities evaporate which means that for 'practical' purposes they simply disappear unless they're continually fed matter. Thus there is no such thing as a 'spent' black hole the way there is with a 'spent' nuclear fuel rod.


From the same page:



Unlike most objects, a black hole's temperature increases as it radiates away mass. The rate of temperature increase is exponential, with the most likely endpoint being the dissolution of the black hole in a violent burst of gamma rays



So if there was a containment failure the most likely thing to happen (unless the Romulan engineers have a penchant for designing power systems that are deadlier to the user than their enemies) is an 'explosion' of gamma rays and possibly other radiation.


This would probably be similar in level of effect to a warp core breach on a Federation starship.


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