Antimatter Storage

A starship's antimatter storage area is a specialized part of a Federation starship designed specifically to store antimatter in a safe way. The antimatter storage area is a highly shielded and bulkhead-reinforced section of a starship. Storage areas are normally located away from a ship's habited areas, for security and safety reasons. Because a damaged or compromised antimatter storage area represents a major threat to the ship, by design these areas are also located near the ship's hull where special blow-out panels can be activated to dump the storage area's contents into space much like a critical warpcore. See also Warp Core Ejection System

The antimatter itself is stored in pods, which are self-contained magnetic confinement devices. The pods generate energy fields that keep antimatter for interacting with any form of matter. The bays are designed to prevent damage to the pods and as a result of its strong design, it is not uncommon for an Antimatter pod to survive a starship's destruction. There is an internal fusion reactor and forcefield generator, to ensure maximum survivability in the event of the starship either losing power or being destroyed, with the forcefields dissipating much of the force on the containment bunker.

Antimatter is transported from these bays, usually by transporter, or by moving a pod directly to a Warp core via system similar to the turbolifts, where separate containment systems keep it enclosed before usage.

Antimatter storage areas are normally manned by Engineering personnel.