Quantum Torpedoes

[Thomas Kelvin]

Does anyone have any idea how quantum torpedoes are better than photon torpedoes? As I understand it, photon torpedoes have a matter/antimatter warhead, whereas q-torps have a plasma warhead. Unless the "plasma" part concerns the matter and antimatter having been brought to such a chaotic state, I can't see how q-torps could possibly be better. I've speculated that they may employ quantum tunneling in some fashion, but I have no idea how that would be attained.

 

[Kemaiku]

According to the technical manual books, Quantum torpedoes share a lot of the same internals of a Photo, but have two plates separated by only a near infinitely small gap to generate Zero Point Energy, which augments the explosive yield of the warhead.

 

[Timo]

Whether the yield is "augmented" or not is debatable. If anything, q-torps in DS9 appear less potent than p-torps, being useful in close quarters fighting but not creating much damage even when fired in volleys of four. The exception would be the unshielded and damaged Borg Sphere in ST:FC, but it appears it was the Borg plan all along to have Picard defeat the Sphere...

Perhaps q-torps are desirable because their yield is even easier to fine-tune than the yield of an antimatter warhead? This allows them to be used at a greater range of, well, ranges.

OTOH, even ordinary p-torps appear to tap into the secret energy resources of the universe, for every quantifiable annihilation reaction in Trek (say, "an ounce" in TOS "Obsession") produces a bigger devastating effect than it ought to. Perhaps this is why a multi-torp detonation rips a hole in spacetime in "Yesterday's Enterprise"?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[David cgc]

The exception would be the unshielded and damaged Borg Sphere in ST:FC, but it appears it was the Borg plan all along to have Picard defeat the Sphere...

The script of First Contact described the quantum torpedoes as "armor-piercing," burrowing into the target before detonation rather than exploding on contact like the photon torpedoes seen in the movie. The visual effects of the attacks on the cube and the sphere are consistent with that idea.

 

[Shikarnov]

According to the technical manual books, Quantum torpedoes share a lot of the same internals of a Photo, but have two plates separated by only a near infinitely small gap to generate Zero Point Energy, which augments the explosive yield of the warhead.

It raises an interesting debate about Borg defenses... Is the effectiveness of adaptation a function of a weapon's type, strength, or both? If we go by Q-Who and Best of Both Worlds, it would seem only type matters. In the former, once the drone in Engineering went down, the next one was protected regardless of the beam's intensity. And in the latter, the increased strength presented at Wolf 359 was no more successful in damaging the cube than the Enterprise was alone.

Contrast that against First Contact, and we see the invading cube taking damage from the Defiant's pulse phasers, and presumably quantum torpedoes -- both of which are presented to us (tech manuals notwithstanding) as being different types of weapons.

This line of thought suggests, to me at least, that quantum torpedoes are not different from photon torpedoes because they're stronger, but rather because they function in different ways. Does that make them "better"? That depends on the enemy. As it pertains to the Borg, apparently so. In combat against an armored ship, probably so. Deployed against ships with active energy shielding that would prevent their "burrowing" behavior, I would suspect that quantums are no more effective than photons (and perhaps less, depending on their overall yield).

 

[Kemaiku]

Wut?

Go boom bigger. That's all the people working on the movie and the fans that watched it thought about.

 

[Timo]

Not those who actually saw it go boom smaller...

If we go by Q-Who and Best of Both Worlds, it would seem only type matters. In the former, once the drone in Engineering went down, the next one was protected regardless of the beam's intensity. And in the latter, the increased strength presented at Wolf 359 was no more successful in damaging the cube than the Enterprise was alone.

OTOH, standard hand phasers remained effective against Drones throughout this series and others. It was just a matter of choosing a slightly different tuning, apparently.

What we know for sure about quantums is that they are more expensive (at least if purchased through the Ferengi). The rest clearly remains open to speculation. Although we might rather safely speculate that q-torps require their own dedicated launcher, as we've never seen them being fired from a "regular" tube, either on the Defiant or the E-E which both had dedicated launchers (the Lakota didn't appear to have anything obviously identifiable as a dedicated launcher, but she never did fire her quantums).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shikarnov]

OTOH, standard hand phasers remained effective against Drones throughout this series and others. It was just a matter of choosing a slightly different tuning, apparently.

It could be argued that "retuning" ended up creating an energy beam with very different (but still destructive) properties. Is there a way to vary the type of energy released in a matter/antimatter annihilation? If not, it stands to reason that quantum torpedoes were actually doing something quite different from the photons... otherwise the Borg would have shrugged them off with ease.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Does anyone have any idea how quantum torpedoes are better than photon torpedoes? As I understand it, photon torpedoes have a matter/antimatter warhead, whereas q-torps have a plasma warhead. Unless the "plasma" part concerns the matter and antimatter having been brought to such a chaotic state, I can't see how q-torps could possibly be better. I've speculated that they may employ quantum tunneling in some fashion, but I have no idea how that would be attained.

Nothing canon to be sure, but my impression is that quantum torpedoes are a lot better at penetrating shields than photon torpedoes. That is, a shield that will repel 99% of the energy of a photon torpedo will only stop half the energy of a q-torp. In that sense they're like advanced armor-piercing versions of traditional torpedoes, which would explain why they are equipped on ships like the Defiant and the Enterprise-E.

It's also never been suggested canonically that quantum torpedoes are new technology; for all we know, Excelsior was the first ship to carry them.

 

[C.E. Evans]

For all we know, quantums may just have improved targeting and greater range than photorps. They may need dedicated launchers because their accuracy could be diminished if fired from ones originally optimized for photorps (like a bullet fired from a gun with the wrong caliber).

 

[psCargile]

And, and. . .photons are quanta, and their own anti-particle.

 

[Timo]

...Might be both names are part of a family, and a deliberately uninformative one at that. Say, Nazi tanks named after feline beasts were not based on any sort of feline beast technology, and Soviet SPGs named after flowers had no roots in hortology.

Is there a way to vary the type of energy released in a matter/antimatter annihilation?

ITRW, probably, by varying the annihilating ingredients themselves (different cascades of secondary particles from nucleus-level kabooms of different sorts); their amount (the same, but with macroscopic levels of kaboom, so that certain shorter-lived secondary emissions are more prominent in absolute terms and get to have a say); or by introducing filters (for directionality, omission of certain particle types, introduction of others from interaction with the filters, etc). But in Trek, certainly - m/am annihilation produces energy for warp drives, and the energy itself appears exotic and greatly variable, at least when things like dilithium and warp plasma are introduced.

It's also never been suggested canonically that quantum torpedoes are new technology

...The Cardassian Dreadnought missile had those, suggesting "quantum" isn't a specific weapon design like Harpoon or Sidewinder, but rather an actual category of weapon or warhead like SARH AAM or TNT. Unless Chakotay meant the Cardassians had installed Federation weapons of the very specific "quantum" design aboard their missile.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Richard Baker]

Not those who actually saw it go boom smaller...



OTOH, standard hand phasers remained effective against Drones throughout this series and others. It was just a matter of choosing a slightly different tuning, apparently.

What we know for sure about quantums is that they are more expensive (at least if purchased through the Ferengi). The rest clearly remains open to speculation. Although we might rather safely speculate that q-torps require their own dedicated launcher, as we've never seen them being fired from a "regular" tube, either on the Defiant or the E-E which both had dedicated launchers (the Lakota didn't appear to have anything obviously identifiable as a dedicated launcher, but she never did fire her quantums).

Timo Saloniemi

Didn't the Voyager have some of the Quantum Torpedoes on board and used them on the Caretaker Array?

 

[Timo]

Voyager had tricobalt weapons (last mentioned in TOS "A Taste of Armageddon", being potent if virtual anti-starship weapons there, and now established to be subspace weapons of sorts in VOY "The Voyager Conspiracy").

Are tricobalts weapons per se, or a type of warhead one could put into a torpedo? The exact term was "tricobalt device", which could be a warhead, but Seven of Nine contrasted that with both "phasers" and "torpedoes", suggesting it wouldn't be a torpedo warhead.

Possibly tricobalt devices are bulky, clumsy things that cannot be used in starship combat - they could be demolition charges whose only military application is analogous to the "daisy cutter" devices used by the US. In the TOS episode, they are deployed in "satellite" form, suggesting lack of maneuverability or speed and hinting instead at mine-like behavior.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Richard Baker]

That's it!- I was remembered they had some sort of special weapon- only a few and they used them up in the first show.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Okay, so how does a transphasic torpedo work?

 

[Richard Baker]

Okay, so how does a transphasic torpedo work?

Never explained on screen, just a cool sounding name so you know they are special, more powerful ones...

 

[DonIago]

The Destiny trilogy novels discusses the workings of the transphasic torpedoes. They're also a great series of books, so...

 

[SicOne]

The transphasic torpedoes are able to "phase" through Borg shields and hull to detonate within the ship. In doing so, they appear to be much more powerful than quantum torpedoes; the single-shot kills against Borg cubes in Voyager's "Endgame" episode do what it took 4 Q-torps to do to a single significantly-smaller sphere in "First Contact". I couldn't relate chapter, line, and verse of where in their books the authors of the Destiny trilogy (David Mack) and Greater Than The Sum (Christopher Bennett) described the workings of the T-torps but IIRC they "phased" through any adjustments the Borg could make in their shields to shrug off those weapons like they normally adapt to incoming fire, making each shot an instakill. And yes, they were excellent books!

 

[Kemaiku]

But the Borg did adapt to them by the third Destiny novel, rendering them useless, as the Borg while away from home in the Alpha Quadrant were able to install metaphasic shields stopping them from touching the hull.