Why was Voyager carrying Tricobalt Devices?
Tricobalt Devices
- Thread starter ThatsMrCaptaintoyou
- Start date
Might be the ship wasn't considered quite ready for action yet, so Starfleet didn't give her a full complement of photon torpedoes for the inaugural agent-extracting milk run - and compensated by packing some subpar, antiquated demolition ordnance instead.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Which were quite powerful and capable of destroying a highly advanced alien array (and are capable of opening subspace tears)?
Subpar and antiquated?
Eh.. I don't think so.
But it is likely that Voyager was launched without full compliment of Photon Torpedoes due to the fact that Janeway may have wanted to rush a bit into the badlands to find and extract Tuvok.
So its possible they hadn't thought it necessary... albeit seriously, who in their right head would launch a state of the art ship without full compliment of photon torpedoes?
Its like they repeated the incident with Enterprise-B... except to a much lesser extent (Voyager was actually FULLY functional... just lacked all of its torpedo and supplies compliment).
A full compliment is 38.
A full compliment is not enough to do anything other than a milk run.
The Defiant launched 38 Torpedos a minute.
Voyager is not a war ship.
The Quantum torpedo had probably just been invented, so the fleet's Quartermasters knew that they had to get rid of their reserves of photon torpedoes quickly, before they all became worthless.
A full compliment is not enough to do anything other than a milk run.
The Defiant launched 38 Torpedos a minute.
Voyager is not a war ship.
The Quantum torpedo had probably just been invented, so the fleet's Quartermasters knew that they had to get rid of their reserves of photon torpedoes quickly, before they all became worthless.
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The Defiant had multilaunchers, that could fire both quantum torpedoes and photon torpedoes.
Like how no one sells dvd/vcr player combos anymore.
On one hand you can say that Voyager has photon torpedo launchers, so it's stuck launching photon torpedoes.
On the other hand, they could replicate the parts to make quantum torpedo launchers in an afternoon.
But why do that when then don't even have any quantum torpedoes?
Like how no one sells dvd/vcr player combos anymore.
On one hand you can say that Voyager has photon torpedo launchers, so it's stuck launching photon torpedoes.
On the other hand, they could replicate the parts to make quantum torpedo launchers in an afternoon.
But why do that when then don't even have any quantum torpedoes?
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So about the same as in their original appearance in "A Taste of Armageddon", a century earlier. And as simulations for a war that had been ongoing for centuries, with no evidence of an arms race because it was all a by-the-numbers sham.
I rather think both, given how we meet it in TOS and what it does in TOS. Although of course Janeway might have better tri-cobalts than Anan 7...
Ships in the general case are launched half-baked. This was especially true in wartime, and contributed to, say, the loss of HMS Hood since the battleship riding shotgun for her was sent in "good enough" condition only, and had major problems getting the main guns to bear.
Starfleet certainly seems to believe in dealing with teething troubles by just plain launching the ship, sometimes for a full year of shaking down (much like real navies!). During the shakedown, the ship might be deemed incapable of normal operations, and not be equipped for those - but the milk run to extract Tuvok might not count as normal yet.
Timo Saloniemi
Its unlikely the Tricobalts never underwent any upgrades in over 100 years.
That would be utterly moronic.
I can see them sticking with certain technologies for 100 to 200 years (possibly a bit more before they are replaced with something far better), but those would subsequently have to be improved to be of use in a new era of more advanced ships, potential threats, etc.
As we know, Photon Torpedoes were in use for a very long time and we know that their capabilities and destructive yields have increased as well.
Voyager wasn't half-baked though.
The Enterprise-B was (as it was missing majority of its major components).
Voyager DID launch with limited number of Photon torpedoes and supplies because their mission parameters never really required more... so its possible they had the Tricbolat devices specifically for their Maqui mission (as Tuvok's extraction wasn't the only thing on their minds - arrest of Chakotay and some of his Maqui associates was part of Janeway's orders).
And for all we know... extracting Tuvok could have been Vooyager's shakedown (to be fair, SF has access to highly advanced holographic technology which can simulate stuff in real time down to the freaking subatomic... so shakedowns as such wouldn't necessarily have to be done anymore to deem a starship ready... they can just stress test the thing in simulations (as it appears in real life) to identify vulnerabilties - oh and those simulations can be run either in real time or excessively fast, provide you with worst case possibilities as venues for 'improvement' in a fraction of the time).
Having said that... I think that after Voyager's launch and learning of its fate, I don't think SF will be launching any new ships in such a state ever again... and in fact, looking as the USS Prometheus we saw in VOY season 4, I think its safe to say that Starfleet learned its lesson on that front (albeit how the Romulans managed to learn of it and steal it is a bit shaming of SF security - especially during the Dominion War).
I'm sure phasers and photorps underwent upgrades, too. That doesn't change the age of the concept.
Sure, a crossbow today might be massively more powerful than an automatic rifle, because the former has enjoyed way more centuries of development. But it's not. For one, the tech is inherently incapable of much higher performance. For another, and corollary to the above fact, there's no incentive to make better crossbows.
So it's quite possible that tricobalts are much weaker than photon torpedoes, because they always were, and never had a prayer in a rat race. I mean, that's what we see: two of them barely blow up the Caretaker's fancy array, whereas a single photon torpedo is considered excessive for bringing down the much larger Lysian command center.
How can we tell?
She was quoted with a "top" cruise speed around the warp 9.975 ballpark, and nevertheless nearly blew up from attempting to dash at warp 9.7. Quite possibly her warp engines were utter lemons, then, never living up to the sort of performance tested on the previous ships of that class.
And possibly all those components worked like a dream the following Tuesday, and the ship was more mature than the E-E ever got to be.
And, given that, Starfleet probably has found out that the simulations may require years-long shakedowns in order to be anywhere near reliable and realistic... Which is why it rather puts the ships through these periods instead.
It's not a case of proofing the Sovereign or Intrepid class with test runs, either: every individual ship has to be shaken down for hidden faults in construction, or in the design of components and systems specific to the individual. There was nothing particularly wrong with the design or execution of King George V, say, but Prince of Wales was a lemon for her first sortie nevertheless, costing the RN the Hood.
I find that highly doubtful. Starfleet is centuries old at that point. If it were even theoretically possible to launch ships fully baked, Starfleet would have gone for it long, long ago. Just like all the real navies down here would have.
Timo Saloniemi
I’ve rolled with a headcanon that, WHATEVER tricobalt devices are, since Star Trek has a habit of slapping inaccurate names on wildly divergent technobabble, they were prototypes that were designed for combat within the Badlands plasma eddies and that particular environment over anywhere else - maybe they have a focused yield that minimized the shockwave damage, something like that. That would, at least theoretically, explain why Voyager had them and in a small enough supply that they only had the two.
Hulls are weak.
It's the shields that take 90 percent of the damage.
Even then, there's structural integrity fields inside the ship to stop the Hull buckling from passing dust.
