Weaponized Warp Drive

[Crazy Eddie]

Despite the (scant) evidence to the contrary, I like to envision a ship's warp field capable of tearing a continental plate off the mantle.

I tend to agree.

...which makes me wonder how in the hell any civilization could survive allowing any potentially unstable Joe Cargo Hauler access to one.

What do you think those planetary defense systems were for? Earth is rarely attacked by hostile aliens, but more frequently a freighter pilot gets a little drunk and fires up his warp drive in the wrong direction. When that happens, it's a good idea to have an automated system in place that can quickly bounce the ship away with a force beam or blow it to bits before it can impact.

 

[Timo]

If warp drives working at extreme power settings really were capable of causing damage, one would think this would have come up in at least one high speed warp chase. What better way to discourage pursuit than playing tricks with one's supposedly superpowerful, hyperdangerous warp field?

Yet ships fighting at warp can fight at close quarters, never paying attention to any risk from overlapping fields. Okay, so perhaps a high speed warp field is different from a high danger warp field, and the maximum output of the reactor has to be channeled differently through the coils to achieve the different effects... But we have heard of manipulation of warp fields in many different contexts, and the element of risk or weaponizing has never been mentioned.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Myasishchev]

If warp drives working at extreme power settings really were capable of causing damage, one would think this would have come up in at least one high speed warp chase. What better way to discourage pursuit than playing tricks with one's supposedly superpowerful, hyperdangerous warp field?

Yet ships fighting at warp can fight at close quarters, never paying attention to any risk from overlapping fields. Okay, so perhaps a high speed warp field is different from a high danger warp field, and the maximum output of the reactor has to be channeled differently through the coils to achieve the different effects... But we have heard of manipulation of warp fields in many different contexts, and the element of risk or weaponizing has never been mentioned.

Timo Saloniemi

Good points, but it could very easily be suicidal to do so--during a warp speed chase, for example, you'd be interacting with another high warp field. Hence, it wouldn't come up that much as a viable option.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

If warp drives working at extreme power settings really were capable of causing damage, one would think this would have come up in at least one high speed warp chase. What better way to discourage pursuit than playing tricks with one's supposedly superpowerful, hyperdangerous warp field?

Yet ships fighting at warp can fight at close quarters, never paying attention to any risk from overlapping fields. Okay, so perhaps a high speed warp field is different from a high danger warp field, and the maximum output of the reactor has to be channeled differently through the coils to achieve the different effects... But we have heard of manipulation of warp fields in many different contexts, and the element of risk or weaponizing has never been mentioned.

Timo Saloniemi

What about the soliton wave? Even though it didn't work very well as a propulsion system, its applications as a weapon of mass destruction are fairly well demonstrated considering how difficult it is to stop it. And yet we've never heard of anyone trying to weaponize such a weapon; why is that?

Let's not read too much into a lack of innitiative in novel technology use. Star Trek--especially in its later years--more often used its technology to try and McGuyver its way out of tricky situations than in any actual straight-forward use of the tech. We more often saw engineers trying to "modify the main deflector grid" or something for tasks as mundane as jamming enemy sensors.

 

[FordSVT]

If warp drives working at extreme power settings really were capable of causing damage, one would think this would have come up in at least one high speed warp chase. What better way to discourage pursuit than playing tricks with one's supposedly superpowerful, hyperdangerous warp field?

Yet ships fighting at warp can fight at close quarters, never paying attention to any risk from overlapping fields. Okay, so perhaps a high speed warp field is different from a high danger warp field, and the maximum output of the reactor has to be channeled differently through the coils to achieve the different effects... But we have heard of manipulation of warp fields in many different contexts, and the element of risk or weaponizing has never been mentioned.

Timo Saloniemi

What about the soliton wave? Even though it didn't work very well as a propulsion system, its applications as a weapon of mass destruction are fairly well demonstrated considering how difficult it is to stop it. And yet we've never heard of anyone trying to weaponize such a weapon; why is that?

Let's not read too much into a lack of innitiative in novel technology use. Star Trek--especially in its later years--more often used its technology to try and McGuyver its way out of tricky situations than in any actual straight-forward use of the tech. We more often saw engineers trying to "modify the main deflector grid" or something for tasks as mundane as jamming enemy sensors.

Fans have thought of a hundred ways to use transporters as a tactical weapon and yet they almost never are. I'd say the lack of on-screen evidence for something like a weaponized warp field is simply because no one has bothered to write about it. I know that what is on-screen basically dictates the "rules", but we've never seen mass drivers being used in Star Trek either, and I sure as hell know that they'd be feasible given their level of technology. The probably don't use them for the same reason we don't use nuclear weapons on each other (like in B5).

The soliton wave was indeed something that immediately came to mind when I started reading this thread.

Chalk it up to either unimaginative writers, or writers who simply didn't want Trek to turn into an imaginary arms race. There is a lot of technology that they should theoretically have access to given their level of science but they don't. Refer to Andromeda for a sci-fi series that gets very creative with their weapon systems, Trek seems rather content to stick with the guns and torpedoes approach.

 

[Timo]

Some weapons probably indeed are in disuse because there are treaties banning them - they are too scary to be actually used, but nice to have as a strategic deterrent.

However, I'd not think mass drivers to be one of those. Mass is insignificant in Star Trek, because it can be negated by subspace fields, shoved aside by tractor beams and impulse drives, and stopped by forcefields. Anything small enough to be accelerated towards the enemy can easily be stopped by the enemy. Anything large enough to be unstoppable (such as the moon-sized asteroid in "Paradise Syndrome") is also way too big to be hurled at the enemy.

Transporters in turn are so finicky that they can be stopped by high winds (literally so, in some VOY episodes!). Not a likely item to be weaponized, as weapons need to be robust. A transporter can no doubt be McGyvered into a temporary weapon that may surprise an enemy once, but it doesn't make for a weapon that would survive in the field for very long.

Soliton waves... Now, those sound like a strategic deterrent all right. But they're a bit too big for starships to handle. Apparently, it takes far more than the warp engine of a starship to create a planet-busting or starship-propelling subspace soliton.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FordSVT]

However, I'd not think mass drivers to be one of those. Mass is insignificant in Star Trek, because it can be negated by subspace fields, shoved aside by tractor beams and impulse drives, and stopped by forcefields. Anything small enough to be accelerated towards the enemy can easily be stopped by the enemy. Anything large enough to be unstoppable (such as the moon-sized asteroid in "Paradise Syndrome") is also way too big to be hurled at the enemy.

A several thousand metric tonne core of iron hurled from orbit at a significant fraction of light speed could be deflected easily, while a photon torpedo or a phaser beam could not?

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

A several thousand metric tonne core of iron hurled from orbit at a significant fraction of light speed could be deflected easily, while a photon torpedo or a phaser beam could not?

Well, there's always possible explanations:

1) Phasers are clearly FTL weaponry. The cases of them being fired at warp show it rather clearly. Thus, it simply goes far too fast for an opponent vessel's navigation shields. There might be some speed threshold where the navigational deflector becomes useless?

2) I subscribe to the idea that the glow of a torpedo is caused by a protective field, but not one which protects from physical impacts, but perhaps allows a torpedo to penetrate another ship's navigation shields, rather than being brushed aside.

If that IS the case, than an object fired from a mass driver equipped with navigation field circumventing thingy (speculative of course, and lacking a highly technical name) OR fired at warp speeds, could like impact the other ship.

Or whatever.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

A several thousand metric tonne core of iron hurled from orbit at a significant fraction of light speed could be deflected easily, while a photon torpedo or a phaser beam could not?

Well, there's always possible explanations:

1) Phasers are clearly FTL weaponry. The cases of them being fired at warp show it rather clearly

What does firing phasers at warp have to do with their being FTL weapons? Remember, a photon always travels at the speed of light in all reference frames.

 

[Timo]

But there's absolutely no reason to think that phasers have anything to do with photons.

Generally speaking, we could argue that all or at least most real-world weapons are simply too primitive to be of any significance in Star Trek. Certainly "shields" is a scifi concept that can easily and categorically negate all known weapons if need be - and then be countered by an unknown weapon, one specifically dreamed up for its potency against shields.

More specifically speaking, the dreamed-up weapons and defenses of Trek are indeed extremely potent. From "A Taste of Armageddon", we know that the offensive weapons of a single starship of the time can reduce (from our viewpoint pretty advanced) planetwide civilizations to slag and ashes in no time flat. Yet we also know that those weapons barely dent other starships, and that space warfare of the time doesn't much involve slagging of truly advanced enemy planets. One can then easily infer that the weapons we know or dream of today wouldn't do squat in Trek wars.

Indeed, it would be pretty poor drama if a weapon we currently consider "awesome" were regarded as awesome by our future Trek heroes as well. It would be as cringeworthy as our heroes appreciating a clumsy VR helmet and glove (TNG "Interface" really suffered from this) or thinking that the most recent 21st century findings of cosmology are still cutting edge science in the 24th century (I'm afraid Christopher Bennett's otherwise cool novels in turn suffer a lot from this). Or akin to Dirty Harry being impressed that his carriage is horseless, his revolver is double-action and smokeless, and his telegraph wireless and portable within his horseless carriage.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JuanBolio]

What does firing phasers at warp have to do with their being FTL weapons? Remember, a photon always travels at the speed of light in all reference frames.

Its fairly well-established that Phaser beams are particle beams, not lasers. They have mass. Also, a warp field by its very nature would bend and disperse the beam all to hell, possibly even bounce it back on its ship of origin. I imagine the effect would be rather like spraying a garden hose into an industrial fan.

 

[Timo]

I'd hesitate from saying that a phaser beam is a particle beam. We could very well be dealing with something more exotic - no doubt related to the currently unknown phenomenon of "phasing" that in Star Trek seems to refer to weird shifting between universes.

However, phasers clearly do demonstate many particle beam qualities: finite speed that seems to depend on setting or perhaps on available power, a tendency to glow to the sides in vacuum like a laser would never do but a stream of emitting particles would, and the ability to feature different particles or particle-analogues (poisons, nanoprobes, perhaps also the agents of stunning) in the mix.

We can observe these things visually or through dialogue. But dialogue doesn't tell us that a phaser would be a particle beam weapon. For all we know, a phaser in fact is a weaponized warp drive!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JuanBolio]

I'd hesitate from saying that a phaser beam is a particle beam. We could very well be dealing with something more exotic - no doubt related to the currently unknown phenomenon of "phasing" that in Star Trek seems to refer to weird shifting between universes.

However, phasers clearly do demonstate many particle beam qualities: finite speed that seems to depend on setting or perhaps on available power, a tendency to glow to the sides in vacuum like a laser would never do but a stream of emitting particles would, and the ability to feature different particles or particle-analogues (poisons, nanoprobes, perhaps also the agents of stunning) in the mix.

We can observe these things visually or through dialogue. But dialogue doesn't tell us that a phaser would be a particle beam weapon. For all we know, a phaser in fact is a weaponized warp drive!

Timo Saloniemi

Well, the technical manuals reference them as using "nadion particles" in some fashion. I agree with your idea that phasers have a lot to do with "phasing". Low power settings on a hand phaser for example would oscillate some the molecules of the target rapidly in and out of our own space-time, causing CNS disruption and unconsciousness. Higher settings result in a higher degree of oscillation, resulting in heat, burns, cutting effects, and even total breakdown on a target's molecular structure - the resulting bits and pieces then being phased out of our continuum permanently (which is why vaporizing someone with a hand phaser doesn't casue death by radiation to everyone else within several miles).

 

[ProtoAvatar]

A several thousand metric tonne core of iron hurled from orbit at a significant fraction of light speed could be deflected easily, while a photon torpedo or a phaser beam could not?

Well, there's always possible explanations:

1) Phasers are clearly FTL weaponry. The cases of them being fired at warp show it rather clearly. Thus, it simply goes far too fast for an opponent vessel's navigation shields. There might be some speed threshold where the navigational deflector becomes useless?

2) I subscribe to the idea that the glow of a torpedo is caused by a protective field, but not one which protects from physical impacts, but perhaps allows a torpedo to penetrate another ship's navigation shields, rather than being brushed aside.

If that IS the case, than an object fired from a mass driver equipped with navigation field circumventing thingy (speculative of course, and lacking a highly technical name) OR fired at warp speeds, could like impact the other ship.

Or whatever.

About phasers - no:

From the ship's perspective, the dust found in interstellar space travels at FTL speeds. And if it can deflect FTL particles, it can deflect FTL weapons.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

My question is if they have a highly-powerful navigational deflector that could even stop FTL particles, why isn't it used at all speeds then?

 

[Timo]

It probably is - but for some reason, a torpedo is more difficult to stop than a dust particle. Could be because the torp has more kinetic energy, or because the torp has more subspace energy, or because the torp has countermeasures that make it "slippery" to deflector beams.

Also, the ability to stop kinetic projectiles in one direction (directly ahead) may come at the price of an inability to do it in other directions. A jet aircraft can't fly very fast sideways or backwards; a shotgun doesn't do much damage to targets on the sides or behind the weapon. Much of our technology today is "directional"... Perhaps a high-power deflection beam can only be produced at a narrow angle, and all-angle protection of similar strength would require the power output of a hundred or a thousand starships?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JuanBolio]

It probably is - but for some reason, a torpedo is more difficult to stop than a dust particle. Could be because the torp has more kinetic energy, or because the torp has more subspace energy, or because the torp has countermeasures that make it "slippery" to deflector beams

I would theorize that being propelled by its own warp field goes a long way in this.

 

[Myasishchev]

But there's absolutely no reason to think that phasers have anything to do with photons.

Generally speaking, we could argue that all or at least most real-world weapons are simply too primitive to be of any significance in Star Trek. Certainly "shields" is a scifi concept that can easily and categorically negate all known weapons if need be - and then be countered by an unknown weapon, one specifically dreamed up for its potency against shields.

More specifically speaking, the dreamed-up weapons and defenses of Trek are indeed extremely potent. From "A Taste of Armageddon", we know that the offensive weapons of a single starship of the time can reduce (from our viewpoint pretty advanced) planetwide civilizations to slag and ashes in no time flat. Yet we also know that those weapons barely dent other starships, and that space warfare of the time doesn't much involve slagging of truly advanced enemy planets. One can then easily infer that the weapons we know or dream of today wouldn't do squat in Trek wars.

Indeed, it would be pretty poor drama if a weapon we currently consider "awesome" were regarded as awesome by our future Trek heroes as well. It would be as cringeworthy as our heroes appreciating a clumsy VR helmet and glove (TNG "Interface" really suffered from this) or thinking that the most recent 21st century findings of cosmology are still cutting edge science in the 24th century (I'm afraid Christopher Bennett's otherwise cool novels in turn suffer a lot from this). Or akin to Dirty Harry being impressed that his carriage is horseless, his revolver is double-action and smokeless, and his telegraph wireless and portable within his horseless carriage.

Timo Saloniemi

I like that, Timo. Good line.

That said, although it is totally beyond our engineering ability, we know with near certainty how an antimatter explosive would work. Phasers are likely to be similarly or less powerful (and more accurate, controllable, etc.). On the plus side, a few dozen or hundred antimatter warheads of TNG manual size would certainly be capable of reducing any 21st-or-so-century-level society (as the one depicted on Eminiar) to ruin.

Presumably actually advanced civilizations have much better defenses (i.e., any) against orbital bombardment from a starship, but we can say without any fear of contradiction that in the absence of something that stops photon torpedoes from detonating near the surface, a single starship is still fully capable of wiping out the majority of the populations on Earth, Romulus, or Kronos.

Maybe a hundred times as many thermonuclear weapons could do the same thing, definitely more cheaply and without the (apparently minor) hassle of weaponizing dangerous antimatter--the magnitude of the defenses is the only thing that might make nukes impotent, and their demonstrably lesser cost might make them much more effective as swarming weapons when expensive pho-torps or Q-torps would be economically unsound. Further, I'd submit that, say, some random minor colony on New Timbuktu would be just as dead from the deployment of a thermonuke as they would be from that of an antimatter weapon--at a fraction of the cost.

Iirc, a thermonuke is going to have roughly 1/2000th the power of a comparable-sized matter/antimatter bomb (perhaps even less, given that much of the yield of a thermonuke is actually driven by neutron flux striking quasi-fissionable material). That's quite a differential, but all the conventional arms aboard a fully loaded B-52 combined are less than 1/2000th the power of a megaton thermonuke, and I personally would still consider a B-52 quite awesome... despite being the Excelsior-class of our time.

Spock can call them primitive all he wants. H-bombs work quite well. Heck, I'm of the opinion that a Romulan "plasma torpedo" is merely a fancy-future name for nothing much more sophisticated than a Ulam-Teller device, probably on the same scale as the Tsar Bomba--a mechanism quite competitive in yield with the photon torpedoes as outlined in the TNGTM, if somewhat bulkier at 27 tons compared to (guesstimating) 500kg-1 metric ton for a pho-torp.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

But there's absolutely no reason to think that phasers have anything to do with photons.

As a force carrier for a type of coherent energy beam (as phasers are canonically described) the distinction is irrelevant.

Indeed, it would be pretty poor drama if a weapon we currently consider "awesome" were regarded as awesome by our future Trek heroes as well.

Hardly. In point of fact, most space operas do in fact feature suped-up versions of modern weapons. In Starship Troopers, for example, we see soldiers using powered armors taking on their enemies using flamethrowers, shotguns, thermonuclear hand grenades and hand-thrown antiaircraft missiles.

And in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" we have Spock mentioning that a 20th century interceptor "could damage us severely" if it is equipped with a nuclear warhead.

How is that "poor drama" just because the audience can actually relate to the kind of power being used in a weapon?

Or akin to Dirty Harry being impressed that his carriage is horseless, his revolver is double-action and smokeless, and his telegraph wireless and portable within his horseless carriage.

Except Dirty Harry carries what we know to be "one of the most powerful handguns in the world." The effect is diminished if he walks around with "one of the most inverted polaric ionizers in the outer sphere." Likewise, try showing Rambo to one of my relatives in the early 18th century; he doesn't know anything about metallurgy or composite materials, but he's capable of understanding that an M-16 does basically the same thing a musket does, only a hell of a lot better.

Drama doesn't need to be verbose or sophisticated, nor does it require techno-magic. When Data shrugs off a headbutt by a boisterous Klingon commander it makes exactly as much dramatic sense for him to say "My skull is made of stainless steel" as it does to rattle off a list of complicated technobabble materials; the only difference is most in the audience have a general idea how hard stainless steel is, while a made-up uber material has a reaction of "I don't know but it must be pretty strong."

Hence I assume a simplistic approach as much and as often as possible, drawing as much parallel to existing technology as possible. With warp drives and impulse engines this has implications for their effectiveness as weapons in the hands of a desperate man: if Kirk wanted to, he probably could have burned through the space dock doors with his impulse exhausts, or blown the entire wall off the place simply by pointing the bow at the wall and blowing into warp one.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

What does firing phasers at warp have to do with their being FTL weapons? Remember, a photon always travels at the speed of light in all reference frames.

Its fairly well-established that Phaser beams are particle beams, not lasers.

Photons are particles, are they not?

They have mass.

Theoretically, so do photons.

Also, a warp field by its very nature would bend and disperse the beam all to hell, possibly even bounce it back on its ship of origin.

Obviously it doesn't, or else phasers wouldn't work at warp no matter what they were based on. For that matter, neither would sensors.

OTOH, I'm one of those people who holds to the theory via retcon that phasers and sensors really DON'T work at warp--or at least, at high warp--so this wouldn't be an issue anyway.