Beaming a Photon Torpedo

[Raul]

Considerating only the 5 year missions of the original Enterprise, could it be possible to beam a photon torpedo? I read that the Voyager crew did the same against a Borg ship, but that was a newer technology.
I read also that there could be some problems with the antimatter, is that true?

 

[uniderth]

Considering how at this time photon torpedoes were caseless blobs of energy, then I'm inclined to say no.

 

[Raul]

Considering how at this time photon torpedoes were caseless blobs of energy, then I'm inclined to say no.

Thanks for replying,

As as murphy's law said, I've just finished to view the second episode of Discovery where there is a beam of photon torpedo (more or less)...

 

[Tenacity]

I given to wondering why they transport the entire torpedo? Instead of only the warhead, why transport the propulsion, fuel, targeting devices and the outer shell?

Seem kind of wasteful.

 

[Raul]

Yes, it's wastful. Maybe dismout the warhead was complicated...

 

[Samuel]

Amazing how many things we take for granted in Star Trek was largely undefined during the Original Series.

 

[Raul]

I think because Roddenberry and his team were quite wise to not focus audience attention on technological details.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

If this technology were real, the transporter would be a major weapons delivery system. There are times when you'd rather beam a warhead than shove it out of a launch tube and have it travel through space where it could be intercepted.

 

[ralfy]

From what I remember, a modified photon torpedo was used in Undiscovered Country.

 

[DonIago]

^But not run through the transporter.

 

[Samuel]

IIRC the transporter only has a range of something like 16,000 miles. While a torpedo launched at warp speed apparently can travel millions and probably billions of miles. That's probably a pretty big deal.

 

[Gary7]

If this technology were real, the transporter would be a major weapons delivery system. There are times when you'd rather beam a warhead than shove it out of a launch tube and have it travel through space where it could be intercepted.

Yes, they did this in Voyager... and I think they could have done it earlier on. There was no special technology in play, other than beaming through shields (I think you need them down when transporting living beings). Technically at warp you could beam torpedoes into the path of a pursuing ship. Materialize them close enough and their deflector dish won't be able to act fast enough.

 

[C57D]

Considering how at this time photon torpedoes were caseless blobs of energy, then I'm inclined to say no.

Totally agree.

I am certainly no physicist, and appreciate that TOS very rarely babbled the techno.

But even the name imho does little to explain the AM armed missle casing (easily converted into a coffin) weapon that we got from TWOK onwards.

Photon is a particle in the electromagnetic spectrum, commonly associated with light - so colloquially a "Light torpedo" (which seems to fit TOS's visual depiction).

Surely what TWOK+ showed was more a MAM torpedo or Antimatter torpedo??

 

[Timo]

And the USN has Harpoon missiles and the USAF packs Sidewinders... These don't have much to do with their namesakes, either.

The idea that antimatter would be difficult to transport is never suggested in TOS, especially not when they actually do it in "Obsession". And in TNG "Peak Performance", a transporter operator actually transports antimatter unawares (or at least Wesley's mystery container solves an acute shortage of antimatter, suggesting it does contain the very stuff), to no ill effect.

On the other hand, transporting anything much is impossible through shields. And if you can bring down the shields of your opponent, beaming in a bomb or beaming out half a warp core or half a captain does not appear advantageous compared to simply blowing up the shieldless ship with the very same weapons that collapsed the shields...

That photon torpedoes in TOS would be casingless blobs is an odd idea. Dialogue treats them as specific distinct projectiles, carefully prepared and armed beforehand, so they certainly aren't simply "emitted" at the firing moment. They could still be distinct blobs, of course - but if the ship's phasers were fired from an anachronistic "gun turret" as seen in "Balance of Terror", then surely the torpedoes would have been portrayed by equally 20th-century-recognizable cigarlike props if the plots ever called for that? That we had to wait until ST2:TWoK to see this happen just tells of tight purse strings in TOS.

TOS basically never had our heroes in possession of "blobs of energy". Glowing forcefields and the like were the sign of superior alien technology, while the heroes wielded crescent wrenches, beeping metal boxes with push-buttons, and rayguns that had ammo clips.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Herbert]

Considering how at this time photon torpedoes were caseless blobs of energy, then I'm inclined to say no.

That's what they look like as they are being fired but I don't recall ever seeing on the original series what they look like before being fired. I think the first time we see that is in Wrath of Khan. (Perhaps the first movie?? Not sure. It's been a long time since I've seen that)

 

[Timo]

In the first movie, Chekov operates a computer station whose display features a flattened-cylinder shape sliding into a hole when he reports "torpedo loaded"...

This is of course just an amusing coincidence, and quite possibly the display was never intended to portray the loading procedure or the projectile involved, and merely had an abstract but dynamically interesting sighting graphic (stretched by the wormhole distortion no less). But it ties very well to the chosen ST2:TWoK prop, and it may be the latter was in fact influenced by the former!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ZapBrannigan]

And the USN has Harpoon missiles and the USAF packs Sidewinders... These don't have much to do with their namesakes, either.

Exactly. In my head canon, Photon is a just a commercial model line of torpedoes.

 

[Samuel]

It's worth noting that early in the original series, the special effect we now know as "photon torpedoes" was intended to be the "phasers" and referred to as "phasers" in "Balance of Terror" and "Errand of Mercy". The guide for writers during that period, a portion of it mentioned in a book about the show later mentioned that the "phasers" could be "launched like missiles" or "dropped like depth charges" which indicates the concept of the "phasers" was the same as what we later know as the physical missiles we call photon torpedoes.

Shortly later during the first season though they went back to the "laser like" ships phasers and simply replaced the "l" with "ph" in the name to denote something more sophisticated.

One thing that was never clear in TOS was that in that era photon torpedoes were obviously less powerful than ships phasers (decades later made clear in various technical publications) but that in the TNG era and later, photon torpedoes were the most powerful weapon Starfleet vessels carried.

 

[Timo]

Umm, isn't it rather vice versa? In TOS, it is difficult to make a torpedo find its target, be it a speeding Orion ship or a tiny Nomad, but when it does, the target is history. In TNG (and supposedly in TOS, had the occasion arisen), single torps can demolish unshielded targets, but one may need to literally expend a shipful to make a dent in the shields of an opponent.

In every era, skippers seem to prefer engaging with phasers, and torps basically see action when there's a need to discourage pursuit, or engage an unshielded target, or to fire at least something when your own ship is damaged and power levels are down.

But there's plenty of ambiguity in every era. The one thing specific to the 24th century is the risk posed by the torpedoes to the firing ship herself at close ranges; Kirk didn't seem too worried about this when playing 'possum to the Orions or firing at Klingons en passant.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Samuel]

Umm, isn't it rather vice versa? In TOS, it is difficult to make a torpedo find its target, be it a speeding Orion ship or a tiny Nomad, but when it does, the target is history. In TNG (and supposedly in TOS, had the occasion arisen), single torps can demolish unshielded targets, but one may need to literally expend a shipful to make a dent in the shields of an opponent.

In every era, skippers seem to prefer engaging with phasers, and torps basically see action when there's a need to discourage pursuit, or engage an unshielded target, or to fire at least something when your own ship is damaged and power levels are down.

But there's plenty of ambiguity in every era. The one thing specific to the 24th century is the risk posed by the torpedoes to the firing ship herself at close ranges; Kirk didn't seem too worried about this when playing 'possum to the Orions or firing at Klingons en passant.

Timo Saloniemi

In "Journey To Babel" Kirk used the ships main phasers while "playing possum" with the approaching (and slowing) Orion ship. He had used photon torpedoes earlier against the Orion ship when it sped past at more than Warp 8.

Likewise in "Elaan of Troyius" the Klingon ship was apparently retreating from a now advancing Enterprise when the Enterprise launched its three torpedoes. Though Kirk did say "fire at minimum range" which indicates that even in TOS there was a minimum safe distance to use photon torpedoes.