In what scenarios would the Grapplers be more useful than Tractor Beams?

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I'm thinking there are probably a few scenarios where "Grappler Cables" could be more useful than just relying on the "Tractor Beams" to tow things.

In what scenarios can you think of those being more useful?

One of the scenarios I came up with is when a Away Party brings up strange and Anomalous Creatures / Chemicals / Objects /etc and wants to investigate them, having them in a remote Containment Pod floating in space connected by a tow cable with power & data transmitted over the cable for Life Support into the pod would make sense.

Instead of risking breakout or contamination of the vessel, the ship's staff can beam over the items of interest into the pod and work remotely via Holographic Remote Controled 1:1 Avatar interface.

This way there would be ZERO risk to your vessel when dealing with strange & unknown things that can potentially break loose and infect the entire ship or kill crew members.

If things get really bad in the Containment Pod, they can just blow up the pod and call it a day.

The only downsides is it might make it easier for a 3rd party to steal the item from StarFleet control. But that's a small price to pay when you can put the Containment Pods with "Shields" or Protective Shuttles around the Containment Pod.

What do you guys think?

 

[Albertese]

I would think any instance of low power requirements would make a passive device like a steel cable be preferable to an electronic device that uses power to manipulate gravity. Power goes out, or the thing gets unplugged, no more tractor beam. However, I think that under nominal conditions, a tractor beam would be easier to use and probably have a much longer practical range.

--Alex

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

However, I think that under nominal conditions, a tractor beam would be easier to use and probably have a much longer practical range.

Depends, every time I see tractor beams on screen, the usual range is sub 1 mi (1.60934 km)

I've never seen them use a Tractor beam longer than that on normal occaisions for the average StarShip.

Right now we can manufacture some long ass power cables:
https://www.kingpin-manufacturing.co.uk/blog/the-worlds-longest-cables/
5,376m (3.34 miles)

I'll safely assume we can manufacture longer cables by the 24th century and beyond.

In the dead of space, if you need to keep the containment module away from your vessel, let's say 10 km and deliver basic power and data through wiring. That makes things pretty safe to remote in and operate on your subject.

 

[Timo]

I guess the limiting factor would be strength. Spider silk is amazing stuff, but I wouldn't try and stop a speeding eighteen-wheeler with it. No matter what sort of nanotube or monofilament Archer's cables are made of, it's unlikely they could really handle the speed differentials found in space - unless the mass speeding past them were low (the Suliban pod might qualify) or the grappling hook itself contained a bit of inertia-negating magic (I mean, they can pack it in a shuttlepod).

Tractor beams are magic, too, so it's easier to believe they could be used for Batman/Spiderman stuff, the lassoing of relevant vehicles at relevant speeds or distances. Cables would be fine for reeling in things that don't resist much. Or Archer could go fish, and actually let the prey pull out a reelful of ever-thinning cable, say, a thousand kilometers if it - and then have that cable be polarized somehow (gravitic, magic or, in a suitable environment, simple electromagnetic) so that the prey gets gently but inescapably slowed down and made vulnerable to weapons or boarding.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[at Quark's]

"In what scenarios would the Grapplers be more useful than Tractor Beams?"

For starters, in scenarios where Tractor Beams haven't been invented yet, such as in Enterprise. (well, the Vulcans have them).

I believe it's already established that in Trek, power can be transmitted by beam (and we know data can), so you wouldn't need a solid cable for that. Being very low on power, having an extremely unreliable power source, or being in circumstances that interfere with a tractor beam are the only genuine reasons I can think of to prefer a grappler. Oh, and perhaps in scenarios where you need to establish a hold around a corner (not sure tractor beams can do that).

 

[Leathco]

As a unique, situational weapon. Think of computer hacking today. Some damage CAN be done remotely, especially if the wrong ports are open on your router and there's no active firewall on your system, but it's a heck of a lot easier if someone else jacks an ethernet cable in and just joins the network, or even worse sits at your system logged in. We even see a version of this in BOBW where an inside borg element (Locutus) is used to shut down the cube. A grappler with a data line that can penetrate just the right section could wreck havoc on a ship in the right hands (if it could get past the shields).

There's also the chance of just flooding the line with electricity, electrifying any metal objects connected to the hull, frying computers and possibly even crew members. Maybe have fun and run a ton of gravitons through the line and fire the grappler at the bridge, sending everyone controlling the ship flying towards the ceiling.

Granted all this is dependent on the grappler not just bouncing of shields, which is likely why we never see anything like this. It would be highly situational.

 

[DonIago]

Assuming we're talking about grapplers as seen in ENT, is it ever established that they can carry data or power connections or such? I imagine they could be modified to do so, but I don't think it was ever indicated that that's standard factory issue.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Assuming we're talking about grapplers as seen in ENT, is it ever established that they can carry data or power connections or such? I imagine they could be modified to do so, but I don't think it was ever indicated that that's standard factory issue.

Let's make that assumption.

Same type of grapplers, just more Cable reach, carries Data & Power. Still has Electro Magnetic Locking Clamps at the end.

What can we do with that grappler now.

I've already came up with one basic scenario, but there has to be more than that.

 

[Tenacity]

Ship's powerless, bad guy's about to leave, use the grapple to punch through the big stupid window at the front of his bridge. Victory is ours.

 

[DonIago]

Tractor beams, at least the Borg's version, appear to weaken shields. I imagine grapplers are useless against a shielded vessel, so we can start by limiting our scenarios to those where the target's shields are down.

Otherwise, Leathco seems to have summed things up pretty nicely.

Archer did use the grappler to damage an unshielded ship by literally pulling off one of its nacelles, IIRC. I don't know that we've ever seen tractor beams used in such a manner, but assuming they were operational, I don't know that we have any reason to believe they couldn't be used in such a manner. But typically a dedicated weapon system would be a more effective option.

 

[Henoch]

Archer did use the grappler to damage an unshielded ship by literally pulling off one of its nacelles, IIRC. I don't know that we've ever seen tractor beams used in such a manner, but assuming they were operational, I don't know that we have any reason to believe they couldn't be used in such a manner. But typically a dedicated weapon system would be a more effective option.

In Tomorrow is Yesterday, the jet fighter broke up when held in the ship's tractor beam. In The Corbomite Maneuver, the Enterprise wasn't in danger of structural failure, only superheated engines. It looks like resisting via your drive system can rip your ship apart if fragile, or become a power vs. power duel for strong hull ships (debatable), or more likely, ships with structure integrity fields (which sucks more power from your engines to maintain).

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Now that the last episode of ST:LDS has aired.

Spoiler

Grapplers also seem to be good for ripping apart StarShips.

 

[DonIago]

Well yeah, we already brought up ripping off a ship's nacelle...

 

[publiusr]

Two ships with cables can spin up artificial gravity with no power.

 

[Oddish]

Really, it would be useful in situations where directed energy devices don't work. Remember "To the Death", where the Starfleet team and the Jem'Hadar had to take down their enemies with those Dominion battle axes because of the dampening field? I doubt tractor beams would work under those conditions either.

 

[publiusr]

Tie cables to mountains and they can cut off fighter tailfins

 

[Go-Captain]

Tractor beams only extend about a ship's length, and a cable could be much longer, especially with impossible materials and enhancements. I think there is a chance a cable could be useful if a starship wanted to tow a ship with an unstable warp core, and needs to keep it as far away as possible to give the best chance of escape. Another option would be if something needs to be lowered gently to a planet's surface.

Imagine the shuttles are too small, transporters are incompatible or ineffective, so the object is just lowered by a hundred kilometers or so of cable. It aught to be trivial in Star Trek.

The last situation is one where an object is potentially too fragile for tractor beams. There's been at least on incident where a tractor beam crushed something, maybe two. But where a tractor beam would crush something a cable might be worse unless its gripping system can evenly apply force over a very wide area, or seek out a hard point. Discovery weirdly enough uses drone like anchor points launched to the target before engaging tractor beams.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Discovery weirdly enough uses drone like anchor points launched to the target before engaging tractor beams.

Since Discovery introduced that system, in my head canon, every ship is updated with at least 3x methods of towing.
1) Traditional Tractor Beams
2) Anchor Point Tractor Beam
3) Long Wire Grapplers (5+ km of wire)

 

[Go-Captain]

3) Long Wire Grapplers (5+ km of wire)

That's actually pretty short. With future tech like Trek's you could have hundreds of kilometers of cable in a very compact space and mass. Maybe it has to be augmented with a structural integrity field, but those exist in Trek.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

That's actually pretty short. With future tech like Trek's you could have hundreds of kilometers of cable in a very compact space and mass. Maybe it has to be augmented with a structural integrity field, but those exist in Trek.

You know those Trek episodes where they bring in a mysterious object and it causes issues on board the ship because it causes some sort of viral outbreak, or infects the computer, or does something crazy that affects a bunch of people and spreads, or takes the ship hostage in some way shape or form?

The 5 km of cabling has multiple purposes. It can also can run power one way to the end to power a standardized connector which can attach to a containment unit.

Think Agents of Shield Containment Module but trekified and all operators remote in via holographic remote control to have a holographic version of themselves operate on the mysterious object of the week.

This way, if a worse case scenario happens, they can just blow up the containment module to stop the problem from spreading and not risk the ship =D.