Star Trek Space Battles Discussion

[valkyrie013]

Okay, this is for a general Star Trek space battle discussion, what weapons, tactics etc. so anything goes.

However, why I am putting this up is I had a thought this weekend about space battles after watching that Wolf 359 youtube video.
That Crap Is Scary!!
The battle itself was bad, but had a thought.. you have battered / destroyed ships, stem bolts ship pieces flying around all over the place. Now, what thought i had is Alot of this stuff isn't stagnant, its going better than 1/4 the speed of light if there on full impulse. What if if the battle was In Systems like a number of DS( battles? You have debris raining down on a planet at a significant fraction of the speed of light!!! Even a 50 meter section hitting would be an ELE Event!!

anyways.. just a thought.. Maybe a good episode of fallout from a battle ..

 

[Uncle Sock]

That's a really cool thing to think about. But in the case of Wolf 359, I think it's irrelevant — pun absolutely intended — since the Wolf system is about 8 light-years from Earth.

As of 2025, there are no confirmed exoplanets in the Wolf system, though it's not impossible they exist. We just haven’t found any (yet).

It's never clearly stated how far planets like Vulcan, Andoria, etc., are from Wolf 359, so let’s use Earth as the baseline for your scenario.

The battle happened in 2367. If a chunk of debris had been flung toward Earth at 0.25c (a quarter the speed of light), it would've taken about 33 years to get here — so around 2399–2400. But that assumes a perfect trajectory, uninterrupted, for over three decades. So was Earth in any real danger? Not really — but it’s not impossible either. Because yeah, a 50-meter chunk of debris moving that fast would definitely qualify as an extinction-level event if it hit.

But let’s talk odds: how likely is that, really?

To the best of my knowledge, most major space battles in Trek — Wolf 359, Dominion War, etc. — were fought after ships dropped out of impulse. Maybe still at sublight speeds, but almost certainly not at full impulse (0.25c). The battles always look more like naval standoffs than relativistic missile exchanges.

That said, you're totally right — just because it hasn't happened in canon (likely due to real-world FX and storytelling constraints) doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. A battle fought at impulse speeds could leave behind wreckage that’s more dangerous than the battle itself.

So yeah — totally scary!

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

It's never clearly stated how far planets like Vulcan, Andoria, etc., are from Wolf 359, so let’s use Earth as the baseline for your scenario.

Spoiler: The Overview Effect - The Locations of Star Trek and Other Sci-fi in Real Space

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Spoiler: The Overview Effect - The Locations of Star Trek and Other Sci-fi in Real Space

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For your Astrographic Reference as to where everything is.

To the best of my knowledge, most major space battles in Trek — Wolf 359, Dominion War, etc. — were fought after ships dropped out of impulse. Maybe still at sublight speeds, but almost certainly not at full impulse (0.25c). The battles always look more like naval standoffs than relativistic missile exchanges.

True, the vast majority of battles portrayed in Star Trek were STL battles.
There were a few FTL battles, but more often then not, most fights stayed in the STL domain.

And most battles are WVR (Within Visual Range) at WW1-WW2 like ranges of naval combat.

 

[kkt]

An advanced civilization like the Federation has probably learned how to pick up the garbage.