Warping as a weapon.
- Thread starter urbandk
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I remember in the Shatner book, Specture, Kirk had a Runabout hidden along the backside of the Soveriegn and, to buy time to outrun the Soveriegn in a later chase, used their warp engines INSIDE the Soveriegn's warp fiend, causing the later to lose control for a bit.
We don't know if warping involves any kinetic energy. What we do observe is that when ships lose warp drive, they come to a stop - which shouldn't happen in space if it were a matter of kinetic energy.
OTOH, we hear that subspace fields reduce an object's mass - so an intense field like the one pushing the ship to warp nine would probably just remove the ship's kinetic energy, making a warp nine impact feel like the tap of a feather...
A strong warp field associated with high warp speed might have other nasty effects, though. So warp ramming might still be viable in a special case. We just don't see it used, even in desperate situations, so probably it's not a good maneuver in the general case. (Indeed, we only even hear it suggested once, against the Borg in "Best of Both Worlds", and the resident genius Wesley doesn't seem to think it has any chances of working.
Timo Saloniemi
OTOH, we hear that subspace fields reduce an object's mass - so an intense field like the one pushing the ship to warp nine would probably just remove the ship's kinetic energy, making a warp nine impact feel like the tap of a feather...
A strong warp field associated with high warp speed might have other nasty effects, though. So warp ramming might still be viable in a special case. We just don't see it used, even in desperate situations, so probably it's not a good maneuver in the general case. (Indeed, we only even hear it suggested once, against the Borg in "Best of Both Worlds", and the resident genius Wesley doesn't seem to think it has any chances of working.
Timo Saloniemi
A warp field is a spatial distortion field that propels everything inside it to some high FTL speed. If you only encompass part of the ship with the warp field, then half of it jumps to FTL speed and the other half remains stationary; goodbye spaceship.
Theoretically, a warp-driven torpedo of some kind would accelerate a small portion of the enemy ship to warp velocities at the moment of impact, just before the torpedo itself is destroyed by the reaction. This would be the equivalent of freight train crashing into the hull of the ship at a thousand kilometers a second.
Theoretically, a warp-driven torpedo of some kind would accelerate a small portion of the enemy ship to warp velocities at the moment of impact, just before the torpedo itself is destroyed by the reaction. This would be the equivalent of freight train crashing into the hull of the ship at a thousand kilometers a second.
In fairness, weren't they right in front of the cube? Even if they didn't hit warp there might be a hefty whack of acceleration to take into account.
Besides, the one thing we know for sure about warp speed is that it's really really fast.
Such a torpedo could punch holes right through an enemy ship. Here's hoping for a new ultimate weapon in some episode of some TBD future Trek show.
Also, while I agree with Timo that Wes didn't come up with it, I think that might have more to do with the writers.
You can't allow too much reality into your Trek; realistically, if you could summon enough energy to warp spacetime itself, you could probably wipe out entire worlds without using more than a fraction of your energy supply.
Understanding this reality makes scenes like, say, the Borg launching wimpy torpedoes (each with the destructive power of a present-day tank round) at Cochrane's unshielded missile silo laughable, so it's best to forget about it... or come up with workaround explanations, such as area-warp-dampening fields, or something.
Understanding this reality makes scenes like, say, the Borg launching wimpy torpedoes (each with the destructive power of a present-day tank round) at Cochrane's unshielded missile silo laughable, so it's best to forget about it... or come up with workaround explanations, such as area-warp-dampening fields, or something.
^ Or you could do what I do and either ignore the bullshittiest Trek plots (Which, unfortunately, includes the most fundamental premise of FC in the first place) or stipulate that most WMDs either work extremely well in space or extremely well on the ground but almost never both. The only ones that do are probably banned by all kinds of treaties.
Or one could accept one of the most fundamental basic premises of Star Trek: that warp drive is a pretty mundane thing, available to all and no big deal, and thus unlikely to involve outlandish amounts of energy, spatial distortion, WMD potential or other such stuff.
I mean, warp is so fundamental to Trek that if anything in the show is best left unexplained and unexamined, that one is. We just have to accept a descriptive approach to deciphering its properties - and that approach doesn't demonstrate WMD potential. Trying to explain warp as an Alcubierre drive or somesuch construct anchored in current physics will fail on several levels: because we don't know how an Alcubierre drive could be made to work; and because we still have some idea about how it should not work, yet warp does work that way.
Ultimately, even the most dastardly Trek villains have not considered using warp as a weapon, except perhaps on a petty tactical level. That greatly undermines the idea that warp drives would be a horribly powerful resource being held back by decency.
Timo Saloniemi
I mean, warp is so fundamental to Trek that if anything in the show is best left unexplained and unexamined, that one is. We just have to accept a descriptive approach to deciphering its properties - and that approach doesn't demonstrate WMD potential. Trying to explain warp as an Alcubierre drive or somesuch construct anchored in current physics will fail on several levels: because we don't know how an Alcubierre drive could be made to work; and because we still have some idea about how it should not work, yet warp does work that way.
Ultimately, even the most dastardly Trek villains have not considered using warp as a weapon, except perhaps on a petty tactical level. That greatly undermines the idea that warp drives would be a horribly powerful resource being held back by decency.
Timo Saloniemi
Maybe there's a in-universe rule that makes it impossible to use the warp drive as a weapon that we have never heard from. The imposseblility of hitting a moving object or something. Trek canon has always been a bit vague about how warp works; apart from the fact that it works.
At least we know warp can be used as a defensive measure; the famed Picard manoeuvre. The one with the ship, that is.
At least we know warp can be used as a defensive measure; the famed Picard manoeuvre. The one with the ship, that is.
I say it would work, and then spray your vessel with the constituent particles of whatever you hit (including its antimatter stores) at a high fraction of c. Real c, not the fake c of a warp drive.
So you'd only do it if you felt like dying.
Most of the time, by the time our heroes and villains have gotten suicidal, their warp drives have already failed anyway.
I also have some vague ideas about how a working warp drive could prohibit another working warp drive from forming a warp field, at least so far as their respective warp generation capacities can manage.
So you'd only do it if you felt like dying.
Most of the time, by the time our heroes and villains have gotten suicidal, their warp drives have already failed anyway.
I also have some vague ideas about how a working warp drive could prohibit another working warp drive from forming a warp field, at least so far as their respective warp generation capacities can manage.
Just because something is mundane doesn't mean it has no weapons potential. In a world where nuclear fission/fusion technology has been available for a millenium, that becomes pretty mundane too. Probably defensible, though, hence any weaponized warp drive should probably be countered by a defensive warp drive (also known as "deflector shields").
Commercial airplanes are pretty mundane things too, but that doesn't mean they can't be used as a weapon by someone creative enough. The weaponized version would operate exactly the same way as the hastily-converted terrorist version, only smaller and more efficient.
I have a page on warp ramming.
The short version is that it probably doesn't work in Trek due to the complexities of subspace physics and warp fields. This corresponds to the fact that all known warp driven missiles also carry an explosive payload . . . such a payload would be unnecessary if the impact energy figures of a warping projectile were anywhere close to the result of a 'normal' sublight kinetic energy equation figure.
The short version is that it probably doesn't work in Trek due to the complexities of subspace physics and warp fields. This corresponds to the fact that all known warp driven missiles also carry an explosive payload . . . such a payload would be unnecessary if the impact energy figures of a warping projectile were anywhere close to the result of a 'normal' sublight kinetic energy equation figure.
...Or if the warp field itself possessed destructive potential.
Warp ramming might be compared to ramming in past naval warfare. Warp fields seem to be finicky things, so that it takes effort to keep them going even in ordinary propulsive applications. Perhaps one needs a special "ramming field" just like one used to need a special ramming prow because a standard hull couldn't withstand a ramming attempt even when one was the offender rather than the victim? And perhaps nobody has invented a workable "ramming field" yet?
Timo Saloniemi
Warp ramming might be compared to ramming in past naval warfare. Warp fields seem to be finicky things, so that it takes effort to keep them going even in ordinary propulsive applications. Perhaps one needs a special "ramming field" just like one used to need a special ramming prow because a standard hull couldn't withstand a ramming attempt even when one was the offender rather than the victim? And perhaps nobody has invented a workable "ramming field" yet?
Timo Saloniemi
Strictly speaking, an explosive payload on a missile wouldn't do that much damage either. Certainly a matter/antimatter reaction would do some orders of magnitude more damage than is commonly depicted by such a device.
OTOH, the warp field might just supply movement but no kinetic energy, in which case that 12km/s you built up climbing into orbit is what gets transferred to your target when you crash into him at warp eight.
Though in fairness, 12km/s with an starship massing a million tons would be an incredibly destructive weapon all by itself. If you can approach the target with that momentum at 1000c, all the better.
okay, first post on here, hope i dont offend anybody with this. one thing i havent heard anyone mention yet is the fact that if you warped INTO another ship, you'd better have a strong structural integrity field, as the resultant impact would not only rip apart the enemy ship, but rip yours apart as well! the two vessels would cease to exist in this universe and therefore it would be only used as a last resort. warp fields and starship hulls do not mix well, which is why they have structural integrity fields, i think. let me know if i have this wrong, but the info in the tng tech manual does state that the sif is there to keep the hull intact due to the tremendous pressure of the speed of going to warp suddenly, which would crush the hull in an instant, so if you DID warp into an enemy ship, you probably would get ripped apart. spectacular way to take out your enemy!
...Of course, you could just build an uncrewed ship and use that as your weapon.
For taking out enemy ships, that's probably too expensive. You get better bang for the buck if you fire torpedoes and phasers. But if you can ramp up the destructive power of ramming just a bit, you can then use that uncrewed ship to take out cities, continents, entire planets.
Assuming that you can do what Myasischev postulates above, and give your starship a lot of mass and a lot of momentum and then shove all that to warp speeds so that it can get through enemy defenses. We don't yet know of any treknobabble rule that should prevent this - but it's always theoretically possible that warp in fact deprives a ship of its momentum altogether. In that case, one would have to drop out of warp just before impact. And we can further speculate that a ship emerging from warp always comes to rest versus the local "subspace frame" and has to accelerate anew if it wants to gain any kinetic energy.
If such limitations don't exist, then it's a bit strange that nobody has yet built a kinetic planet-buster that would make use of warp drive. As pointed out in previous posts, interstellar missile weapons always are said to carry a "conventional" warhead of some sort.
Timo Saloniemi
For taking out enemy ships, that's probably too expensive. You get better bang for the buck if you fire torpedoes and phasers. But if you can ramp up the destructive power of ramming just a bit, you can then use that uncrewed ship to take out cities, continents, entire planets.
Assuming that you can do what Myasischev postulates above, and give your starship a lot of mass and a lot of momentum and then shove all that to warp speeds so that it can get through enemy defenses. We don't yet know of any treknobabble rule that should prevent this - but it's always theoretically possible that warp in fact deprives a ship of its momentum altogether. In that case, one would have to drop out of warp just before impact. And we can further speculate that a ship emerging from warp always comes to rest versus the local "subspace frame" and has to accelerate anew if it wants to gain any kinetic energy.
If such limitations don't exist, then it's a bit strange that nobody has yet built a kinetic planet-buster that would make use of warp drive. As pointed out in previous posts, interstellar missile weapons always are said to carry a "conventional" warhead of some sort.
Timo Saloniemi
Wouldn't the bubble surround the target, too? If so, once you were close enough, it would simply move with you.
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