Subspace Weapons

posted on March 2nd, 2012, 10:04 am

.....on a side note the fed have been known to use sub-space weapons .....The tricobalt warhead is a subspace weapon whose high-yield detonations can tear holes in subspace. Tricobalt devices are not a standard armament of Federation vessels and yields are calculated in Tera-Cochranes.

posted on March 2nd, 2012, 10:40 am

whether tricobalts are subspace weapons or not is hotly debatable.

subspace weapons as defined in insurrection were explicitly said to be highly unpredictable, so a weapon that is predictable would probably not come under the insurrection definition of subspace weapon. tricobalt weapons are predictable. they were not surprised by the effects or the tricobalt torp in caretaker/the voyager conspiracy, tuvok even calculated the yield needed. and the other times tricobalts were used, they didn't even causes subspace holes at all.

another fact is that in insurrection they said that subspace weapons are banned under the second khitomer accords, which the feds are bound by, so they wouldn't be able to use a subspace weapon at all.

also the weapons used in insurrection were explicitly stated to be isolytic burst weapons. which sound very different from tricobalts.

so those are 3 reasons against tricobalts counting as subspace weapons. there is of course the one reason for them counting, which you have already given, in that they have some effect on subspace.

posted on March 3rd, 2012, 11:35 pm

well  Wikipedia say's that they are and i would tend to think that as they have a subspace side affect that thay could be called a subspace weapon of sorts.

posted on March 4th, 2012, 11:03 am

Memory alpha is more reliable for star trek canon. ma mentions the inconsistency. I don't think there's enough evidence to be sure either way.

posted on March 4th, 2012, 11:12 am

I would personally use an atomic bomb analogy. An Atomic Bomb is not designed as a radiation weapon. It's designed to produce a very large explosive blast. The way they create this also generates large amounts of radiation. That is not the primary intent of the weapon however. Notice how Neutron Bombs (bombs which are designed to use radiation as a weapon) are pretty much banned by the UN and considered a taboo weapon, but plain old nukes are not.

In the same way, a tri-cobalt device is not a subspace weapon, but it has a subspace side-effect. The Federation does not consider them a subspace weapon despite the side effect, but bans weapons that do use subspace effects as their primary or sole damaging effect.

[cyrax88]

posted on March 6th, 2012, 8:20 pm

Last edited by cyrax88 on March 6th, 2012, 8:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In the same way, a tri-cobalt device is not a subspace weapon, but it has a subspace side-effect. The Federation does not consider them a subspace weapon despite the side effect, but bans weapons that do use subspace effects as their primary or sole damaging effect

.....so under this idea the federation could build "conventional weapons" that have very destructive side affects and still be in line with the accord as could other races i could be wrong but was the tri-cobalt device developed during the dominion war .....a time when the federation was not sure if it was going to win the war.... perhaps the high and mighty federation decided that a "small" subspace side affect was a small price to pay. Just "bend" the rules of the accord....?

I would personally use an atomic bomb analogy. An Atomic Bomb is not designed as a radiation weapon. It's designed to produce a very large explosive blast. The way they create this also generates large amounts of radiation

  i would also like to point out that even if a nuclear weapon has a very large blast its the side affect of radiation that is most controversial as even if the war comes to an end that area and far far far  surrounding area are now contaminated as the wind and water can also move radiation around.also radiation lasts for many many many many generations.  also a nuke produces EMP .....so i do think the "side affects" are just as important.  

posted on March 6th, 2012, 8:37 pm

Tricobalts were around before the War, Voyager was launched 2 years before the war and had some.

According to MA, they only hurt subspace 'Under certain conditions'.

posted on March 6th, 2012, 8:47 pm

Neutron bombs aren't "banned" by the UN, and most nuclear powers have the capacity to use and make them. They just aren't as effective as a hydrogen bomb in terms of infrastructure damage and probably plenty of other reasons (like not being as good against military targets as at first thought...).

Warp drives also harm subspace "under certain conditions"...

posted on March 6th, 2012, 9:59 pm

the whole idea of using neutron bombs to kill dudes in tanks has become silly with recent tanks having thicker armour and having systems to deal with nasty weapons like that.

also tricobalts were around in kirk's time as a tos episode featured old "tricobalt satellites". possible mines deployed in orbit, i've never watched that episode. no mention of subspace effects.

the mirror universe tholians had tricobalts in archer's time. no mention of subspace effects.

tricobalt isn't really crazy/super weapon either as an intrepid class had some to chase down a much weaker maquis raider. and the maquis themselves got some.

they were used on voyager by the people from that fast spinning world too. no subspace stuff.

as said earlier the maquis had some tricobalt explosives too, nobody voiced concerns about subspace stuff.

arne darvin went back in time and tried to tricobomb kirk, nobody worried about subspace.

in only one of the uses of tricobalts was subspace involved at all, when the first array was blown up a subspace tear was formed. and that might even have been because the target had some freaky technology, including the ability to drag ships around the galaxy. of note is that the caretaker species, the nacene, live in a place called exosia, which is in another subspace plane. suspiria (and presumably the rest of the race) use tears in subspace to travel between our galaxy and their realm. so perhaps they have a technology on their arrays that allows them to create this subspace tear, and blowing the first array up caused issues with that device.

source for this post: Tricobalt device - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki

posted on March 7th, 2012, 10:01 am

lol i like how the first paragraph states =Tricobalt devices were a type of high yield explosive sometimes, but not normally, utilized by the Federation. Under certain conditions, they were capable of producing disruptions in subspace.....lol fail.

perhaps they are not banned because they dont have a negative affect on subspace , or if it does happen to produce a reaction with subspace its temporary and predictable.

posted on March 7th, 2012, 10:06 am

it would seem we are both correct to a degree =The Starfleet-manufactured tricobalt device could also technically be classed as a subspace weapon, as it is capable of creating a tear in subspace, as revealed in VOY: "The Voyager Conspiracy". However, due to the high predictability of its subspace effects they may not be classified as subspace weapons and therefore not banned by the Khitomer Accords. Though infrequently, they are sometimes carried on Federation starships.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Subspace_weapon

posted on March 7th, 2012, 11:51 am

lol i like how the first paragraph states =Tricobalt devices were a type of high yield explosive sometimes, but not normally, utilized by the Federation. Under certain conditions, they were capable of producing disruptions in subspace.....lol fail.

bullets don't release jam when they impact, but when a bullet hits a jar of jam it does. similarly with tricobalts, the only time they did anything subspacey, was the one time they were shooting a giant space station with funky technology, possibly for transporting the nacene to and from their subspacey realm. so yes, under certain circumstances they do.

tuvok didn't say to janeway "but we might break subspace" when janeway order him to use the tricobalts.

to me those tricos were a just a plot device to avoid having to explain why voyager could splode the caretakers array. personally i would have had voyager transport some photons over to the inside of the array and blow it up from inside. then voyager doesn't need a new bomb.

[RedEyedRaven]

posted on March 7th, 2012, 10:11 pm

Last edited by RedEyedRaven on March 7th, 2012, 10:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

to me those tricos were a just a plot device to avoid having to explain why voyager could splode the caretakers array. personally i would have had voyager transport some photons over to the inside of the array and blow it up from inside. then voyager doesn't need a new bomb.

This would have been the best possible SF-solution to the Kazon/Caretaker-dilemma:
Beam over photons, set them on time-detonation, set the array to send the ship back to the alpha-quadrant and let it go boom then. Kazon wouldn't get the array, 150 SF-crewmen wouldn't get stranded, Voyager would have been only the pilot and never become the bad show it ended up being. 

Edit: And Janeway wouldn't become Admiral for making first-contacts although being a totally unruly egomanic bi***.

posted on March 7th, 2012, 10:36 pm

But then the creators of Voyager (and Neelix) would need to find another way to express their misanthropy, possibly in the form of something even worse!

posted on March 7th, 2012, 11:16 pm

all the voyager hate. i criticise voyager whenever i watch it, but i still grew up on it, and will always love it. ratings weren't bad either.