Skip to main content

Are Star Trek ships' bridges protected against beaming torpedos into them?


For example, do emergency inner hull force-field generators protect against such attacks when main shields are failing?



Answer



While bridges make tempting targets, destroying a bridge wouldn't help you all that much. Maybe you kill a senior officer or two, but you still have a largely functional starship that's going to be wanting to return the favor.


The TNG episode "The High Ground" features a more realistic scenario, but they weren't using transporters. Instead, it uses some sort of dangerous dimensional shift (the people who are using it are terrorists and very sick because of it). Shields are useless against the technology. At one point in the story, the terrorists shift aboard and plant a bomb on the warp core. It's a far more effective use of a transported bomb, because you can easily disable or destroy the ship there.


Another problem would be that you need to ensure the transporter beam is successful. We routinely see the transport process detected in the act. So if you picked it up, all you need to do is interfere with the process so you don't get a functional bomb at the end.



Finally, you're going to have a harder time beaming bombs as opposed to firing them. Even with ships from TOS, you could fire multiple torpedoes in the time it would take to beam them over.


As to bridge protection, the only time we see anything specific to protecting just the bridge is in Star Trek II, when they energize a defense field. Since we have no other canon uses, it's presumably just for TOS-era ships (in theory it should prevent transporter use). TNG-era ships had their bridges invaded by the Borg and the Dominion, but in those cases, their transporters could penetrate the shields. I think it's safe to assume they relied on the ship's general defenses as opposed to having something to just protect the bridge.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Did Dolores Umbridge Have Any Association with Voldemort (or Death Eaters) before His Return?

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - What is the difference between Diffindo and Sectumsempra?

In the Harry Potter books, Diffindo is called the 'Severing Charm' and it’s most commonly used to cut ropes and the like. However, in the last book Hermione uses it on Ron but misses, creating a 'slash in his jeans' and his knee gets cut, causing him to 'roar in pain'. We've only seen Sectumsempra used once on screen when Harry directly uses it on Malfoy in the sixth book, but there it's mentioned that he is 'waving his wand wildly'. Wouldn't Diffindo, if used in such a fashion also cause a similar effect? Similarly, if it was able to cut Ron, it would also be able to, say, chop off an ear (George's)? In that case, how are these two spells different, except for Sectumsempra seemingly used exclusively to hurt humans? Answer While Diffindo and Sectumsempra both can be countered by other spells, Diffindo is far more easily countered. Reparo, a relatively common spell, can completely reverse its effect when used once. “He pulled the old cop...
Post a Comment
Read more