Weapons of Star Trek

The following weapons are used in the fictional Star Trek universe:

(Disclaimer: the remainder of this article is treknobabble in its purest form and should not be construed in any way, shape or form to reflect reality in any sense. These are fictitious descriptions of fictitious weapons using fictitious science. This is even (mostly) true for descriptions of weapons like lasers and fusion devices.)

Table of contents 1 Direct Energy Weaponry 1.1 Disruptors 1.1.1 Sonic Disruptors 1.1.2 Phase Disruptors 1.2 Phasers 1.2.1 Starship Phasers 1.2.2 Phaser Smallarms 1.3 Plasma Beam Cannons 1.4 Phased Polaron Cannons 1.5 Lasers 2 Ballistic Weaponry 2.1 Fusion missiles 2.2 Photon Torpedoes 2.3 Quantum Torpedoes 2.4 Tri Cobalt-Strotium Torpedoes 2.5 Chronoton Torpedoes

Direct Energy Weaponry

Disruptors

Sonic Disruptors

These were the original disruptors. They are rather primitive and, as the name suggests, use sound waves. They did not disrupt objects at the molecular level and have only a small effect on dense metals and shields.

Between the 2260s and the 2280s the Klingons developed a new form of disruptor which quickly spread to other races and civilizations. These were phase disruptors.

Phase Disruptors

These are the most common armaments from the 2300s onward. They comprise a concentrated field that is compressed into a beam of phased energy that disrupts the interatomic cohesion force fields holding matter together. The most devastating possible result is the release of atoms from their bonded solidarity after which they quickly disperse and combine with the particles in the air, effectively leaving little trace of the original target's existence. Depending on what energy level a disruptor is set to, it can shock, stun, damage, kill or fully disrupt a target into a cloud of unbonded free molecules and atoms.

These weapons are employed by the Cardassian Empire, Romulan Star Empire, Klingon Empire, Borg, Breen and Orions in their hand armaments and military armaments as well as being mounted as cannons, arrays, emitters, turrets and banks.

Phasers

Starship Phasers

Phasers are an acronym for PHASed Energy Rectification. Phasers are a beam of emitted energy that is slightly shifted in its quantum atomic fields value. This allows it to penetrate many forms of matter quite deeply as it takes effect.

Phasers on board ships are either in the form of a single node with a variety of firing directions or as an array or track along the side of a ship which houses one or two phaser beam emitters that can move along the track giving greater range and coverage.

The ships power system, the Electroplasmic System (EPS), carries Electroplasma in conduits and taps. The phasers have a downward transformer to lower the amount of power in order to prevent overtaxing of the ships power supply. The high quantity of electrons in the EPS matrix is drained and is fired as a beam of concentrated energy. As it passes through the emitter the energy is shifted through a subspace inversion field where it is remodulated to a slightly different quantum atomic fields value. Depending on the compression of the beam the colour can be anything between blue and red in the spectrum.

Phaser Smallarms

Hand phaser armaments have taken many forms since the transformation of standard Starfleet weapons from lasers to phasers. Originally a single calculator sized unit, two and a half inches thick, called a Type I Phaser and also a pistol-like phaser with higher power and more settings called a Type II Phaser. These phasers, as most up until the 24th century, used a sarium krellide power cell and a pre-fire chamber containing a fushigi-no-umi crystal which can focus nadions--high energy, high speed sub-atomic particles--that have a highly concentrated reaction with atomic nuclei. The crystal causes the nadions to liberate and transfer strong nuclear forces within the power cell.

Later these two were designed to combine. The smaller, approximately 8 cms long, 5 cms wide and about 3cms thick, could fit into a slot in the top of a pistol-like hand phaser which, when combined with the smaller one, had more power, greater focus and more functions.

Later, the phaser took a third form: the phaser rifle -- a larger barrelled hand weapon that has a double-handed grip and sometimes a stock. These first appeared around the 2260s and changed in shape type and power until they were much lighter, more powerful and sleeker. These are the Type III Phaser

Plasma Beam Cannons

These are usually mounted only on vessels and use similar technology to a transporters ACB to emit a beam of highly concentrated, high powered and mildly unstable stream of electroplasma. This weapon was developed by the Romulans and was one of the best-kept secrets from Starfleet and was highly effective against Federation shields and technologies.

Few other races but the Ferengi, who still employ it on their Marauders, use this weapon. The Romulans disbanded with the weapon, as it was not only dangerous to the target but the very nature of electroplasma meant that the weapon was unstable. Nor did the weapon have a modifiable power strength and could easily destroy a target or an object when all that was desired was to disable them.

Phased Polaron Cannons

These are weapons that were first encounter when contact with the Dominion was made. Polarons are Anti-Muons, the antiparticle counterpart of the muon, it is extremely powerful and has an immensely devastating effect against Federation shielding.

A Polaron is an anti-muon. A Muon is a stellar sub-atomic that can be caused when cosmic rays strike a dense object, what results is either a neutrino, positron, muon or some other particle. These particles have an approximate lifespan of 2.2 microseconds but can be chronoton-modulated to extend their life spans. These have 207 times the mass of an electron with a similar charge. They have properties similar to that of a neutrino. Star ships require immensely compressed shields to prevent these high-speed sub-atomic particles from slipping through the shielding.

Lasers

A tight stream of highly concentrated and energetic photons. These are highly primitive and rely on thermal temperature to induce damage. The power required of a laser to penetrate the average 24th century shield is immense and isn't worth the required size and energy. In the television episode the special effects designers didn't use their brains properly and forgot the fact that lasers, which consist entirely of photons, are invisible in a vacuum. Photons require a medium to allow the photons and their wavelengths to exhibit their properties. Laser as technology is rarely used anymore except in hand to hand combat weaponry.

Ballistic Weaponry

Fusion missiles

These are the original weaponry carried by the first Starfleet vessels. They involve the primitive use of heavy hydrogen and a high speed particle accelerator. The heavy hydrogen is accelerated and fired into a store liquid supply of heavy hydrogen by the particle accelerator. The heavy hydrogen atoms collide at high speed and release masses of energy this is isolated and the result is that of a helium atom. The resulting energy is greater than a nuclear explosion that occurs on the sun. This weapon was eliminated when shield technology was introduced and when shield technology advanced until it could repel most forms of simple common radiation.

Photon Torpedoes

These torpedoes were devised and designed to exceed the capability of nuclear torpedoes. They involve the splitting of a cloud of photons by using an accelerated graviton particle pulser and a sub space inversion field. The photons are phased into the subspace inversion and bombarded continuously by random graviton particles. The photons inside the subspace bubble undergo a devastating dissonance quake in the core of the photons that causes a rupture, warping or a buckling of subspace. This causes the subspace bubble to implode. The energy released as the photons are rendered into pieces, is of explosive devastating energy. The subspace bubble collapses and releases all the resulting energy in a shockwave of energy wash.

Quantum Torpedoes

These are torpedoes specifically designed by Starfleet after the battle of Wolf 359 against the Borg. These Torpedoes contain two equal sized quantities of deuterium (heavy hydrogen) slush/metal and of antimatter (Antiprotons and Antineutrons). The result of mixing matter is a massive explosion of matter reduced to energy and masses of heat. The most damaging and explosive factor is the shockwave, a ripple wave that travels away from the event and shatters almost everything up to a certain radius. These torpedoes are extremely destructive and have become a mandatory supply on most Federation vessels since the Dominion War. These weapons are extremely dangerous and unfortunately have also found their way on to the black market and into the hands of terrorist cells, criminal consortiums and religious sects.

Tri Cobalt-Strotium Torpedoes

These are specifically designed warheads for emergency situations and in last ditch war efforts. They are an explosive with a capacity of 80 isotons.

These torpedoes are only issued to war vessels, long range surveying misions and science vessels. These are required aboard science vessels because they require them in case of an encounter with an omega molecule, a particle which has the ability to destabilise and warp a large area of subspace to the point where it is irreparable and untraversable. 80 isotons can only counteract one omega molecule. In 2146 the Borg assilimated several species and gained knowledge of the Omega molecule the resulting testing carried out ended with the destruction of 29 borg vessels and 600 000 drones. That shows how dangerous omega molecules are. The Tri cobalt-strotium torpedo has enough explosive force to destroy your average planetoid.

Chronoton Torpedoes

These are chronoton temporally phased torpedoes which shuffle backward and forward in time or even shift right outside the experienced space time continuum. This allows them to slip straight through unmodified shielding no matter how powerful. These Torpedoes are highly specific in temporal variation as not to be lost or erased from space and time. To counteract temporal weaponry you require temporal shielding where the shield projection matricies are flooded a chronoton variance flow. This blocks against temporal incursion and thus can prevent chronoton torpedoes from skipping through the shields. The only problem with that is with the temporal factor removed from the equation it leaves a fight between superior shields and heavy weapons fire. One very valuable factor of the Temporal shield is that a starship or a starbase can be temporally shielded and thus unsusceptable to timeline alterations. If for instance the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs was deflected or destroyed and dinosaurs continued to live the all of the timeline after that point would be erased and the only thing left of the previous time line would be that of the temporal shielded facilities and vessels.

See also: Physics and Star Trek