Shooting down torpedoes

[Sarevok]

The only time I have ever seen a depiction of a ship shooting an enemy combatant's torpedoes, personally, is in the beginning cutscene of Activision's Armada II. A fed ship shoots about two or three torps fired at it.

Star trek games are not canon.

[Jason von Evil]

The only time I have ever seen a depiction of a ship shooting an enemy combatant's torpedoes, personally, is in the beginning cutscene of Activision's Armada II. A fed ship shoots about two or three torps fired at it.

And Nebulas can be upgraded with a point defense system, which lets them fire phasers at incoming torpedos. Alas, it's not canon.

[Sarevok]

The only time I have ever seen a depiction of a ship shooting an enemy combatant's torpedoes, personally, is in the beginning cutscene of Activision's Armada II. A fed ship shoots about two or three torps fired at it.

And Nebulas can be upgraded with a point defense system, which lets them fire phasers at incoming torpedos. Alas, it's not canon.

The Nebula point defense beam seen in armada 2 may not be a phaser weapon since it is of a different colour than regular phasers. And it has an incredibly short range.

[airBiscuit]

I agree that the games are not canon, but the original question of this thread dealt with depictions of shooting down torps, so this is what I could put forth.

If the Nebula's point defense system looks different and is of short range, then it kind of fits with the model I have proposed. The phaser systems would be modified to fire quick pulses of lower power so as to have faster response and firing rate to catch the incoming missile. The apparent change in wavelength of the phasers might be said to have a purpose or is simply an artifact of the retuning of the firing systems.

This is of course all hypothetical and certainly not canon at this stage. With the liberties that are being taken in Star Trek nowadays, I wouldn't be surprised if it will be shown at some point.

[FTeik]

Two possible explenations for the Voyager-Incident:

1) The torpedo was destroyed in midflight, so not only the actual warhead and the phaser went boom, but also the fuel (of which much more was left, than usual)

and

2) the persecuting ships had weak shields, even for Delta-Quadrant-standards OR the majority of the shield energy was directed directely to the front.

As for the torpedos in TNG NOT being modified despite their vastly different purpose from usual, that is ridiculous.

[Darth Wong]

Several points:

1) Photorps probably do have some kind of shielding system. Timicin's torps are only one example; there is also the fact that they can burrow deep beneath the surface of a planet, and I didn't hear about any drillilng attachments. Moreover, the ability of torpedoes to pass through a shield given a frequency match obviously implies that they can somehow cancel out the shield in their locality with some kind of emission, which in turn implies that they have a shield system of their own.

2) However, this does not resolve the question of why they can't shoot down photorps. Any shielding system that you could cram into a photorp would be puny compared to the kind of shields that a warship's main weaponry is designed to fight, and would not doubt collapse almost immediately.

3) Voyager's ability to shoot down its own photorp can be chalked up to the fact that it knew exactly where it was going.

4) Any and all claims of super-yield from the phaser-photorp combination are nothing more than dumbshit-wanking. An alternate explanation involving the addition of the phaser energy to the photorp energy and weak flank shields on the pursuing ships is perfectly workable, and when you have a workable explanation, you don't go invoking the pathetic "energy from subspace" science-ignoramus copout that every Trekkie calls upon when in trouble.

[airBiscuit]

I agree with Darth Wong's first three points.

4) Any and all claims of super-yield from the phaser-photorp combination are nothing more than dumbshit-wanking. An alternate explanation involving the addition of the phaser energy to the photorp energy and weak flank shields on the pursuing ships is perfectly workable, and when you have a workable explanation, you don't go invoking the pathetic "energy from subspace" science-ignoramus copout that every Trekkie calls upon when in trouble.

On this last one, I am not sure if my assertion runs counter to his or not. Note that I emphasize that the energy is not magically drawn from subspace, but converted *to* the subspace realm.

As far as the Workforce episode, I haven't seen anything in these posts to effectively suggest that a phaser shooting a photon torpedo causes a massive chain reaction to occur. From a recap of the episode that I found on the web, it appeared that shooting the photon torpedo with the phasers resulted in a 'photonic shockwave' in the path of the pursuing ships, which basically 'jolted' them hard. So what this sounds to me like is a 'conversion' of energy from one form to another, not an increase in said energy. I am not sure how to explain how this conversion comes about, but it would appear that it's a subspace disruption that formed a veritable wall in front of the pursuers, kinda like something falling from 200 feet into the water, the velocity of such a collision makes the water interface seem as rigid as concrete. These ships were pursuing at warp speed, correct? If that is the case, then that is what made this tactic so effective...the shockwave expressed in subspace was sufficient to disrupt a vessel moving at warp speeds.

This would also suggest that the weapon is not a catchall uber-tactic, but only works in very special situations and only with very careful timing.

Also, from a transcript that I caught of this episode on the web, it describes the shockwave is being in the path of the pursuers, so that means the explosion wouldn't have been between the pursuers. I didn't see the episode to confirm either way though, so someone else will have to chime in.

[Darth Wong]

On this last one, I am not sure if my assertion runs counter to his or not. Note that I emphasize that the energy is not magically drawn from subspace, but converted *to* the subspace realm.

That would be different from what I was talking about. More than a few others have suggested that you just invoke the word "subspace" and the need to limit the energy content of the blast to the energy content of the originating weapons just evapourates completely.

As far as the Workforce episode, I haven't seen anything in these posts to effectively suggest that a phaser shooting a photon torpedo causes a massive chain reaction to occur. From a recap of the episode that I found on the web, it appeared that shooting the photon torpedo with the phasers resulted in a 'photonic shockwave' in the path of the pursuing ships, which basically 'jolted' them hard. So what this sounds to me like is a 'conversion' of energy from one form to another, not an increase in said energy. I am not sure how to explain how this conversion comes about, but it would appear that it's a subspace disruption that formed a veritable wall in front of the pursuers, kinda like something falling from 200 feet into the water, the velocity of such a collision makes the water interface seem as rigid as concrete. These ships were pursuing at warp speed, correct? If that is the case, then that is what made this tactic so effective...the shockwave expressed in subspace was sufficient to disrupt a vessel moving at warp speeds.

Your analogy doesn't work; the effect of crashing into a solid wall is caused by the fact that a sufficiently strong, well-anchored wall has near-infinite momentum compared to your own momentum, because it is anchored to the Earth. In other words, it requires an enormous source to work properly. If you simply threw up a thin low-mass un-anchored wall in front of, say, a modern car, it would cause far less damage to the car than a conventional projectile of identical mass.

This would also suggest that the weapon is not a catchall uber-tactic, but only works in very special situations and only with very careful timing.

The notion of the phasers "converting" the energy into a much more deadly form is tempting but it begs the question of why they don't redesign photon torpedoes to immolate themselves with a built-in single-shot phaser burst.

Also, from a transcript that I caught of this episode on the web, it describes the shockwave is being in the path of the pursuers, so that means the explosion wouldn't have been between the pursuers. I didn't see the episode to confirm either way though, so someone else will have to chime in.

It would be nice to see some video evidence of this. According to the transcript excerpt that I saw, the photorp was between the two ships when it went off.

[The Silence and I]

It's called a photonic shockwave and looks kinda like a shockwave, in space, even pushing back the two ships, right? It sounds to me like a hit from the main phasers, and it likely requires a large phaser so you couldn't cram one in the case, conversts the normal yield into some kind of K.E. attack. I'm thinking subspace (yes yes, if it don't make sense say subspace and it all gets better ), seriously though, phasers are "wrapped" in a subspace field/bubble that allows them use at warp--perhaps striking the torpedo momentarily wrapped it in this field. Subspace fields for whatever reason are tangible in the normal universe, and I propose that the explosion blew this field/bubble up like a balloon. The effect would be similar to the shockwave from Praxis. Obviously this would have to timed very well, otherwise the torpedo would be phasered away without any explosion (which leads me to believe the torp must have been remote detonated to boot). This timing could be gotten around if Voyager's phasers were set to pure DET at the time. {On an interesting note, if true this *might* allow some measure of firepower--if the masses of the persuing vessels were known/estimated it should be possible to find how much energy it would take to knock them backwards.} This ain't exactly simple, but I understand there were visual differences which cannot be simply explained.

[Sarevok]

2) However, this does not resolve the question of why they can't shoot down photorps. Any shielding system that you could cram into a photorp would be puny compared to the kind of shields that a warship's main weaponry is designed to fight, and would not doubt collapse almost immediately.

Perhaps it is possible that the shield system provides only a few seconds of protection needed to strike an enemy ship.

[Major Diarrhia]

Perhaps it is possible that the shield system provides only a few seconds of protection needed to strike an enemy ship.

That was sort of my theory. For me, it was more along the lines of "A shot on a torpedo is one more second for the enemy to fire three more torpedoes. Just kill the enemy." For that to work, torpedoes need to take at least one full power shot from a capital ship to be destroyed, personaly I think they can take more than just one shot but that's just me.