Star Trek Technical Commentaries

Directed Energy Weapons

The four primary types of ranged energy weapons in Star Trek primarily differ in energy efficiency and sophistication, but all are notable for their ability to (in most cases) not only produce results in excess of the energy directed, but to constrain (at most settings) the effect to the target itself ("vaporizing" an object by phaser results in practically no residual heat or damage to the surrounding area - which cannot be said for melting and boiling that same object by a conventional EM device (such as a laser)). In a posting to rec.arts.startrek.tech on 4/30/98, Chris24061 speculated that phasers (and the energy weapons of Star Trek in general) were actually ion-based weapons:

"Actually the best real physics weapon that could accomplish what a phaser does would be a weapon that fires electron streams (perhaps with the electrons placed in phase with each other). At low settings such a stream would result in disruption of the nervous system. At higher settings it would begin to induce heating effects as target becomes ionized. At still higher settings the electrical repulsion caused by the additional electrons added to the system would cause it blow apart. Of course such a stream of electrons would not travel at the speed of light, but then it doesn't appear to in the series either.

"Coincidentally, a phaser as an electron firing weapon fits nicely with the acronym PHASed Energy Rectification, since phased electrons would transfer energy and rectification is the act of converting an alternating current (such as would be found in the electro-plasma system) into a direct current (such as a stream of high-energy electrons would be).

"Then too I suppose it could be a proton based weapon, using similar ionizing and electrical repulsion effects as described above. Indeed, page 134 of the Tech Manual indicates that 'rapid nadions produce a pulsed protonic charge in the heart of the device.'"

Despite the apparent contradiction in the TNG Technical Manual regarding the use of electrons vs. protons in phasers, it is noteworthy that it states that the term "Phaser" applied to the "original process" (emphasis added) of phased energy rectification (and that it was "something of a holdover acronym"). As a result, this allows for the original phasers to be, as Chris24061 speculated above, directed-electron weapons, while current phasers are directed-proton weapons - the latter is evidenced by the TNG tech manual equating a phaser's beam intensity with its protonic charge levels and the DS9 tech manual stating that modern phasers direct a beam of "superheated, rarefied plasma" - which is basically atomic nuclei without electrons. Given that the three primary energy weapons of the Star Trek universe (the blaster, disruptor, and phaser) all direct their energy by the phased energy rectification of nadions, it's somewhat understandable that "phaser" is sometimes used to refer to disruptors and blasters as well. However, unlike its less sophisticated counterparts, the phaser (proper) generates its particle stream via the rapid nadion effect (how this is done is "explained" in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual) - which comes at a relatively high cost in equipment complexity and maintenance requirements. Even so, Starfleet has readily accepted the penalties of phaser technology because of its advantages - and not just because of its unequaled energy efficiency. Not only can its settings be precisely - and even fractionally - adjusted ("Homefront" [DS9]), but it is also very adaptable to a number of different roles, such as a forcefield generator ("Extreme Risk" [VOY]). As such, phasers are more than just weapons to Starfleet, but versatile tools whose utility more than compensates for their maintenance demands (which Starfleet is more than capable of accepting due to the high number of extremely capable engineers within its ranks). In addition, the phaser's efficiency has allowed the development of the linear phaser array, which combines most of the advantages of large single emitters and multiple banks of emitters while retaining few of the disadvantages of either.

In contrast to phasers, disruptors (also known as phase-disruptors), generate a particle stream (usually protons, though the Jem'Hadar use polarons) via a phased energy rectification of standard nadions that adjusts its power not through varying the relative proportion of protonic charge, but by boosting the energy field per particle beyond stable levels. On contact with matter, this energy is easily and rapidly released, disrupting matter contacted by the beam. Though this process is considerably simpler than the Starfleet phaser, it is significantly less controllable and energy-efficient, and its comparatively limited ability to concentrate the protonic charge of its generated beams precludes dematerialization effects by small-scale weapons. Furthermore, despite massive efforts by the Romulan and Klingon Empires in both R&D and espionage, the inherent inefficiencies of the disruptor proved to be an insurmountable obstacle to linking individual disruptor emitters into a linear disruptor array via force coupling (even on Borg vessels, where energy is not a limiting factor). Nonetheless, the relative simplicity and reliability of the disruptor has led it to be adopted by all major powers (including the Jem'Hadar and the Borg) outside of the Federation.

As for the blaster, it is the crudest of the three major classes of phased energy weapons. By utilizing the phased energy rectification of slow nadions, blasters generate a beam or bolt of semi-coherent plasma. Thus, compared with disruptors, blasters have exaggerated advantages (simplicity and reliability) and disadvantages (power inefficiency, restricted high-NDF effects in small scale units) relative to phasers. As such, it is used as a starship combat weapon primarily by minor naval powers (such as the Gorn Alliance and the Tholian Assembly).

In Star Trek, the term "laser" covers weapons (i.e. blaster cannon, plasma cannon, neutron cannon, phased plasma cannon, pulse cannon, phase cannon) similar in characteristics to blasters and disruptors (the "lasers" carried by the Enterprise away team in "The Cage" [TOS] were disruptor-like in performance, and undoubtedly were evolved versions of the phase-modulated energy weapons of "Enterprise"), though they dispense with nadions altogether and instead use a laser to generate and support the plasma stream or bolt (though in pre-warp societies, personal-scale weapons are commonly referred to by the names of their nadion-using counterparts, with "laser" reserved for vehicle-scale weapons). Although much simpler in any of its forms than even the blaster, the laser's simplicity is its undoing against most modern opponents. Though it is reasonably effective against simple electromagnetic and graviton defensive grids (such as those used on pre- and early-warp starships), the laser beam critical to focusing (and supporting) the particle stream is easily warped and dispersed by graviton fields amplified by subspace (and, except for phase-modulated lasers, hyperspace) fields, regardless of how powerful the laser is (rendering it useless against warp-technology navigational/tactical deflectors and, except for phase-modulated lasers, even the hyperspace-amplified graviton bands of 'impeller wedge'-type gravity drives). Furthermore, against unshielded hulls augmented by advanced structural integrity fields, the phase-modulated laser's kinetic energy multiplier is reduced to its square root against subspace-amplified SIFs, with the KE multiplier of standard lasers reduced similarly against hyperspace-amplified SIFs and further reduced by its square root again against subspace-amplified SIFs. (This link leads to a chart that shows this graphically.) Thus, the laser, especially in its unmodulated form, has been rendered hopelessly obsolete for modern 24th century ship-to-ship combat. (Note: Borg ships still use the phase-modulated laser as a precise cutting tool against starships whose shields and mobility have already been neutralized, but its ineffectiveness as a combat weapon was demonstrated by a Type-11 phase hyperdisruptor taking 50 seconds merely to penetrate both the outer and inner hulls of an immobilized, unshielded Galaxy-class starship. ("The Best of Both Worlds" [TNG])). As for the assertion that the impermeability of Star Trek shields to lasers applies only to real-life lasers, and not "lasers" that project sublight, visible particle bolts, Graham Kennedy had the following remarks in a posting to rec.arts.startrek.tech on 6/21/99:

...Lasers as shown in virtually every sci-fi production look and act almost nothing like real lasers would. They are almost uniformly shown as a solid glowing line from weapon to target which travels at a miniscule fraction of lightspeed - in fact, they usually travel at around the speed of a rifle bullet...

And when a sci-fi laser hits, it often does things that a real laser would not do. Look at the laser weapon used in "Loud as a Whisper" which kills the mediator's translation team. They seem to disintergrate, leaving glowing bones hanging in space for a moment before they too vanish. More like the kind of thing a phaser or disrupter style weapon might do.

Now when we can find a reasonable explanation for this kind of FX glitch, fine - all sorts of wacky stuff has been proposed to explain phaser-style vapourisation, for example. But when a weapon is specifically stated to be a laser, I tend to think that it's just silly to claim that it isn't because it doesn't look like one on screen. And that applies equally to Trek, B5, Star Wars, and anything else.

Not all settings are available to all weapons of a given size - smaller scale weapons typically do not have the higher settings available to larger ones (in which case, the energy weapon is simply unable to fully utilize the power that it is theoretically capable of). In the chart below, "Vehicle" refers to all planetary and non-FTL capable vehicles.

The power that a modern starship's energy weapons can direct is considerable - typically it is between 10¹⁹ and 10²⁵ Watts (though the Prometheus-class starships can direct phaser energy in the 10²⁹ W range, and Sovereign-class starships in the 10³⁴ W range). Combined with the aforementioned augmentation, this enables a few major starships to obliterate an entire Class-M planet in less than a day (at full power, the Defiant's phasers are described as "strong enough to cut a planet apart" ("The Way of the Warrior" [DS9 Novelization])). Even a small military starship (such as a Klingon Bird-of-Prey) is capable of destroying a Class-M planet ("The Final Frontier") - and as far back as the 2260s, Starfleet had codified the procedure for a starship captain to destroy a planet in a General Order (Number 24, to be exact - "A Taste of Armageddon" [TOS]). Fortunately for "planetlubbers," conservationists, and Stellar Cartographers, there appears to be an unspoken agreement among Star Trek powers not to destroy each other's moons, planets, and stars. As such, naval engagements tend to be fought in deep space, where stray shots are far less likely to have devastating consequences. (Furthermore, the kinetic energy augmentation is not analogous to a linear increase in kinetic energy - the effect of an augmented energy beam is confined to its "setting," and thus an energy beam set on "annihilate" that isn't powerful enough to completely reduce a stellar body into energy will not be able to shatter it via overcoming its gravitational binding energy either - it will "only" affect a fraction of the target at the weapon's setting.)

Of course, this does beg the question as to why in "Star Trek: First Contact," the Class-5 Long-Range Tactical Vessel (a.k.a. large Borg sphere), with its dozens of Type-10 superdisruptors, didn't simply eradicate the entire state of Montana (aside from that Montana is Mr. Braga's home state), given the urgency of the Borg in preventing Cochrane's warp flight. The dramatic decrease of the size of the energy bolts between their firing from the Sphere and their impact at ground zero, however, suggests that there was a severe attenuation of the Sphere's energy bolts in both raw energy (effectively down to that of a Type-3, if the bolt size was any indication) and energy magnification (probably reduced to pure EM from the relatively light conventional destructive effects - Dr. Lily Sloane mistakenly attributed the bombardment to that of an early 21st century Earth military) during their trajectory through the atmosphere. One possible explanation is that Borg starship weapons were simply never intended to be fired through an atmosphere - ground targets are to be assimilated instead of bombarded, and the lack of an intra-atmosphere requirement would make rebuilding destroyed weapons much faster and easier. Furthermore, the sphere was likely damaged - the Cube was blowing up as the Sphere was making its escape - and no drones were beamed down to the surface, suggesting that the Sphere's external energy emitters in general were significantly compromised in their ability to project energy through an atmosphere.

In Star Trek, "Type" is a logarithmic measurement of a weapon's size, used in much the same manner as a ballistic weapon is measured by its caliber. Type-1 is the baseline (representing a palm-sized hand weapon), with each increment 10 times as large (and powerful) as the one before - a Type-2 can direct 10 times as much energy as a Type-1, but is one-tenth as powerful as a Type-3. Advances in directed-energy weapon technology have increased the amount of energy than can be directed by an emitter of a given Type - while an early 21st century blaster pistol could direct 100 watts, a 2266 Starfleet Type-2 phaser directed 20 gigawatts, which had increased to 200 GW in 2305, 2 terawatts in 2344, and 20 TW by 2364 (which, according to quantum physics circa 2377, is the upper limit of an enhanced energy weapon's power density without either "annihilate" settings or certain augmentations for starship phasers, disruptors, and blasters). The following chart shows the various type classifications of Star Trek energy weapons, along with their roles and theoretical maximum sustainable power (Note that this does not take into account how effective a particular weapon is for a given amount of energy):

Note: The above table is by no means the most extreme measure of the power of Star Trek weapons. In "A Taste of Armageddon" [TOS], the Enterprise's shields were capable of resisting sustained fire by a planetary disruptor that could generate "Extremely powerful sonic vibrations. Decibels - eighteen to the twelfth power." This translates into a power intensity of 10^{((18^12)/10 - 12)} Watts per square meter, or 10^{115,683,138,142,476} googlewatts per square femtometer (and the weapon's fire was described as "potshots" by Montgomery Scott). As such, due to the sheer magnitude of the estimate (the implausibility of directly using sonic waves as a space combat weapon aside), I'm inclined to categorize the measurement as a "splicing" flub, with the second sentence of the quote 'actually' being, "Four hundred twenty-one decibels - eighteen to the twelfth power petawatts per square meter."

The turbophaser was the first of the "turbocharged" phaser weapons developed by Starfleet. Although the advent of reliable ZPE-enhanced power systems and phased plasma weapon technology had rendered the classic (and well-respected) 21st century turbolaser and superlaser obsolete long before the advent of laser-proof navigational shield technology, greatly improved energy densities (and minimized leak rates) of power cells enabled the elimination of independent power generator from the concept, leading to the first (semipractical) application of the turbolaser concept to phaser technology in 2263. The resulting weapon utilized an oversized emitter crystal along with rapid-discharge EPS capacitance banks and high-speed focusing coils to provide between two and ten times the firepower of a standard weapon.

The superphaser was a subsequent refinement of the turbophaser. First fielded in 2267 on Starfleet's starbases, the superphaser was directly energized from the platform's power plant via a dedicated high-energy EPS conduit. Not only did this enable the superphaser to dispense with the turbophaser's bulky capacitance banks, but this also enabled the emitter to augment its directed energy by the square of the turbophaser's boosting (and thus rendered the turbophaser concept obsolete).

The hyperphaser was the next technique Starfleet developed to significantly boost phaser power. First fielded in 2271 on the newly refitted starship Enterprise, this was a superphaser that channeled its power through the warp engines, which magnifies the phaser's power by a further square of the superphaser's augmentation (which at the time effectively made the hyperphaser the equivalent of a standard phaser 2 types larger).

The megaphaser was a further development of the hyperphaser. First fielded in 2275 on the refitted Avenger subclass of the Miranda-class starships, this adds an independent power source designated a "phaser engine" to a hyperphaser to boost the structural integrity of the hyperphaser and thus magnify the amount of power it can channel - the first versions of the megaphaser had five times the power and seven times the range of its hyperphaser equivalent.

In their first incarnations, though, these techniques had numerous drawbacks that eventually resulted in their withdrawal from service. The megaphaser was not kept in service for more than a decade - the phaser engines of that day were not only very bulky, but also generated significant amounts of radioactive exhaust, which meant that they had to be mounted externally. As a result, improved power transfer systems resulted in the Avenger's Type-6 megaphasers being replaced with standard Type-7 hyperphasers. Furthermore, although the hyperphaser was standard on all front-line Federation starships in the late 23rd century, the advent of linear phaser arrays and improving power densities of conventional directed energy weapons in general provided the firepower of the original hyperphaser without the increased maintenance requirements of the latter, and so they were gradually de-rated (and replaced with uprated standard phasers). By 2350, the hyperphaser, superphaser, and the turbophaser had been fully withdrawn from starship service (as a standard phaser now could provide the firepower of a 2271 hyperphaser), though the superphaser remained a staple armament of starbases.

However, the discovery of the Borg Collective resulted in the augmented phaser technology being revived and updated with modern technology. High-energy EPS conduits and improved SIF systems for phaser prefire chambers permitted turbophasers, superphasers, and hyperphasers to attain energy densities one, two, and four orders of magnitude higher than standard phasers. The USS Defiant was the first to employ the updated phaser technology - with its original armament of 4 Type-8 and 4 Type-7 turbophaser cannons, it carried ten times the firepower of the far larger Galaxy-class starship (which had 440 Type-10 phasers). Unfortunately, the immense power of the updated turbophasers proved too much for the Defiant's structural integrity fields, and it took several months of experimentation before the Defiant's SIF system was properly reconfigured to handle the full-power firing of its weapons. In addition, by this time, the turbophaser cannon's range advantages had become deficits compared to the linear arrays which had become standard on Federation starships, and the fixed nature of its unidirectional emitters have resulted in the Defiant-class ships suffering a deservedly poor (for a Starfleet ship) reputation for accuracy.

Whatever the shortcomings of the Defiant's turbophaser cannons were, though, they demonstrated the viability of augmented phaser technology, and accordingly it was followed by efforts to integrate it with more typical phaser mountings with decreasing emphasis on simplicity. The first stage was to integrate the augmented phaser technology to a more typical multidirectional emitter, which involved the updating of the original turreted Type-8 hyperphaser. Over two dozen of these weapons were mounted on the USS Lakota during its refit in late 2371, where they demonstrated that it was indeed feasible to attain modern hyperphaser-level firepower while retaining the precise fire control typical of Starfleet ships. Following the success of the updated Type-8 hyperphaser, the next stage was to adapt augmented phaser technology to the current state-of-the-art in standard phaser technology - the linear phaser array (which mandated the adaptation of the array's force coupling capabilities to entirely supplant the beam-focusing coils of less advanced augmented emitters). This first involved the development of a Type-6 superphaser array, which utilized a single power conduit to power the entire array (as one might expect, longer arrays required larger power conduits). First installed on the Defiant along with the ship's ablative armor during the ship's refit following its first mission into the Gamma Quadrant in 2371, the linear superphaser array not only benefited from the firepower and range enhancements of both of its parent technologies, but it retained all of the accuracy/tracking abilities of the linear array as well. As a result, the technology was subsequently utilized in Deep Space Nine's refit in 2371, which enabled a station that once could not hope to defend itself from a single Galor-class warship to hold its own with a 200-ship Klingon fleet. ("The Way of the Warrior" [DS9])

With the success of the superphaser array, the development of the linear hyperphaser array for the Prometheus-class ships was accelerated, which proceeded so quickly and smoothly that the project was expanded to adapt the compact emitter configuration of planetary defense arrays to the lengthy, curved arrays typically used as a starship's main phasers as well. This not only reduced the external cross section of the hyperphaser emitter segments by 75% (and their external size to that of an emitter segment 1 Type smaller), but compacted the emitter length to 3.75 meters, thus enabling Type-8, -9, and -10 arrays to mount more emitter segments for a given array length (eight times as many in the case of the Type-10). At this point, the project moved into its final phase - the development of a linear megaphaser array. Such a weapon had become possible with the development of a closed-cycle phaser engine in 2368, which not only permitted the megaphaser to be safely mounted inside of a starship for better protection, but permitted its use in linear arrays (though the physical length of the array would preclude the exclusive use of a single central phaser engine per array - long megaphaser arrays would require multiple equidistant phaser engines). Furthermore, phaser engines could now be built with a much higher power density, enabling it boost hyperphaser power by a full two orders of magnitude. Indeed, the megaphaser array proved so successful in its final tests that its technology was quickly earmarked for adaptation to the Type-11 and -12 phaser emitters (the largest directed energy emitters the Federation had ever constructed) planned for the Sovereign-class starships. In particular, the Type-12s would be an upscaled (and starship-optimized) version of the Type-11 planetary defense phasers. By utilizing the densely-packed configuration of the latter, the Type-12 linear array would not only have the same external emitter width as a theoretical standard Type-11 phaser array of equal length, but eight times as many emitter segments as well. By 2372, the first Type-11 and Type-12 megaphaser arrays were installed on the Sovereign-class starships, where they quickly proved an unqualified success against even the largest of Borg Cubes.

The advent of various types of augmented phasers on Starfleet starships and starbases in the 2260s and 2270s resulted in various efforts among blaster- and disruptor-using navies to develop similarly augmented versions of their weapons in reply. However, their inherent relative inefficiencies not only restrict the extent to which they can be augmented (as shown on the right-hand table, blasters and disruptors can, at most, be augmented to superblasters and hyperdisruptors respectively), but also makes it correspondingly more difficult to attain a given degree of augmentation. These factors have generally frustrated attempts at a practical "turbocharged" disruptor or blaster - for those types of weapons, it is usually more efficient (in terms of bulk, mass, and power) to simply use a larger emitter (or an emitter cannon) than an "augmented" emitter of the same output (not to mention more reliable and durable). The sole known exceptions are the First Federation, Species 8472, the Son'a, the Borg, and (most recently) the Romulans - all of whom, except for the last, had succeeded in fielding "turbocharged" blasters and disruptors even before Starfleet had fielded its augmented phasers due to the advanced technology of the aforementioned. (First Federation ships are armed with superblasters, Species 8472 bioships mount superdisruptors, Son'a ships have both hyperdisruptors and hyperdisruptor cannons, and the Borg mount superdisruptors and hyperdisruptors on their medium and large starships respectively - as do the Romulans on their latest warbird designs.) All of these weapons are augmented to the same degree as their modern phaser counterparts.

Note: For all of the understandable dismay of Star Trek fans over the portrayal of the Borg in Star Trek: Voyager, the relatively weak Borg vessels - even Cubes - encountered by Voyager in the Delta Quadrant does explain why only a single vessel was used to attack the Federation in each of the two invasion attempts seperated by six years, as well as why the Borg could not deal with Earth's resistance to assimilation by just sending more Cubes. In retrospect, given that Q wanted Picard and his crew to encounter a threat that they could not handle on their own in "Q Who?" [TNG], it is almost certain that the Borg starship they encountered then was not a typical example of a Borg Cube, but instead a hyperdisruptor-armed prototype that was also the Collective's largest and most powerful vessel by a very significant margin. Likewise, the six years between the first invasion by the Borg and the second could be justified as the time needed by the Collective to build the much larger and more powerful Cube seen in "First Contact." As such, even though the Borg may have large numbers of disruptor- and superdisruptor-armed starships, the Collective has never had more than a single example of the extra-large hyperdisruptor-armed Cubes at any given time - and both such Cubes constructed were lost in the Collective's two attempts to assimilate Earth.

During the Dominion War, however, the Dominion made a number of technology transfers to the Cardassians, which inspired the latter to make an ingenious attempt to circumvent the technological restrictions on disruptor energy density in their Orbital Defense Platforms. By having each network of platforms powered from a central energy source separate from any of the platforms, each platform could supplied with a level of power grossly out of proportion to their small size and technology without the limitations imposed by the physical energy conduits the Dominion was capable of building - and thus, the inefficiency of the disruptor in attempts to augment its power could be overcome through the sheer excess of energy. As such, the maximum amount of energy that could be directed by each of the three Type-10 superdisruptors of an ODP was 100 times that of a standard Type-10 disruptor. While this made the ODPs effective against far larger Alpha Quadrant starships, their mandatory dependence on a remote power source proved to be vulnerable, and certainly impractical to employ on starships.

As with augmented blasters, there are two major types of augmented lasers:

The turbolaser is the most common form of augmented laser, and typically utilizes a turbine generator and banks of capacitors to build up and store the energy needed for it to generate a high-energy bolt capable of overcoming a pre-warp capital ship's defenses (as well as providing twice the firepower of a standard laser cannon). The turbolaser typically had a firing cycle of 2 seconds, though the weapon can forgo the use of its capacitors for use as an improvised rapid-fire laser cannon to deal with light enemy craft (though its mechanical mounting and minimum Type-4 size made it relatively clumsy for such a task).

In contrast, the superlaser is a turbolaser that substitutes the turbine generator for the platform's own main power plant, and utilizes vast banks of capacitors that usually occupy a significant fraction of the platform's hull. This enables the superlaser to generate energy bolts concentrated enough to defeat a planetary EM defense field as well as attaining four times the firepower of a standard laser, but it also precludes the weapon from bypassing its capacitors during operation (and makes the weapon far too clumsy for a trainable mount, especially with its Type-6 minimum size). As such, this weapon has an average firing cycle of 3,600 seconds (60 seconds as an improvised turbolaser). Accordingly, the only practical armament configuration for a pre-warp superlaser-armed platform is a single axially-mounted superlaser supplemented by an extensive secondary armament of turbolasers and laser cannons. Indeed, for pre-warp societies, the resources required to develop and build a superlaser and its platform are so difficult to obtain that such a weapon system is usually only considered when it is in its antiproton variant, allowing the superlaser to double as a strategic weapon.

Despite considerable efforts in both R&D and espionage since 2267, the Klingon and Romulan empires were unable to field a practical "turbocharged" disruptor in reply to Starfleet's augmented phasers for well over a century. As a result, it was decided in the late 2270s to experiment with another approach - a "cannon" version of the disruptor. Unlike the blaster and laser cannons of pre-warp starfaring navies (which were essentially extended range, sustained fire versions of standard and phase-modulated weapons), the disruptor cannon utilizes oversized power transfer conduits that feed directly from the ship's power plant into a similarly enlarged particle generator in order to boost the emitter's maximum directed energy by two orders of magnitude. While this confers the desired increase in firepower (indeed, to the degree of the original hyperphasers) at less overall system bulk than a conventional disruptor of equal power, a lengthy extra-emitter "barrel" of beam-focusing coils is required to stabilize the overpowered disruptor beam. As a result, the cannon is significantly limited in its arc of fire, not to mention being considerably bulkier, complex, and wasteful of energy than its standard counterpart. As a result, a ship's disruptor cannon armament is practically limited to a small number of axial mounts - but this concentrates the ship's energy weapon power to a degree not far short of a linear array (consequently, cannon-armed capital starships tend to employ tactics typical of much smaller ships).

First fielded in the early 2280s on the L-42 Bird of Prey, the disruptor cannon proved so successful that every other disruptor-using naval power in the Alpha Quadrant armed all of their subsequent warships with disruptor cannons (with the exception of the newest Romulan warbirds, which utilize superdisruptors and hyperdisruptors instead). Indeed, the success of disruptor cannon technology has not only also inspired many minor powers (such as the Tholian Assembly and the Gorn Alliance) to develop and field blaster cannons (for a tenfold increase in firepower), but has also recently prompted Starfleet to begin development of equivalent phaser weapons as well (which boosts firepower by three orders of magnitude). The first (and most famous) examples of the phaser cannon are the short-barreled Type-8 and Type-7 turbophaser cannons (also known as the "pulse phaser cannons") that arm the Defiant-class escorts, but other forms of the phaser cannon are currently under development as well. One proposed example is the megaphaser cannon (also informally known as the "phaser lance"), which is essentially a single megaphaser emitter that employs enlarged prefire chambers and multiple phaser engines along with an extended-length "barrel." While the megaphaser cannon is unlikely to be employed on future Starfleet warships due to the advantages of the linear megaphaser array in terms of fire arcs, accuracy, and resistance to battle damage, it promises a relatively convenient way of upgrading the firepower of Starfleet's front-line starships via external mounts. Among the proposed projects to employ the megaphaser cannon is a 3-nacelle version of the Galaxy-class armed with a Type-10 megaphaser cannon and Type-10 hyperphaser arrays (just like what Picard saw in the "anti-time" future shown to him by Q).

As effective as phased energy weapons (which includes proton, plasma, and ion torpedoes) are at producing impressive results with relatively minimal energy input and wastage, the nature of their augmentation reduces their effectiveness against celestial bodies (which is regarded as an advantage by Starfleet) - a weapon that can reduce a significant fraction of a planet into energy is unable to "carry over" the augmentation to shatter the planet through defeating its gravitational binding energy (even though it theoretically has the energy to do so via its "annihilate" setting). The electric force that is key to the effectiveness of phased energy weapons provides a means by which the gravitational binding energy of such immense, relatively solid objects can be efficiently overcome - a significant increase in the electron ddensity (on the scale of 1 added electron per less than 5 billion tons) of an object held together by gravity (such as a planet) will cause it to literally disintegrate from the mutual repulsion of its like-charged electrons. However, even the use of protons in phased energy weapons does not fully exploit the use of electrical repulsion as a means of countering gravitational binding energy. A more efficient means of destructively increasing an object's electron density is to saturate it with antiprotons. The effect such particles would have is twofold - not only do the antiprotons explosively annihilate the protons of the target (which also minutely reduces the target's gravitational binding energy), but the exclusive removal of the target's protons increases the electron concentration in the target planet until the electrons' mutual repulsion literally shatters the planet. As a result, against celestial bodies, an antiproton weapon has for a given setting a KE multiplier the square of its conventional counterpart. However, their means of generating an energy beam differs significantly from that of standard directed energy weapons - the fundamental nature of antimatter makes it impractical to use a physical prefire chamber to concentrate and focus the antiparticle beam, and thus an immaterial "prefire chamber" of energy must be used instead (such as those used by Bajoran and Cardassian phase disruptors and the (turbo)laser artillery of some advanced pre-warp cultures). This is accomplished by the sequential establishing of an initial, relatively low powered seven- to eight-stranded energy beam (as opposed to the three to six strands of more conventional particle weapons) that, in effect, serves as an energy-based prefire chamber (and is usually a visible characteristic of antiparticle beam weapons). Once the multistranded energy beam is established, it is followed by an amplified discharge of the main emitter that uses the initial beam to focus the primary energy onto the target.

Interestingly enough, three of the most well-known examples of antiproton beam weapons were not only designed and built by civilizations outside of the Milky Way Galaxy, but also vary significantly from the typical configuration (for a visual comparison of those three weapons systems, click here):

The automated "Doomsday Machine" encountered by the starships Constellation and Enterprise in 2267 had a hull composed of pure neutronium and could refuel (and repair) itself through the consumption and energy conversion of the planets it had destroyed. Most of the robot's interior was occupied by its massive Type-15 directed antiproton weapon, which remarkably required only a fraction of a second to power up and fire when on standby (as opposed to the seconds typically required). In addition, because of its regenerative neutronium hull, the Doomsday Machine was able to generate its antiproton beams from inside of itself. ("The Doomsday Machine" [TOS])).

The bioship antiplanet formation employed by those designated by the Borg as Species 8472 is unique among known antiproton weapon systems in that it utilized a task force of nine fully interchangeable bioships (each armed with a Type-7 superdisruptor) as the weapon array rather than a single platform with a fixed weapon installation. ("Scorpion" [VOY]) Although this affords considerable flexibility and redundancy, it also restricts the formation's disruptor beam setting to "dematerialize" and reduces its power output accordingly. Even so, the antiproton beam generated by the formation remains devastating against planets - in less than half of a second after a Borg planet's shields completely failed under such an assault, the planet was destroyed in an explosion violent enough for the resulting spherical shockwave to destroy an unadapted 1357m Cube nearly 2 planetary diameters from its center, indicating that the explosion had at least an effective kinetic energy of 6.75*10⁴⁶ J.

The pair of custom deep-space mobile battlestations constructed by the short-lived Galactic Empire of a certain satellite galaxy of the Pisces Dwarf Galaxy (LGS 3) are studies in how such a powerful weapon of mass destruction can be built by a pre-warp hyperspace-capable civilization (albeit one that is extraordinarily large, powerful, and well-established) despite its relatively limited technology base and resources. The Type-11 superlaser cannon of the first "Death Star" was equipped with the capacitance banks for a 24-hour charge at the weapon's maximum power of 4 GW and used eight Type-10 turbolasers to generate the initial multistranded beam, while the second Death Star's superlaser had three sets of capacitance banks that charged simultaneously (and could be fully discharged with as little as 24 minutes between each other) but one less turbolaser to generate the initial multistrand beam. Although the maximum 345.6 terajoules either superlaser could direct, even with their base KE multiplier of 1,000 and their antiproton beam composition, would not ordinarily be capable of shattering a Class-M planet, the ingenuity (misplaced as it was) of the superlaser's designers enabled it to generate beams of higher antiproton densities at higher charge levels (as opposed to generating a wider beam with the same density of antiprotons). This resulted in the superlaser having an exponential effect/charge curve which, after the initial 1-hour charge of 14.4 terajoules was attained, increased the generated beam�s overall kinetic energy equivalent at the rate of an order of magnitude every 90 minutes up until the end of the 24th hour of charging. Consequently, a Death Star-type superlaser could, at "full power" (in the words of the late Grand Moff Tarkin), direct the equivalent of 3.1*10³² J in 0.3 seconds.

The magnified effectiveness of antiproton weapons against celestial bodies, however, comes at a similar cost in usefulness against technologically advanced opponents - against shields and structural integrity fields, their kinetic energy multiplier is the square root of that of their conventional counterparts (it should be noted that this limitation is further affected by the technology level of the target's defenses). One of the more notable examples of this limitation involved the starships Enterprise and Constellation surviving several direct full-power hits from the Doomsday Machine's Type-15 antiproton weapon, even while unshielded. ("The Doomsday Machine" [TOS]) The only known exception to this degree of attenuation involved the susceptibility of Borg ships and shielded planets against Species 8472 antiplanet formations. However, even then, the beams' antiproton KE multiplier exponent was reduced to 1.2364, and it is almost certain that this unusual effectiveness was due to the Borg inability to adapt to Species 8472 technology in general instead of any specific characteristics of antiproton beams - as shown by the lack of an attempt by Species 8472 to similarly employ an antiplanet formation against USS Voyager after the starship had resisted standard bioship Type-7 superdisruptor fire, even when there were several more bioships present than was needed for such a formation. ("Scorpion" [VOY]) Furthermore, in the case of the Death Star superlaser, the technical price paid for the exponential charging crucial to its planet-destroying capabilities was that a non-particle-shielded shaft running from the station's main reactor to its surface had to be incorporated into the station's design in order to adequately vent the main reactor's waste heat during the superlaser's firing - a vulnerability that was exploited to brring about the destruction of both Death Stars. (The reactor shaft of the first Death Star was likely built in a perfectly straight line in order to minimize its diameter, while the second Death Star utilized a quartet of far wider shafts in order to allow them to accommodate bends - and the additional waste heat that would be generated by the new multicapacitor superlaser.) The basic problem of antiplanet antiproton weapons is a traditional weakness of "weapons of mass destruction" - aside from the Borg (against which the Federation already has warships capable of destroying), they are only reliably effective against relatively unprepared/undefended targets (no small weakness given that conventionally-armed starships are already capable of destroying the surface of a planet, if not the planet itself) and their use tends to provoke extreme retaliation (especially given the relative scarcity of Class-M planets). As such, none of the major - or minor - naval powers have elected to fit their starships with antiproton weapons.

Note 1: Although this estimate seems to conflict with visual F/X of the planetary debris (which expanded at a maximum of triple the planet's radius per second, thus setting an upper kinetic energy limit of 1.09*10³⁹ J), enough of the formation's antiproton beam was bleeding through the planet's shields during the 14 second bombardment prior to the planet's destruction to severely crack the planet's crust and even mantle over at least an entire hemisphere. Thus, when the planet exploded, the vast majority of the released energy escaped as part of the shockwave instead of propelling the planetary debris (most of which followed the shockwave instead of leading it). Furthermore, given the sublight acceleration Borg vessels - and indeed, Star Trek starships in general - are capable of, that two of the Cubes were overtaken by the shockwave is a strong indication that the scene had been shown in slow motion for the viewer's benefit. (return)

Note 2: Given that some modern Starfleet planetary defense networks, space stations, and starships mount hundreds, even thousands, of Type-11 and/or Type-12 phaser emitters, it is understandable if the notion of the Death Star superlaser being a Type-11 energy weapon sounds downright absurd on the surface, especially since (the Expanded Universe aside) the immense bulk of the Death Stars was almost exclusively dictated by the volume required by its prime weapon system - indeed, the sheer size of the station and the superlaser's exterior muzzle diameter seem to argue for at least a Type-18 classification. However, for visual evidence that the superlaser is "only" a Type-11, one only need look at the interior firing sequence of the superlaser - namely, as seen in the upper right-hand image, the discharge of a turbolaser beam down a focusing coil past two members of a gunnery crew. Given that the gunnery crew were right next to the focusing coil (indeed, they were so close that they had to turn away and cover their faces during the firing process), it is obvious that the interior diameter of the focusing coil (which produces one strand of the multistranded energy beam characteristic of the superlaser) is no more than 5 meters in diameter. Even with the inclusion of the focusing coil's cooling system (from the "Superlaser Firing Station" diagram provided in WEG's Death Star Technical Companion) to yield an overall diameter of 1115cm, and using the 4cm diameter Type-2a DLT-19 Stormtrooper heavy blaster rifle as a baseline, the focusing coil measures, at most, as a Type-10 turbolaser - which in turn yields a Type-11 superlaser weapon with all eight components combined and amplified. It should be kept in mind that plasma-based turbo- and superlaser type weapons are considerably bulkier and more massive than their standard counterparts due to the extensive hardware needed to supercharge the energy beams generated by their baseline energy weapon with the energy built up in the weapon's capacitors (not to mention the equipment needed to keep the weapon within safe operating temperatures while firing) - and the Death Star superlaser, as the embodiment of the Star Wars plasma turbolaser concept taken to its limits, would accordingly have extremely small primary directed energy components relative to the rest of its hardware. (return)

Note 3: I am aware that my estimates of the Death Star superlaser's firepower are significantly lower than the estimate of 3.4*10³⁸ J that has been calculated from the velocity of Alderaan's debris from its destruction, and much closer to the minimum 2.4*10³² J needed to shatter an Earth-like planet. However, Steve Sansweet of Lucasfilm (and the author of the Star Wars Encyclopedia), has stated that "The Death Star simply couldn't blow up Yavin," which restricts the superlaser's maximum injected kinetic energy to less than 2.4*10³⁶ J (and probably under 10³⁴ J, given Mr. Sansweet's implication in his explanation that the Death Star superlaser cannot destroy gas giants in general). Furthermore, as noted by Curtis Saxton (the maximum estimate's calculator and author of "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones Incredible Cross Sections"), the figure presumes that the entire planet's mass was accelerated to the maximum velocity observed - and against Alderaan, over 86% of the superlaser's energy affected the planet's surface, with the remainder dispersed throughout the planet's interior. Alderaan was shattered by not one, but four explosions - which is inconsistent with the "maximum power" estimate. The first explosion involved the destruction of the planetary hemisphere facing the Death Star - but the surface disruption was seen to have halted prior to the planet being obscured by the exploding hemisphere surface. The second and third energy releases involved rings of energy centered at the planet's core, and presumably signaled the fragmenting of the planet's mantle and core. The final, and most powerful, explosion was centered at the planet's crust on the other side of the planet from where the superlaser's beam had struck. In addition, the velocity of the first Death Star's debris after the station's explosion (which can be assumed to represent an omnidirectional release of the superlaser's raw energy capacity, as the Death Star was seconds away from firing on Yavin IV) yields an upper estimate of 3.69*10²⁹ J. Even allowing for how Yavin IV, as a moon, may be smaller than Alderaan (which itself is small for a Class-M planet), this is far less than the minimum needed to shatter an Earth-like planet, which lends additional support to the theory that the Death Star superlaser inflicts damage by more than just a straightforward kinetic energy injection - an amplification that was partly dissipated by the station's destruction. (In addition, the gradational weapon effect provided in the West End Games roleplaying statistics for the Death Stars helps explains why, as seen in the second Death Star's first superlaser firing in SW6, the superlaser is marginal at destroying large capital ships at extreme tactical ranges when the superlaser is operating at its maximum rate of fire.)

The concentration of the superlaser's effects on the planetary surface (with the planet's interior injected with the minimum energy required to attain escape velocity) allows a reconciliation between the high-velocity fragments witnessed during Alderaan's destruction, the slowly-expanding planet-sized secondary cloud of fragments observed after Alderaan's explosion, and the Millennium Falcon's abrupt transition from a debris field of uniform (as opposed to progressively increasing and decreasing) density to space practically clear of Alderaan's remains. It should be remembered that not only was the Death Star's planet-destroying capability unprecedented in the Star Wars galaxy, and thus cannot be expected to overmatch a planet's gravitic binding energy by a spectacular degree, but it was primarily intended for intimidation as opposed to military purposes. As such, a weapon that could generate a visually spectacular destruction of a planet, yet do so with a low enough kinetic energy injection to leave a visibly dense debris field behind to serve as a reminder of the weapon's abilities, would be ideal for the intended mission of terror for the Death Star. (return)