A Mess of Tech from "The Passenger"[DS9]

[2046]

I mean that title both as a large quantity and because some of it is funky.

Also, just read the parts where Bashir is possessed, below . . . don't watch the episode. Siddig read those lines horribly . . . seriously, it was like he had been stunned.

BASHIR: It was necessary to render him unconscious for the time being. However, I might consider leaving his body and returning him to you. But first you must release your tractor beam.
SISKO [on viewscreen]: I can't do that.
BASHIR: If you don't, I'll take this vessel to warp.

[Ops]

SISKO: The tractor beam would rip apart your ship, and you and everyone on board would be killed.
BASHIR [on viewscreen]: Exactly. So if you care at all about the welfare of your Doctor, you will release your hold on us. You have one minute to decide.
(Transmission ends)
SISKO: Can we get a transporter lock on him?
PRIMMIN: Negative. Their shields are up.
SISKO: Suggestions?
KIRA: A small ship like a runabout might be able to get close enough to overload their shield generators with directed phaser fire. We used to do it to Cardassian freighters all the time.
ODO: But you'd be risking a hull breach and with all the deuridium on board
SISKO: He's right. We can't risk releasing deuridium into the system. Every populated area would have to be evacuated. Dax, is there any way to disrupt Vantika's control over Bashir?
DAX: I have an exact model of Vantika's neural energy patterns. If I can design an electromagnetic pulse to disrupt those patterns, Julian might emerge. We still need a way to get it there.
SISKO: Could we run it right along the tractor beam at the same frequency as their shields?
DAX: The pulse would resonate off the shields and create a reflected EM field inside the ship.

1. The tractor beam caught a shielded ship.

Ideally, here, they should've used the concept of a transport scrambler rather than shields, because the only reason they needed shields was to prevent transporter function. A line of dialog like "and if you try to shoot at this ship I'll take it to warp" would've helped serve to prevent them from firing.

2. A tractor beam (at least on a shielded ship, though it isn't clear if that's relevant) prevents the use of warp drive but only in the sense that you'll blow yourself to kingdom come in the process.

Indeed, I wonder if this was actually Riker's plan in BoBW right before Data saved the day . . . my mental picture here is that you'll actually achieve forward velocity, but you'll be torn apart. In theory, then, it would be kind of like turning yourself into a shotgun as you blast your shrapnel in the direction of travel. In the case of BoBW, they'd have been using the Enterprise-D as a shotgun against the cube . . . still a ramming attack, sort of, but a very much more untidy version.

In any case, I seem to recall another instance of a tractor beam being used to prevent a ship from going to warp, but I can't put my finger on it right now. I thought it did something to the subspace field, though. I may simply be thinking of the inverse graviton burst from "Once More Unto the Breach", which was a somewhat different thing that came from the main deflector.

3. Extreme short range phaser fire can be used to overload the shield generators of ships. Whether this is just a straight power thing (implying phaser power falls off at a distance rather severely) or a super-spiffy targeting thing or some sort of technobabble is not clear. But, this may have some sort of relevance to the shorter ranges often, but not always, seen in later Trek.

4. A tractor beam can be used, via technobabble, to produce electromagnetic pulse effects within a shielded opposing vessel.

5. Having or figuring the shield frequencies to make the EM pulse reflect-o-matic thingy work was not the same thing as being able to fire phasers or transport through the shields, otherwise they could've just shot up the freighter or beamed Slow-Talkin'-Bashir out.

Then we have this:

DAX: I've programmed this transporter to isolate any glial cells with Vantika's neural patterns and to beam them from Julian into this micro-containment field. Once they're out he should be back to normal.
(The container starts blinking)
DAX: I'm only reading human neural patterns. He's clear.
(Dax gives Bashir a hypo to wake him)
BASHIR: I have the worst headache.

This is the one where they engage a Cardassian transporter on Julian's head, which looks like it's gonna be some sort of savage high-tech decapitation until the head's still there when the transporter stops. Instead, they beamed out some intruding cells which they were able to identify with sensors.

That's a super-cure to end all super-cures that they apparently realized they should never use again. I mean, you can cure virtually anything with that. The whole plot of "Shades of Grey"[TNG2] would be meaningless . . . well, moreso than it already was. Even the Holodoc never tried anything quite so brazen, even when it would've been very useful in curing Ensign Kim when the 8472 cells were consuming him.

[359]

That's a super-cure to end all super-cures that they apparently realized they should never use again. I mean, you can cure virtually anything with that. The whole plot of "Shades of Grey"[TNG2] would be meaningless . . . well, moreso than it already was. Even the Holodoc never tried anything quite so brazen, even when it would've been very useful in curing Ensign Kim when the 8472 cells were consuming him.

This appears to be a similar function to what one would expect the transporter's bio-filter to perform. In TNG: "Shades of Grey" the infection was connecting to Riker on a molecular level instead of just infecting several cells so they couldn't filter it out. Although admittedly there are many other times when this would have been useful and should have worked.

[Cocytus]

That's a super-cure to end all super-cures that they apparently realized they should never use again. I mean, you can cure virtually anything with that. The whole plot of "Shades of Grey"[TNG2] would be meaningless . . . well, moreso than it already was. Even the Holodoc never tried anything quite so brazen, even when it would've been very useful in curing Ensign Kim when the 8472 cells were consuming him.

The lone 8472 on the cube generated enough bioelectric interference that Voyager couldn't beam the away team back even when it was several meters from them and behind a wall. Chakotay says "it's within seven meters" when they finally start to run. If the alien cells generate this interference it may explain why they can't lock on to them. The Doc explains that he has to reprogram the nanoprobes one by one to emit the same signature as the cells to elude detection. If this signature scatters transporter beams by nature that would explain why they can't simply beam that mess out of Kim. Seven later beamed an 8472 off the ship while it was fighting the Hirogen in "Prey." Presumably the Doctor's successes gave them a way to lock on to the aliens. Either that or its field wasn't as strong due to its injuries.

Interestingly, the nanoprobes emitting some sort of signature may also explain why they can't simply cure assimilation in its initial phases by beaming out the nanoprobes. It would make sense that the Borg would be aware of this possibility and counteract it by having the probes scatter foreign transporter signals.

But yeah, it would be frickin' awesome to use that to cure run of the mill diseases.

What I've always wondered is why they have to bother with "biosynthetic limbs" of the kind Nog receives after AR-558. The transporter makes a perfect record of your body down to the quantum level (complete with Heisenberg compensators). All they would need to do is add enough matter to the stream to recreate the limb upon rematerialization in accordance with your last complete pattern. I mean hell, they duplicated Riker outright.

[Praeothmin]

Or simply grow a leg from Nog's own cells...

[Lucky]

1. The tractor beam caught a shielded ship.

Ideally, here, they should've used the concept of a transport scrambler rather than shields, because the only reason they needed shields was to prevent transporter function. A line of dialog like "and if you try to shoot at this ship I'll take it to warp" would've helped serve to prevent them from firing.

Don't the Borg catch the E-D in a tractor beam when it had its shields up?

2. A tractor beam (at least on a shielded ship, though it isn't clear if that's relevant) prevents the use of warp drive but only in the sense that you'll blow yourself to kingdom come in the process.

Indeed, I wonder if this was actually Riker's plan in BoBW right before Data saved the day . . . my mental picture here is that you'll actually achieve forward velocity, but you'll be torn apart. In theory, then, it would be kind of like turning yourself into a shotgun as you blast your shrapnel in the direction of travel. In the case of BoBW, they'd have been using the Enterprise-D as a shotgun against the cube . . . still a ramming attack, sort of, but a very much more untidy version.

In any case, I seem to recall another instance of a tractor beam being used to prevent a ship from going to warp, but I can't put my finger on it right now. I thought it did something to the subspace field, though. I may simply be thinking of the inverse graviton burst from "Once More Unto the Breach", which was a somewhat different thing that came from the main deflector.

Given Star Trek: First Contact states a ship has to basically be traveling at the speed of light before it reaches the "Warp Threshold".

3. Extreme short range phaser fire can be used to overload the shield generators of ships. Whether this is just a straight power thing (implying phaser power falls off at a distance rather severely) or a super-spiffy targeting thing or some sort of technobabble is not clear. But, this may have some sort of relevance to the shorter ranges often, but not always, seen in later Trek.

Given how lazy DS9 VFX teams I take visuals with a large grain of salt given they often show battle at less then a kilometer even though this is stated to be very dangerous for both parties in TDIC.

Given Kira requires a small craft to do it, I doubt it is a raw power thing. It might explain how the NX-01 takes down the shields in Silent Enemy.

In TNG: Hero Worship
PICARD: No signs of phaser burns on the hull. 

LAFORGE: No, sir. Torsional stress levels point to a disrupter-style weapon. 

DATA: Fracture points indicate that the energy burst came from a range of less than three thousand metres. 

PICARD: But that's a strategy consistent with a cloaked vessel. Romulan. Or Klingon. But we're quite a distance from either of their territories. 

DATA: The Breen have outposts in this sector. The attack on the Vico is consistent with their battle tactics and their level of technology.

4. A tractor beam can be used, via technobabble, to produce electromagnetic pulse effects within a shielded opposing vessel.

5. Having or figuring the shield frequencies to make the EM pulse reflect-o-matic thingy work was not the same thing as being able to fire phasers or transport through the shields, otherwise they could've just shot up the freighter or beamed Slow-Talkin'-Bashir out.

Phasers have strange electromagnetic properties.