Varon-T Disruptor

[FaxModem1]

In the TNG episode"The Most Toys", Rivas Fajo has four of the five Varon-T Disruptor prototypes. These weapons were made illegal in the Federation due to how cruelly they kill their target. Why would such a weapon be made by someone in the UFP? Or was it a side effect of research into something else and the researchers were horrified at what they produced?

Were these weapons produced somewhere else and brought into Federation space by smugglers? If so, what does this say about Federation borders and customs?

Discuss

[Khaat]

In the TOS episode "Space Seed", Kirk encounters a sleeper ship full of genetically engineered super-humans. These humans fled the Clone Wars Eugenics War, due to being deposed by mud-dwelling lowly baseline humans (or were they...?) Why would someone like Khan be made by someone in the UFP? Or was he a side effect of research into something else and the researchers were horrified at what they produced?[/mock]

It's entirely possible the Veron-T was developed by a pre-First Contact race, or by "criminals" of a member planet for precisely the effect it has. They might be prestige weapons for the "bosses" of an organization. It could be something as simple as [technobabble]*, like sharpening a bayonet is outlawed (Geneva Conventions), or sawing off a shotgun's barrel (US gun laws).

We don't have many encounters with border-crossing in TNG, short of military concerns (or post-conflict controlled borders - Fed/Rom, Fed/Cardi, etc.) We have a few occasions where civilian traffic can get past without much trouble ("Lower Decks" suggests a bounty hunter returning with a captured terrorist would slip through the Fed/Cardi border without hassle.) But with replicator tech being widespread, "homemade guns" might be even easier to make.

*And I was going to make a running leap at it, too: "intentionally dis-harmonizing the coherent waveform synchronizers or something...."

[NecronLord]

Given the fact that it was called a prototype, I suspect it was intended to be more practical and was abandoned as a product during a design phase.

[Simon_Jester]

The Varon-T disruptors are found in the hands of someone who is clearly an interstellar merchant with a tight-knit crew aboard a personal starship, and extensive connections. It's very plausible that they come from outside of Federation space. There is no reason to assume that the collector who owns them restricts his business dealings to Federation space, and he certainly seems to have no compunction about ignoring Federation law by kidnapping Commander Data for his personal collection.

I will also note that the Varon-T disruptor isn't clearly more effective than a standard phaser (which also disintegrates man-sized targets). It may well be some kind of obscure variant on the basic principles of disruptor and phaser weapons, something created in a laboratory and found ineffective. Then again, it may be a weapon that was produced in quantity somewhere, at some time, but nearly all the existing models were destroyed.

[Batman]

Indeed. Nothing in the episode says they were made in Federation territory, leave alone by Federation-affiliated parties, they're just illegal in the Federation.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Why would such a weapon be made by someone in the UFP?

They're banned by the Federation. No one said the Federation manufactured or designed them.

As for Simon - they don't appear "better" than a phaser. I get the impression they're not meant to be - they seem designed to cause a huge amount of pain when it shoots someone, not for efficiency.

[Darth Thanatos]

In the TNG episode"The Most Toys", Rivas Fajo has four of the five Varon-T Disruptor prototypes. These weapons were made illegal in the Federation due to how cruelly they kill their target. Why would such a weapon be made by someone in the UFP? Or was it a side effect of research into something else and the researchers were horrified at what they produced?

Were these weapons produced somewhere else and brought into Federation space by smugglers? If so, what does this say about Federation borders and customs?

Discuss

I feel like someone in the Federation accidentally invented Star Wars-like disruptors.

[Lord Revan]

In the TNG episode"The Most Toys", Rivas Fajo has four of the five Varon-T Disruptor prototypes. These weapons were made illegal in the Federation due to how cruelly they kill their target. Why would such a weapon be made by someone in the UFP? Or was it a side effect of research into something else and the researchers were horrified at what they produced?

Were these weapons produced somewhere else and brought into Federation space by smugglers? If so, what does this say about Federation borders and customs?

Discuss

As stated nothing in the episode states tha weapon was built by the Federation or within Federation space. As for Federation border security if the weapon inded orginated outside of the Federation it really says nothing else then that Federation border security isn't perfect and that if a person is dedicated and smart enough they can smuggle small amounts of contriban across the border (remember we only saw 1-2 Varon-T disruptors) but then we knew this already as several people have access to Romulan Ale that was illegal in federation space. To be honest it tells us nothing really about the border security of UFP as once a nation gets large enough there's bound to be gaps in the border protection.

[NecronLord]

Really the term prototype suggests to me they didn't know the effect until field testing began - and then banned them. That would allow them to be made by persons operating in line with federation ethics. I don't imagine their targets in early production phases would be animals, but inert objects.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Why do they have to have been made within Federation space though?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

In the TOS episode "Space Seed", Kirk encounters a sleeper ship full of genetically engineered super-humans. These humans fled the Clone Wars Eugenics War, due to being deposed by mud-dwelling lowly baseline humans (or were they...?) Why would someone like Khan be made by someone in the UFP? Or was he a side effect of research into something else and the researchers were horrified at what they produced?[/mock]

You'd have to ask the reserachers on Darwin Station why they would create überkiddies who are fatal to normal humans.

But, I get the point.

[Simon_Jester]

Darwin station may have been created as a specific exception to a general rule (say, because it'd been a hundred years since the last attempt to genetically modify humans and everyone figured the ban was obsolete nonsense). Then it turned out that the ban was not so stupid after all. I'm sure that the researchers didn't mean to create children whose immune systems would preemptively attack and kill other life forms, but once you've made a mistake like that it's hard to reverse it.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

In the TNG episode"The Most Toys", Rivas Fajo has four of the five Varon-T Disruptor prototypes. These weapons were made illegal in the Federation due to how cruelly they kill their target. Why would such a weapon be made by someone in the UFP? Or was it a side effect of research into something else and the researchers were horrified at what they produced?

Were these weapons produced somewhere else and brought into Federation space by smugglers? If so, what does this say about Federation borders and customs?

Discuss

Link Definitely one of the more disturbing things seen in the ST universe.

It wouldn't surprise me if Section 31 got their hands on some, if not all of the weapons formerly in Fajo's possession.

It would stand to reason if the remaining disruptor was still in the hands of whoever invented it, or if upon learning of how nasty it actually was, they were killed either by an unknown third party or an associate of Fajo himself. It's also possible that being decidedly experimental in nature that the first one blew up, taking the inventor/s with it in a case of "Hoist by his own petard" which would only accelerate it being banned, as well as account for the fifth and final one. Or, so horrified at what he'd come up with, he decided to off himself before anyone else could.

[NecronLord]

IT's not that bad. Getting shot in the guts with a slugthrower can take hours of agony to kill you.

[Prometheus Unbound]

IT's not that bad. Getting shot in the guts with a slugthrower can take hours of agony to kill you.

Lol how do you know it's not that bad?

It takes 9-10 seconds to vapourise you, slowly, inside to out. It's called "vicious" as a weapon and is banned in a Federation that allows phasers that vapourise and burn and cause injuries.

The thing was designed to cause as much pain as possible I think.

[NecronLord]

Actually it takes 7 seconds. No excuse, the video's right there.

And remember, the Federation were surprised that Jem'hadar guns are designed with the same principle as 5.56 mm NATO. Most of their weapons are designed for a clean, bloodless kill. What they consider horrific isn't necessarily so bad it compares to actual torture - if Section 31 are unprofessional enough to have an interest in torture compare that to the agony booth. - nor is it really going to deter anyone, RL nations get thousands of people to go into battles where they might be screaming for HOURS before they die.

As for the inventor killing himself; why bother?

[Prometheus Unbound]

Actually it takes 7 seconds. No excuse, the video's right there.

I get 8 heh.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Actually it takes 7 seconds. No excuse, the video's right there.

And remember, the Federation were surprised that Jem'hadar guns are designed with the same principle as 5.56 mm NATO. Most of their weapons are designed for a clean, bloodless kill.

In "Change of Heart" it was revealed that the opposite was true, with Jem'Hadar weapons containing an anticoagulant designed to slowly kill their enemies if the burst itself did not.

What they consider horrific isn't necessarily so bad it compares to actual torture - if Section 31 are unprofessional enough to have an interest in torture compare that to the agony booth. - nor is it really going to deter anyone, RL nations get thousands of people to go into battles where they might be screaming for HOURS before they die.

What made the booth so effective was that it could inflict an unimaginable amount of pain without physically harming the individual inside it. Unless at full power of course. I imagine the Terrans used it on POWs even more than they did on their own people.

And Section 31 would be very interested in a weapon that could be used for assassinations- kinda hard to trace a weapon that was banned in the Federation back to a branch of Starfleet. As well as making the target suffer in the process.

[NecronLord]

Actually it takes 7 seconds. No excuse, the video's right there.

And remember, the Federation were surprised that Jem'hadar guns are designed with the same principle as 5.56 mm NATO. Most of their weapons are designed for a clean, bloodless kill.

In "Change of Heart" it was revealed that the opposite was true, with Jem'Hadar weapons containing an anticoagulant designed to slowly kill their enemies if the burst itself did not.

Yes, they're designed to make someone wounded and maximise the medical resources necessary to help them, rather than kill (at least on their standard setting) outright, like 5.56 mm NATO. It's federation guns that kill as cleanly as possible, or stun humanely. Apologies for the confusion.

What they consider horrific isn't necessarily so bad it compares to actual torture - if Section 31 are unprofessional enough to have an interest in torture compare that to the agony booth. - nor is it really going to deter anyone, RL nations get thousands of people to go into battles where they might be screaming for HOURS before they die.

What made the booth so effective was that it could inflict an unimaginable amount of pain without physically harming the individual inside it. Unless at full power of course. I imagine the Terrans used it on POWs even more than they did on their own people.

And Section 31 would be very interested in a weapon that could be used for assassinations- kinda hard to trace a weapon that was banned in the Federation back to a branch of Starfleet. As well as making the target suffer in the process.

Suffering is likely irrelevant for them if they're the super-competent dudes they're made out to be. As opposed to the assclown hard men a lot of fans think they are.

We've no reason to think it doesn't leave the same antiproton residue as other disruptors are said to in other episodes. SO not untraceable; if anything it might be more recognizable as there are so few.

[Lord Revan]

indeed I suspect what S-31 agents would want is essentially standard issue Starfleet/Romulan Imperial Navy/Klingon Defense Force sidearm as far as any residue is conserned (we know that phasers leave some residue from the DS9 episode where that one guy shot his own clone as Bashir was able to reconstruct the victim from the left over residue), I mean there's probably millions if not billions of "standard issue Type-2" phasers in the AQ same with Klingon or Romulan disruptors so matching the residue to the right weapon will be difficult if not impossible due to the sheer number of possible solutions

Where as if you got a handful of weapons matching the residue to the gun will much easier as there's fewer options to look at, also even if each gun doesn't have unique residue pattern there's still fewer leads you need to check then with essentially "standard issue" weapon simply because there's fewer guns.

[NecronLord]

It's of course possible they all make the same residue -- but even then there's no practical reason to prefer this unique and likely difficult to maintain - parts might be obscure and taking this illegal weapon to an armourer would raise eyebrows - gun.

[Ted C]

I will also note that the Varon-T disruptor isn't clearly more effective than a standard phaser (which also disintegrates man-sized targets). It may well be some kind of obscure variant on the basic principles of disruptor and phaser weapons, something created in a laboratory and found ineffective.

I have to dispute this statement. Data was familiar with the weapon, and he says that it is very effective. Fajo goes on to explain that it is also "vicious" because it does the job of disrupting the target much more slowly than a phaser or more common disruptors.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Exactly.

It's never said outright "it was banned for being a torture device" but I get the impression that's it.

No conspiracy, no fault, no... "not as efficient" - it's designed to cause as much pain as possible whilst disintegrating.

[Simon_Jester]

I think there's a misunderstanding here. What I was getting at originally was that maybe they'd tried to make a significantly more powerful phaser weapon (or disruptor weapon, or whatever we call it). And that perhaps they found that in the final analysis, they had a handheld energy weapon that could vaporize a man-sized target... which phasers can already do.

If they were trying to make, say, a handheld disruptor that could carve big chunks out of a starship hull, or disintegrate a tank, or smash through force fields like they weren't even there... Well, in that case they were disappointed, apparently.

All the Varon-T disruptor does is the same thing a normal phaser does, only slower and more painfully. Therefore, it is clearly not a superior weapon, except that there is a slightly greater terror effect in the prospect of being disintegrated slowly than in being disintegrated quickly.

So when I say the thing might have been "created in a laboratory and found ineffective," I mean 'ineffective' in the sense that there is no reason to adopt this preferentially to a conventional phaser. Admittedly, 'ineffective' wasn't a great choice of words.

[Prometheus Unbound]

I think there's a misunderstanding here. What I was getting at originally was that maybe they'd tried to make a significantly more powerful phaser weapon (or disruptor weapon, or whatever we call it). And that perhaps they found that in the final analysis, they had a handheld energy weapon that could vaporize a man-sized target... which phasers can already do.

If they were trying to make, say, a handheld disruptor that could carve big chunks out of a starship hull, or disintegrate a tank, or smash through force fields like they weren't even there... Well, in that case they were disappointed, apparently.

All the Varon-T disruptor does is the same thing a normal phaser does, only slower and more painfully. Therefore, it is clearly not a superior weapon, except that there is a slightly greater terror effect in the prospect of being disintegrated slowly than in being disintegrated quickly.

So when I say the thing might have been "created in a laboratory and found ineffective," I mean 'ineffective' in the sense that there is no reason to adopt this preferentially to a conventional phaser. Admittedly, 'ineffective' wasn't a great choice of words.

I can accept that. It makes sense.

But.. why add the complications?

Why not just have it that the Federation banned it as a weapon that is "illegal" - like chem weapons or agent orange or .. waterboarding or what-have-you?

I could be wrong, but is it not simpler to just accept that this weapon is incredibly painful and slow (apparently by design - or at least that was the impression I got from the episode) that the Federation banned them?

I don't see the need for further details, outside of canon, to give any explanation.

It's a horrible, horrible way to die and not one the Federation allows in its borders.



Does it have to be more complex than that?



-- I get that yeah, maybe it was a test bed and it went wrong... but surely then they'd just "abandon" the research (like that rifle in DS9 that had special modifications and stuff). Why was it *banned*?


Honestly, with no prejudice, I think it's because it's just an awful, horrible weapon.



Federation could already produce disintegration weapons that cause little pain per second - why introduce something or test something that does the same thing just more slowly, to the point the victim/target can flail around in pain?

They already have level 16.


No - this was not a Federation design. It was a neutral or outside design that is banned in Federation Space for good reason, imo.

I don't want to piss anyone off here, but...