theoretically what would happen

[Darwin]

To a Starship traveling at Warp if a Runabout inside its shuttle bay engaged it's own warp drive without leaving the interior?

Asking because reasons.

[Patroklos]

Unless they are perfectly aligned, an instant R-bomb goes off.

Technobabble wise, I could see the runabout collapsing the warp bubble of the larger ship causing it to drop out of warp. Whether the process would prevent the runabout from going to warp also is anyone's guess, but if it doesn't we are back to an R-bomb going off.

It could be a good plot point for those various take over scenarios where the crew is trying to retake the ship or interfere with elements who already have control. Activate a shuttles drive and throw the ship out of warp either by some technical warpy technobable or just by kicking off some safety setting.

[Solauren]

Apparently, at least in the tech books, it's really hard to get more then two warp nacelles to align with each other. Not-aligned, warp field collapses.

That's why we don't see alot of ships with more then two warp nacelles. (Actually, I think I remember reading that the ships with four nacelles ran them in pairs so they could travel at high speed on one pair, let them 'shut down', and while they are 'cooling', the other pair is used. Could be wrong).

So, a warp capable ship activating at warp field in another, will probably cause the warp fields to collapse, and drop out of warp.

Of course, that depends on the writer.....

[Patroklos]

There or, though, single warp nacelle ships. Maybe in that situation you can get a non-aligned coupling that suddenly throws the two ships in opposite directions or *chose your disaster here*.

[Darwin]

Thanks for the responses it's meant as a sort of MAD threat so I kind of want to be sure the conventional thought isn't that it would just collapse the warp bubble and drop them into normal space and maybe give someone a bump on the head.

[Solauren]

Well, if you're looking for a MAD for a story, how about

"Most of the time, two unaligned warp fields just cancel each other out. However, if you deliberately misaligned a smaller warp field inside a larger one, and I mean perfectly inverted at the same frequency, and activate it inside an active warp field, instead of collapsing just the warp fields, it causes subspace to compress momentarily, effectivly crushing everything in the effected warp fields. The compression is for violet and powerful, all the matter in the area fuses, and then detonates in a massive nuclear reaction. If it were to happen on a Galaxy class ship, it would be like setting off every photon torpedo in the history of starfleet."

[Crazedwraith]

If you've got a runabout, you've got other options for MAD, like just breach it's warp core or antimatter and turn itself into big old bomb.

[Tribble]

Another option is to have the infiltrator cause one or more of the antimatter storage pods to fail. That’s pretty much equivalent to blowing the warp core.

[Solauren]

Actually, if you have a Runabout, disable the safeties, arm the weapons, and start firing. You're inside the bloody starship, beyond it's shields and armor.

Of course, if you have a Runabout, and are trying to stop an insurrection, couldn't you just use it's transporters to beam insurrectionists into space?

[bilateralrope]

Of course, if you have a Runabout, and are trying to stop an insurrection, couldn't you just use it's transporters to beam insurrectionists into space?

That gets into questions about how many people you can transport per minute and how quickly the ship can turn on something to block you.

[Batman]

The 'beam intruders into space' approach, while theoretically eminently useful, is one of those things that are somehow never done. Presumably there's a reason for that beyond 'Trek people are stupid'

[Darwin]

Actually, if you have a Runabout, disable the safeties, arm the weapons, and start firing. You're inside the bloody starship, beyond it's shields and armor.

Of course, if you have a Runabout, and are trying to stop an insurrection, couldn't you just use it's transporters to beam insurrectionists into space?

Haha.

Okay some background though, it's some writing I'm doing, two extragalactic supersoldiers at roughly Culture++ level of development get captured by a 29th century Starfleet due to an internal conspiracy. They take the chief medical officer hostage and fight their way into a Runabout. Defenders had time to externally disable it weapons but not its warp drive, and the aliens trying to bargain a way out, or to at least force cooperation to let them phone home.

The 'beam intruders into space' approach, while theoretically eminently useful, is one of those things that are somehow never done. Presumably there's a reason for that beyond 'Trek people are stupid'

They're able to generate localized jamming for long enough to get the Runabout's shields up, and the CMO's locator badge/pattern amplifier was left behind because I'm trying to write this in a way that nobody is stupid. (The aliens are also un-transporterable without pattern buffer upgrades because I have to do SOMETHING to defang that bit of universe crutch)

[Batman]

I was actually referring to how it's somehow never done in canon Trek for some reason

[Crazedwraith]

Because it's a horrific thing to do? At least for Starfleet.

The MU does beam people into vacuum as a method of execution in Disco.

[Patroklos]

The question isn't why they don't beam people into space. Its why they don't beam them to nowhere, or just scramble them where they stand. Since they can localize and do that specific thing to individual objects (weapons), they could also just beam hearts out of chests (or, again, just scramble them) or eyes out of heads.

Its actually more effort to re materialize them into space.

They could also do all of this to highly sensitive safety equipment in these suspiciously accidentally blow-upable starships of the setting.

[Darwin]

The question isn't why they don't beam people into space. Its why they don't beam them to nowhere, or just scramble them where they stand. Since they can localize and do that specific thing to individual objects (weapons), they could also just beam hearts out of chests (or, again, just scramble them) or eyes out of heads.

Its actually more effort to re materialize them into space.

They could also do all of this to highly sensitive safety equipment in these suspiciously accidentally blow-upable starships of the setting.

Given generally inconsistent Trek writing...

I prefer treating it as that you need a good sensor scan or a pattern amplifier to get a transporter lock on a moving target in cases that aren't perfect.

I don't recall the episode but I recall one (was it the one where the Enterprise was taken over and the bridge crew were turned into children?) that they needed to stick combadges onto the attackers in order to beam them out.

[Solauren]

In the episode in question, the two children that were officers were no longer active members of the crew (for obvious reasons), so it's likely they had limited computer access, even with it unlocked.

Odds are, the communicators were reconfigured to when tap, send a message of 'emergency beam up'. All the kids could do was put up a force field around the one transporter platform. (And since Weasley effectively had a portable force field protector in the first season, it might have become standard issue and they used that).

Also, it's possible they couldn't use the sensors without getting to the bridge. Sure, they could have taken the bridge by surprise, but that gives the Ferengi on the bridge a chance to send a message like "Kill all the slaves", or "Open fire" or similar.

Taking out the non-bridge Ferengi first, and thereby securing the rest of the ship, with Riker distracting the one on the bridge, was probably the safest course of action.

[B5B7]

The question isn't why they don't beam people into space. Its why they don't beam them to nowhere, or just scramble them where they stand. Since they can localize and do that specific thing to individual objects (weapons), they could also just beam hearts out of chests (or, again, just scramble them) or eyes out of heads.

Its actually more effort to re materialize them into space.

They could also do all of this to highly sensitive safety equipment in these suspiciously accidentally blow-upable starships of the setting.

In the TOS episode 'Wolf in the Fold' they beamed Hengist (Red Jac) out into space in dispersed mode, as it was the only way to defeat it.

[Khaat]

Also, Kirk ordered two redshirts beamed down (out) in And the Children Shall Lead.

[Solauren]

We've also seen stuff in space beamed into the ship, including the Nomad Probe in TOS, and Keh'layr during TNG. We've also seen stuff beamed off the ship into space. The explosive that was attached to the Enterprises Warp core in 'TNG: The High Ground' was beamed into space (using Geordi's communicator as the beacon. Kind of links into using the transporter on the Ferengi hijackers as I discussed earlier).

Perhaps beaming people into space isn't used because you need a lock, and beaming them into space is a combination of 'summary execution' (which appears to run counter to the Federation's values), and wasting a perfectly good communicator for the transporter lock.

[bilateralrope]

The question isn't why they don't beam people into space. Its why they don't beam them to nowhere, or just scramble them where they stand. Since they can localize and do that specific thing to individual objects (weapons), they could also just beam hearts out of chests (or, again, just scramble them) or eyes out of heads.

Its actually more effort to re materialize them into space.

They could also do all of this to highly sensitive safety equipment in these suspiciously accidentally blow-upable starships of the setting.

That depends on the safety systems on the transporter. Systems designed to prevent those kinds of things happening accidentally. So now we are talking whatever effort it takes to override them (especially in a hurry) vs expending a bit more energy to do a full transport.

[Patroklos]

Presumably, this is the case for every weapon system regarding a safety. If you conceive of the transporter as a weapon, it could be just as easy to switch such a safety off. We are not talking about why the transporter isn't used as an impromtu weapon, but rather why it not a primary weapons system in its own right.

And while the Federation might have a moral reason to avoid it, there are plenty of transporter capable races out there that do not.

[Darwin]

I feel like if Transporters were routinely weaponized then transporter countermeasures would just as routinely be utilized. The movies and shows have described a vast array of ways a transporter signal can be disrupted or otherwise prevented. Having these countermeasures and place as a general order would simply make the usual routine uses of a transporter less convenient and routine as a drawback.

Advancing the timeline further these drawbacks can be eliminated and simply the thought of aggressive transporter use would be foreign.

[Solauren]

Aggressive Transporter use would be foreign? You do remember the 'Transporter Sniper Rifle' from Deep Space Nine, right?

[Batman]

Which was a one-off weapon designed for use in situations where phasers wouldn't work that never went into production because they came up with phasers that would. Doesn't exactly sound like a very widespread idea.