Ablative Shield Generator

In an alternate timeline of the Earth year of 2403, two years after the Enterprise-G began her maiden voyage, Admiral Kathryn Janeway went back in time to the Earth year of 2377 in the Delta Quadrant to bring the starship Voyager back to the Alpha Quadrant. One of the unique technologies she brought back with her was the “Ablative Shield Generator.” This shield generator is capable of generating a nearly indestructible metallic shell around a starship.

The Ablative Shield Generator is composed of 4 basic components:
1. Subspace divergence field generators.
2. Modified transporter pattern buffer.
3. Molecular pattern storage unit.
4. Emitter array.

The subspace divergence field has the ability to duplicate matter atom to atom of equal energy mass (E=mc^2). This field is generated in modified dual shield generators. The field is then shunt into the transporter pattern buffer where the subspace field is processed to give it an energy pattern of certain matter with the same properties such as colour, texture, and strength. The pattern is from the molecular pattern storage unit which contains the energy and molecular pattern of the metal known as adamantium. Adamantium is one of the strongest metals known to exist second only to neutronium. Why adamantium and not neutronium? Neutronium would burn out the pattern buffer instantly. Though adamantium can be replicated, the maximum possible output is only 2kg a day, so therefore, simulated adamantium is the next best solution. Also a starship does not have the energy storage to create a true shell around the ship. The newly formed adamantium pattern is sent to the emitter array where it forms a shell less than 1mm thick around the ship a few metres away, following the contours of the hull like the standard shield grid. This process differs from particle synthesis.

Since the shield generator requires a lot of power to maintain its “molecular structure,” the ship has to sacrifice power from areas that also require a lot of power, such as warp drive or weapons. If for example weapons are needed, then warp engines are deactivated. If warp drive is needed, then weapons are powered down. It is a similar problem for warp capable stealth ships that uses cloaking devices such as the Klingons and the Romulans. Since the adamantium shell does not have a true molecular structure, then the shell can be opened and closed very easily in order to fire weapons for example. Opening in the shell for impulse and thrusters exhaust, warp grille and others are protected by independent force fields.

Since the shield was built in an alternate future, the temporal prime directive has halted the research and development of the ablative shield generator until the Sheliak War in the late 2380’s.

Devised by Chris Edmonds

The stealth system was a two-part project at Starfleet Tokyo R&D. It produced two separate components to the system. The first component, providing the majority of the stealth capability, is the chroniton field emitter device. This device is essentially a "Poor Man's Cloak", designed drastically different from a true chroniton-based cloaking device like the Romulans' and Klingons', but achieves the same, if somewhat lessened effect. The field only is capable of masking it from passing sensor scans, but not the naked eye. A starship also has to have multiple arrays placed on the outside of the hull to have an effective screen against sensors.

If someone does a more piercing scan in the direction of a ship bearing the stealth system, it may look anomalous, but would still look like normal background radiation. To further deter someone from discovering the ship, a remarkable silicon-based biological compound coats the ship's hull, laced with special electrodes. These electrodes coax the compound to change its color. The ship's computer can control the skin into matching its surrounding colors quite well. The substance has been dubbed "Photo-adaptive Hull Coverings" by the Tokyo eggheads, but the crews of ships equipped with the stealth system simply call it "Chameleon Skin". The material must completely coat the ship, so any ship with it must be specially fitted to have deployable coverings over the exposed areas on the nacelles, over the deflector, over the lifeboat pods, and over all the windows.

Several small craft designed for covert operative insertion have been developed for Starfleet Intelligence, but there's only one starship class vessel equipped with the
system: the Nighthawk class.

Devised by Chris Edmonds

Long range sensor arrays share the subspace accelerator coils also used by a starship's navigational deflector dish. They must often cater to the ship's navigational needs, and are taken precedence over by the navigational deflector when usage of the accelerator coils comes into question. Starfleet has long tinkered with the idea of making a long range sensor array with its own dedicated accelerator coils for a reconnaissance vessel, but lacked any viable platform for the system. When Tokyo R&D developed the stealth system, they finally had the means for a starship to take this sensor into spots where it could be utilized to its fullest.

The Eagle Eye Augmented Sensor Suite is a powerful sensor array, having a 20-minute reduction in telemetry return time over long range sensors tied in to a ship's nav deflector. There's also a much larger instrument array in the suite, allowing for much more penetrating scans. Its sole flaw is its very large size. It would be a great boon for science ships to have this sensor, but their small size is prohibitive to carrying one. To this end, a smaller variation of the Eagle Eye, dubbed the Hawk Eye, is available. The Intrepid class is currently being redesigned to accept a Hawk Eye array to increase its science capabilities.

Description What is this useful for? The pulse consisting of multiple layers, it is harder to disperse b the shields of an enemy ship and therefore capable of doing more damage. The new PPK technology takes up this principle. The emitter for generating the pulse remains the same. However, instead of just releasing the beam on its journey to the enemy, it runs through a tube with eight plasma fields. What is the role of the plasma? Wouldn’t a strong plasma field disperse the beam? About the first question: The plasma is being integrated into the pulse. Second question: Yes and no. Yes, the plasma would dissolve the beam under usual circumstances (and the enemy ship would not encounter more than a slight breeze). The plasma, however, is being put into phase, in a way that only 25% of it is still in normal space. How is this going to help integrate the plasma, now that the pulse can virtually run through the plasma field without damage? Isn’t this all useless after all? Well, now the remaining 25% come into the game. We will discuss this one by one.

Let us look at the pulse first. As the pulse begins its compression, a core forms. This is nothing but a "fat bubble of plasma energy". For the PPK, in addition, this bubble is being put into a phased state. The ratio is exactly the complement of that of the plasma, meaning that 75% of the pulse is in normal space (it can’t be phased any further, otherwise the pulse would collapse; it would be missing its foundation). Now we are sending this modified pulse through the plasma phase tube. There, it is moving through the plasma wall. And nothing happens. There is still something to be done. Before our pulse engages into a divine connection with the plasma, the part of the plasma core that is in phase must be more or less erased. Suddenly the energy level of the core has dropped by a quarter. What has happened? An "energetic vacuum" has formed. And what do we all know about vacuums? Exactly! The pulse would inevitably collapse (through the energy vacuum). Yes, I know. We should stop always to destroy the poor pulse, but we are almost through with it. Now it is getting really interesting: The 25% that are missing in the pulse, the pulse will take back from the 25% of the plasma stream. This is done four times, in eight steps (each time an exchange of 12.5%), in order to replace the complete core bubble. This is how the plasma gets into the pulse.

The attentive reader will wonder if an "energy vacuum" would not form in the plasma beam itself. Yes, but this is the same as if a glass of water is drawn from a waterfall. The remaining "hole" is being closed by the following water or plasma, respectively. A further question may be if the plasma inside would not begin to burn the whole from inside. It would. But every new core possesses a slightly opposite charge to the rest of the projectile. Thereby a tiny isolation layer will form.

Now we know how the plasma is introduced into the pulse. The most important question, however, is what the whole effort is useful for. As I already explained in the beginning, the pulse as such is harder to disperse by shields than a normal phaser. Let us start with two cases: "the plasma pulse only interacts with the shields" and "the plasma pulse (or a part of it) hits the hull". In the first case, while the single pulse layers damage the shields the plasma destabilizes them. This effect may last for several seconds, depending on the type of shields. Case two: Plasma on the hull. This works similarly: The standard pulse yields damage, while the plasma acts like an acid that dissolves the outer hull. There is, however, not a superweapon without a little catch to it. It is the size in this case. The introduction of plasma only works in steps of 12.5% without the danger of a collapse. In order to replace 100% of the core, eight plasma injectors are required that have to be placed in a certain distance, o give the pulse enough time to recover its single phase states (it is only a question of time). This will unfortunately result in length three times that of the original. The projectile itself is handicapped as well: the isolation layer will degrade over time. And if this should fail...

Conclusion Summarizing, the disadvantages are not a big deal. Only the range is a little bit shorter than of the normal pulse. If we were to categorize the PPK, we would describe it like this: "The pulse plasma cannon. A short-distance combat weapon with a certain surprise factor."

Quantum Phasers

Devised by Indianapolis R&D

Indianapolis R&D Quantum Phasers Intro This technology was theoretical as of 2375 and in testing as of 2379.

Motivation Anti-Borg technologies almost have to be researched, a line must be drawn and formidable defenses must be designed if the Federation wants to survive another attack, and the possibility of a multiple ship attack. Primary weapons such as phasers are effective until a point is reached that all modulations are ineffective against Borg shields. That is the problem we are addressing. It is our goal to create a phaser weapon capable of multiple modulations and also powered by harnessing zero-point energy as quantum torpedoes do to make them more powerful as well as more effective against the Borg. The technology constructing a phaser array made up of individual emitters that fire the same way conventional phasers do, with a twist. The discharge is made up of several beams with their own modulation, thereby hitting the opponent's shields with multiple modulations. Before reading the example remember that a typical quantum phaser bank would be made up of thousands of emitters, therefore hitting Borg shields with a phaser beam made up of at least 500 streams from the emitters. The individual emitter would share the circumference of a basketball.

Example Let's take a simple phaser beam that is discharged from 5 streams from 5 emitters with random modulations of 96.212, 58.313, 26.990, 98.012, and 73.0112. Adaptation is highly unlikely with so many modulations. To further complement the design, those 5 emitters would continue to modulate after firing.

Problems The quantum phaser array is expected to consume three times the power conventional phasers do. The solution may prevent implementation on current ship designs. The solution is to install a power core to independently power weapons and shields. This also relates to our other technology (Multi-Grid Shielding). As we said the installation of a power core may prevent existing ships to converting to the new weapon. It may be possible to install this core in a cargo bay.

Implementation Fleetwide conversions should be made with ease, granted that a power core can be successfully installed into the existing ship. The new bank will take no more space than the previous one did. Newly designed ships will almost certainly be equipped with the new weapon. 

Conclusion The Quantum Phaser Array should prove to become a valuable asset to Starfleet. The ability to effectively oppose the Borg and win, without losing dozens of ships is priceless in the eyes of Indianapolis R&D.

Thanks to Lt.Gardnier, whose good point gave me the idea for this technology.

QFF - A Look into the Darkness

Devised by [email protected], translation by Bernd, ASDB Member

Introduction The QFF may look insignificant. But it is one of the most indispensable technologies aboard the Taranis. QFF is an abbreviation that stands for Quarks Fluid Filter.

Theory The name may seem strange at first glance, but this will become clearer in the course of this text. Our fluid is meant to operate at warp flight in the first place. More to the point, the fast warp flight. At high warp factors the ship is deeply immersed into subspace. This corresponds to a high speed. But it also means a strong reduction of sensor signals, as penetrating the subspace layers is always becoming harder. In other words: the faster, the blinder. This is only seldom a problem, even on newer ships. They either don't achieve very high warp speeds (Warp 9 or more), or they are not able to maintain them for a longer time. If you are familiar with the Taranis, you know that this ship achieves Warp 9.9999637. Using sensors would not only mean that their performance would be reduced, but rather that the ship would be blind. Something needs to be done about that. The QFF is the solution. Explaining the name, "quarks" refers to the subatomic particles inside atoms, of which the protons and neutrons consist. Imagine a large tank full of these tiny particles. No molecules, no atoms, only quarks. There are so many of the in the tank that they would form a kind of fluid. Now we have a tank of quarks. What else? How can we see through the subspace layers, to hold the course and maybe to make some scans? Can we increase sensor power? Can we envelop them into a subspace field to actually get them out of subspace?

To increase sensor power is a good idea, but not sufficient. The subspace field around the sensors is a good idea in theory, but not more than that. To elucidate this, we need a small though experiment: The sensor array is taken out of the warp field using an additional subspace field. The sensors are now in normal space. We could perform our measurements with ease, but the speed would drop to zero, while the ship would still be moving at warp.

Implementation What have the Taranis designers done? We have done almost the same as described above. Only a little bit differently. Instead of creating one large subspace field around the whole sensor array, we are satisfied with a field that encloses a sphere of 10^-12cm of vacuum. This vacuum is put into the center of our tank full of quarks. The sphere later serves as a window to the outside. Right, a very small window. But for our purposes this proves sufficient. Before we go one, some further considerations: We all know what a sphere looks like. Let us imagine we could walk on the surface of a sphere around a vacuum. We frequently look up and we will notice that we will be able too see everything around the sphere, provided that we stand at a suited point. This thought will be relevant later.

Let us go on with the "vacuum sphere" in the "quarks tank". Normally, this sphere would be surrounded by our fluid quarks. But we are forcing them to form a shell around this sphere. The interior of the shell is incredibly "tight" and also very "smooth", to take macroscopic equivalents of the sub-atomic properties. Repeating what we have so far, we have flooded a tank with quarks. Amidst them , there is a small sphere that encloses "nothing". The quarks form a shell around the sphere. There is nothing between them (maybe except for a small rogue quarks). The wall of the quarks sphere is extremely smooth and tight. Now we are generating a small subspace field in the vacuum sphere, strong enough to neutralize the warp field for the most part. The vacuum sphere being very small, a tiny amount of power is required for that. Now we have a our window to the outside world. But what are the quarks useful for? We claim that we are able to scan anything within a range of 12 light years around the Taranis, with weak or medium resolution. And this even at the highest warp factor that the Taranis is supposed to achieve. How is this possible? With the help of the little quarks. As the tight and smooth surface is very reflective, we may exploit this property for our sensors. The sensor rays are directed towards the interior of the quarks sphere, they are reflected and penetrate the forcefield of the vacuum sphere, and they go straight through the core of the sphere. There the warp field is nearly neutralized. Now our sensor rays are in normal space. Considering the above mentioned properties of the sphere surface, the rays may egress from every point of the surface and may scan every point in its surrounding.

Summarizing the scan procedure, the sensors are programmed in a way that arbitrary points of the quarks sphere's inner surface are scanned. The beams are reflected and take their way to normal space. What do we need the quarks for? Couldn't we as well take the vacuum sphere? This would suffice in principle. It would work at least partially without the quarks. For once, we take profit of the magnification effect: The quark sphere's inner surface is exactly 5.5 times as large as the area in which the warp field has been neutralized. If we scan a point on the inner surface and then move 5.5cm to a lower point, the corresponding distance on the vacuum sphere is only 1cm. This way, we can enhance our resolution compared to the direct way. In addition, the more we enlarge the image, the smaller may the subspace neutralization field. And this will save energy! A further reason for the quarks is that otherwise the sensor array would have to be moved around the vacuum sphere. But with the quarks we only need to point at a certain coordinate of the interior.

Conclusion Now let us mention the disadvantages of this technology: We need more than only one computer core to make all the necessary calculations. The corridor through the quarks and the target point for the inner surface of the quarks need to be taken into account. The calculation of the lead point, however, is much more extensive. We are moving at superluminal speed after all. We need to calculate where to target our rays, to hit the desired object and retrieve the reflected information at the right instant. In spite of some savings, the energy consumption is enormous. To make things worse, the measurement results are rather scarce, compared to all the efforts taken. But we shouldn't make the technology worse as it is. After all, we have enough sight at warp speed, albeit not quite as much as at impulse.

Devised by Robert Heckadon

During combat situations and other hazards, starships protect themselves with the use of deflector shields. Unfortunately deflector shields cannot last forever and can be damaged themselves. Deflector shields utilizes one or more graviton polarity source generators whose output is phase-synchronizes through a series of subspace field distortion amplifiers. When the shields sustains some form of critical impact, whether it is energy or matter based, the synchronization of the polarized phased gravitons are disrupted which affects the properties and effectiveness of the shields. Shield percentage is based upon the “structural” integrity of the shields. These disruptions cannot be repaired while the shields are online, not even by retuning and alternating the shield frequencies. Until now.

Traditional shield restoration One traditional method of restoring shields to full strength is to reformat the shield matrix. The resynchronization and phase correction of the shield matrix. This process requires deactivating the shields and recharging the shield emitters. This process can take 30 seconds to several hours to complete, depending on the damage and disruption to the shields and their generators. This time frame can leave a ship vulnerable to an enemy attack.

Another method is to reroute power from other sources to “thicken” the shields, increasing the spatial distortion fields by which the shields operate. Varying power to the shields unfortunately does not discriminate between disrupted shields and usable shields. When shields are at 75% integrity, they need to increase power by 33% to bring shields to 100% optimal strength. However the disrupted shields will increase by 33% as well. This process also increases risk of overload of the power systems and networks throughout the ship.

Shield regenerators Shield regenerators are units that restores the shield matrix while the shields are still operable. Deflector shields rotates and retunes frequencies at certain intervals, every 500 million cycles, or operating at a frequency of 250 megahertz (MHz) every two seconds. By using these frequency “windows”, which are also used by the ships active sensors, the shield regenerators filters out about 5% the out-of-sync shield frequencies and are de-compiled. Therefore the energy that sustains the disrupted shields is no longer required and is reused into generating new shields. With 5% filtration, it would take about a minute to restore 80% of the damaged shields while operating at 250 megahertz.

The regenerators requires considerable amounts of power themselves. Power can either be fed through the auxiliary power networks, or by temporarily diverting some shield power to the regenerators. Near instantaneous regeneration would be too energy expensive for the ship and would burn out the filters immediately. Ironically, if the shields have degraded to below 40% integrity, then the filters requires far less power to restore the shields than if they were at 70% because the disrupted shields are “easier to find.” Yet below 25%, the shield damage is irreversible without deactivating and reformatting them.

A few weeks before the end of the Dominion War in the Terran year of 2375 A.D., only 2 ships were equipped with regenerative shields. The U.S.S. Prometheus, which was the prototype of the new class of battle ships of the same name, and the U.S.S Sao Paulo, later known as Defiant-2. Later these shields were introduced into the Phoenix class starship, such as the Enterprise-G.

References:
Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual
VOY: "Message in a Bottle"
Star Trek Renaissance

Soil Cultivator or Cultivator

Devised by Infosaur

Tool used for farming on colonies, predating the replicator.

A farming/colony tool for injecting nutrients into inert soil at the molecular level. More advanced than an electron microscope but far more primitive than a replicator. These primitive terraforming tools began to be used in the mid-21st century when the first extra-terrestrial colonies began on the Moon and Mars. By the mid 22nd century they were so prevalent that any descriptor of size and/or weight would be futile. They can be as small as a cubic meter or as big as a large shuttle. Some were self propelled but usually on tracks or wheels. A small or personal cultivator could process an acre of soil per day, larger ones could process metric tons per hour. Most Sol-System colonies had at least two cultivators on site. Once extra-solar colonization missions began a two units per ship minimum was usually expected. A standard cultivator usually has some sort of port or maw into which inert soil (i.e. asteroid rock) is fed. Smaller units can be hand or belt fed, larger units can dig directly into a surface. Two materials tanks or hard point connections for them are connected to the premix chamber. The injector chamber is a sealed unit with a high pressure injector mounted perpendicularly. The output is often just a hole at the back of the unit, although sometimes a 'blower' unit is attached. Older units are particularly robust and often prized by collectors of the esoteric. Earlier units are often crude but easy to repair, later cultivators are more efficient but often used more delicate parts making repairs difficult. There have even been sightings of units still in operation in the 24th Century. And a working '2062 Kansas Tornado' is at the Federation Hydroponics Institute museum.

Tannal Wave Emitter

Devised by Dave JB

Motivation In the late 2340’s, a group of Starfleet Engineers became interested in the concept of remotely disabling a ship without harming the crew. They discovered that in World War III, some nations had deployed electromagnetic pulses to disable enemy electronics. This would not work on a starship though, as the systems were not susceptible to EM pulses. However, in 2348, a group of scientists studying Ectronium, a (then) recently discovered element noticed that their instruments were experiencing intermittent failures. An analysis showed that every half life the atom of Ectronium emitted some sort of wave which caused damage to the instruments. These waves were named Tannal Waves, after the head scientist of the team, Dr. Tannal. The team cooperated with Starfleet engineers and came to the conclusion that Tannal Waves could be used to create a disabling weapon.

Weapon Design The initial design involved generating a large amount of Tannal waves and emitting them via a pulse cannon-like design. This was abandoned when it was realized that the waves were very difficult to contain due to their extremely high frequency. The next method involved firing a slug of Ectronium in a torpedo, and exploding a normal warhead, which would scatter fragments of the Ectronium around the target, acting like a chaff. This design it was theorized would only disable about 6% of the systems on an Ambassador Class equivalent, so it was equally unsuitable. The third design involved another old concept - that of nuclear fission. Since Ectronium atoms split very easily, it was reckoned that a sphere of Ectronium 18cm in diameter would emit a colossal blast of Tannal waves, enough to completely disable any design at the time.

The prototype weapon involved the aforementioned sphere of Ectronium surrounded by a layer of material which would deflect all protons (which split the atoms) back at the Ectronium. At various locations between the reflection layer and the Ectronium were 4 proton accelerators which would initiate the reaction. It was estimated that the full mass of Ectronium could be consumed in 0.7 seconds, emitting Tannal waves up to a radius of 360KM, and generating a small thermal pulse. This design could be employed in a modified torpedo casing.

Testing The first reaction unit that was made (TWE-01, “Aristotle”) was detonated on Stardate 27534. The only thing in the vicinity was an observation unit which would transmit telemetry before being disabled by the heavy emission of Tannal waves. In the 1.2 seconds it transmitted, it reported that the reaction had been clean, with minimal secondary effects, other than a brief thermal pulse around 700 degrees Celsius at the center. The actual reaction had been slightly faster than theorized at 0.62 seconds. On later inspection, it was discovered that only 72% of the Ectronium had been consumed in the reaction. Most of the material at the core of the Ectronium sphere had not been consumed due to the reaction dying out.

For the next test, the test unit (TWE-02, “Plato”) had a small conventional explosive placed at the center of the mass. When tested, the results were exactly the same as the previous test. It was discovered that the Tannal waves had disabled the control circuit for the conventional explosive’s detonator.

A modified explosive was made for the third test unit (TWE-03, “Copernicus”) which would not be affected by the Tannal waves. This time the explosion compressed the mass of Ectronium just as the reaction started. This increased the speed at which the reaction took place (0.45 seconds), and the entire mass was consumed, with the Tannal wave emissions increased by around 29%. This design was concluded to be satisfactory.

The fourth test it was decided would be conducted with a starship in the vicinity. The USS Huddersfield (Oberth class, NCC-21834), which had been retired after suffering structural damage while studying a black hole 3 years beforehand, was used as the test subject. The device used was of the same design used in the third test. The test itself went to plan; the Tannal waves passed straight through the shields of the Huddersfield, and disabled all systems on board. However, upon inspection by an engineering team it was discovered that every system on board was irreparably damaged. Moreover, had the Huddersfield been carrying any antimatter, it would almost certainly have caused a catastrophic failure of the antimatter containment.

The emitter's design was changed somewhat for the fifth unit. Instead of the 4 large proton emitters, 20 smaller emitters were used. Instead of the conventional explosive (which was believed to have caused the reaction to become too intense) at the middle, a second reflection layer was added. The testing went well, the test subject was disabled but not severely damaged.

The sixth test was a sham battle between the USS Ranier (Constellation class, NCC-4346) and the USS Hancock (Ambassador class, NCC-19832). The Hancock was armed with a torpedo containing the components of the Tannal wave emitter. The torpedo was fired at the Ranier, which was disabled completely, and tractored by the Hancock.

The weapon was considered a success, and Starfleet considered arming the fleet with this new technology, when a devastating blow struck; the 6 people on the USS Ranier had all fallen ill, suffering problems with the immune system, digestive tract and muscle control. Tests revealed that in large quantities, Tannal waves were extremely hazardous to biological life. The maximum safe exposure level for humans was far below the level needed to disable a starship.

After much deliberation it was decided to halt the development of the weapon, and in 2351, Tannal wave based devices were banned in the Federation, with the Klingons doing the same in 2353. During the Dominion Wars, Starfleet toyed with the idea of using Tannal wave devices against Dominion ships, but the idea was never really accepted.

Conclusion While Tannal wave based weapons would have allowed Starfleet to capture and study enemy ships, the effects on biological life were considered too great a cost to use the weapon. It did not help that the design had been rushed (there was only 5 months between the discovery of the waves and the first test) and the effects of Tannal waves not properly studied. This led to new guidelines which required new weapons to be adequately researched and simulated.

Tantalus Field Generator

Devised by Robert Heckadon

“The perfect assassin must be in total balance, possessing skills of creation as well as destruction, in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu.” - The Way of the Haiku

In an alternate universe, where good is evil. Rather than to seek out new live and new civilizations, Starfleet conquers and dominates. Under the impression of developing a new method of nuclear waste disposal for Commander James T. Kirk, first officer of the Imperial Star Ship Enterprise, a mysterious alien unwillingly develops the perfect, and considered most frightening weapon of assassination. The Tantalus Field.

The Tantalus device is a machine based upon the Elway theorem. Rather than matter/energy transportation, the Elway theorem transports through an interdimensional fold in space. In the case of the Tantalus field, the subject is transported from their present location into the heart of a star, where all matter is broken down in the star’s nuclear furnace leaving no traces of the victim. Transporting though a space fold is not normally detected by routing sensor scans, whereas standard transporters usually leaves behind a residual ionization signature. Therefore no body to do an autopsy on. No obvious weapon to examine. No transporter signature left behind. No piece of evidence will ever be found. No way to link the killer to the victim. The perfect assassination.

The Tantalus field generator itself is approximately the size of a brief case, making it easy to transport and conceal. The device is equipped with duotronic interface ports, equivalent to USB ports, to tie directly into the ship’s internal and external sensors, using the internal or external sensor to lock onto the victim, and either the internal or external sensors to lock on to the nearest star. All from the safety of his own quarters. The range of the Tantalus field has not been determined, but theoretically has a maximum range of over a billion kilometres. The Tantalus field generator requires significant amounts of energy, and is therefore powered by a series of sarium power cells, similar to hand phaser power packs. Thus having enough energy to make 3 people “disappear” in one time frame. The power cells require 24 hours to fully recharge, and the recharge rate needs to be low so that the power usage will not trip any of the ships security sensors.

Though a formidable starship captain, James T. Kirk has been held back from having a command of his own due to a charge of a sexual assault he committed against Dr. Carol Marcus, resulting in the birth of David Marcus. And Kirk is being constantly left in the shadow of his commanding officer, Christopher Pike. However, in this universe, if a captain were to die suddenly, regardless of any criminal charges, including rape, then the first officer will be given a field promotion to Captain if evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that the first officer had nothing to do with his Captain’s death. The first victim of the Tantalus field, Christopher Pike.

Sources: http://www.ussfreedom.net/Encyclopedia.htm, http://server2.powernet.net/~jcrafton/tech-e.html, http://calgacus-wasabi.typepad.com/ninjapanda/, Star Trek: The Original Series: "Mirror, Mirror", Star Trek: The Next Generation: "The High Ground"