Star Trek Technology
B
Battle bridge
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Secondary command center on Galaxy-class starships, located
atop the engineering hull. The battle bridge serves as replacement for
the main bridge in case of heavy damage or as control center for the
engineering section in separated flight mode (saucer separation).
The auxiliary control room on the original Enterprise (TOS: "The
Way to Eden") may have been an early battle bridge.
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Bearing
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Flight vector which is specified relative to the ship's current orientation. A bearing consists of the two coordinates azimuth (horizontal angle) and elevation (vertical angle). Bearing 000-mark-0 denotes a direction straight ahead.
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BiobedCanon - Official Star Trek Technology
Hospital bed that includes medical sensors and display units for diagnosis and gas and fluid connect points for treatment of patients. The primary biobed, typically located in the center of a starship sickbay, is equipped with an additional overhead sensor cluster and a containment field generator and serves for surgical and other intensive-care procedures.
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Biofilter
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Part of the transporter system that recognizes and filters out potentially hazardous viruses and bacteria from the matter stream. The biofilter is normally used only in transport to the ship.
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Biogenic weapon
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Type of biological weapon which is illegal under interstellar
treaties. They may be produced using biomimetic gel.
Although outlawed in the Federation (DS9: "Distant Voices"),
the U.S.S. Fleming had a cargo of biomimetic gel (TNG: "Force of
Nature").
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Biomatter resequencer
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Device used aboard 22nd century Earth starships to process
organic waste by rearranging molecules.
Basically, this is like a simple replicator.
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Bioneural circuit
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Computer processor based on biological components, also
referred to as gel packs. Bioneural circuits are employed in the most
recent Federation starships, such as the Sovereign and Intrepid classes.
Starfleet uses the original human brain structures in the form of bioneural
circuits instead of just imitating them with microelectronic (or isolinear)
technology. The gel packs containing biological components, however,
they may be infected by viruses or bacteria, as seen in VOY: "Learning
Curve'" and "Macrocosm". Real-world neural networks are
(still) silicon-based and have limited capabilities. Despite their fair
performance in recognition and association tasks, they are still far
from competing with the human brain.
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Bioship
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Starship type operated by Species 8472, made of the same
kind of biomatter as the species itself.
Modified Borg nanoprobes are the only known defense against the species
and their ships, while the Borg failed to assimilate them (VOY: "Scorpion").
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Black hole
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Also referred to as quantum singularity, an enormous concentration
of mass the gravity of which is so strong that even light is not able
to escape. The radius inside which this effect becomes evident is called
event horizon.
The existence of black holes (external link) has been confirmed by real
world physics. There are different types and sizes of black holes, some
of them actually existing, others assumed possible. Their common characteristic
is the strong gravitational force that causes any kind of mass/energy
to fall towards its center, once it is inside the event horizon. The
mass concentration in the center is possibly beyond the current laws
of physics. Even the elementary particles that form the atom nucleus
under normal conditions might be crushed and further compressed to an
unknown degree, with a density close to infinity, which is referred
to as singularity. Of course, the effects of a black hole shown in VOY:
"Parallax" are complete bogus. See also Warp Propulsion -
1.5 General Relativity.
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Blood screening
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Method devised by the Federation to uncover changelings.
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Borg alcove
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
"Parking position" for a drone aboard a Borg cube, serves for regeneration and omnidirectional interconnection. Usually each drone is assigned to a specific alcove.
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Borg drone
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Hybrid humanoid/machine being that shares a common consciousness
with the other drones of the Borg Collective. They are born as normal
humanoids and later assimilated. While the basic composition of all
Borg drones is similar, each single drone is equipped with task specific
tools.
A typical Borg drone is largely covered with an exoskeleton, has a gray
skin color, no hair, one biological and one cybernetic eye, one biological
and one mechanical arm, the latter equipped with a variety of tools.
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Borg Collective
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Designation for the Borg society in which the drones
form a collective consciousness instead of individual thinking and acting.
The formerly humanoid drones are equipped with several implants and
are connected to each other and to their ship via subspace links.
The Borg Queen seems to be a contradiction to the principle of common
consciousness. Still, the Queen can be regarded as a representation
or incarnation of the Collective rather than an individual leader. This
interpretation is corroborated by the fact that the Queen did not exist
in "Star Trek: First Contact" until she was assembled. Once
she had come to life, the Borg were dependent on her and finally died
when she was destroyed.
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Borg implant
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Cybernetic component of Borg drones. The implants control,
enhance and supplement their biological functions. They also provide
their biological parts with the required nutritive substances.
The Borg are dependent on their implants. While Hugh's connection to
the Collective could not be severed in TNG: "I, Hugh", most
of Seven of Nine's implants could be removed (VOY: "Scorpion"
and "The Gift").
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Bridge
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
See main bridge, battle bridge.
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Bussard
collectorCanon - Official Star Trek Technology
Device usually attached to the forward end of the warp
nacelles that serves to collect interstellar hydrogen atoms for fuel
replenishment, also referred to as Bussard ramscoop. The Bussard collector
assembly consists of a set of coils which generate a magnetic field
that channels the stray particles into the collector.
The Bussard collector is named for the 20th century physicist and mathematician
Robert W. Bussard. The Oberth class and the Excelsior class (original
design) have no visible Bussard collectors. The upgraded Excelsior version
(Enterprise-B) has what looks like Bussard collectors, although they
seem to be ineffective, because they are hidden behind the saucer hull
from the perspective of an incoming hydrogen atom (a possible design
flaw). Hidden Bussard collectors obviously violate Gene Roddenberry
design rule #3. Read more about the design rules in the Starship Design
Guidelines.
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