Star Trek Technology
S
Safety protocol
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Subroutine that prevents a holographic projection system from creating harmful objects, substances or situations which may cause a user's injury or even death.
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Saucer
separationCanon - Official Star Trek Technology
Disconnection of the engineering hull and main hull (saucer) of a
Galaxy-class starship. The commander may resort to saucer separation
in emergency situations, e.g. in order not to endanger civilians in
a battle or in case a warp core breach is inevitable. A number of other
starship classes can perform saucer separation as well, however, in
most cases reconnection is not possible.
A saucer separation was originally planned for the Enterprise in the
movie "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". Since the engineering
hull of the Constitution class has no impulse drive, it is obvious that
the two sections are not independently operational, so separation is
only an option in extreme emergency situations (warp core breach).
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Self-replicating mine
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Explosive device, equipped with a matter/antimatter warhead and a replicator system. Deployed in a shell, the self-replicating mines are able to fill in gaps by replicating new mines. The mines were first suggested by Rom in 2373 to prevent the Jem'Hadar fleet from entering the Alpha Quadrant through the Bajoran Wormhole.
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Self-sealing stem bolt
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Mysterious device that even O'Brien does not know what it is useful for.
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Sensor
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Collective name for a variety of devices for gathering data about
electromagnetic radiation and particles and for chemical, biological
and medical analysis. Probes are equipped with a variety of sensors.
External sensors are attached to the outer hull of a starship. Among
them are navigational sensors which determine the ship's position and
velocity and scientific sensors for astronomical observation, planetary
surface analysis and remote lifeform analysis. Internal sensors are
used to control life support and detect hazardous environmental conditions
as well as to track potential intruders. Finally, sensors are also included
in tricorders and other hand-held devices which can perform similar
tasks, however, their range is limited.
Real-world sensor systems will soon accomplish the basic functionality
shown in Star Trek. However, subspace sensor beams traveling faster
than light are as utopian as warp drive. The Ferengi ship attacking
the U.S.S. Stargazer apparently did not have FTL sensing capability,
so Picard could fool its sensors with his famous "Picard Maneuver"
(TNG: "The Battle"). Irrespective of the signal speed, there
is a severe problem with long-range sensors. At short distances, with
something like a normal photographic lens, it is no problem to show
an approaching starship at great detail. Collecting light from a few
light years away, however, with a "super tele lens" would
mean waiting for random photons coming from that direction - it's impossible
to form an image, let alone a sharp image in real time this way. That's
why we must find our explanation in subspace (again). Subspace obviously
allows the transmission of electrical signals over long distances without
significant losses, so it could be a "subspace image" of the
remote ship.
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Shields
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
See deflector shield.
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Shuttlebay
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Facility on a starship where shuttlecrafts can land, be stored and maintained. The space door is usually closed, and is replaced by a forcefield when a shuttle is about to land or to be launched. This forcefield can be penetrated by the shuttlecraft itself, while it prevents decompression of the shuttlebay. Each shuttlebay is equipped with a tractor beam generator in order to facilitate the landing procedure.
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Shuttlecraft
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Small space vessel for short-range transport with a typical crew capacity
ranging from 2 to 8. Shuttlecrafts are equipped with impulse drive,
some types also with warp drive.
The TOS shuttlecraft was not supposed to have warp drive (although its
nacelle looked quite similar to the Constitution-class warp nacelle).
Anyway, if the shuttles of TNG, DS9 and Voyager are really capable of
no more than Warp 2 (Star Trek Fact Files) it would take about a year
to cross the distance between neighboring star systems, and their warp
drive would be useless.
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Sickbay
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Medical facility aboard a starship or space station.
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SIF
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Acronym for Structural Integrity Field, a system of forcefields built
up around and within a starship in order to counterbalance acceleration
forces and gravitational forces.
The SIF actually keeps the spaceframe in one piece. Many Federation
starships cannot even sustain the gravity of a planet, and the U.S.S.
Voyager would virtually fall asunder when standing on the surface without
SIF.
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Slingshot effect
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Time travel that occurs if a starship approaches a star at high warp
and then turns round again.
This method is used in TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday", TOS:
"Assignment: Earth" and "Star Trek: The Voyage Home".
The effect is not supported by real-world physics, yet, a much higher
gravity like in a black hole could enable time travels.
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Slipstream drive
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
See quantum slipstream drive.
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Soliton wave
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Method of warp travel without shipboard warp drive. The soliton wave
is generated by a stationary generator on a planet and directed towards
the ship in order to accelerate it to warp speed. A second wave generator
at the destination is required to dissolve the wave generating a counterwave
with matching frequency, phase and amplitude.
The concept of the soliton wave seems to be quite similar to conventional
warp propulsion, considering that a wave is nothing but a traveling
field. Notwithstanding the simpler ship construction, soliton wave propulsion
is questionable, since the ship is dependent on at least two wave generators,
so it would only be useful for frequently used trade routes. Moreover,
the TNG episode "New Ground", where the soliton wave was featured,
demonstrated the risk of the wave that is hard to control once it is
released and cannot be dissipated in the worst case.
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Space-folding transporter
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Device used to transport objects or persons through altering the structure
of space.
While the Ansata on Rutia IV (TNG: "The High Ground") use
a crude space-folding transporter that causes cellular damage, the Sikarian
trajector (VOY: "Prime Factors") seems to be a very advanced
transporter based on the same effect.
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Spaceframe
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Skeletal structure of a starship. The spaceframe of a large vessel
is usually designed to provide sufficient mechanical stability while
the ship is at rest in orbit or open space. Stability during acceleration
by propulsion systems or gravity, on the other hand, can only be accomplished
by means of the SIF.
Mechanical stability is a decisive obstacle when designing large structures
such as a Galaxy-class starship. Simply inflating all dimensions of
a smaller starship by a constant factor is not possible, considering
the fact that the volume will increase by the third power and the cross-section
only by the second power. Hence, a strength deficit occurs if an object
is scaled up, and a strength surplus if it is scaled down, as further
explained in my scaling article. Therefore it is impossible that there
are two sizes of Klingon Birds-of-Prey that look exactly the same.
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SpacesuitCanon - Official Star Trek Technology
Pressurized garment for work in open space.
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Spatial torpedo
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Guided missile used on 22nd century Earth Starfleet ships.
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Standard orbit
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Term for the orbit a Federation starship usually assumes around a planet, not necessarily a synchronous orbit.
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Starbase
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Extensive Starfleet facility which serves for maintaining and resupplying starships, for recreation and exchange of ship crews, for research, for medical supply, as a military base, as a place for interstellar trade and for administration. Starbases are either partially located on a planet surface, or they are realized in form of huge space stations.
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Stardate
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
The system for time measurement commonly used in the Federation, yielding
a continuous date instead of e.g. DD:MM:YY format.
The stardate obviously serves as a common standard within the Federation,
taking into consideration different day and year durations on different
planets that would make such references useless if applied to other
planets. The system of stardates has been the subject of extensive discussions
throughout the years. Originally, the stardate possibly refers to the
Julian Date, which was introduced for easy calculation of time differences
for astronomy and consists in a continuous day count. The stardate used
in Star Trek, however, exhibits many inconsistencies, in particular
concerning the differences between the new 5-digit stardates in the
24th century and the 4-digit scheme in the 23rd century. The 24th century
system is quite easy, because an increase of 1000 corresponds to one
year or one season of a TNG, DS9 or Voyager production, but the TOS
stardates do not fit into this system. Most likely we have to accept
the fact that a new system has been introduced in the 24th century.
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Starship
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Designation for a large type of space vessel with warp drive. A starship typically consists of more than one deck and has separate departments such as the bridge, engineering or sickbay.
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Stasis unit
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Medical device used to hold the patient in a state of suspended animation, in order to slow down the course of any form of disease until a treatment is devised or available.
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Stellar cartography
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Scientific department aboard a starship that maps celestial bodies. See also astrometrics.
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Subspace
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
A domain outside the normal three-dimensional
space, rather than another dimension. Effects of mass/energy transition
to subspace allow apparent FTL velocities and are used by the warp drive,
computer system and subspace radio.
Although subspace is probably the most frequently used Treknology term
and seems to be involved in almost any 24th century technical device,
it is not further explained, neither in the show nor in official publications.
Subspace has to be accepted as a basic concept necessary to enable the
miraculous 24th century technology. According to the ingenious subspace
field theory by the physicist Jason Hinson (see his website), subspace
is "a continuum that exists in conjunction with our own space-time
continuum. Every point in our universe has a corresponding point in
subspace. Also, at every point in our universe, subspace has a particular
frame of reference." Read much more about subspace (partially conjectural).
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Subspace field
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Special type of forcefield that extends into subspace and is able
to change its structure or geometry. A subspace field facilitates propulsion
and signal transfer. The subspace field strength is measured in units
of cochrane. Above a subspace field stress of 1 cochrane the subspace
field becomes a so-called warp field, allowing FTL travel of starships
and signals.
Like the definition of subspace itself, the subspace field is better
explained by Jason Hinson (see his website) than by canon sources. According
to his theory, a subspace field generator produces a subspace distortion
that is counterbalanced by subspace itself, so the actual subspace field
is the resulting field of both. The impact of a subspace field is that
any mass within the field partially "submerges" into subspace,
allowing propulsion of a starship with less energy expense, for instance.
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Subspace radio
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Form of ship-to-ship or interplanetary communication that takes advantage
of subspace physics and allows faster-than-light (FTL) signal transmission.
The maximum possible velocity of signal propagation in the 24th century
is Warp 9.9997, which is significantly faster than any starship. A network
of subspace relays within the Federation territory ensures that no inadmissible
signal decay occurs in case of long distance communication.
While subspace radio obviously existed when the Romulan Neutral Zone
was negotiated in the 2160's (TOS: "Balance of Terror"), the
contemporary U.S.S. Horizon sent a conventional radio signal that arrived
about 100 years later (TOS: "A Piece of the Action").
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Subspace transporter
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Transporter type which transfers patterns through the subspace domain.
Although their operation range may encompass many light-years and they
are able to penetrate shields, subspace transporters are not reliable
and therefore not employed by the Federation or other major species.
DaiMon Bok used a subspace transporter to get to the Enterprise in TNG:
"Bloodlines", and the Enterprise crew managed to modify their
transporter to beam Capt. Picard to Bok's ship. It is obvious that this
type of transporter can penetrate conventional shields, since these
do not extend into subspace.
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Subspace weapon
Canon - Official Star Trek Technology
Weapon whose destructive force is based on the disruption of subspace.
Subspace weapons are outlawed by the Federation because of their irreparable
damage to subspace, however, the Son'a use such a weapon in "Star
Trek: Insurrection".
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