Go play with a cat somewhere

"Remember how it goes:

You throw a rock, I throw a spear. You throw a spear, I fire a laser. You fire a laser, I personally beam onto the bridge and single handedly kill your crew.

Understood?"

Yes Dr. Ms.The Monarch

Something that I started wondering, when I watched that TNG episode where someone tries pointing lasers at the Enterprise, is if they could still be a viable weapon in the star trek universe if you put enough energy into one. Like, barely-space-capable species laser weapons might barely be noticable to the shields, but if you had like, a laser with a significant fraction of a star's energy output pumped into it, or just a billion of those primitive laser-wielding ships, surely the shields have got to give eventually
- I see we are going with the 40K "flashlight theory"
- According to Memory Alpha, the borgs in TNG use lasers to cut through hulls of ships and even planet rocks
- Theoretically you can put any amount of energy into a laser, as long as you can redirect and synchronise waves. And as several stars and black holes have gravities and stuff that can affect the starships, it seems evident you should be able to charge a laser enough to damage any USS starship.
  And as the phase cannons seem to output 80-500 GJ, you should be able to match that fairly easily with 10 grams of matter annihilation or a second of about 10e-15 of the energy output of a sun type star.
  Interestingly enough, phase modulation of a laser weapon makes more sense than of a particle beam (which the phaser weapons are), and also you don't suffer from recoil like from phasers.

Polarize the hull plating!

Fun fact: all starfleet ship’s hulls are now constantly polarized, mostly to deflect random space dust, debris, etc. while traveling at sub-light. Not sure if it’s stated in canon when they started doing this, but in a few episodes, before walking on/working with the hull, it gets mentioned that they have to depolarize it first.
Edit: just because the guy below wants to launch an inquisition over the origin of this detail, it shouldn’t ruin everyone else’s fun here.
- Not sure if it’s stated in canon when they started doing this
  2150s. No, seriously. That's been a thing since Archer. Hull polarization actually started as the first line of defense before shields became common place and much stronger. The NX Class and the Shuttlepod both had polarized hulls. They even make a mention in one of the episodes that while they've been away from Earth for months that Earths polarization tech has improved efficiency by 12%. But when shields started gaining more ground and traction, hull polarization wasn't needed as much so it slowly slid to the background and was only used when necessary like when Voyager needed more stability or when the Delta Flyer was trying to be located. I remember something else about using it to modulate against a tractor beam too somewhere in DS9.
  That being said, I'm not sure where you're getting the information about constant polarization and deflecting space dust. Typically that's what the deflector array was for. I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, it's Star Trek. There's tons of inconsistencies and backups and redundancies. I'm just curious so I can add it to my giant folder of useless Star Trek info that's buried in the back of my brain.
  Edit: There is zero source material to back up the claim that the hull polarization reflects space dust and this guy seems to be acting on bad faith. I'm just going to go ahead and take everything he said here with a grain of salt the size of a D'Deridex.
Wouldn't polarizing the hull basically mean magnetizing it? That always bothered me.
- I would assume it's an optical polarizer. Like on sunglasses or LCD screens.
- Out the window you go!
- If a big magnet protects spaceship earth from cosmic rays, a smaller magnet should protect spaceship enterprise from death rays.
  But seriously, my take was always that there was something like an inner and an outer hull, and by polarizing them with opposing charges you might reinforce them so explosions are less likely to blast the outer hull off. Kind of like a magnetic lock around the entire ship.

I wish we had a spin-off series of all the incorrectly reconstructed voyager tales from that future museum this would definitely be a scene LOL

We really would come to think of it.
What a great episode too. Loved seeing Evil Tuvok and by love I mean was scared shitless by seeing him smile.
- Smiling Spock in SNW channels the same energy.

Lets beam some photon torpedoes into their crew quarters.

swap their coffee reserves for tri-cobalt devices

Widdle waser beams

Janeway really needs to moderate that coffee addiction. I don't drink the stuff personally, but I don't think it's worth some of the stuff she did for a better cuppa

She only drinks tea now.
as long as it's not Nescafé Gold Blend. that stuff makes me want to vomit from a sip.
- Nescafé anything is shit. Literally the worst coffee.

It wasn't even for better coffee, just coffee.

🤔 So like, what would stop some diplomat from just bringing a suitcase nuke with them when getting beamed on board, and setting it off?

The transporter detects and disables weapons mid beam. In at least one episode, they held a diplomat in the buffer to ask what to do about their weapon.
- How the fuck is that even possible even by technobabble standards?
  How would they differentiate a weapon from life-saving medical equipment, and why wouldn't some evil villain capitalize on that fact?
  Or just make the crew beam down on some planet for some meeting and nuke the meeting place?
  Or just pack a ship full of antimatter and ram it into the Enterprise?
  The whole way war is done in Star Trek is so fucking stupid 🤦