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Quantum torpedoes are better in penetrating Borg shields. If they're also better in penetrating shields in general, then it is advancement enough to use them over photons. Plus in "Defiant" USS Defiant was able to disable Cardassian ship by using quantum torpedoes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIIZUIdU ... re=related

9:25 - 9:26

Cardassian cruiser seems to be undamaged by hits but is still disabled, and second shot showed interesting "electric" effect.

Are their penetration capabilities against the Borg due to an effect of the torp itself, or due to more experience against the Borg on the part of Starfleet? There's no way to tell.

I always figured they were the same power as PTs but were in some sort of quantum flux which allowed them to bypass defenses.

There isn't a whole lot known about tri cobalt devices. A couple of indicators make them appear more advanced than photons; for one, when Voyager was in orbit of the time accelerated planet, the planet attacked them with photons, then with tri cobalts. Paris's reaction was "What will they think of next?" Hardly conclusive, but I find it quite indicative.

Secondly, in The Voyager Conspiracy they discuss the use of the torps. Much of Seven of Nine's contribution can be dismissed since the point was that she was paranoid in the episode. But here's what we do get :

SEVEN: Commander, you fired the tricobalt charge that destroyed the Array.
TUVOK: Correct.
SEVEN: Under the Captain's orders. Did you also program the charge?
TUVOK: Yes.
SEVEN: Under the Captain's orders as well?
TUVOK: Not directly. I determined the yield.
SEVEN: Twenty thousand teracochrans.

Later :

SEVEN: The Captain ordered Commander Tuvok to destroy the array. He fired two tricobalt devices. Are those weapons normally carried on Federation Starships?
CHAKOTAY: No.
SEVEN: Yet they were part of Voyager's arsenal. Why?
CHAKOTAY: I can't explain that.
SEVEN: I can. Neither phasers nor torpedoes are capable of creating a tear in subspace, a tricobalt device is. As Tuvok detonated the device, a cloaked ship locked on to one of the array's tetryon reactors and pushed it through the tear into subspace, protecting it from the blast and hiding it from Voyager's sensors. But the Captain and Tuvok knew exactly where it was going. Once Voyager left the area the reactor was retrieved and began a similar journey, carried by a series of vessels until it was finally delivered to Mister Tash.

So tri cobalts are subspace weapons of some kind - yield in cochranes, able to tear a hole in subspace. To me that almost clinches that they are more advanced than photons.

They aren't normally carried but Voyager had two, which I find interesting. I wonder why...

Oh, and based purely on the FX, the Dominion seems to use tri cobalt devices.

Picard wrote:Quantum torpedoes are better in penetrating Borg shields. If they're also better in penetrating shields in general, then it is advancement enough to use them over photons. Plus in "Defiant" USS Defiant was able to disable Cardassian ship by using quantum torpedoes.

Well if they are designed against Borg (which I agree, isn't that much of a stretch) then why are those precious weapons used against the Dominion, if they have otherwise no advantage compared to photons or why do ships like the E-E carry both variants. Now one can speculate till the end of time as to why this is (I could immediatly come up with at least 5 good reasons) yet as long as the producers are unwilling to give at least ONE line of dialuge as to what the difference is they might just as well have sticked to the good old photons imho. Sure, they could rename phasers to deathrays, yet as long as they look and behave exactly like phaser one could question such a move imho.

GrahamKennedy wrote:So tri cobalts are subspace weapons of some kind - yield in cochranes, able to tear a hole in subspace. To me that almost clinches that they are more advanced than photons.

To me that sounds like something forbidden by the Kithomer accord . ANYHOW that is why I asked for production background info. Since the producers could have also used two photons for the same effect (why not, photons were never very consistent in their power) I was wondering if there was some thought put to that, some idea that never catched on etc. .

Atekimogus wrote:

Picard wrote:Quantum torpedoes are better in penetrating Borg shields. If they're also better in penetrating shields in general, then it is advancement enough to use them over photons. Plus in "Defiant" USS Defiant was able to disable Cardassian ship by using quantum torpedoes.

Well if they are designed against Borg (which I agree, isn't that much of a stretch) then why are those precious weapons used against the Dominion, if they have otherwise no advantage compared to photons or why do ships like the E-E carry both variants. Now one can speculate till the end of time as to why this is (I could immediatly come up with at least 5 good reasons) yet as long as the producers are unwilling to give at least ONE line of dialuge as to what the difference is they might just as well have sticked to the good old photons imho. Sure, they could rename phasers to deathrays, yet as long as they look and behave exactly like phaser one could question such a move imho.

GrahamKennedy wrote:So tri cobalts are subspace weapons of some kind - yield in cochranes, able to tear a hole in subspace. To me that almost clinches that they are more advanced than photons.

To me that sounds like something forbidden by the Kithomer accord

Yes indeed, and that makes it even more interesting that Janeway was carrying a couple around with her, does it not?

. ANYHOW that is why I asked for production background info. Since the producers could have also used two photons for the same effect (why not, photons were never very consistent in their power) I was wondering if there was some thought put to that, some idea that never catched on etc. .

I suspect they just wanted to differentiate Voyager from other ships as much as possible, make it more advanced. So they got "compression" phaser rifles, tilting nacelles... and tri cobalt devices. I bet somebody planned to use tri cobalts as standard on Voyager instead of photons. Then in the rush to screen the idea got rewritten, or forgotten, and they went with standard torps after all.

The Federation has made a habit of breaking treaties just for the hell of it.

GrahamKennedy wrote: Yes indeed, and that makes it even more interesting that Janeway was carrying a couple around with her, does it not?

Indeed. Also iirc when Seven had her paranoid breakdown, it was pretty much clear that she lost her mind. Nevertheless, the questions about the Tri-Cobalt devices I always found rather interesting, since they appeared to be very valid and she never gets a good answer to them. All Janeway does is glare at her if I remember it correctly. Sure she was paranoid but I wonder if she didn't accidently stumbled upon something.

In "Little Green Men" we get ONE line of dialogue indicating the superiority of QTs, when Quark first offers PTs then says for slightly higher charge, QTs. Thus indicating QTs are a superior weapon.

We've not seen anything on screen immediately indicating HOW QTs are better than PTs, but we don't see them behave any different on screen. I heard one "THEORY" that QTs were more effective against shields than PTs but overall do almost the same damage.

The problem is PTs seem to do highly variable amounts of damage, from firecracker to nuke. However, QTs seem to be more consistent, more on the nuke side.

GrahamKennedy wrote:I suspect they just wanted to differentiate Voyager from other ships as much as possible, make it more advanced. So they got "compression" phaser rifles, tilting nacelles... and tri cobalt devices. I bet somebody planned to use tri cobalts as standard on Voyager instead of photons. Then in the rush to screen the idea got rewritten, or forgotten, and they went with standard torps after all.

Or we can speculate Janeway had her way with the sector's quartermaster and made sure her ship was fitted with the best weapon possible so she doesn't screw up on her first assignment against a sub-powered target.

I mean, Janeway really went all-gun to hunt down the Maquis.

Why would tri-cobalt devices contravene the Khitomer Accord? There's nothing to indicate such an idea. According to INS, et. al., the Accord banned isolytic subspace weapons (whatever the hell that means.) While Seven's soapbox prosecution certainly indicates that tri-cobalts have a subspace vector to their effects, I don't recall ever hearing them referred to with the adjective "isolytic."

No, I'm pretty sure it banned supspace weapons, the isolytic warheads just happened to be a form of subspace weapon.

Hmm. I don't have a copy of the verbiage. I thought Geordi's comment in INS referenced "isolytic subspace weaponry" specifically.

Mikey wrote:Hmm. I don't have a copy of the verbiage. I thought Geordi's comment in INS referenced "isolytic subspace weaponry" specifically.

For some reason I remember this ... I think it was the trill helmsman we see only once, "I thought subspace weapons were banned by the Khitomer accord"v-- no, I have not seen that movie recently.
Here, here's a source so I don't feel so terrible about knowing that. Just search the page for "Khitomer accord"