A Tachyon burst impacting the shields of a Venture class starship (Star Trek: Insurrection)
A Tachyon burst is a pulse of tachyon particles which has a number of uses.
By firing tachyon bursts at a shielded starship the burst can disrupt the shields forcing the ship to remodulate it's shields offering a brief window of opportunity in which a transporter beam and reach targets within the shielded ship. Lieutenant Commander Worf and Captain Picard attempted to use this technique to capture a malfunctioning Data from a Venture class scout in 2375. Not long after Data himself used the same technique to force a Son'a starship to remodulate it's shields so that the crew could be transported away to a location where they could do no harm. (TNG movie: Insurrection)
The Tigans used tachyon bursts in their interface system, minute bursts are used to transmit new data from their central computer to interface implants which delivery the new information directly to the Tigans cerebral cortexes. (TNG comic: History Lesson)
Connections
- Tachyon burst article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.