The thalaron generator aboard the Scimitar.
A thalaron generator was a device which emitted thalaron radiation, which dissolved organic material almost instantaneously. (TNG movie & novelization: Star Trek Nemesis)
History and specifics[]
During the Dominion War, Shinzon of Remus discovered such a device in a secret Tal Shiar lab on the planet Goloroth, and used it against Dominion forces there. (DS9 - Tales of the Dominion War short story: "Twilight's Wrath")
A few years later, in 2379, Shinzon and Senator Tal'Aura used this thalaron weapon to assassinate the Romulan Senate, after which Shinzon threatened to use a much larger generator built into his warbird, Scimitar, against Earth. (TNG movie & novelization: Star Trek Nemesis)
A Tulwar-class warbird firing a thalaron radiation pulse.
Weaponized thalaron generators continued to be used by various Romulan and Reman groups through the early 25th century. In 2409 Vrimek unveiled a thalaron generator when the Tal Shiar attacked a colony in the Delta Corvi system, intending to use it to wipe out all life on the planet when the invaders made landfall. The Virinat Survivor, undercover with the Tal Shiar, convinced him to hold off long enough to let most of the civilians escape. (STO mission: "Cloak and Dagger")
When the Virinat Survivor's cover was blown and she/he was brainwashed into becoming a Tal Shiar operative, she/he was forced to assemble small thalaron mines and test them on non-sentient life-forms such as epohhs. (STO mission: "Mind Game")
Upon receiving word that thalaron generator parts would be passing through the Orion Syndicate-run black market on Nimbus III, a Republic-aligned starship traveled to the planet. The crew tracked the rumors from the town of Paradise City all the way to a secret Tal Shiar base but was unable to prevent their acquisition by an unknown Reman. (STO missions: "Secrets of Nimbus", "The Lost City of Paradise", "Blind Men Tell All Tales", "The Undying", "A Fistful of Gorn", "Installation 18")
The trail then led to the Vault in the Haakona system, where they discovered the thalaron triggers had been acquired by Obisek's Reman Resistance. Obisek noted to the ship's captain that he considered the weapons abominable, but felt he had little choice in using them in order to free the Reman people from slavery. He then attacked them to divert attention from a D'deridex-class warbird onto which he had loaded the thalaron weapons, but an allied starship arrived and helped the captain disable the warbird. Unfortunately the weapons then exploded, destroying the ship. (STO mission: "The Vault")
During subsequent battles thalaron generators were deployed aboard multiple Scimitar-class warbirds. During the third phase of the battle for Brea III, Empress Sela's flagship IRW Leahval repeatedly cloaked, repositioned, then decloaked to fire a thalaron pulse at the attacking forces. Similar tactics were used by the assimilated Donatra's IRW Valdore during an engagement with the Borg in the Khitomer system. The Romulan Republican Force flagship RRW Lleiset, of the Tulwar-subclass, was also armed with such a device, which she employed to great effect against an Undine surprise attack on a Romulan Republic weapons testing range. (STO missions: "Cutting the Cord", "Khitomer Vortex", "Republic Day")
On a smaller scale, Tal Shiar operatives frequently deployed drones armed with anti-personnel thalaron weapons during ground engagements. (ST video game: Star Trek Online)
First Splinter timeline[]
A thalaron generator was considered for use against the Borg armada in 2381. However, Commander Geordi La Forge refused to obey what he felt was an illegal and immoral order from Captain Jean-Luc Picard to build such a device. (ST - Star Trek: Destiny novel: Lost Souls)
Appendices[]
External links[]
- Thalaron generator article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.