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{{trope}}
[[File:minefield 796.jpg|link=Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|right]]
Just like there are several types of [[Sea Mine
In real life, there would be some [[Fridge Logic|major limitations]] to this trope. However, since
* In order to secure a whole planet, you'd have to mine space three-dimensionally in order to be effective. In fiction this is [[
* Earth's ocean and sea terrain contains a lot of inlets, natural harbors, bays, straights and other types of terrain that make natural choke-points where the use of mines is a practical way to deny or substantially delay passage to unwanted ships. No such barriers or terrain exists in space to prevent ships from circumnavigating such a barrier. Even protecting a very small moon with a density of one mine every few thousand cubic km would require huge numbers of mines and logistical support to successfully achieve coverage. The same logistical resources would be of better use in improving detection and interception/quick reaction capability. Can be justified if there IS a conveniently narrow pathway to barricade, such as a local entrance to [[Hyperspace]] or the [[Portal Network]], or if the object to be surrounded by mines is fairly small, such as an asteroid base.
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* Laying mines takes time, and the larger area you need to cover, the number of mines you would need increase quadratically. To cover large or even moderate areas could take hundreds of years, even if it only took a few seconds to lay each mine. Justified if the mines have potential to locate and approach, or shoot, their targets from massive range, thus ensuring blockade functionality despite low minefield density, or can be all released in a single spot and relocate and organise autonomously. As for the matter of quantity, this can be explained by having automated manufacturing and minelaying facilities operating over lengthy time periods, or have the mines themselves be self-propagating Von Neumann machines.
* Sea mines are deployed under water, greatly complicating the task of detecting and clearing them. There is no such barrier to visibility for
* Everything with mass has gravity. In space, little things that are relatively close to each other tend to clump
[[I Thought It Meant|Not to be confused with]] [[Asteroid Miners|Space Mining operations]], mining valuable materials from [[Asteroid Thicket|asteroids]] or other planets [[In Space]].
{{examples
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== [[Anime and Manga]] ==
* There are massive space minefields around the Men's Planet (Tarak) that is visited towards the end of ''[[Vandread]]'' (second season). They are used to reveal {{spoiler|First Mate BC}} as [[The Mole]], since s/he knows the friend-foe codes of the mines that allow ''Nirvana'' to pass them.
* Mines are used in multiple battles in ''[[Legend of the Galactic Heroes]]''.
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== [[Film]] ==
* The Tothian minefield in ''[[
== [[Literature]] ==
* Stewart Cowley's ''Spacecraft: 2000 to 2100 A.D.''. During the war with Proxima Centauri, the perimeter of Earth's solar system was seeded with nuclear mines. They would home in on the warp generators of arriving enemy ships and destroy them while they were recharging their power banks after the warp jump.
* ''[[
** Additionally, mines tend to be placed to cover small areas: the orbits around a planet, a wormhole exit, or (occasionally) quickly laid in the path of an incoming fleet.
* ''[[Halo First Strike]]'' has Moray Space Mines, which can be homing or stationary.
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* In the [[Star Trek Novel Verse]], the Gorn Hegemony makes use of these, and fields specialized mine-launcher ships. One such vessel causes trouble for the [[Starfleet Corps of Engineers]] in the story “Where Time Stands Still”.
* A number of space mines appear in the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], where they are particularly useful because ships can hit them if their hyperspace routes are not calculated correctly. Amongst the usual exploding types, there are also ion cannon mines, essentially motion-triggered ion cannons which shut down ships so that they can be captured.
* [[
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* In the pilot of the original ''[[Battlestar Galactica
* In the ''[[
** Captain Sheridan also used nuclear warheads as mines on at least two occasions, but these were remotely detonated from a starship when enemy vessels were deemed close enough.
* ''[[Star Trek]]''
** ''[[Star Trek:
** ''[[Star Trek II:
** ''[[Star Trek:
*** "Booby Trap". The Enterprise enters an asteroid belt that contain "acceton assimilators", mines which drain the ship's power, convert it to deadly radiation and beam it at the ship.
*** "Chain of Command Part II". An Enterprise shuttlecraft is used to lay mines in the McAllister C-5 Nebula, trapping the Cardassian ships hiding inside it.
** ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]''
*** During the Dominion Wars the ''Defiant'' mined the entrance to the Bajoran wormhole. At least in this case, the mines were protecting a single, uni-directional portal and were self-replicating to prevent easy removal.
*** The Klingons established an illegal cloaked minefield in "Sons of Mogh." The mines are dormant and have to be remotely activated in event of
** In ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'', the Enterprise runs into a cloaked field of Romulan mines. Similar to the first ''Deep Space Nine'' example, this is more justified as they were over a planet and everywhere.
* The ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' episode "The Serpent's Venom" takes place in a space minefield where the mines all lock onto any sign of weapons, which is used by the Go'a'uld as a neutral meeting place. SG-1 has to reprogram a mine to attack one of the Go'a'uld ships at the meeting, in order to instigate a conflict.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Star Fleet Battles]]''. Ships can "roll a mine out a hatch" and leave it to blow up a ship pursuing them. Mines can be set to accept only certain sizes of ships as targets. Major space installations often had minefield belts protecting them. Some of the mine types available:
** The Romulans have a Nuclear Space Mine based on the ''[[Star Trek:
** Command mines can be ordered to detonate or to activate/deactivate themselves.
** Chained mines detonate when other mines explode.
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Wing Commander (
* ''[[The Babylon Project]]'': In three levels of the Earth-Brakiri War, you have to navigate through a Centauri minefield. Unlike traditional contact or proximity mines, these mines ''shoot'' at you (see the ''Babylon 5'' example above).
* There's an online Flash game called ''Space Minefield''.
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** And a company called Cogmed created a flash game called ''Space Mine Patrol'' to demonstrate working memory.
* Space mines appear often in the [[Star Wars]] [[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Expanded Universe]], both in novels and in the games. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Space_mine
** Both the ''[[Star Wars: X-Wing]]'' and ''[[TIE Fighter]]'' games feature mines that shoot at you, rather than exploding. Most of the missions that feature these tend to be quite [[Nintendo Hard|difficult]].
** ''[[Star Wars Rebel Assault]] II'' and ''[[Rogue Squadron]] II'' also have space minefield levels.
* ''[[Star Fox 64]]'': The first few seconds of Sector X has a cloud of mines you have to go through.
* ''[[
* ''[[Freelancer]]'' has a few minefields, which have their own haunting ambience theme whenever the player is near or within one. These minefields are less like a field of mines and more like a thick, spherical meshwork of explosives, which kill any intruding spacecraft<ref>
** Also comes with its own hilarious form of [[Artificial Stupidity]]: patrol routes for the [[Space Station|space prison BPA Newgate]] graze the minefield surrounding it. Every so often one of the patrolling Bretonia Police Authority ships will plow into the minefield, [[Death Cry Echo|screaming]] while everyone else does [[Unusually Uninteresting Sight|absolutely nothing about it]].
* ''[[
* Mines actually appear as obstacles in the games ''[[
* ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'' has Minelayer sections in both destroyer and cruiser sizes. There are various warheads but all are proximity-triggered homers. There's also a Leap version that trades some power for much faster movement as an anti-[[Point Defenseless]] measure, as well as a Gravity mine that doesn't hurt but pulls ships to itself and an Implosion version that combines said Gravity effect with an actual blast. They can be very effective, especially [[AI Breaker|against the AI]]. There's even an upgrade to the Complex Ordnance Launcher that allows you to launch a minefield from afar.
* The Artemis System Net from ''[[
* This is the special weapon (proximity, limited homing) of the Defiant-class in [[Star Trek Armada]].
** And becomes a relatively common aft weapon in ''[[Star Trek Online]]'', with a variety of different payloads (including tractor beams). However, because mine spreads are stationary relative to the local map, and have such a limited homing range, their best use is possibly taking down other mines and incoming heavy torpedoes
* Also possible in [[Sins of a Solar Empire]], mixing two of the above excuses with 2D Space, and direct lines of approach to separate gravity wells.
* Several varieties of Space Mines in ''[[X (
* Stage 1 of ''[[R-Type]] Leo'' has space mines that form a laser grid with other mines.
* [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Aera]] in ''[[
* In ''[[Stars!]]'' minefields attack enemy ships traveling above certain [[FTL|warp speed]] and thus prevent a sudden
** Specialization in mines is a ''[[Planet of Hats|primary]]'' racial trait "[http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Space_Demolition Space Demolition]". These guys have all 3 mine types, specialized minelayer hulls, lay mines on the run and are much more capable both of surviving mine attacks and using their own mines offensively. They also use minefields as detection arrays—if used correctly, this makes sneaking up on them almost impossible: move fast and get blown up, or move slowly and be detected early. Or run into normal and heavy mines, have surviving ships stopped by speed traps and detected—unable to repair without blown up supply ships or even run away due to still being stuck in the middle of 3 overlapping fields. Conversely, [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|War Mongers]] don't have such defensive weapons at all.
* In ''[[Another
* In ''VGA Planets'' ships with torpedo tubes can lay mines. Efficiency depends on [[Tech Level]]. It can be expensive in terms of restocking ammo, though mines that aren't swept can be scooped by another ship or even another allied player's ship, so it sometimes allows to reload empty torpedo tubes in the middle of nothing. Both laying and sweeping minefields are fleet orders, i.e. ships have to stand there and not do anything else other than defending themselves. [[Silicon
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[Inhuman]]'', the whole planet Hekshano is cordoned with a minefield. Some pilots have races in there.
* In ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' people occasionally use sleeping missiles pre-deployed to cover probable approaches. Results vary - when [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2012-08-07 a bunch of corvettes plow too fast into layered defenses prepared by an expert], they get shredded, but when a small fleet of high-end warships moves without undue haste into an improvised trap of ill-prepared local troublemakers, [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2017-11-08 the result] can be not just embarrassing, but [[Nothing Is Scarier|unsettling]]. Of course, there's also a gamble between [[Utility Weapon|deploying an array of early warning sensors]] somewhere they may help ''and'' [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2003-06-27 improving time to the target], or placing your munitions too far from the action to be useful.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* While most science fiction applications of
** Space mines have actually been considered in real life studies as possible space weapons utilizing current tech. Examples:
*** http://books.google.com/books?id=AQROL_5mY5cC&lpg=[[PA 53]]&ots=vn8i70rVAg&pg=[[PA 53]]#v=onepage (1984)
*** http://www.fas.org/rlg/030522-space.pdf (2003)
*** http://www.unidir.org/pdf/articles/pdf-art2377.pdf{{Dead link}} (2004)
*** http://wuxinghongqi.blogspot.com/2010/08/chinas-space-weapons-exposured-russia.html (2010)
* Currently, space debris, also known as orbital debris, space junk, and space waste, is the collection of objects in orbit around Earth that were created by humans but no longer serve any useful purpose. These objects consist of everything from spent rocket stages and defunct satellites to erosion, explosion and collision fragments. To date there have been several known and suspected impact events, and several satellites have been destroyed.
** As the chance of collision is a function of the number of objects in space, there is a critical density where the creation of new debris occurs faster than the various natural forces remove these objects from orbit. Beyond this point a runaway chain reaction can occur that reduces all objects in orbit to debris in a period of years or months. This possibility is known as the "Kessler syndrome", and there is debate as to whether or not this critical density has already been reached in certain orbital bands.
::So yeah, some degree of [[Truth in Television]].▼
▲So yeah, some degree of [[Truth in Television]].
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Tropes in Space]]
[[Category:This Index Is in The Way]]
[[Category:Weapons and Wielding Tropes]]
[[Category:Space Mines]]
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