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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 [[2-D Space|often not done]].
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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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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* In the pilot of the original ''[[Battlestar Galactica
* In the ''[[Babylon 5]]'' episode "Matters of Honor", we see a Centauri minefield deployed to interdict access to a planet. This minefield actually consists of orbiting weapon platforms that fire on intruding starships instead of merely exploding when they get within range.
** 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: The Original Series]]'' episode "Balance of Terror". The Romulan ship uses one of its [[Self-Destruct Mechanism|self destruct devices]] as an impromptu mine in an attempt to destroy the Enterprise.
** ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan]]''. In the [[Unwinnable Training Simulation]] that starts off the movie, the ship the ''Enterprise'' needs to rescue was disabled by a gravitic mine.
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** ''[[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.
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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 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.
* ''[[Homeworld]]'' has Minelaying Corvettes. The mines themselves are proximity-triggered homing mines, solving the problem of mining in 3D space.
* ''[[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]].
* ''[[Elite]] 2: Frontier'' and ''Elite 3: Frontier First Encounters'' let you deploy these mines... or be blown to bits with them. Honestly, these mines are uneffective.
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* The Artemis System Net from ''[[Master of Orion]] 2: Battle At Antares'' is a massive minefield that surrounds the system it's built at. It has a chance of damaging or destroying enemy warships that attack the system depending on the size class.
* 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 (video game)|X3 Terran Conflict]]''. SQUASH Mines are your standard high explosive mines, Ion Mines target ship shields, Tracker Mines... [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|track the enemy]], and Matter/Antimatter Mines are like SQUASH mines but with more boom. One of the most effective uses of the mines is to load your ship with them, get a ton of enemies to chase you, drop all the mines, then order one mine to self-destruct. Big bada boom.
* Stage 1 of ''[[R-Type]] Leo'' has space mines that form a laser grid with other mines.
* [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Aera]] in ''[[Vega Strike]]'' has Porcupine "mines". It's a sluggish (about 0.5 g in any direction) [[Attack Drone]] with an [[Lead the Target|autotracking]] gun and 100 shield-piercing shells to pelt enemies in range. It explodes if approached, but weaker than any missiles proper. In terms of volume and compatible mounts it's a "medium missile", which allows Aera escort fighters to carry a dozen of these pests, in addition to six mounts of the same weapon with much more ammo, rocket pods (in assault variant) and normal missiles.
* 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 Century's Episode]]'' (the original), one mission (loosely based on ''[[Gundam Wing]]'', mentioned above) has you clearing out a minefield so Relena Peacecraft can make a goodwill visit to the colonies.
* 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-Based Life|Crystals]] race also have web
== [[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]]
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