Weapon That Never Was ... Or Was It?

Tribble Launcher

Being an economic powerhouse, the Federation sponsors a tremendous amount of research. While some of this results in useful gadgets like the type-G missile rack, replicators, and 8-track tapes, an equal amount of the research goes towards developing useless items such as positron flywheels and public television.

One item that should have been more useful than it turned out to be was the Shoulder-Fired Tribble Launcher. Designed to take advantage of the allergic reaction Klingons display around tribbles, the intention was that special forces and heavy weapons units could disrupt Klingon attacks and troop concentrations by lobbing live tribbles into their midst. Like all "non-lethal" weapons, troops had to carry the thing around looking for the rare circumstances in which it would work, then make an effort to set up (or find) just the right tactical situation. While it was used by some special forces units and actually did work as advertised, most troops issued such weapons quickly discarded them as too heavy to carry around "just in case." In one instance, Federation special forces used the weapons to lob tribbles into a prison camp, causing panic among the Klingon guards and facilitating an escape by hundreds of Federation prisoners.

Each missile is one tribble (in a canister), which (if it hits someone) causes 2d of crushing damage. Each tribble+canister weighs half a pound. When the tribble reaches the target, roll against its health (in GURPS this is 15) to see if it survives. If the tribble does survive, any Klingons within 10 yards must roll a fright check.

-- Contributed by Matthew Francois for Captain's Log #28
(c) 2004, ADB, Inc.