History Main / SpaceMines

* {{Homeworld}} has Minelaying Corvettes. The mines themselves are proximity-triggered homing mines, solving the problem of mining in 3D space.

* Several varieties of Space Mines in ''[[{{X}} X3 Terran Conflict]]''. [=SQUASH=] Mines are your standard high explosive mines, Ion Mines target ship shields, Tracker Mines... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin 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.

* Laying mines takes time, and the larger area you need to cover, the number of mines you would need increase exponentially. 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. 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.

*** "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.

** In ''StarTrekEnterprise'', the ''Enterprise'' runs into a cloaked field of Romulan mines. Similar to the ''Deep Space Nine'' example, this is more justified as they were over a planet and everywhere.

** ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "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.
** In ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', 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.
** ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' also has the Klingons establishing an illegal cloaked minefield in "Sons of Mogh." The mines are dormant and have to be remotely activated in event of war -- and would effectively cut [=DS9=] and Bajor off from support from elsewhere in the Alpha Quadrant.

** 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.
* ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Balance of Terror". The Romulan ship uses one of its [[SelfDestructMechanism self destruct devices]] as an impromptu mine in an attempt to destroy the Enterprise.

* The Tothian minefield in ''GalaxyQuest'' provides a rather dangerous shelter for the ''Protector'' when "Taggart" and his crew find themselves outgunned by Sarris. It comes into play again in the finale, when they use it to pull a variant on the WronskiFeint against Sarris' ship: [[spoiler: the magnetic mines trail behind the ship, and Sarris runs straight into them]]. Averts the usual problem with space mines in that the field has enough layers to cover a significant portion of space (enough to look like a nebula from a distance), though still woefully small in the grand scale of things.

** In ''StarTrekEnterprise'', the ''Enterprise'' runs into a cloaked field of Romulan mines.

* In the pilot of the original ''BattlestarGalactica'', the Galactica must pass through a narrow region of space in a [[SpaceClouds dense nebula]] that has been mined by the Cylons.

* ''Literature/{{Honorverse}}'' has this; it gets around SpaceIsBig by having the mines basically be the same 10,000-kilometer-range laser warheads found on their missiles.

* The Artemis System Net from ''MasterOfOrion 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.

* Also possible in "SinsOfASolarEmpire", mixing two of the above excuses with 2D Space, and direct lines of approach to separate gravity wells.

* 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 PortalNetwork, or if the object to be surrounded by mines is fairly small, such as an asteroid base.

In real life, there would be some [[FridgeLogic major limitations]] to this trope:

* 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.
* Laying mines takes time, and the larger area you need to cover, the number of mines you would need increase exponentially. To cover large or even moderate areas could take hundreds of years, even if it only took a few seconds to lay each mine.
* Sea mines are deployed under water, greatly complicating the task of detecting and clearing them. There is no such barrier to visibility for SpaceMines. Unless there were some sort of mitigating factor (sensory disruption, cloaked mines, etc.) space ships could just pick them off with long range guns/lasers/missiles/decoys/whatever.

Nonetheless, SpaceMines seem to be a ubiquitous part of [[SpaceOpera Space Operas]] - and sometimes the savvy writer thinks of the above limitations and writes around them - and real-life applications have even been discussed in military circles.

* AKVs in TranshumanSpace are not exactly mines, but similar enough: they are AI-controlled missiles that can float in ambush until a [[InsistentTerminology craft]] flies near and then attack.