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I remember the autodestruct being initiated many times, but always being aborted at almost the last possible second. Obviously, Captains Kirk, Picard, Janeway never went all the way to destruct, but was there ever any case in the TV series or the movies of a Starfleet ship where autodestruct went to completion? In any of the official books? (In the 2009 movie Star Trek, George Kirk piloted the Kelvin to a collision with the Narada, so that does not count.)

SQB
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    “Obviously, Captains Kirk, Picard, Janeway never went all the way to destruct” — you’re one-third right, that’s not bad. – Paul D. Waite Oct 28 '15 at 11:14
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    @Paul D Waite Thanks for the tolerance! –  Oct 28 '15 at 12:55
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    I love this supercut of all the ways you set and abort self-destruct, especially Riker's wholehearted abort sequence. It includes the destruct from Star Trek III and Voyager (the rest aren't auto-destructs, they're just thrown in for funsies). Also, man are Federation passwords BAD and they don't change them after 20 years! – Schwern Oct 28 '15 at 18:08
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    @Schwern There's also voice recognition behind them, which might sound like a good additional protection until you remember that pretty much anytime someone hijacked Data he'd just impersonate their voices and obtain arbitrary levels of access. And also the time that Moriarty stole the command codes by fooling Picard--it's not clearly stated if he had to use a recording of Picard or if he input the codes by hand or with his own voice, though. – zibadawa timmy Oct 28 '15 at 18:38
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    @PaulD.Waite Categorically incorrect. Two outta three ain't bad. One outta three, even Meatloaf would agree, is bad. – corsiKa Oct 28 '15 at 21:06
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    It's kind of funny. Kirk, Picard, and Sisko all need two to three people to engage the self destruct. But Janeway? She can do whatever the F she pleases with no other input from anyone. – Ellesedil Oct 28 '15 at 21:37
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    Wasn't their a gag in Galaxy Quest about this? – Jeremy French Oct 29 '15 at 11:06
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    I read the tag [tag:star-trek-tng] as "star-trekking". But then I hovered my cursor over it. – Oxwivi Oct 29 '15 at 16:49
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    @Ellesedil: Fanwank: The Voyager was operating with a significantly depleted crew, and the normal autodestruct protocols therefore did not apply. – Kevin Oct 29 '15 at 19:44
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    @Kevin: I know, although they did replenish quite a few people by integrating with the Marquis. However, Voyager still needed a "normal" number of bridge personnel to run the ship properly. I would imagine that most, if not all of the primary bridge crew would be given proper authorization to make command decisions as necessary. If Janeway is the sole gatekeeper for some parts of ship administration and she dies... well... enjoy being slowly killed and dissected for science or whatever other horrible scenario you can envision. – Ellesedil Oct 29 '15 at 20:36
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    @Kevin: Anyway, I think there might be in a question somewhere in this line of conversation worth asking, but I don't quite know what it is. – Ellesedil Oct 29 '15 at 20:36
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    @Ellesedil In general, did Janeway consult less with her key personnel (Chatokay, Torres ??) than did Picard with Riker and Jorde? In the end, of course, the Captain has to decide, but the process that leads to the decision can differ from Captain to Captain. It would be hard to quantify this, but toss it out and see what comes back. Did either Chakotay or Torres ever act as Captain? (And there was that young twerp, Paris (??), but I wouldn't want him in the autodestruct Chain of Command. ) –  Oct 29 '15 at 21:18
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    @JeremyFrench Yes. They disable the self-destruct (after crawling through stompers and incinerators) with almost a minute left on the clock, but the clock keeps running until '00:01'. "Of course, It always stops at 00:01"- Sigourney Weaver – steenbergh Oct 30 '15 at 09:06
  • The abort sequence that has stuck in my mind is from "Let that be your last battlefield". KIRK: "From five to zero, no command in the universe can prevent the computer from fulfilling its destruct orders." Do they always have 5 seconds less than the countdown says? –  Nov 01 '15 at 21:48
  • Methinks someone is trying to get 10k views – ThePopMachine Nov 09 '15 at 04:05
  • That would be lovely and I would be grateful, but I didn't post the bonus. –  Nov 09 '15 at 04:09
  • Regarding my bounty, I would like to say that it was awarded to @Richard on the grounds that his answer was just as valid as mine so I thought he was deserving of the reward. The reason I didn't award it to other answers was they were not necessarily as accurate as Richard's. Just clarifying! – Often Right Nov 15 '15 at 23:59
  • @The Doc Fine by me! –  Nov 16 '15 at 01:17

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Yes

In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701 - from TOS) is famously destroyed by the autodestruct sequence following the boarding of the Klingons:

Boom

Often Right
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  • Impressive response time! –  Oct 27 '15 at 23:35
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    Damn you, Doc Brown! You blew it up! –  Oct 28 '15 at 00:19
  • @TheDoc: Found another! – Keith Thompson Oct 28 '15 at 01:01
  • @KeithThompson yeah saw that and +1'd it already! Good work :D – Often Right Oct 28 '15 at 01:04
  • Love the way the Klingons are so oblivious to their impending annihilation; understandable of course but just makes them look so naive! – Often Right Oct 28 '15 at 02:49
  • The problem with this there are obviously self-destruct charges placed throughout the ship's structure, who would build a ship like that when they could be detonated by enemy fire? – Gaius Oct 28 '15 at 12:40
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    @Gaius Those charges are a side effect of Corbomite installation. – Yakk Oct 28 '15 at 13:14
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    @Gaius: Everybody. The scuttling / self-destruct charges are designed to NOT go off due to enemy fire, and even if they do, they're spread around enough that just a few cooking off won't scuttle the ship. Ref: Bismark – Codes with Hammer Oct 28 '15 at 14:05
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    Funny how the auto-destruct (which is basically there to ensure the abandoned ship and its technology don't fall into enemy hands) leaves the bulk of the ship intact, as seen as of 0:38. – O. R. Mapper Oct 28 '15 at 15:03
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    @Gaius We have electrically-detonated plastic explosives that are as safe as play-doh unless you put a charge through them; you can hit them with a hammer, set them on fire, etc. with no effect. Presumably the self-destruct charges are just as specific, if not more so. – Phasma Felis Oct 28 '15 at 22:34
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    @O.R.Mapper With the scanning technology available by the 2200s, trying to prevent others from observing the internal structure of the ship without active deflector shielding or some exotic material would be a futile effort. Most likely the point is to destroy all sensitive technological components that couldn't just be analyzed remotely and leave the ship in such a condition that it would be unusable as anything other than scrap material. No need to turn the entire ship into stardust to achieve that. – JAB Oct 29 '15 at 12:53
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    Submariner here, with tidbits. I can confirm that standard scuttling procedures are mostly about destroying sensitive intelligence, neutralizing weapons, and making the ship unusable in general. Axes to circuit boards, burn the books or melt them in peroxide (yes, we have pure hydrogen peroxide), drive nails through hard drives and run a battery across the nail. The reactor wouldn't be damaged, but on the way out we'd have the last man switch open the ballast vents. He'd have just enough time to scramble out. –  Oct 29 '15 at 15:08
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    @O.R.Mapper - I believe it was Mister Scott's Guide to the Enterprise (generally considered non-cannon, AFAIK) where they mentioned the Enterprise had two destruct systems. One involved charges in key technological and critical structural members and was intended for use near a planet or other things that wouldn't survive the second option. That second option was releasing the anti-matter supply to get a big kaboom (in the first option, the anti-matter tanks were ejected far away from the ship to reduce reactions). – T.J.L. Oct 29 '15 at 15:49
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    @Axelrod why did the crew have such an easy time going back in time in The Voyage Home? Because the warbird they did it with was previously owned by Doc Brown! – hobbs Oct 30 '15 at 01:14
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    @hobbs So Commander Kruge was just Doc Brown with surgical alterations to fit into the current time period? ...That means Kirk killed Doc Brown. – jpmc26 Nov 01 '15 at 04:18
  • @Axelrod that's what happens when you don't build a model to scale! – Often Right Nov 02 '15 at 01:50
  • @T.J.L. I think that passage in Mister Scott's Guide is intended to explain the difference between what is contemplated in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and what is shown on screen in Star Trek III. – Joseph Rogers Nov 10 '15 at 13:28
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Yes. In Voyager: Deadlock, Janeway blows up the Voyager.

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In "Where No Man Has Gone Before", the Enterprise picks up a ship recorder from the SS Valiant, a ship that had crossed the edge of galaxy 200 years earlier. The recorder indicated that the Valiant's captain had given an order to destroy the ship -- an order which, judging by the condition of the recorder, must have been carried out. (We don't know whether the "autodestruct sequence" we're familiar with would have been used.)

And as Politank-Z points out, it's not clear that the SS Valiant was a Starfleet vessel.

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Keith Thompson
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    Caveat: It is unclear that The Valiant was a Starfleet vessel. – Politank-Z Nov 09 '15 at 23:15
  • @Politank-Z: Good point. (Actually, at the time that episode was written, I'm not sure it was clear that the Enterprise was a Starfleet vessel; wasn't the term "Starfleet" introduced later in the season?) – Keith Thompson Nov 09 '15 at 23:21
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In ST:TOS, "The Doomsday Machine", the Constellation was set to self destruct in order to destroy the planet killer.

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    That was an improvised self-destruction. Mr. Scott rigged the ship's engines to overload. It was not a purpose-built mechanism. Also, (and this was an minor plot point) There was no count down that could be aborted. Once Kirk pressed the button, the explosion was inevitable. – Solomon Slow Oct 31 '15 at 15:01
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In the novel "The Kobyashi Maru", Chekov's solution to the unwinnable scenario was to self-destruct the ship and take some of the Klingons with him

Only a simulation but ....

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In the TOS-era novel Star Trek Vanguard: Harbinger, captain Hallie Gannon finds herself and her ship the Bombay in a fight with six Tholian battle cruisers. After a short but heavy combat sequence, she rams the ship into one of the attacking cruisers, activating the self-destruct for extra punching power.

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  • Not an abortable self-destruct. – Daniel Oct 31 '15 at 22:15
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    @Daniel What do you mean 'not abortable'? You see a captain and first officer activate the self-destruct to play chicken and see who de-activates it first? Self-destruction is -per definition- your last option and ordered only in the most dire circumstances. This question is 'in what instances has the order been given and executed?'. This is a valid example. – steenbergh Nov 01 '15 at 07:14
  • Sorry, I misread your answer and thought of a different episode. – Daniel Nov 02 '15 at 03:17