ISS Enterprise caught in a Tholian Web while cloaked
A Tholian drydock containment web
The USS Enterprise encased in a Tholian web
The Tholian web is an energy net that is "spun" by Tholian spacecraft around an immobilized enemy vessel. The more vessels that are used to generate the web, the faster it is deployed. A web can be disrupted by destroying the ships creating web before they finish.
The Tholians in the mirror universe are also capable of creating webs. In 2155, the ISS Enterprise (NX-01) was destroyed while caught in a Tholian web. (ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly") The Tholians proceeded to form another web to prevent surviving Enterprise personnel from escaping in the USS Defiant, however the Defiant destroyed the Tholian ships and escaped. (ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II")
In 2268, the USS Enterprise was nearly trapped inside of such a web while on a mission to rescue Captain Kirk from spatial interphase. (TOS: "The Tholian Web")
A Tholian web is a series of energy filaments which are generated in a web pattern around the target vessel, once these filaments have been sealed, the web becomes self-generating and the web spinner craft no longer need to maintain the web. Anything inside the web is immobilized in two manners. Firstly, if any craft attempts to leave the web, they may be shredded by the Tholian web filaments, as happened to many of the Escape pods from the ISS Enterprise.
Weapons fire from physical armament, such as photon torpedoes, are also destroyed by the energy filaments and the resulting detonation energy is dispered across the energy filaments, rendering the attack useless.
As the field contracts, the ship inside is destroyed when it comes into contact with the energy filaments, as the result the ISS Enterprise during its attempt to seize the USS Defiant from Tholian space.
The Tholian web can also be used as a high power immobilization field/tractor beam to pull captured starships back to Tholian territory, the USS Enterprise narrowly escaped being dragged back to a Tholian port during the original USS Defiant incident.
- The effects for the Tholian web in The Original Series was created by Mike Minor.