Well, maybe you can have it both ways. Here you have a scotchlite case that is both white and black:
http://www.doobybrain.com/2008/12/17...lective-vinyl/
So I might say that, when the torpedo ignites, it is a super scotchilte raytheon type model effect.
Or maybe a better example would be the nuclear lightbulb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_lightbulb
Maybe this sucker is just an antimatter lightbulb., with TOS being quanta of photons in a globule that has a strange type of magnetism to let it seek a ground like ball lightning.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1...t-power-source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning
Then too, there is the Q-ball:
"Loosely speaking, the Q-ball is a finite-sized "blob" containing a large number of particles."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-ball