The Phaser and The Bum

In The City on the Edge of Forever, we see McCoy go back in time in a drug induced state. He meets a street bum and then passes out. The bum pats down McCoy and steals his phaser.

As the bum checks out the phaser, he appears to turn the wheel on top, the phaser then begins a slow whine, almost as if warming up. The bum then turns the phaser around and vaporizes himself.

I always wondered what exactly happened here. We never heard the slow whine of a phaser before (except in overload) so did the bum accidentally set the overload on the phaser? I don't think so because I would imagine there would be some type of explosion. It seems as if the phaser fired while the bum had it pointed at himself.

Every time I saw that episode, I just figured that the slow whine build up was due to the fact that McCoy had traveled back in time and it somehow had an effect on the phaser.

Any other explanations for this scene?

 

Why would time travel affect the phaser and not the Enterprise crew? Stay away from nonsense like that unless you're writing a story and need it to set up a situation. (But such an excuse is weak, and your audience will dislike you for it.)

I'd say you already figured out the situation. The bum pushed the phaser into overload, then shot himself before the explosion—which would have taken out McCoy, at least according to Franz Joseph's TECHNICAL MANUAL.

 

Well, if we actually count "Star Trek: Voyager"[/b], we know trips through time do affect people. So the Enterprise crew were affected, but in a negligable way that likely was not onlu untracebable in their time but also they didn't even know to look for. So it is not entirely without reason old equipment like that could be affected in some way. We have no idea the affects of time travel, especially on the substances in the phaser.

 

Yeah because we NEVER saw nonsense in a Sci-fi show especially with regards to time travel!

 

The other oddity about the scene is: what happened to the phaser? Even if it vaporized the bum, did it vaporize itself too? How would that work? We should have seen/heard the phaser clatter to the street after the bum disappeared.

 

The whole idea behind the scene is he doesn't understand future-tech which causes it to malfunction. So I don't think he just shot himself. I think he made it overload and rather than just blow up it also discharged. So the phaser would not drop to the ground afterwards intact.

 

But if you watch the scene, all he does is move the wheel a little and then looks the phaser over. Maybe he pressed the trigger on the bottom, I don't know, but from what's shown on screen, it's difficult to think he somehow set it to overload. Especially if you look at "A Private Little War" where Nona (Tyree's wife) has the phaser and tries desperately to get it to fire and yet nothing happens. Maybe the "safety" was on?

I think that perhaps the Guardian of Forever could have affected the phaser, not so much time travel itself, but the manner in which time travel was carried out. We don't know how the Guardian worked, maybe it had some type of draining effect on the phaser which then needed to "warm up" before being ready to use and then the bum just pressed the trigger while it was pointing at himself. Since he was holding the phaser, it was also vaporized, the same way everything attached to the man was vaporized too.

 

I agree with that! The phaser vaporized itself and the tramp!
JB

 

Right. That's the only conclusion that accounts for all the audio and visual cues.

He accidentally put it into overload, then fumbled to try to stop the whining, accidentally vaporizing himself. Makes perfect sense.

 

The script is no help. It describes the action thusly:

 

Without the overload whine, and just a phaser sound, there wouldn't be any question that he'd just shot himself accidentally, I think.

 

Right. Basically exactly what happened with the old-style phaser that vaporized Dr. Korby and Andrea.

 

This is how they take care of the homeless in the future. Must make life difficult for Starfleet CSI to solve crimes.

 

Maybe the phaser had another mode. Maybe it had a delayed firing mode in which you set it and so many seconds later it fired its beam (as opposed to just blowing up when set to overload.) The whining build up was an audio queue to let the person know it was charging up to fire.

 

LMFAOschwarz points to the answer from "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" as the androids--and the old style Phaser all vanish when the trigger is pulled. It is clear that a Phaser hitting the object holding it would (naturally) consume the weapon, too. "Rodent" was doomed from the moment he fiddled with the Phaser controls.

 

I don't think so. The only time anything like this sound was used in any other episode was when a phaser was on overload. I don't see why you'd want to announce to your enemies that you were about to vaporize them anyway.

 

Maybe it does for test fires. I don't think we know the full settings a TOS hand phaser has. I assume it doesn't have as much as a TNG[/i] phaser, but at least here are some general settings is has based on my knowledge and knowledge gleaned from memory-alpha.org:

• Cutting setting.
• Self-destruct setting.
• Some kind of setting that allows you to harness the energy from it.
• Stun setting.
• Wide-beam setting.
• Kill setting.
• "Base cycle", what ever that means.
• And possibly some kind of heaing setting, though this likely could just be a regular beam firing that heats up an object.

 

So that automatically means that the sound can ONLY be used for an overload? The sound could simply mean that the phaser is about to blow up/fire. Besides the sound isn't the same as when the phaser in The Conscience of The King was set to overload. It may have been close to the sound in The Cage but that doesn't mean anything.

Maybe as a distraction? Hey...what's that noise? Someone go investigate. I'm sure there was a silent stealth mode also. Or maybe a delayed firing wasn't necessarily meant for defensive purposes, phasers can be used as tools and the whine would be a warning.

 

Didn't the Phaser IV held by Captain Tarrell also vaporize when he shot himself in TWOK?

 

Yes, I think it's been established that phasers get vaporized by someone shooting themselves.