TOS Phasers

[CorporalCaptain]

OK; I'll concede that point!

[SeerSGB]

Could there be an element of Transporter tech or theory at work in a phaser? It might account for why there's no collateral damage. The phaser's beam works as a very crude transporter effect: destroying the target, but limiting the collateral damage.

Timo wrote:

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I'm not really convinced...

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albu...ehunted230.jpg

They probably had to use duct tape to keep the prop from falling out!

Timo Saloniemi

Maybe (in universe) by TNG's time phasers have some sort of universal charge part or have a "emergency setting" that allows them to be used a battery packs for Starfleet tech.

[Metryq]

SeerSGB wrote:

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Maybe (in universe) by TNG's time phasers have some sort of universal charge part or have a "emergency setting" that allows them to be used a battery packs for Starfleet tech.

A special mode named after Engineer Scott, following his adaptation of the phasers in "The Galileo Seven."

(While working at a multimedia company during the '90s, a co-worker named Doug modified a camcorder with a studio zoom controller. Camcorders were much bigger back then. One "wore" the camera on a shoulder, and the zoom and focus controls were right on the lens. Clamping a controller to the carry handle so that it stuck straight out the back greatly facilitated operation when the camera was tripod mounted. The pistol grip also helped when hand-holding the camera in a low-slung fashion. We later called it "Douging the camera.")

[Timo]

I'd rather approach the phasers-as-batteries issue from the other end: a method exists for charging the phasers in the first place. Having this be as universal as possible would eliminate the traditional problem of castaways and soldiers overall - ammunition would no longer be a scarce commodity, more vital than water or food because of its utter irreplaceability, but could be obtained from any old household socket (or wireless system) normally used for keeping the kitchen appliances and PADDs charged.

If phasers get their charge from universal household sockets/powerfields, it would be easy to postulate that power can also flow in the other direction, between any arbitrarily chosen applications and storage media.

Timo Saloniemi

[Metryq]

@Timo, perhaps by TNG time and later, that may be the case. But in "The Galileo Seven" it sounded like an ad-libbed idea:

SCOTT: It's dangerous, but it might work.
SPOCK: Go, Mister Scott.
SCOTT: I can adjust the main reactor to function with a substitute fuel supply.
SPOCK: That's all very well, but we don't have a substitute supply.
SCOTT: Aye, we do. Our phasers. I can adapt them and use their energy. It'll take time, but it's possible.

[Silvercrest]

Timo wrote:

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Doesn't sound likely. A heater does heat things - surely a phaser will phase them!

We even see it doing that very thing. That is, whenever our heroes or villains describe something as being "phased", the same thing happens to it that happens to the victims of phasers: invisibility, more or less permanent removal from this realm of existence.

Timo Saloniemi

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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Au contraire.

A laser doesn't lase things; it itself lases.

ETA: To clarify, while Wiktionary recognizes both transitive and intransitive forms of lase [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lase], Merriam-Webster recognizes only the intransitive form [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lase], which is my point.

Timo wrote:

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Both interpretations are possible for "phaser" - but when we note that the same device is called a "phase disruptor" on occasion (say, "Return to Grace"), and seems to be pretty much the same as "disruptor" elsewhere, and we witness the target being the party being disrupted or phased (by the usual definition of the former word, by the common Treknobabble definition of the latter), one of the interpretations would seem to take precedence.

In any case, it would be a bit awkward and confusing for a device called "phaser" to exist independent of the (visually closely related) phenomenon of "phasing". "Awkward" and "confusing" are things we'd expect to find in the real world, not in a fictional construct...

Timo Saloniemi

To add to the confusion:
It's assumed by the name that the "phase pistol" in ENT is a technological precursor to the phaser, but it does not appear able to remove targets from this universe.

Malcolm Reed: "They have two settings, stun and kill. It would be best not to confuse them."

If we assume it uses the same technology as a phaser, then it's better to assume that "phasing" is something done to the ammo, not the target.

[scotpens]

The Lensman wrote:

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For some reason, maybe the original Tech Manual I forget, my brother and I used the term "dematerialize" for that glowing\vanish effect.

From TMOST:

All phasers emit a beam of energy similar to the light beam emitted by a Laser, but of a pulsating nature that can be "phased" to interfere or interact with the wave patterns of any molecular form. Phaser beams can be fired steadily, in one long burst, or in intermittent "squirts" of "phased" energy. They can be set to dematerialize (converting matter to energy), disrupt (breaking down cohesion), heat (increasing molecular velocity), or stun (neural impact).

[Timo]

Treknology and TMoST tend to be mutually exclusive: basically everything the book ever suggested, online developments have proven incorrect. Luckily, phasers still remain a vague technology, not easily contradicted one way or another..

Scotty: "I can adjust the main reactor to function with a substitute fuel supply."
Spock: "That's all very well, but we don't have a substitute supply."
Scotty: "Aye, we do. Our phasers. I can adapt them and use their energy."

The interesting thing here is that the original fuel was a fluid stored in a tank, probably gaseous or cryogenic because when leaking out it disappeared without leaving a puddle. But Scotty said they lost it all when a leak indeed developed - yet after the phaser trick, there suddenly is fluid in the tanks again! Or at least something that can be measured as "fifteen pounds psi" (a nonsense measure that was probably meant to read "15 psi", a valid measure of pressure and useful for gaseous fuel being stored under pressure) and sprayed out to create a light show.

Do phaser batteries store energy in fluid form? Was Scotty draining gas out of them and into the shuttle tanks? The shuttlecraft also had "batteries", and those were used for electrifying the hull and repelling the savages - plus "boosters" which seemed to spray out gas and generate thrust in the process. These were clearly different systems from each other, and from the main power or propulsion system, the one that used the fluid they lost in the leak. It's a jumbled mess...

...And certainly enough to make this particular phaser-draining trick "ad-libbed" even if getting power out of phaser power packs in general were the most routine thing in the world.

Timo Saloniemi

[Silvercrest]

That never made sense to me either. The best I could come up with was that the shuttle had a fuel synthesizer that couldn't be used until Scotty powered it with a phaser.

The dialogue above doesn't outright contradict that, but it only works if you assume Spock and Scotty are leaving out half the details.

[Timo]

If the fluid fuel were cryogenic, we could argue that a leak that allowed the tanks to equalize with outside air would still leave some of the stuff sloshing inside the tanks - but unreachable and useless, as there was no pressure and no means of driving it into the power generation or propulsion system.

So we could say that the shuttle was using something like slush deuterium for its main powerplant (say, a fusion generator, or the "ion" powerplant mentioned in "The Menagerie", whatever that is), and this in turn provided power to the usual multiple drive systems in forms X (say, warp plasma) for the space drive and Y (say, electricity) for the liftoff gravitics. Further, phaser batteries would store energy in the form Y as well, and so would the shuttle's batteries.

So the shuttle could go to space by powering its liftoff engine with Y from phaser batteries or onboard batteries. Not like a rocket which accelerates madly in order to reach space before fuel runs out (a necessity with chemical rockets), but like an elevator which slowly works its way up but uses very little energy per kilometer or per second. That's what one would expect from an antigravity drive, really. By dumping a few crewmen and the porta-pot, the antigravity elevator would take the shuttle back to space again, even though the main reactor was out of its fluid fuel and could not power up the actual spaceflight engines.

But if a few cavemen tried to hitch a ride, then although the craft had enough stored energy to reach space, it would not be able to cope with the temporary excess burden, as there was an absolute cap on power. So Scotty's answer to Spock that the batteries are fine but won't be able to lift them off could be taken to mean that they can't take off on battery power yet! Not until a few more phasers have been drained into the batteries.

No fluid fuel would actually be added to the shuttle by the tapping of the phasers, then. Scotty would just get more energy into the batteries, in form Y, and this would eventually be used to hover the shuttle and float it to orbit. And once the craft reached space, Spock would be able to spit out the remaining drops of fluid from the main tanks, simply by opening the valves against the zero pressure and zero gravity of space (and perhaps also nudging the shuttle a little with the gravitics).

That would be consistent with the dialogue, too, and would allow phasers to store their power in non-fluid form - say, in the sarium krellide batteries described in the TNG Tech Manual and retroactively established as having been present in 22nd century phasers as well (ENT "Andorian Incident", "Cogenitor").

Timo Saloniemi

[Metryq]

The "foosh" gun from SIXTH DAY was rationalized as a handheld chemical LASER pistol. The prop used a liquid fuel to create the on-camera flame effect.

Perhaps the phasers also use a liquid fuel at "15 pounds psi" that lases at "one to the fourth power."

[Shawnster]

Silvercrest wrote:

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That never made sense to me either. The best I could come up with was that the shuttle had a fuel synthesizer that couldn't be used until Scotty powered it with a phaser.

The dialogue above doesn't outright contradict that, but it only works if you assume Spock and Scotty are leaving out half the details.

In Farscape, the Pulse Pistols were powered by oil. Similarly, the EU indicates that Star Wars hand weapons are likewise powered by a gas.

[blssdwlf]

Silvercrest wrote:

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That never made sense to me either. The best I could come up with was that the shuttle had a fuel synthesizer that couldn't be used until Scotty powered it with a phaser.

The dialogue above doesn't outright contradict that, but it only works if you assume Spock and Scotty are leaving out half the details.

I think that makes the most sense. When I watch the episode, Scotty appeared to be using a hand-held device to "adapt" the phaser. Then he held the phaser upside down and into floor bay aimed forward and continued to use the hand-held device which presumably was triggering the phaser to dump it's energy in a non-destructive ("adapted") setting into the reactor to generate more fuel.

Since "The Naked Time" shows that a phaser can emit energy without a visible beam, I think it could be very well that the phaser was firing or transferring energy through it's emitter.

IMHO

[CorporalCaptain]

scotpens wrote:

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From TMOST:

Ah, thanks for that.

Timo wrote:

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Treknology and TMoST tend to be mutually exclusive: basically everything the book ever suggested, online developments have proven incorrect. Luckily, phasers still remain a vague technology, not easily contradicted one way or another..

Even so, the passage supports intent for TOS.

[Timo]

Liquids today are a good means of storing energy, especially in portable applications such as automobiles, cell phones or handguns. The best energy storage/release we can hope for is chemically based, and liquid reactants are easy to bring together, and to refill if the process is irreversible and consumes reactants. Solids compete mainly because they are less prone to leaks and more stable in long term storage applications.

In Trek, energy clearly isn't stored in mundane chemical bonds any more, or a hand phaser would need a fuel tank similar to that of a flamethrower. Liquids might still be in use for some reason X, though. But the fluid that powered the shuttle seemed to be consumed in the process - that is, its remaining quantity dictated the remaining level of energy. If phasers can be charged or drained without physical connections (as per "The Galileo Seven" but others as well), then assuming that they use liquid fuel forces us to assume they feature a liquid fuel generator as well... The treknomagical sarium krellide cells make more sense overall, in terms of continuity at least.

One important thing about the shuttle fuel replenishment mystery is that as far as we can tell, Scotty never repaired the leak that cost them their original fuel. Use of phasers seemed to sidestep the leak issue altogether: phaser power was a "substitute fuel supply", not a means of getting more of the usual fuel, and the main power system had to be specially "adapted" to use this substitute fuel.

Timo Saloniemi