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Miranda class starship phasers

James Wright

Commodore
Commodore
Can someone help me with something?
The rollbar of the Miranda class starship as seen in Star Trek II TWOK, did if have only fore and aft firing phasers or were also port and starboard firing phasers?

James
 
The shooting model of the Reliant had the same turreted phasers on the saucer section that the Enterprise-refit had. That would be pairs located port/starboard/forward on both the top and bottom of the saucer.
 
To further clarify, this is what the roll bar phaser units looked like: (Cut and paste the link, perhaps with ? added to the end, to defeat hotlink-ban measures)

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/mechanics/brattain1.jpg

At the lower right corner, you can see that the roll bar corner cylinders each had two "standard" single phaser turrets, surrounded by yellow markers just like the twin turrets on the hull were. The beams emanated from these turrets. There were no beams coming from the front ends of the cylinders, or from the aft ends.

Apparently, the front and aft ends weren't weapons - for all we know, they may have been navigational deflectors, considering they are shaped vaguely like the forward end of the Enterprise secondary hull. At one point, a white light was also seen shining from the forward end.

Too bad that the TrekCore screencaps are very poor in this respect: they fail to show where the beams are really coming from. But by slo-mo checking of the actual movie, you can see how the beams come from the sides of the cylinders.

So, in total:

* three times two phasers on saucer top
* three times two phasers on saucer bottom
* two times one phaser on each rollbar corner
* just possibly two times one phaser below the impulse engine - these are only visible in a backstage photo of the model ventral side, and are removed (if they ever really were there) from all subsequent appearances of this model, as well as from all future Miranda models

So, sixteen (or just possibly eighteen) phasers, plus four torpedo tubes, built into the model. On par with the decidedly eighteen phasers and two tubes of Kirk's ship...

Timo Saloniemi
 
Compared to the Miranda class starship how is the Soyuz class starship armed?
Are there any close up pictures of the Soyuz class model?
 
At the lower right corner, you can see that the roll bar corner cylinders each had two "standard" single phaser turrets, surrounded by yellow markers just like the twin turrets on the hull were. The beams emanated from these turrets. There were no beams coming from the front ends of the cylinders, or from the aft ends.

I beg to differ:
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twok/ch13/twok0982.jpg

Also, those yellow squares have no ball turret detail in them, and I've always taken them to be some kind of warning panels related to the internal mechanism.
 
There's definately phaser beams coming from the front (feasibly the rear as well) of those assembies. And yes there definately aren't any ball turrets within those yellow warning rectangles, but if you look along the blue area running fore/aft, there's 2 large raised rectangles with nubs on them. In TWOK there seems to be phaser beams coming from those.
Yes, there seems to be beams coming from just below them as well here the yellow warning marks are as well. In my mind that can be explained by the attempt at making the beam firing FX look more animated and kinetic and not to be taken literally in this instance. Even now with precise CG, oversights like that happen (torps coming from observation domes in "Enterprise", phasers coming from torpedo tubes in TNG).

So, the front and rear of those assemblies could be megaphasers just from the shear size? The broadside ones could be just as powerful or maybe in between the power of the front/rear ones and the standard ball turrets. Just going by the size.
 
I meant that in the movie they come from the front as well, not just the screencaps you gave. I guess I should have specified.
 
I don't think Reliant ever fired aft phasers from the rollbar or any other position, neither did Enterprise.
The Reliant did fire aft torpedoes on two occasions, one was a hit, the second a miss.

P.S.
I'm not trying to pick a fight with you but will you magnify both images of phaser fire from reliants' rollbar by at least 300% and take a look?
 
I don't think Reliant ever fired aft phasers from the rollbar or any other position, neither did Enterprise.
The Reliant did fire aft torpedoes on two occasions, one was a hit, the second a miss.

P.S.
I'm not trying to pick a fight with you but will you magnify both images of phaser fire from reliants' rollbar by at least 300% and take a look?

No problem. I didn't think that you were.
:)

I think we're on the same page. As you say, phaser fire from both the side of the rollbar as well as front, both as seen in the screencaps posted.
I really fubared up my sentences in my post.

I should have said, in the movie we see firing from the front. But as well, in the screencaps, they're from the sides. But in the model picture the only place they could be coming from is the larger rectangles, not the yellow markings.
Sorry for the confusion.
 
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I wish there were pictures of the Reliant model as it was built for ST II, when I look at those pictures I see phaser fire coming from the top edge from what appears to be a projection similar to what is on the front of the rollbar.(the heavier phaser)
The second phaser shot appears to originate below the location of the first shot,on the side from what appears to be just a regular turret.
P.S.
You'd better reverse the sequence that I put those phaser shots in, I goofed on that one!:biggrin:
 
Here's a couple of pics I had in my files. Not sure when they were taken.

reliant1.jpg


reliant2.jpg
 
Thanks for posting those pictures, could those yellow places be for phaser turret emplacements when the model is complete?
 
Those were taken looooong after the show was over, and there was never anything there except the yellow rectangles.
 
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twokhd/twokhd0446.jpg

The flash of the weapons firing appears to be on the side of the unit. Someone with the bluray could verify this exactly.

And TIMO doesn't mean there are phasers IN the yellow rectangles, but that the said rectangles appear to be flanking a pair of what look like swiveling turrets (the blue-gray details) with phaser "nipples" on them.

reliant1.jpg
 
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You are ALL forgetting that yellow geometric shapes with red outlines were also used for the reaction control thruster systems as well. However, all the RCS emplacements had small lights in them, presumably to imply the existence of chemical thruster nozzles. To be fair, I am not saying that is what these squares are, any more than they can possibly be lateral phaser turrets. However, I am saying that I'm pretty sure they're more serving as a warning signage that a phaser emitter exists on both ends, so don't park your work bee in front of them, any more than you should stand in front of the RCS modules, lest ye get sand-blasted by God-knows-what-comes-out-of-those-things.

As for the inconsistent fire sources shown in the various screen caps, I'm chalking that up to frame mis-alignment of the animation over the ship - an artifact that was rampant when dealing with the old analog-style composite process. You could see a perfect example of this, as the E-A was sailing off into the sunset at the end of STVI, the impulse engine lights were deviating more away from the engine placements as the miniature got farther away from the camera. And others have mentioned erroneous emission locations throughout Trek history of phasers and torpedoes on multiple occasions, due either to compositing errors, or lack of understanding by the effects guys as to how the ship worked.

This is nothing more than that, I wager.
 
I had not noticed those two little nubs as the phaser emitters until you guys pointed that out. Wow. That kinda explains why the rollbar phasers could only fire straight ahead instead of converging on a more narrow spot on the Enterprise.

Reliant-Rollbar-Phasers.jpg
 
Yellow marking are just warning markings. I always just figured the rollbar ones to be general warnings that there's a big-ass phaser here with some kind of dangerous (cooling?) mechanism sticking out of it.
 
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