Vengeance Weapons (Spoilers, maybe)

[blssdwlf]

Not in cases where only one of the ships is at warp - say, "Journey to Babel" or "Elaan of Troyius". Plus we have beams going from Mars to Earth in no time flat in ENT, with otherwise phaserlike capabilities...

Yep. And even in cases where two superluminal ships with a gap between warp fields had zero relative motion to each other the phaser particle would still need to be also superluminal in order to carry the energy over to the target ship.

I'm starting to like your "lightning bolt" description coupled with the idea that a phaser lock is just painting the target to the tagged destination. It certainly would explain how the TOS phaser beams converged onto a target

A "lightning bolt" spanning the distance between two "special" points in space, the emitter and the somehow tagged destination, would also explain why phasers always take the same amount of time to reach their target, regardless of the distance to the target. If the target is two meters away, it takes three frames of film to get there; if the target is twenty thousand kilometers away, it takes three frames of film. Perhaps phaser beams are basically just destructive transporter beams that go from A to B instantaneously but waste a standard amount of time "emerging" thereafter, only they are so powerful that they leak light across the "channel" created between A and B, whereas transporter beams are invisible in their "channels".

 

[Timo]

It also explains the "proximity blast" thing: the beam reaches its target along the most efficient channel, but meets just empty vacuum there and has nowhere to go, so it splashes out from "phased space" into realspace in a fireball.

It doesn't explain how you can "walk" your phaser to the target on occasion, but it does explain why such a thing is done so very rarely: each time you move the tagged end of the phased conduit, you in essence need to create a new conduit, so it's better to just hold on to the one established tag even if you can easily tell that "walking" the beam a few inches to the left would create a deadlier effect. (This especially wrt hand phasers.)

Of course, "moving" and "not moving" are difficult things to define. It seems that it's fine to have your emitter aboard your starship corkscrewing around the target at high speed as long as the phaser connects at a specific spot on the equally corkscrewing target ship. This could be explained simply by saying that dwell time is essential for penetration of defenses, but it would also be consistent with the "tagged conduit end" model, assuming that the phased realm has special properties or "fix points" around starships (not a bad assumption).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It doesn't explain how you can "walk" your phaser to the target on occasion

Sure it does. If the phaser energy is riding some kind of guide beam to its destination, you simply walk the guide beam to the target until it makes contact. Even simpler in setups where the phasers are firing in pulses; each separate channel goes to a slightly different location.

 

[Neumann]

The movie was just released on wednesday here in my country. Is there any "official" word on the weapons we saw?

I did notice the odd phaser trayectories and photon torpedos with trails etc. Are there other weapons we did not get to see as the action was so heavy and fast?

 

[Timo]

That works if the role of the precursor beam is just to guide. If it is supposed to create a conduit, akin to the ionization path along which a lightning bolt travels, then moving the precursor "tag" means having to create an all-new path.

Klingons love to walk their pulses to a target, not wasting time and effort with making the first shot hit. The Defiant does that a lot, too. For some reason, Starfleet beams never do this, though: if they make contact, they stay in contact, but if they miss initially, they won't acquire contact later on, either.

(We see an extremely rare example of beam walking in "Jem'Hadar", as the runabout tries to hit the Jem'Hadar ship on a suicide run - and fails to connect the beam, despite swerving it rather desperately. Practically all other beams in Star Trek hit their target and stay with it.)

Are there other weapons we did not get to see as the action was so heavy and fast?

This is a good question, as dialogue doesn't necessarily specify which weapons are in use. We're still debating exactly what the Kelvin was firing in the previous movie, as the dialogue only associated her red beams with phasers but never mentioned the white pulses...

We know Marcus wanted "torpedoes" targeted on the Enterprise and got his giant gun barrels pointed at the starship as the result. We don't know the names of the other weapons seen. But we never really saw any other weapons besides these "curveball" red things, and there was loose talk about "phasers" there, so those two probably have to be paired in final analysis.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

@Timo - If the firing ship is in motion wouldn't this "conduit" also be constantly in motion for the duration of the weapons firing and thus continuously creating an all-new path? Haven't we seen instances where phaser beams are swept across an area?

 

[Timo]

We have - but so rarely (and basically never with handguns!*) that this very rarity calls for an explanation. After all, it would appear tactically supremely sensible to always sweep and never point...

* Klingons sweep in ST6:TUC as Kirk and Spock escape from Rura Penthe in a transporter beam. A phaser that is already firing is swept away in "In the Hands of the Prophets", and the beam keeps nicely going (but doesn't really destroy anything while sweeping, despite being set to kill). But there aren't too many examples beyond that! Even our DS9 heroes' Changeling-exposing "sweeps" are of the point-and-shoot, just-with-a-wider-beam type...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

Didn't they sweep with their hand phasers in "The Arsenal of Freedom"?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Didn't they sweep with their hand phasers in "The Arsenal of Freedom"?

They did. They also missed their target quite a few times, though not for lack of trying.

I don't really have a problem with a moving conduit myself. If the conduit propagates at the speed of light, the beam will sweep like an ordinary laser pointer. Whether the actual weapon fires in pulses or beams, the CONDUIT can move anywhere you want it to.

 

[Maurice]

The movie was just released on wednesday here in my country. Is there any "official" word on the weapons we saw?

I did notice the odd phaser trayectories and photon torpedos with trails etc. Are there other weapons we did not get to see as the action was so heavy and fast?

Cinefex July 2013 addresses some of this. Relevant quotes below. My apologies if someone else already shared this:

"The Vengeance is about two and a half times the size of the Enterprise...It was approximately 4,500 feet long".

The "ship's highly advanced drive capabilities by penetrating the Enterprise's warp tunnel and engaging Kirk in combat at warp speed". Basically, the Vengeance busts into the Enterprise's warp field.

The Vengeance bridge IS a redress of the Enterprise bridge, not a wholly different set.

"Vengeance weaponry featured massive cannons far outsizing Federation phasers or photon torpedoes...dynamic effects of the Vengeance artillery, plotting curved trajectories of missiles..."

That's about as close to official as you might get.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The movie was just released on wednesday here in my country. Is there any "official" word on the weapons we saw?

I did notice the odd phaser trayectories and photon torpedos with trails etc. Are there other weapons we did not get to see as the action was so heavy and fast?

Cinefex July 2013 addresses some of this. Relevant quotes below. My apologies if someone else already shared this:

"The Vengeance is about two and a half times the size of the Enterprise...It was approximately 4,500 feet long".

The "ship's highly advanced drive capabilities by penetrating the Enterprise's warp tunnel and engaging Kirk in combat at warp speed". Basically, the Vengeance busts into the Enterprise's warp field.

The Vengeance bridge IS a redress of the Enterprise bridge, not a wholly different set.

"Vengeance weaponry featured massive cannons far outsizing Federation phasers or photon torpedoes...dynamic effects of the Vengeance artillery, plotting curved trajectories of missiles..."

That's about as close to official as you might get.

That's fascinating, thank you! They're really mindfucking us, showing us weapons that look familiar yet on closer inspection aren't.

 

[blssdwlf]

"Warp tunnel" like Star Wars' and SG1's hyperdrive "tunnels". Interesting.

 

[Praetor]

I was about to say, what's this warp tunnel thing?

I like Timo's suggestion regarding phasers. Ties up the 'no faster than light phasers' thing, for the most part.

 

[SicOne]

What were the two long-barreled weapons we saw from the Vengeance's point-of-view as they lowered from the top of the screen and centered on Enterprise? Rail guns? Did they actually fire something, or is that when Scotty cut power to ship's weapons? I've only seen the movie once but can't remember; did we actually see what those things did?

 

[F. King Daniel]

^They were photon torpedo launchers, according to the dialogue. I'm thinking gigantic versions of those little pop-up rapid fire launchers on the USS Kelvin.

 

[SicOne]

^They were photon torpedo launchers, according to the dialogue. I'm thinking gigantic versions of those little pop-up rapid fire launchers on the USS Kelvin.

Oh. I thought the pop-up rapid fire launchers on Kelvin were just nuTrek phaser banks.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I thought so at first too, but the (admittedly early) script on IMSDB mentions the Kelvin firing phasers and photon torpedoes and since we saw giant red beams firing, the blue bolts must be mini torpedoes.

 

[publiusr]

Warp coil rail guns maybe--not unlike what accelerated the Warp 9 probe Worf's lady used....Usually so powerful only starbases can firethem.

But Vengeance is a flying starbase.

 

[Marion85]

Warp coil rail guns maybe--not unlike what accelerated the Warp 9 probe Worf's lady used....Usually so powerful only starbases can firethem.

But Vengeance is a flying starbase.

Is it possible that this is is the basis of all photon tech? With the being an uncharged warp coil, and the photon launcher "charging" that casing with a warp field to fire it? It makes more sense than the photon launcher just being magnetic rail excelerator, especially given k'ehleyr was able to fit in a probe/torpedo casing. There is no way she would fit in it if there had been some kind of warp propulsion inside the casing.

 

[Timo]

Yet photon torpedoes are always shown leaving their launchers at a snail's pace, compared with the concept of them reaching another ship hundreds of thousands of kilometers away in no time flat, let alone them doing warp. Independent acceleration after an essentially "swim-out" launch is what the visuals would be consistent with.

Perhaps torpedoes attain their speed after launch by firing a separate booster stage? Basically, you shove the warhead into the launch tube, automation adds the booster like one would add the bag of cordite into a cannon after the shell, and both are spat out in a brilliant ball of light that makes it impossible for us to see the booster stage.

A regular torp can then maneuver and, if necessary, slow down using those four engine nozzles astern. K'Ehleyr's gutted probe cannot...

Timo Saloniemi