A few phase questions?

[GalaxyClass1701]

It is supposed to say Phaser and not phase.

1. Did phaser banks not come till the 24th century. Even though the only time you here the lingo Phase Cannon is ENT, the phasers from TOS and its film would also appear to be Phase cannons and not banks.

2. What is the main difference between Phasers and Disruptors?

 

[Misfit Toy]

This would be better addressed in the Trek Tech forum...

 

[Christopher]

1. Did phaser banks not come till the 24th century. Even though the only time you here the lingo Phase Cannon is ENT, the phasers from TOS and its film would also appear to be Phase cannons and not banks.

I'm not sure how you're defining the distinction between a "cannon" and a "bank," but the term "phaser bank" definitely originated in TOS:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek&aq=f&aql=&aqi=&oq=
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek&aq=f&aql=&aqi=&oq=

A weapons bank would be a linear arrangement of weapons. In TOS, we usually saw a pair of phaser beams emerging from side-by-side points on the ship's hull. That would be a bank of two phasers. The more detailed TMP miniature reflected this; its phaser emplacements were arranged in banks of two.

2. What is the main difference between Phasers and Disruptors?

Phasers are used by Us, disruptors are used by Them. Beyond that, it's just handwaving.

The original idea behind "disruptors" in Trek (specifically "A Taste of Armageddon," where the term was first used) was that they were sonic weapons, using vibrations to shake things apart. But obviously that can't work for a weapon that operates in vacuum between spaceships.

 

[GalaxyClass1701]

The way I always thought of it was a bank is like a phaser strip that allows a phase to fire from multiple angles in almost any direstion. Whil phase cannons would be cannons and while can change the angle would be very limited in that area?

 

[Christopher]

No, a bank is any cluster of side-by-side objects. A phaser strip is an advanced form of phaser bank with a large number of contiguous emitters. It's often called a phaser array instead of a bank.

The term "cannon" is rarely used in a Trek context outside of ENT's phase cannons. In fact, the term "phaser cannon" has never been used in onscreen dialogue to refer to a Starfleet weapon (its one spoken use I can find is to refer to an alien ship's weapons in VGR: "Infinite Regress"), although there have been some non-dialogue or behind-the-scenes references to the term, mainly in application to the Defiant's pulse phaser emitters:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Phaser_cannon

Ship-mounted phasers are generally just called phasers, phaser banks, or phaser arrays. An individual unit in a bank or array is a phaser emitter. These emitters are generally represented as spheres that can rotate to point in many directions, as for instance:

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/9/93/USS_Enterprise_forward_phaser_banks.jpg

 

[Mister_Atoz]

Christopher hit it on the head...but since I was already typing my response, here goes:

I think you're putting too much thought into the difference between the term "bank" "cannon" and "arrays"

Think of the term "phaser bank" as being similar to a turret on a battleship. A single turret can have one, two, three or even four guns all serviced by the same crewmen, sharing munitions hoists, etc.

Therefore, a "phaser bank" is made up of one or more phaser cannons that probably have shared power and targeting systems, and if we're talking TOS Season 1 the same expendable red shirts and their fiancee's manning them.

An array is just another term used to describe the same thing, now whether or not you would consider a bank with only two guns an "array" is entirely up to you...

as a side note, Kirk calls them "phaser guns" in 'Spectre of the Gun' and I think Sulu refers to "photon torpedo banks" in 'arena'

 

[Christopher]

We also hear it in "The Corbomite Maneuver": "Bridge to phaser gun crew."

 

[Timo]

The original idea behind "disruptors" in Trek (specifically "A Taste of Armageddon," where the term was first used) was that they were sonic weapons, using vibrations to shake things apart. But obviously that can't work for a weapon that operates in vacuum between spaceships.

Why not? Vibrations travel readily in vacuum. One just needs to make sure they are electromagnetic vibrations. A microwave gun could achieve the effect described in "A Taste of Armageddon", that of inducing massively powerful sonic vibrations in the target.

Perhaps disruptive vibrations induced in the target are one mode in which the famously multimodal phasers can operate? A gun that concentrates on achieving this effect in an optimal manner would be a "disruptor", or sometimes "phase disruptor", a subtype of phaser. A gun that uses other aspects of the phasing phenomenon might warrant the more generic name "phaser". Or then phasing is another narrow model among the multiple possible ones, and the one favored by "phasers".

Today, we speak of "revolvers" and "pistols". If used correctly (which is surprisingly rarely the case), the first term refers to a very specific type of mechanism by which one can introduce repeated firing to a pistol. The latter term is very generic, and covers revolvers, semi-automatic and automatic pistols, and assorted one-shot-per-barrel weapons, as long as they are handguns. However, it's also correct to use "pistol" to specifically denote semi-automatic pistols, as opposed to revolvers and the rest.

I'd prefer to think of "disruptor" and "phaser" in generally similar terms: they do denote some sort of a specific mechanism or basic operating principle, but there's also genericity to the terms, and only a 24th century native could tell how the terminology is properly used; like "revolver" vs. "pistol", the usage cannot be divined from "first principles" or basic semantics, but requires direct knowledge of the actual customs that dictate the usage.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unicron]

I always liked the explanation in one of the sources (I'm tempted to say either in SFC3 or the DS9 TM, but I forget which right now) that a disruptor pulse is unstable versus that of a traditional phaser beam, and is designed to literally disrupt the target at a molecular level. So it has a potential advantage in terms of damage, but perhaps might have a disadvantage in terms of range. The Romulan plasma weapons would seem to be a logical evolution of this idea, as plasma is an even more unstable form of energy that is not in common use among most of the other powers.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

1. Did phaser banks not come till the 24th century. Even though the only time you here the lingo Phase Cannon is ENT, the phasers from TOS and its film would also appear to be Phase cannons and not banks.

Actually, I'm half convinced that "phase cannon" is just a shortening of "phased plasma cannon" or something like that. I think the phase weapons of the 22nd century were an evolutionary step between plasma weapons and what would technically be known as "phased-matter particle weapons," later shortened to "phasers."

Actual honest-to-god phasers probably didn't exist until the middle of the 23rd century.

2. What is the main difference between Phasers and Disruptors?

Based on dialog from Hero Worship, disruptors are probably some type of gravitic weapon that destroy their targets a number of ways, including vibration (accelerating an object back and forth 350 times a second, 350 gravities each way), compression (producing an implosive force at 350 gravities) or torsion (producing a sheering/twisting force that literally tears the target apart like a phone book).

In other words, disruptors operate as a type of force beam; essentially a weaponized tractor beam that doesn't just grab you, it also crushes/twists/shakes/tears/pounds you like a giant gravitational claw.

 

[Christopher]

In John M. Ford's novel The Final Reflection, it was asserted that the Klingon word for "disruptor" literally translated as "shake-it-till-it-falls-apart weapon."

 

[Myasishchev]

I really just see phasers and disruptors as the same thing. Riker apparently did too, when he asked that Romulan commander in "Contagion" if they had phaser capacity. A slender reed, perhaps, but if they were meaningfully different, it would have been a meaningless question. "Phaser" strikes me as a word like "coke" or "kleenex," while "disruptor" would be analogous to "soda" or "tissue." I generally see them as neutral particle beam weapons.

I suppose they might use different beam composition. Nothing intrinsic to the NPB concept requires using the same accelerated material for essentially similar weapons.

 

[sojourner]

^But Romulans don't use disrupters, they use Phasers and Plasma weapons.

 

[Christopher]

Romulans do indeed use disruptors. This was mentioned in dialogue in "The Enemy," "Hero Worship," "The Mind's Eye," "Unification," "Face of the Enemy," "Timescape," and Generations.

 

[AnyStar]

as to question 1: the "phaser strips" were merely a series of phasers in parralel order that are capable of transferring their power charges to the phaser next in line, in order to boost and direct the fire. the "strip" covering them was merely a cap on the surface that was there to focus and aim the output.

 

[Myasishchev]

Romulans do indeed use disruptors. This was mentioned in dialogue in "The Enemy," "Hero Worship," "The Mind's Eye," "Unification," "Face of the Enemy," "Timescape," and Generations.

Yeppers.

Plasma weapons

Oh, God, not plasma weapons. They're the most pernicious sci fi concept since the humanoid alien, and so much less necessary or useful.

At least DS9 plasma torpedoes can be rationalized as thermonuclear bombs. The TOS plasma weapon, on the other hand, was... well, a wizard. In plasma form.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Romulans do indeed use disruptors. This was mentioned in dialogue in "The Enemy," "Hero Worship," "The Mind's Eye," "Unification," "Face of the Enemy," "Timescape," and Generations.

Yeppers.

Plasma weapons

Oh, God, not plasma weapons. They're the most pernicious sci fi concept since the humanoid alien, and so much less necessary or useful.

Not necessarily. A plasmoid in a vacuum can exist for a couple of seconds or even minutes just by its own internal magnetic field; you can really mess a guy up if you fire a high-temperature high-energy plasmoid at him at half the speed of light.

 

[sojourner]

Romulans do indeed use disruptors. This was mentioned in dialogue in "The Enemy," "Hero Worship," "The Mind's Eye," "Unification," "Face of the Enemy," "Timescape," and Generations.

Yeppers.

Plasma weapons

Oh, God, not plasma weapons. They're the most pernicious sci fi concept since the humanoid alien, and so much less necessary or useful.

At least DS9 plasma torpedoes can be rationalized as thermonuclear bombs. The TOS plasma weapon, on the other hand, was... well, a wizard. In plasma form.

Eh, well, in SFB Romulans use plasmas and phasers, no disrupters.

 

[Myasishchev]

I stand by "pernicious."

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Be that as it may, plasma weapons are indeed canon. If you have to come up with a scientific explanation to rationalize them, you can do alot worse than high-velocity plasmoids.