Can someone please help me out

[Zeratul]

Hey im new here and i have a question, so I was watching TOS the other day and I noticed something. During the corse of the episode the entire crew of the Enterprise get transported onto Mudd's planet. When they shortout all of the android they somehow manage to get back onto the Enterprise am I missing something? I was under the impression that when they shorted out Norman all other androids also shorted out does anyone have any ideas?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Welcome, Zeratul.

That's a really good observation. The name of the episode in question is I, Mudd. There's no definitive answer on screen that I know of, and I can only speculate. But the following seems reasonable to me.

There were androids aboard the Enterprise to prepare her for their mission of taking over the galaxy. These androids on the ship would have been deactivated when Norman crashed. Once he was reprogrammed, they were reprogrammed too, and they were ordered to beam up a crew to operate the transporters to beam up everybody else.

Hope that makes sense!

 

[Zeratul]

Thank you!! that was the closest thing that I could come up with as well. I actually wasn't even sure if this was the right place to post a question like this. I have decided to watch TOS with a critical eye and try to find any unexplained occurrences.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

You're welcome. You won't find a shortage of people willing to discuss Star Trek here.

 

[Zeratul]

Alright so I have another question. I was watching Devil in the Dark and I liked how they explained the difference in power between Phaser one and Phaser two. Phaser is the small wireless mouse like phaser they use and phaser two looks like a more traditional gun. My question is on the very first episodes they use a phaser that is different than either gun. I was wondering if anyone had specs of this phaser that Star Fleet uses. I have not yet finished TOS, I just finished The Deadly Years, so I am sorry if it is explained later in the series. O yea sometimes the Phaser fire is red and other times its blue is there a power difference?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

There is little that is "canonical" about the hand weapons that I think you are talking about. http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Laser_pistol links to a Memory Alpha article about them. The paragraph in the background section referring to The Making of Star Trek explains that the name "laser" was dropped and replaced by "phaser", which evidently occurred after The Cage was made and before Where No Man Has Gone Before.

According to The Making of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry was made aware by a technical adviser of the fact that lasers could not do the things he wanted his fictional weapons to do and invented the term "phaser" to use instead.

The prop was used in the other episodes listed on the page:

• The Cage
• Where No Man Has Gone Before
• The Man Trap
• What Are Little Girls Made Of?

and also

• The Menagerie, Part I
• The Menagerie, Part II

which contains most of the footage from The Cage. As far as I know, the word "phaser" is never used to describe the prop. That doesn't mean it probably shouldn't be thought of as a phaser; I kind of lean towards the idea that it should be, sort as a retcon. This point is also addressed in the background section of that article:

While no dialog in any episode after "The Cage" indicates whether the pistols were lasers or phasers, a stage direction on page 18 of the revised final draft of "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" called for an old-style phaser to be used by Brown. It is noteworthy that this weapon vaporized the android Kirk in a manner more consistent with phaser technology than lasers.

I searched the transcripts for all the episodes in question at http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/episodes.htm and can confirm this.

See also http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Phaser_rifle#History.

By the way, Memory Alpha is a pretty good resource. Not infallible, but generally OK. The chakoteya.net site is also something I frequently refer to.

 

[Zeratul]

Sorry im new to this whole Star Trek stuff haha. After looking on that site I still see nothing about the blue Phaser. I noticed that the phaser beams in Obsession, which is in season two, are blue. Any ideas about this inconsistency.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

No worries. I thought you meant the prop that was used, which is different in the pilot episodes. If you mean the color of the beam - I don't think there was ever any rhyme or reason to its color. Not that I am aware of. Maybe you could find a picture, or time index in an episode where it occurs, and someone could help you from that. Just don't hotlink any images, as per board rules.

 

[Zeratul]

haha I'm watching it now ill make a screen shot....that is legal right?

 

[Zeratul]

Ok both of the pictures are from Obsession Spock is shooting at a rock which made me think at first that instead of using a normal phaser beam he was using some kind of mining phaser beam but later on in the episode another charter uses the same phaser against an alien.
http://s1110.photobucket.com/albums/h452/sorrow1231/?action=view&current=BP2.png
http://s1110.photobucket.com/albums/h452/sorrow1231/?action=view&current=BP1.png

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Sometimes the beam is blue; sometimes red.

 

[Zeratul]

Simple and to the point I see the logic in your answer.
More brain busters to come later!

 

[gastrof]

While no dialog in any episode after "The Cage" indicates whether the pistols were lasers or phasers, a stage direction on page 18 of the revised final draft of "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" called for an old-style phaser to be used by Brown. It is noteworthy that this weapon vaporized the android Kirk in a manner more consistent with phaser technology than lasers.

That's a true goof on Memory Alpha's part, I think. When Pike blasts a hole in the "glass", he says to the Talosian 'I think I just blasted a hole in that barrier with this laser, and you're not letting us see it'.

I believe the line is heard in both THE CAGE and THE MENAGERIE.

The gun was plainly called a laser.

If you'd like to, in your own mind, retcon it to "phaser", I'm all for it, since it appeared the same gun was more or less presented as an old phaser design in later episodes.

As for the actual line heard in the episode, tho', "laser" it is.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

While no dialog in any episode after "The Cage" indicates whether the pistols were lasers or phasers, a stage direction on page 18 of the revised final draft of "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" called for an old-style phaser to be used by Brown. It is noteworthy that this weapon vaporized the android Kirk in a manner more consistent with phaser technology than lasers.

That's a true goof on Memory Alpha's part, I think. When Pike blasts a hole in the "glass", he says to the Talosian 'I think I just blasted a hole in that barrier with this laser, and you're not letting us see it'.

I believe the line is heard in both THE CAGE and THE MENAGERIE.

The gun was plainly called a laser.

If you'd like to, in your own mind, retcon it to "phaser", I'm all for it, since it appeared the same gun was more or less presented as an old phaser design in later episodes.

As for the actual line heard in the episode, tho', "laser" it is.

The footage you are referring to is footage from The Cage that was reused in the flashback scenes of The Menagerie. Memory Alpha is not in error on this point. If you carefully read what I wrote, it indicates that I'm well aware that the word used in The Cage was always "laser" [which necessarily also holds for the flashback scenes in The Menagerie reused from The Cage].

 

[gastrof]

My apologies. I totally missed the part about "after The Cage".

I'm tired and read it as "no dialog indicates whether the pistols were lasers or phasers".

Good. I'm glad our feverish researchers got it right and it was me who got it wrong.

I mean, there are standards to uphold, after all.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

No problem.

 

[AtoZ]

And by the time WNMHGB came around it was a phaser rifle if I recall. Based on that I'm assuming the pistol Spock had clipped to his waist was an older phaser pistol, similar to the pistol we saw in The Cage.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't there a slight physical difference between the laser pistol we saw in The Cage and the "pistol" we saw in The Man Trap and WALGMO? If anybody can verify, am I remembering a slight variation, and if so, did that variation appear in WNMHGB?

BTW - I always loved that dramatic scene in The Cage just after Pike was abducted and the landing party is furiously trying to blast through the shaft doors with their pistols.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

And by the time WNMHGB came around it was a phaser rifle if I recall.

Right, and once in "phaser rifle" is the only time the word "phaser" appears in WNMHGB.

Based on that I'm assuming the pistol Spock had clipped to his waist was an older phaser pistol, similar to the pistol we saw in The Cage.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't there a slight physical difference between the laser pistol we saw in The Cage and the "pistol" we saw in The Man Trap and WALGMO? If anybody can verify, am I remembering a slight variation, and if so, did that variation appear in WNMHGB?

Modifications to the prop for WNMHGB are confirmed by the Memory Alpha article I linked to, in the Background section.

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

There's also a description and a photo for comparison with the photo from The Cage. I can't confirm specifics on the other two episodes, except to offer additional photos for comparison, besides the two in the Memory Alpha article.

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x01-2-hd/themantraphd554.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x01-2-hd/themantraphd589.jpg

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x07hd/whatarelittlegirlsmadeofhd192.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x07hd/whatarelittlegirlsmadeofhd616.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x07hd/whatarelittlegirlsmadeofhd652.jpg

It certainly appears that there were only two versions of the prop: Cage and post-Cage, but I cannot confirm this.

BTW - I always loved that dramatic scene in The Cage just after Pike was abducted and the landing party is furiously trying to blast through the shaft doors with their pistols.

Me too. It's pretty exciting.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Thank you!! that was the closest thing that I could come up with as well. I actually wasn't even sure if this was the right place to post a question like this. I have decided to watch TOS with a critical eye and try to find any unexplained occurrences.

You should hunt up the old "Best of Trek" volumes from Signet, many of which had a feature article called "Star Trek Mysteries - Solved!"

 

[Zeratul]

Just the way you say that makes me think that "Best of Trek" is amazingly hard to find. I really find it interesting with such a theoretical show they have managed to have so few inconsistences. haha