DSC: Bring Back Beams! (BBB) - Return of the ship-mounted phaser beam...

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

Is there anything quite so satisfying in Star Trek as seeing a phaser beam cutting through space, hurling megawatts of energy? Star Trek has been using pulse phasers as well, since TOS.... but isn't the beam such an iconic/signature feature of Star Trek?

Star Wars can keep it's bolt weapons! Who else would like to see a return of the phaser beam cutting through deck after deck of Klingon armor, melting everything in it's path? Like a dragon, a starship can breathe a continuous storm of particulate fire at an enemy, heating it's hull to the point of vaporising metal.

Should phasers have a visible travel time? Do phasers travel at less than the speed of light, given that they are particle weapons? Well, even if we assume that phaser beam particles are accelerated to say, 0.975 c, then it approaches the target at almost light speed or Warp 1! So it would travel at about 180,000 km in one second. Can phasers fire at warp? Well, a torpedo can probably generate it's own small warp-field to fire from a ship at warp speeds... but perhaps a ship can also project a narrow microscopic warp field through which a phaser beam can travel?

Would you like to see USS Discovery fire one continuous beam for up to five seconds?

#BringBackBeams

 

[BillJ]

Beams aren't MOODDDDDAARRRRRRRRNN!!!

 

[Timo]

How about "No - I love beams"?

The Discovery is described as a science ship. How can we tell? Well, the heroes do this by quoting the number of silvershirts and labs within. But it also seems that the ship is not particularly well armed. Even with "phasers on double hot", Lorca almost exclusively fights the Klingons with torpedoes and mines, achieving little with the pew-pew phasers whenever those fire.

IMHO, this ought to continue. Don't give the ship dragonfire. Keep forcing her to win battles by fleeing. But do give biblical-level, constant beam death rays to the real combatants of Starfleet, potentially including Pike's vessel, just to emphasize the difference.

It is not as if we saw the "real Starfleet" fight much in this offscreen war of S1. The Binaries could still have been a "Holy crap, do we have to switch from stun to k.. Aaargh!" moment for the poor skippers...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

Beams good, pew-pew meh.

 

[Jayson1]

As long as they are lasers and not phasers like they are supose to be. Also I better see them using some lithium crystals to power the warp drive not the dilthium crystals that follow.

Jason

 

[Groppler Zorn]

As long as they are lasers and not phasers like they are supose to be. Also I better see them using some lithium crystals to power the warp drive not the dilthium crystals that follow.

Jason

In my headcanon they call warp drive the “time factor” because warp engines warp space time - so it’s full name is “the space time warp factor”.

I’d love it if they came up with something clever to incorporate lasers and lithium crystals.

Sadly it seems to be really easy for tptb to ignore certain things that “don’t matter”

Also yes beams rule

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

How about "No - I love beams"?

The Discovery is described as a science ship. How can we tell? Well, the heroes do this by quoting the number of silvershirts and labs within. But it also seems that the ship is not particularly well armed. Even with "phasers on double hot", Lorca almost exclusively fights the Klingons with torpedoes and mines, achieving little with the pew-pew phasers whenever those fire.

IMHO, this ought to continue. Don't give the ship dragonfire. Keep forcing her to win battles by fleeing. But do give biblical-level, constant beam death rays to the real combatants of Starfleet, potentially including Pike's vessel, just to emphasize the difference.

It is not as if we saw the "real Starfleet" fight much in this offscreen war of S1. The Binaries could still have been a "Holy crap, do we have to switch from stun to k.. Aaargh!" moment for the poor skippers...

Timo Saloniemi

I like your thinking, this is a good suggestion, it's just that I can't see the show actually doing it. Discovery is meant to be a science ship, but I get the feeling the show regards it as being just as powerful as any other class, because we see it coming to the aid of a Shepard class, and it engages the Klingon extremist's flagship, which would probably be less advisable for a pure research platform to do. Maybe an episode could show the Discovery getting a weapons upgrade, like DS9 Season 4, being installed with high-megawatt phaser arrays, but I doubt the show will do it. Maybe beams are far more deadly than bolts, and are fired from the exact same phasers, but take substantial power, hence can only fire one death ray infrequently, as opposed to many bolts from multiple emitters. I also like your description of full phasers as being a biblical level death ray lol.

One of the things which I like about Star Trek combat is the way starships are lumbering warships pounding the enemy's defence shields with barrages of phaser fire. Maybe shield technology and phaser technology is constantly in an arms race, but it would be nice to see Discovery engaging in a more age-of-sail exchange like this. Perhaps at some point, the Federation decides one big stream of high-speed beam fire at 0.975 c is better than lots of inaccurate bolts fired at visible speeds. Perhaps the Kelvin Timeline and DSC are just short periods in which pulse phasers were vogue. The shield is a good way to prevent phasers being instant-kill death rays, as much of the damage can be deflected before reaching the hull.

As long as they are lasers and not phasers like they are supose to be. Also I better see them using some lithium crystals to power the warp drive not the dilthium crystals that follow.

Jason

The way I've recently chosen to think of alternative weapons, such as laser, ballistic weapons, etc, is that perhaps Starfleet maintains some alternative armories for specialist situations. Maybe weapons lockers onboard a Constiation-class vessel of this time contain something like 10 hand phasers, 10 phaser rifles, a photon-rocket launcher, a photon-grenade launcher, 2 laser pistols, a ballistic weapon, with each used for specialist situations. Phasers eventually come to be seen as the most versatile, as they are the only ones with a stun setting.

 

[Tuskin38]

Why no option for both?

 

[Jedman67]

Pew pew good. lasers good. phasers good. explosions good.

 

[ITDUDE]

Beams aren't MOODDDDDAARRRRRRRRNN!!!

Pfft. Who thinks "pew, pew, pew, pew, pew" is more modern looking compared to "pfttooooooooooooooooo" ?!?!
Same people that think that a Star Destroyer can take out the Enterprise? Bring them on!

 

[Tuskin38]

The bridge crew game has an option to use both types.

The bolts were good for just blasting targets and knocking out their shields, while the beams were used for precise subsystem targeting.

 

[Tuskin38]

Same people that think that a Star Destroyer can take out the Enterprise? Bring them on!

It’s impossible to make that determination without using non-canon information from both franchises.

 

[ITDUDE]

It’s impossible to make that determination without using non-canon information from both franchises.

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Star Trek FTW!

Common JJ. You directed both. Let's now have a canon Star Trek vs Star Wars movie.
The collective geekdom will lose it's shit

 

[Tuskin38]

*tries to put the worms back in the can*

What have I done.

 

[EnderAKH]

You forgot two responses:
I like both
I don't care one way or the other

 

[Tuskin38]

I think the discovery bolts are better then the Kelvin timeline ones. They shoot faster, and seem way more accurate.

The ones in the Kelvin movies just seem to fire wildly at the target.

Also, don’t forget, Wrath of Khan had bolts of some sort as well. Or at the very least just very fast firing beams.

 

[Jayson1]

A Star Trek crossover to Star Wars still makes more sense than the Transformer one.


Jason

 

[INACTIVERedDwarf]

You forgot two responses:

I like both

I don't care one way or the other

I didn't forget.

I didn't care.

The poll is partly whimsical; a tongue in cheek fan campaign to BRING BACK BEAMS! (BBB!)

 

[Tuskin38]

A Star Trek crossover to Star Wars still makes more sense than the Transformer one.


Jason

They both make equal sense as they’re all fictional universes.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

I fully endorse this campaign!