Heart of Stone changeling phasering herself

[Solarbaby]

In this episode the female changeling poses as Kira with a foot trapped in a crysta which is an extension of herselfl. At one point she asks Odo to pass her the phaser and she fires on the crystal which grows.

Phasers are well known to harm changelings. It's evident from numerous episodes that the phaser beam brightness, width and intensity increases with the power setting. Odo would know if the beam was on a safe setting or one designed to burn through hard matter.

So how did the changeling fire on herself without causing physical harm and convince Odo it was real?

 

[Timo]

Actually, TNG era phaser beams don't seem to vary in intensity or brightness or color as a function of setting. If there's variance, it appears to be completely random!

However, if this is perceived to be a problem, we can always argue that "Kira" never pressed the trigger. Instead, "she" materialized the phaser beam out of the Changeling body, just like "she" had materialized the rocks, the uniform and the face.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Solarbaby]

Actually, TNG era phaser beams don't seem to vary in intensity or brightness or color as a function of setting. If there's variance, it appears to be completely random!

However, if this is perceived to be a problem, we can always argue that "Kira" never pressed the trigger. Instead, "she" materialized the phaser beam out of the Changeling body, just like "she" had materialized the rocks, the uniform and the face.

Timo Saloniemi

I dont see how its possible for her do that since she was using an object that looked like or possibly was a real phaser. It wasn't part of her as it would revert to a liquid state when apart form the body. How did she materialise the phaser beam? How could she even turn her body into rectified phased energy? Changing mass is dodgy science as it is but to turn the liquid state into energy seems unbelievable. Plus if it was possible how did she pass her body through the phaser?

There have been several episodes of Trek where a higher phaser setting was needed and the beam physically intensified in a noticeable way.

 

[Timo]

We have already seen Changelings do tricks of that very sort, in "Chimera". It is no problem for a Changeling to detach bits of itself so that they can serve as independent elements in a charade. Nor is it impossible to pretend to be mist or fire. And Laas was a young Changeling, not a fully trained adult like the one pretending to be Kira.

Whether these illusions tell of advanced ability to manipulate the physical universe, or simply of advanced ability to manipulate the audience, we don't know. Certainly a Changeling can be fooled by a Changeling's tricks, though, and Odo specifically has never outdone his human, Bajoran or Klingon co-workers in Changeling trick detection.

There have been several episodes of Trek where a higher phaser setting was needed and the beam physically intensified in a noticeable way.

But that's a relative measure only. Depending on the illumination in the cave, a beam on an arbitrary setting could have a brightness suggestive of light stun or heavy penetration, and we have no objective reason to think Odo really could tell. Data could, as he's very good with absolutes; but Odo is a relative person like us, and could at most tell whether "Kira" cranked "her" phaser up or down between two shots.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tosk]

Yeah, I always just assumed "Kira" changed the settings on the phaser. Easily done, and not visually different enough to notice.

I'm thinking specifically of the TNG episode "Gambit" where Picard fires on the Enterprise with seemingly normal phaser blasts, but are actually near-harmless.