Heating rocks with phasers. Once or twice.

[Ofthebawdy]

Hi. I just found this site and am a TOS official nerd I guess. For my first post, I would like to ask if I am correct in the following: For a long time, most people I talked to said that the only time on the original series that phasers were used to heat rocks was by Sulu at the beginning of the Enemy Within. However, I seem to remember Chekov using the same technique in Spock's Brain, saying, "We may as well be comfortable."
Did I recall that correctly?

 

[Ronald Held]

I think you are correct.

 

[Redfern]

McCoy also used a Type 1 "pocket" phaser to heat rocks in "A Private Little War" after a Mugato bit Kirk and injected him with venom. Nona, Tyree's wife, witnessed the "magic" and later took the weapon, hoping it would give her tribe an advantage over the "Hill People".

 

[PCz911]

It must have been on a low power setting, otherwise the rocks would crack or vaporize.

 

[Shawnster]

I could see the stun setting doing the trick.

 

[StarCruiser]

"The Enemy Within" was the first, I believe...

 

[scotpens]

I could see the stun setting doing the trick.

According to TMOST, phasers have a discrete "heat" setting.

"They can be set to dematerialize (converting matter into energy), disrupt (breaking down cohesion), heat (increasing molecular velocity), or stun (neural impact)."

 

[Timo]

Or then there's a separate power knob, and a flip switch for stun/kill. Hard to tell from the actual props. But dialogue would seem to establish the latter control for ENT very specifically, and we also see it in action in the Kelvinverse. Plus the multibarrel phasers of early TOS and DSC would appear to be constructed on the principle of mode select from three options, which would appear to include "laser", "make-disappear" and "stun" if we put all our sources together.

For all we know, stun is the highest-power setting to start with. After all, in a tight spot, it's among the things the heroes avoid using, along with make-disappear; kill-with-small-burn-hole is their preferred setting when energy reserves are low.

Anyway... Since even the tiny TOS Type 1 is covered in controls of all sorts, I rather see the heroes achieve rock-heating, wood-cutting, Klingon-stunning and redshirt-vaporizing by fiddling with three or four separate parameters for the ideal mix, rather than choosing from a menu of desired effects.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vger23]

Or then there's a separate power knob, and a flip switch for stun/kill. Hard to tell from the actual props. But dialogue would seem to establish the latter control for ENT very specifically, and we also see it in action in the Kelvinverse. Plus the multibarrel phasers of early TOS and DSC would appear to be constructed on the principle of mode select from three options, which would appear to include "laser", "make-disappear" and "stun" if we put all our sources together.

For all we know, stun is the highest-power setting to start with. After all, in a tight spot, it's among the things the heroes avoid using, along with make-disappear; kill-with-small-burn-hole is their preferred setting when energy reserves are low.

Anyway... Since even the tiny TOS Type 1 is covered in controls of all sorts, I rather see the heroes achieve rock-heating, wood-cutting, Klingon-stunning and redshirt-vaporizing by fiddling with three or four separate parameters for the ideal mix, rather than choosing from a menu of desired effects.

Timo Saloniemi

Although the prop design doesn't directly correspond, the onscreen evidence (see, for example, "The Squire of Gothos" where Trelene toggles the dial back and forth on the rear part of the phaser 2 and says "the won't kill...and this will" would seem to indicate that there is a discrete "stun" and "kill" setting, and then the wheel dial on the phaser 1 assembly toggles the power for each setting.

The later phasers (take the TMP / TWOK versions for example) seem to indicate power levels by their own discrete individual settings (stun, heat, disrupt, disintegrate).

 

[Timo]

And then we get TNG where the only indicator is a scale from 1 to either 8 or 16, displayed by a row or two of lights, and suggesting that the setting for making buildings disappear is just more of the setting for making people stop moving...

We might argue that heating/cutting is a type of strong stun, based on, say, "Legacy" where Riker first cuts through a locked door and then immediately downs a bad guy, without showing any desire to adjust any settings. Or then we could argue cut is a variant of kill and the bad guy is now dead. Personally, I'd like to think that a typical hand phaser is two or three guns built into one casing: a wholly separate stun gun, a wholly separate gun for phasing the enemy to kingdom come (either as a whole or in suitably lethal part), and optionally a wholly separate cutting laser as well. In TOS and DSC and Kelvinverse, these have their own distinct barrels; in TNG, advanced machinery seamlessly combines the functions and even makes them part of a continuum of settings adjustable along a single scale.

However, it also seems that stunning is something made inherently possible by the phasing thing, as it gets integrated to sidearms at the very juncture where those go phasic (that is, "Broken Bow"). Or then not, and Starfleet just decided that the new and exceptionally compact phasing machinery would go nicely with extras, such as a classic stunner that previously had only been available as an extra for rifle-sized applications.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Phasers do not just have a power setting but also a variable lens muzzle, allowing for different confinement beam settings.

It could be a very narrow or very wide beam.

 

[BK613]

Phasers are even more plot-sensitive than the warp drive is.

 

[Henoch]

Least not forget that Scotty uses a Phaser II to cut through bulkheads (continuous laser setting or continuous narrow focus heat setting?) in The Naked Time and The Way To Eden. I guess he keeps one in his tool box.

 

[The Old Mixer]

If a separate control was sometimes used to switch between stun and kill, it could be that was just an old-fashioned pre-set for the wheel setting, like the buttons we used to have on car radios.

 

[Ronald Held]

Least not forget that Scotty uses a Phaser II to cut through bulkheads (continuous laser setting or continuous narrow focus heat setting?) in The Naked Time and The Way To Eden. I guess he keeps one in his tool box.

Scott's phaser could be a custom modification.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Personally, I'd like to think that a typical hand phaser is two or three guns built into one casing: a wholly separate stun gun, a wholly separate gun for phasing the enemy to kingdom come (either as a whole or in suitably lethal part), and optionally a wholly separate cutting laser as well.

FWIW, if you graph out the "energy levels" of each of the TNG power settings they do form at least three discrete curves rather than one: Settings 1-6 (Stun, Heat, Light Disruption); Settings 7-11 (Medium Disruption I & II, High Disruption, Extreme Disruption, Slight Explosive/Disruption); Settings 12-16 (Light to Extreme Explosive/Disruption). But Settings 1-5 (Stun/Heat), 6-10 (Disruption) and 11-16 (Explosive/Disruption) would be more logical, which repetitive use of the third category being limited to heavy rifle/carbines.

 

[BK613]

And of course, on top of all else, per "The Cage," "Conscience of the King" and "That Which Survives," there is the overload setting, which causes the phaser to go BOOM!

 

[Timo]

The only thing we really need to remember in that regard is that there is no upper limit on the number of settings a phaser can have - except just possibly for the ENT sidearm, which was credited with "two settings" in dialogue. And even that was admittedly sufficiently tongue-in-cheek to be interpreted as a minimum number rather than an exhaustive description.

For every other weapon type, we simply get examples of what the gun can be commanded to do - never an exhaustive list. (This is distinct from, say, Type 1 being unable to penetrate the shell of the Devil in the Dark: it could be commanded to do that all right, it just didn't succeed.) As far as we can tell, every type of setting ever mentioned in any context for any phaser is available in every other phaser as well.

(Although personally I feel that only the three-barrel guns of early DSC and early TOS had the laser functionality for cutting jobs, just like only the rifles had the nifty flashlight functionality... Both of these being the result of welding on a separate piece of required hardware!)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FormerLurker]

McCoy also used a Type 1 "pocket" phaser to heat rocks in "A Private Little War" after a Mugato bit Kirk and injected him with venom. Nona, Tyree's wife, witnessed the "magic" and later took the weapon, hoping it would give her tribe an advantage over the "Hill People".

The "Villagers". Tyree and his tribe are the "Hill People".

 

[Redfern]

The "Villagers". Tyree and his tribe are the "Hill People".

D'OH!