Phase Pistols: How Do They Work

[AstroSmurf]

At the moment I am working on some technical drawings of Starfleet's weapons for my NX-01 Deck Plan Project and I have hit a wall. You see I am attempting to do some specifications for the Phase Pistol and I can't seem to come up with a suitable particle for the damn thing to emit.

And some background... Star Trek: Enterprise introduced the Phase Pistol into the Trek technology as a bridge between lasers, plasma weapons and the more advanced Phaser technology. We all know how lasers work. Plasma weapons use a "magnetic jacket" to create and carry plasma pulses to a target. Phasers use a nadion particle reaction within superconducting crystals to produce a high yield directed energy beam. And according to canon, Phase Pistols were not "Phaser" technology.

Here are a few things to remember... Phase Pistols use an energy beam, one that can be measured in megajoules. They are not using plasma and require power cells to operate.

So here is my thought process. I decided the pistol uses a directed energetic particle beam. The system would "energize" atomic particles and accelerate them toward a target, where that energy would be released into the target on impact. This idea fixes all the canon issues, works as a logical technological leap from the plasma weapon and shows a logical way of progressing to Phasers. However, I have no clue as to what particle to use or if a particle could be "energized" in the way that I am thinking! I have spent the last three days doing research into different particles and nothing is leading me to a solution.

So here I am, asking all you tech heads, physicists and engineers for help. Could someone point me in the right direction? Electron? Positron? Does someone have a better idea? Any help would be appreciated!

 

[iguana_tonante]

They work pretty well. Sorry, someone has to say it.

 

[sojourner]

They work like phasers but lack the "r" particle emitter.

 

[AstroSmurf]

^ An R-Type Particle Emitter... I may just have to work that in somewhere.

 

[Timo]

And according to canon, Phase Pistols were not "Phaser" technology.

How so? Do you mean "A Matter of Time"?

In that episode, Worf chooses phasers as the most important technological development he can think of, by stating that there were no phasers in the 22nd century - so the implication is that this important technological breakthrough happened either on that century or the one immediately after that. ENT merely further clarifies this by stating that the introductory century was the 22nd and not the 23rd.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

In my own little Trek universe, phase pistols are merely less refined versions of phaser pistols, but are basically the same thing and work exactly same way. But I also like to think that phaser weaponry was still in its infancy in the 22nd-Century and was not in widespread usage, with only a select few ships--like the NX-class--equipped with them. In that scenario, I saw that the bulk of Starfleet still relied on plasma weapons (like the MACOs) as a general-issue weapon throughout the 22nd-Century and later laser weapons for a time in the 23rd-Century.

In "Where No Man Has Gone Before," we could have seen the transitioning from lasers to phasers right there (lasers still as sidearms, but the phaser rifle as a recent addition to the Enterprise's armory). Phasers soon became the standard Starfleet sidearm not too long afterward and were merely an improved, mass-produced version of the initial phase pistols.

But that's just my take on it, though...

 

[Timo]

...with only a select few ships--like the NX-class--equipped with them.

ENT sort of hinges on all of Starfleet quickly adopting this weaponry, though. It may even be that NX-01 was among the last recipients. Phase(r) beams appear to be parity weapons, without which Earth would have succumbed to hostile aliens many times over in the 2150s already.

But phaser sidearms may well have been a rarity, yes. The Military Assault Command might have been a more conservative organization than Starfleet Command, and plasma guns might have remained in service for a long time there. Even Starfleet might have stuck with using phasers for light sidearms only, and with equipping the heavier troops with those plasma rifles that only have a phaser overbarrel as an optional extra.

I'd still rather not postulate that the lasers of "The Cage" were an intermediate step, preceded and followed by phasers. The "Swiss Starfleet Knife" theory of three guns in one package would nicely sidestep that issue, and also shove the scientifically-practically inconvenient lasers off the limelights.

In "Where No Man Has Gone Before," we could have seen the transitioning from lasers to phasers right there (lasers still as sidearms, but the phaser rifle as a recent addition to the Enterprise's armory).

That's possible. But it would be a bit more convenient to think that Spock was covering Mitchell with a phaser (capable of stun settings) rather than with a laser pistol (supposedly lacking any means of stunning the target)...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

ENT sort of hinges on all of Starfleet quickly adopting this weaponry, though.

That's the way you saw it. I saw it more as a experimental weapon that was being field-tested on the equally experimental NX-class for the first time, but the bulk of Starfleet was still relying on plasma weapons during this time.

It may even be that NX-01 was among the last recipients.

I think it was more likely it was the among the first and may even have been the first to be issued aboard a starship.

Phase(r) beams appear to be parity weapons, without which Earth would have succumbed to hostile aliens many times over in the 2150s already.

I think it was more of a case that Enterprise would have succumbed to hostile aliens many times over without phase weapons, but Earth really only faced the Xindi (and presumably later the Romulans) as an actual threat in the 2150s. The Klingons were more angry at Captain Archer than Earth itself.

But phaser sidearms may well have been a rarity, yes. The Military Assault Command might have been a more conservative organization than Starfleet Command, and plasma guns might have remained in service for a long time there. Even Starfleet might have stuck with using phasers for light sidearms only, and with equipping the heavier troops with those plasma rifles that only have a phaser overbarrel as an optional extra.

I'd still rather not postulate that the lasers of "The Cage" were an intermediate step, preceded and followed by phasers. The "Swiss Starfleet Knife" theory of three guns in one package would nicely sidestep that issue, and also shove the scientifically-practically inconvenient lasers off the limelights.

I'd rather not dismiss the use of lasers in "The Menagerie," because I could easily see them in 200 years as being more advanced than the lasers we have today (calling them lasers may even have been a colloquialism for a now different process by then). I like to find any possibility to keep things rather than dismiss things.

In "Where No Man Has Gone Before," we could have seen the transitioning from lasers to phasers right there (lasers still as sidearms, but the phaser rifle as a recent addition to the Enterprise's armory).

That's possible. But it would be a bit more convenient to think that Spock was covering Mitchell with a phaser (capable of stun settings) rather than with a laser pistol (supposedly lacking any means of stunning the target)...

Not to me, but then I'm speaking from the perspective of not having to dismiss stuff if I can make it work somehow.

 

[Timo]

That's the way you saw it. I saw it more as a experimental weapon that was being field-tested on the equally experimental NX-class for the first time, but the bulk of Starfleet was still relying on plasma weapons during this time.

That goes for the pistols. For the phase cannon, we saw them aboard every UESF vessel that ever fired a weapon in anger. Every vessel, that is, save for NX-01 herself.

There was nothing in ENT to suggest that the phase cannon were brand new. To the contrary, these things were so familiar to our heroes they could put together a few from spares! The phase pistols in contrast were indicated to be novel. Which only makes sense: gunpowder pistols were introduced later than gunpowder cannon...

The Klingons were more angry at Captain Archer than Earth itself.

But were only stopped from attacking Earth to get to Archer by the fact that all of Starfleet was armed with phase cannon...

As for dismissing, aren't you dismissing the proliferation of handheld phasers in ENT now? Everybody and his redshirt cousin had a phaser rifle in Season 4 of ENT, capable of doing the same as Kirk's "Where No Man" phaser rifle. It's quite complicated to try and explain that these weapons somehow went away for a while, spent a nice vacation on Risa while lasers served as the preferred sidearms, and then came back the exact same as before. Saying that these weapons were there all the time, and merely got accompanied by something else for a brief while, is not even an "explanation", it's just an acknowledgement of the concept that the standard raygun in Star Trek is called "phaser".

After all, we've seen composite weapons already - the early UESF plasma rifles gained that phaser overbarrel quickly enough, yet never lost the original plasma barrel. Composite weapons are common today, too: we have rifles with grenade launchers or bayonets, with both of the "extra" features going in and out of fashion depending on the tactical needs of the day. But composite is clumsy, complicated and costly. Just like dedicated infantry rifles have gone out of fashion already, and support machine guns are going while we speak, both replaced by the generic assault rifle, I could see dedicated cutting lasers and killing plasma-throwers going out of fashion as the basic phaser grew more sophisticated, reliable and affordable. This just didn't necessarily happen until the 2260s.

Edit: A random reference began nagging in the back of my skull. A quote from TAS "Slaver Weapon", where the Feline Xindi play with the slaver gun and manage to produce a death ray:

Sulu: "Merely a laser. The Federation has had a more effective model for over one hundred years."

Apparently, lasers got some sort of a definite improvement 100+ years before TAS. And that doesn't refer to the actual invention of lasers, by any quirk of TAS timekeeping, since humans were fighting interstellar wars about 200 years before the episode. Now, both of those time references are cutting it tight: the Federation only came to existence slightly over 100 years before TAS, so the plus sign there would be for a decade or so, no more; and 200 years before the episode, humans had barely had time to meet their first official space aliens... But the references are workable anyway, and the laser one might be of interest here.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

That's the way you saw it. I saw it more as a experimental weapon that was being field-tested on the equally experimental NX-class for the first time, but the bulk of Starfleet was still relying on plasma weapons during this time.

That goes for the pistols. For the phase cannon, we saw them aboard every UESF vessel that ever fired a weapon in anger. Every vessel, that is, save for NX-01 herself.

Actually, it seems to be the other way around--that Enterprise was the only active ship to have phase cannons, and that the NX-class was the first design to incorporate them. In "Silent Enemy," it was mentioned the phase cannon was a prototype weapon and only one was built.

There was nothing in ENT to suggest that the phase cannon were brand new.

As mentioned above, they were indeed brand new and only one had been built at the time of Enterprise's launch (it hadn't even been installed yet).

To the contrary, these things were so familiar to our heroes they could put together a few from spares!

Actually, in "Silent Enemy," they weren't very familiar with them, and Archer originally thought Enterprise should go back to Spacedock for them to be properly installed--but Reed and Tucker convinced Archer that they could at least start working on them. Once they got permission, Reed actually had to introduce what a phase cannon was to Tucker's engineering crew. Tucker then believed his staff not only could install the phase cannon but build the two others that had yet to be built (he said the parts to do so were already onboard).

The Klingons were more angry at Captain Archer than Earth itself.

But were only stopped from attacking Earth to get to Archer by the fact that all of Starfleet was armed with phase cannon...

But there's no evidence of phase cannons on any ship other than the NX-class though.

As for dismissing, aren't you dismissing the proliferation of handheld phasers in ENT now?

No, because they still weren't everywhere at the time of ENT. We can definitely say that they were the primary sidearm on the deep-space NX-class ships (and maybe some special security forces on Earth--maybe even some MACO units), but that doesn't mean every ship had them or even many.

Everybody and his redshirt cousin had a phaser rifle in Season 4 of ENT, capable of doing the same as Kirk's "Where No Man" phaser rifle.

I don't recall any phaser rifles in Season 4 of ENT. Plasma rifles, maybe...

EDIT: Now I remember 'em, but I don't think I saw any used by anyone other than the personnel aboard Enterprise, though...

It's quite complicated to try and explain that these weapons somehow went away for a while, spent a nice vacation on Risa while lasers served as the preferred sidearms, and then came back the exact same as before. Saying that these weapons were there all the time, and merely got accompanied by something else for a brief while, is not even an "explanation", it's just an acknowledgement of the concept that the standard raygun in Star Trek is called "phaser".

Not at all. There are advanced weapons out there now that aren't general-issue (and may never be due to various reasons). As such, it's definitely plausible to me that phase weapons were either specialized weapons or weapons that weren't put in heavy mass-production, and Starfleet relied on other weapons as general-issue until the more commonly known phasers became the new standard. That way, nothing is in conflict and nothing has to be "pretended not to happen."

I'm not saying that you or anyone else has to subscribe to it, but it certainly works very well for me.

 

[AstroSmurf]

Three things...

1) Timo I am attempting to satisfy canon on several levels with my "Phase not Phaser" idea. I tend to ignore the mention of lasers in "The Cage". Gene himself realized after that pilot that the term would be quickly dated and corrected the mistake. I also figured that Worf was speaking in general terms and Phasers could have been invented in the 22nd century but not put into widespread use until later. However, I am also attempting to find a bridge between technologies. Phase Pistols are basically a phaser but using a different particle. This would explain the lower energy yield, give Worf's statement some depth, jump over the "laser" reference yet be vague enough to let me slip past without ruffling any feathers.

(Unfortunately the placement of the Phase Pistol and the Phaser in Trek's Tech History was kept rather vague in dialog and can be seen both ways. Truthfully, I am attempting to straddle the fence so I don't get hammered here, my blog and by email. I have enough going on in my RL at the moment without having to explain a supposed canon violation over and over again to all the nitpickers just because I chose a side. After four long years with this project my patience is at an end for it too.)

2) The Phase Canons were a prototype. The dialog in "Silent Enemy" was very clear about that. The NX-01 was the first to use them and was carrying the first working prototype. (And with a set of working plans and the prototype, Trip and Malcolm would have no trouble putting additional cannons together.)

3) In season two, they had modified the plasma rifles to fire a plasma charge (lower barrel) and a phased particle beam (upper barrel). So basically the plasma rifle became a plasma/phase rifle combo. That was why the weapon we saw in the pilot ended up getting a barrel change between the first and second season. The standard issue plasma rifle with the original barrel was also still being used through out the run of the show though.


And I am still no closer to solving my particle problem. I guess it is time to be vague again so I can finish this schematic!

 

[Timo]

Actually, it seems to be the other way around--that Enterprise was the only active ship to have phase cannons, and that the NX-class was the first design to incorporate them. In "Silent Enemy," it was mentioned the phase cannon was a prototype weapon and only one was built.

Ah, but I say again: all UESF ships we ever saw in combat fired the very same red beams that were established to be phase cannon fire in "Silent Enemy". The Intrepid in "The Expanse" did. Her two delta-shaped consorts did. Repeat performances by ships of this design in "Twilight" featured the same weapons effect.

The ECS vessel Horizon in her titular episode continued to fire the short, pale pulses that seem to indicate plasma cannon fire in "Broken Bow" and "Fortunate Son". But that's civilians for ya - their illegal weapons aren't necessarily up to the latest military scratch.

Actually, in "Silent Enemy," they weren't very familiar with them, and Archer originally thought Enterprise should go back to Spacedock for them to be properly installed--but Reed and Tucker convinced Archer that they could at least start working on them.

Which just proves our heroes knew these things inside and out. It would be absurd to start fitting a real ship with weapon turrets without a dockyard today... That our heroes could do it at all speaks of experience.

Nobody said only one phase cannon had been built by that time. It was merely pointed out that only one was aboard NX-01 at the time (plus spares). A prototype for that model of phase cannon, yes, but apparently not the first phase cannon ever.

We can definitely say that they were the primary sidearm on the deep-space NX-class ships

Which already more or less establishes them as the wave of the future, and absolutely requires an explanation if this future fails to unfold...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

Actually, it seems to be the other way around--that Enterprise was the only active ship to have phase cannons, and that the NX-class was the first design to incorporate them. In "Silent Enemy," it was mentioned the phase cannon was a prototype weapon and only one was built.

Ah, but I say again: all UESF ships we ever saw in combat fired the very same red beams that were established to be phase cannon fire in "Silent Enemy". The Intrepid in "The Expanse" did. Her two delta-shaped consorts did. Repeat performances by ships of this design in "Twilight" featured the same weapons effect.

The lasers identified as such in "The Menagerie" fired red beams too and had the same effect on Talos IV, so we can't really go by beam color alone. Even the different plasma weapons shown in ENT fired different colors--either gold or blue-white--and yet were both still plasma weapons, so colors may vary depending on whatever frequency a weapon is set on. I believe the Intrepid and her sister ships could have been firing laser cannons or perhaps even an advanced form of plasma cannons. Then again, yes, it's even possible that the Intrepid and those two other ships were a special defense force quickly equipped with phase cannons after Enterprise was launched to protect Earth, especially in light of the Xindi attack. Still doesn't necessarily mean every ship in the Starfleet had them though, IMO, just like not every ship in the 24th-Century has quantum torpedoes.

Actually, in "Silent Enemy," they weren't very familiar with them, and Archer originally thought Enterprise should go back to Spacedock for them to be properly installed--but Reed and Tucker convinced Archer that they could at least start working on them.

Which just proves our heroes knew these things inside and out.

Actually, it doesn't. You omitted the part where I said Reed had to show Tucker's team what a phase cannon was to begin with. That doesn't really speak of people who knew things inside and out if they never saw one assembled before. All it really proves is that Tucker believed his people could read an instruction manual and put the two other phase cannons together too. Tucker said that all the parts they needed for the phase cannons were already aboard, so it wasn't like they were built from scratch--more likely, from a kit.

It would be absurd to start fitting a real ship with weapon turrets without a dockyard today... That our heroes could do it at all speaks of experience.

Actually, the dialogue in "Silent Enemy" indeed said that Enterprise launched without the phase cannons in order to make the trip to Qo'noS in time. Archer didn't originally think his crew could build the phase cannons because of their lack of experience with the new weapons and wanted them installed "right" by the personnel at Spacedock.

Nobody said only one phase cannon had been built by that time. It was merely pointed out that only one was aboard NX-01 at the time (plus spares). A prototype for that model of phase cannon, yes, but apparently not the first phase cannon ever.

If that works for you, fine. I'll go with that it was indeed the first phase cannon to be installed aboard a starship. I believe that was the intention for them to be.

We can definitely say that they were the primary sidearm on the deep-space NX-class ships

Which already more or less establishes them as the wave of the future, and absolutely requires an explanation if this future fails to unfold...

But still doesn't preclude them from being a specialized weapon of limited issue.

 

[Major Chord]

While I have no idea how exactly a phase pistol and phaser might differ in operation, I'd like to at least offer an explanation as to Phase canons and their introduction.

At the time the NX-01 launched, I believe that both phase pistols and canon were new technology. They may have been issued in some numbers, but they were untested in combat, hence why Enterprise carried plasma canon and pistols as well. I doubt that the prototype canon aboard Enterprise was the only one in existence. That makes no sense...why put your only working prototype of a new weapon design on a ship that isn't supposed to come home for at least a year? I'd be willing to bet that like with any new design, there were several prototypes, possibly dozens. Enterprise had one, along with parts for two more, and I bet that several other ships were at least ready to have them installed, waiting for Enterprise's reports of how well they worked. Same with Phase pistols. I'd imagine they were issued in at least small numbers to crews around Earth. Keep in mind that until that point, the ships that would encounter hostile species would have been months or years from home at that point, and would not have received their new compliment of weapons yet. so, Enterprise was the first to use either of these new weapons in combat. I'm sure they were fired by experts in a lab or on a range...just not in combat.

In the 1.5 years between Silent Enemy and The Expanse, I'm sure that Archer's reports of how well the new weapons functioned lead to their implementation in at least limited numbers with the rest of the fleet and SF security forces. Again, no way the entire fleet was overhauled by that point.

So, bottom line is that they existed for some time prior to Broken Bow, maybe a year or two, but they weren't brought into service on any large scale because it was unknown how effective they were. Enterprise demonstrated that they did indeed work as expected, and thus the new weapons were rotated into service.

 

[Timo]

That sounds good to me. After all, the main aspect of the red beams we saw in "The Expanse" was that they were effective against the Klingons. It's highly unlikely to be older weapons tech, then - the effectiveness of Earth weaponry against alien threats was something that Archer introduced in "Silent Enemy".

We may speculate that the phase cannon were too weak to make a difference in their baseline configuration, and that only Archer's accidental discovery of the overcharge mode in "Silent Enemy" made Starfleet put its faith on this new weapon type.

Apparently, the actual installation of such weaponry was a rather trivial plug-and-play task, both on the NX-01 (because the onboard personnel could do it), and on older ship types (because these were thus armed by the time of "The Expanse"). Which goes well with the original artistic intent of NX-01 design: the writers could plug-and-play anything they wanted behind a carefully preplanned set of a dozen "gunports", and we indeed saw things ranging from plasma bolts to relay buoys to phase beams emerge from those. Also, when we got a peek of the innards of a gunport assembly in "Silent Enemy", we learned that it could nicely serve as an airlock, too - and perhaps did in "Minefield". And the demonstrated ability to manhandle phase cannon components into those things from the inside also nicely allows for the hauling out of previously installed plasma cannon or similar equipment, or the deployment of relay buoys, without major engineering effort.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Here's my two cents:

One of the most basic technologies of Starfleet is the control of "phased matter" and "photonic energy," two different concepts that roughly describe the same thing. This is essentially a fifth state of matter composed primarily of quarks and photons arranged into a plasma-like substance, much like protons and electrons, with various configurations. Phased matter is the basic energy medium for forcefields (Reid's experiments in Vox Sola being their first field test), phasers, holograms, even transporters.

In Enterprise, it is made clear that phased-matter processes are still experimental. Hence the crew doesn't trust transporters most of the time and only uses forcefields ONCE. Starships aren't equipped with defensive forcefields at all for at least another decade, and the same is probably true of their weaponry. In light of this, I would theorize that "phase weapons" are shorthand for "phased plasma weapons," probably distinguished from regular plasma weapons in that the weapon uses a series of much smaller plasma pulses perfectly timed so that they recombine and form a coherent "beam."

This would perhaps give phased plasma weaponry some of the same properties as real phased-matter weaponry: the beam is probably electrically superconductive (there's your stun setting) and is coherent over longer ranges (better accuracy and range). The upshot being their lower cost and simplicity: the technology is so basic that the NX-01 crew can make one in their garage, but the obvious downside is that phased-plasma weapons are nowhere near as powerful or as efficient as real phasers. Phased plasma weapons also wouldn't be capable of "vaporizing" targets; phased plasma can only burn holes or electrocute things, while phased matter/photonic energy can also disrupt materials at the subatomic level if so desired. A similar principle may work for photonic torpedoes, hence the variable yield: it's not the power level that's being varied so much as the torpedo can be programmed to deliver energy in a way that will affect some starship components more than others (set your photons to knock out all of their communications gear, or fry their targeting scanners, or blow a gaping hole in the side of their bridge; it's up to you).

In summation: "phase pistols" are an advanced type of plasma weapon that delivers SOME of the effects of later phased-matter/photonic-energy weapons without using the more exotic fifth state of matter.

 

[Timo]

Alternately, the "phasing" in these weapons could refer to phasing parts of the target out of our realm, rather than inducing phased properties to the outgoing beams of destruction. That'd greatly help explain how a chap hit by a TOS phaser can disappear without as much as leaving a stain on the walls or a charred spot on the floor. That style of operations could well proceed from crude and primitive in ENT to refined in TNG, too.

"Phasing" is something the transporters do, that much is often made clear. A phase weapon could simply be a directed transporter, designed to transport the target to oblivion either in part or in entirety. At stun level, the matter would be gone for a fraction of a second only, and then returned in place; at higher level (not necessarily higher power expenditure, merely longer upset time), the matter would be out of place for a macroscopic length of time, never quite returning to coherence and thus either leaving a very dead body (possibly seemingly intact on the outside, tho) or then scattering the body particulates in the winds; and at highest level, the matter would never return to our realm at all.

There need not be a direct line of development from primitive Earth weapons to advanced Earth weapons, mind you: all-new research venues could open at contact with alien cultures. Possibly the Earthling phase weapon would actually be born all grown up, with the ENT and TOS guns indistinguishable from each other (or from the interstellar state of the art), and with actual development only taking place between TOS and TNG (so that one could kill with less effort and energy and make less of a mess of it, and stun with greater precision).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Alternately, the "phasing" in these weapons could refer to phasing parts of the target out of our realm, rather than inducing phased properties to the outgoing beams of destruction. That'd greatly help explain how a chap hit by a TOS phaser can disappear without as much as leaving a stain on the walls or a charred spot on the floor. That style of operations could well proceed from crude and primitive in ENT to refined in TNG, too.

Sometimes it does, though. Even in TOS, we have Spock being severely injured when Tracy vaporizes a computer console next to him. Likewise, nobody thought the residue left over from the vaporized officers in "Aquiel" were anything out of the ordinary for a phaser weapon.

Just sayin: can't take special effects too literally, especially in science fiction.

There need not be a direct line of development from primitive Earth weapons to advanced Earth weapons

The names and useage is similar enough to directly imply that they ARE in direct line of succession. Publicity materials and statements from the producers actually say as much. Besides which, this is the usual progression of weapons technology to begin with: muzzle loaders gave way to breach loaders, breach loaders to rifles, and then there were repeaters, bolt-actioners, semi-automatics and, finally, automatics.

 

[Timo]

The names and useage is similar enough to directly imply that they ARE in direct line of succession.

What, plasma weapons and phase weapons? Nothing similar in the names (not even the initial letter: it's p in the former, ph in the latter). Useage similarities are more or less limited to both being weapons that fit in the hand and can be pointed at the target, pretty much like a crossbow or a squirt gun.

The guns from ENT no doubt developed to the guns of TOS. But the guns from before ENT need not have evolved into anything - they might have gone extinct when contact with aliens brought about better things.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[AstroSmurf]

I still don't think some folks don't understand the concept of phased weapons. (Or at least how the TNG and DS9 Tech manuals describe them. Nadion particles are phased into an EM energy stream by way of a crystal.) But it is kind of obvious that plasma weapons (or magnetically jacketed plasma pulses) were dropped in favor of phased energy during the time of Enterprise. This would be a perfect example for Timo's "extinct tech" argument.

And on the other hand, those phased energy weapons would have evolved in some form or another into what we saw in TOS. It may have been what they phased (which is what I was thinking) or it could have been how it was phased, by crystals or subspace field or matter/energy conversion. The power settings are also rather dodgy during this time. They could only manage a few settings and the power conversion does not look to be as clean as it would later be. Either way, the weapon would have been in its infancy as a technology but the basic principles are there.

If you want to see a "real world" example of this kind of evolution, I would suggest checking out the evolution of the fire arm. Again the same basic principles have been the same for a while now but the components and ammunition have evolved into a very efficient machine.