Does anyone know when the phaser came into existence in the Star Trek timeline?
Phaser History
- Thread starter AlboOfBorg
- Start date
Not long before TOS.
Pike's Enterprise featured laser weaponry.
And early in Kirk's command (WNMHGB), they were still using hand lasers and the only phaser was the phaser rifle (which I always took to be maybe a prototype phaser or the only non-ship model).
Only later did we see it come into more common use, aboard ship and in hand units.
So I'd say that phasers came into existence sometime after the Enterprise launched, but shortly before Kirk assumed command.
Plus, having the Enterprise armed with phasers when Kirk assumed command would help account for the ship's awesome reputation. Maybe most other ships still carried laser weaponry.
Pike's Enterprise featured laser weaponry.
And early in Kirk's command (WNMHGB), they were still using hand lasers and the only phaser was the phaser rifle (which I always took to be maybe a prototype phaser or the only non-ship model).
Only later did we see it come into more common use, aboard ship and in hand units.
So I'd say that phasers came into existence sometime after the Enterprise launched, but shortly before Kirk assumed command.
Plus, having the Enterprise armed with phasers when Kirk assumed command would help account for the ship's awesome reputation. Maybe most other ships still carried laser weaponry.
Indeed, most of our ideas about lasers in the TOS pilots seem to be nothing but myths.
Only as officer sidearms. The ship's general armament was never described, while the contemporary USS Farragut in Kirk's "Obsession" backstory had phasers.
The ship had officer sidearms shaped somewhat like the lasers from "The Cage", but not exactly so - the props were modified with the addition of extra bits. And they were not called lasers in dialogue. The modified props reappeared in "What Are Little Girls Made Of", this time displaying perfectly phaserlike functions such as englobing and vaporizing their targets.
Why?
Kirk's ship was never in the habit of carrying prototype-anything (save for the M-5 computer, which was a big deal for everybody involved). All his gear seemed operational, tested and trusted.
Also, Pike's pedestal tool used in "The Cage" had the same colorful effect as Kirk's phaser rifle, as oppose to the solid red beams of Pike's laser sidearms, possibly suggesting that Pike's pedestal thing was a powerful phaser.
The issue of transition from one weapon type to another can be as fuzzy as we want to make it. When one looks closely at the sidearm prop, one sees a rotatable "barrel" with three differently sized "muzzles". One might well argue that one of them is a laser while another is a phaser - different tools for different jobs. Phasers might be old news in Pike's time, perhaps much older than practical lasers. Pike would merely have received the hottest new thing: the Swiss Phaser, now with the added laser blade for cutting through steel doors and other such obstructions.
What "awesome reputation"? Nobody in TOS-era Starfleet seemed to think too highly of Kirk or his ship. Kirk himself praised his crew as being exceptionally good only once - when giving the pep talk in "Immunity Syndrome" - and that would be his privilege whether the ship had a reputation or not.
Indeed. Or, to be more accurate, there was this dialogue:
Riker seems to be saying that the ongoing development of the warp coil is an example of progress, but he isn't really saying that the warp coil was originally invented in the last two hundred years (that is, after the 2150s). What he says jibes perfectly with ENT, in that the 2150s were a watershed in the development of human warp drive and indeed expanded human reach beyond a single sector.
Worf in turn is more explicit about what he means. But there is no problem with interpreting him as saying that there were no phasers at the beginning of the 22nd century, until they were invented in the middle of the 22nd century and thus were the most significant 200-year-old invention he can think of.
Timo Saloniemi
Only as officer sidearms. The ship's general armament was never described, while the contemporary USS Farragut in Kirk's "Obsession" backstory had phasers.
The ship had officer sidearms shaped somewhat like the lasers from "The Cage", but not exactly so - the props were modified with the addition of extra bits. And they were not called lasers in dialogue. The modified props reappeared in "What Are Little Girls Made Of", this time displaying perfectly phaserlike functions such as englobing and vaporizing their targets.
Why?
Kirk's ship was never in the habit of carrying prototype-anything (save for the M-5 computer, which was a big deal for everybody involved). All his gear seemed operational, tested and trusted.
Also, Pike's pedestal tool used in "The Cage" had the same colorful effect as Kirk's phaser rifle, as oppose to the solid red beams of Pike's laser sidearms, possibly suggesting that Pike's pedestal thing was a powerful phaser.
The issue of transition from one weapon type to another can be as fuzzy as we want to make it. When one looks closely at the sidearm prop, one sees a rotatable "barrel" with three differently sized "muzzles". One might well argue that one of them is a laser while another is a phaser - different tools for different jobs. Phasers might be old news in Pike's time, perhaps much older than practical lasers. Pike would merely have received the hottest new thing: the Swiss Phaser, now with the added laser blade for cutting through steel doors and other such obstructions.
What "awesome reputation"? Nobody in TOS-era Starfleet seemed to think too highly of Kirk or his ship. Kirk himself praised his crew as being exceptionally good only once - when giving the pep talk in "Immunity Syndrome" - and that would be his privilege whether the ship had a reputation or not.
TNG established that phasers did not exist in the 22nd century, despite the crew of ENT having "phase pistols" which looked and sounded a lot like them.
Indeed. Or, to be more accurate, there was this dialogue:
Riker seems to be saying that the ongoing development of the warp coil is an example of progress, but he isn't really saying that the warp coil was originally invented in the last two hundred years (that is, after the 2150s). What he says jibes perfectly with ENT, in that the 2150s were a watershed in the development of human warp drive and indeed expanded human reach beyond a single sector.
Worf in turn is more explicit about what he means. But there is no problem with interpreting him as saying that there were no phasers at the beginning of the 22nd century, until they were invented in the middle of the 22nd century and thus were the most significant 200-year-old invention he can think of.
Timo Saloniemi
There is a huge problem with interpreting his statement in any other way. Worf makes a very specific statement as per your quote. If he had said there were no phasers in mass production, or there were only phasers in development- then maybe. But he's not beating around the bush with his statement.
It's a good thing that ENT doesn't contradict Worf in any of the obvious ways. It is indicated that human phasers at least don't precede the mid-22nd century, and it is not indicated that Klingons or other aliens would have possessed phasers before humans did. Of course, most 22nd century alien species already have beam weapons similar to phasers, including the Klingon disruptors, but we can always argue that there is some key difference that makes phasers so much better.
We don't know if hand phasers truly were invented in 2151 sharp: they may have existed for a decade or two before being delievered to Earth's long-delayed cutting edge starship. The ship-size phase cannon seem a similarly "semi-recent" invention: they are not yet installed aboard the NX-01 for her maiden voyage, but they are readily available aboard other, lesser starships within two years, as seen in "The Expanse".
That's probably as accurate as one can get with phaser history. I'd rather prefer if there weren't a single luminous inventor for the technology, but rather just slow progress being made beginning with the 20th century and culminating in the 22nd, after which there would be minor improvements only.
Timo Saloniemi
We don't know if hand phasers truly were invented in 2151 sharp: they may have existed for a decade or two before being delievered to Earth's long-delayed cutting edge starship. The ship-size phase cannon seem a similarly "semi-recent" invention: they are not yet installed aboard the NX-01 for her maiden voyage, but they are readily available aboard other, lesser starships within two years, as seen in "The Expanse".
That's probably as accurate as one can get with phaser history. I'd rather prefer if there weren't a single luminous inventor for the technology, but rather just slow progress being made beginning with the 20th century and culminating in the 22nd, after which there would be minor improvements only.
Timo Saloniemi
Shatner's most recent novel presents the theory, most likely coming from Judy and Gar Reeves-Stevens, that when the Romulan War started, further development, or at least mass production, of the more exotic, and expensive, weaponry like phase pistols and photonic torpedoes was shelved in favor of the more reliable, and cheaper, plasma pistols, lasers, and good ol' fashioned nukes. Once the war was over, they picked back up where they left off, hence the apparent technology gap between Archer's time and Pike's.
Get the impression that a lot of what Gar and Judy did on Enterprise consisted of damage control?
Get the impression that a lot of what Gar and Judy did on Enterprise consisted of damage control?
All true. What we do know is that as part of the "Star Trek" timeline "phase pistols," presumable precursors to phasers, are in use in the 22nd century as sidearms and "phase cannon" are in use as ship-mounted weaponry. Both are very new at the time that NX-01, the first starship Enterprise, is launched.
No contrary interpretation satisfies the canonical "Star Trek" timeline.
This is my belief as well.
I've been of the opinion for quite a long time that the big cannon was a phaser. Blue beam, higher pitched sound, it all fits.
I also agree.
And if we take phasers as cannon to rifle to pistol development, I'd tend to think they were a fairly recent development, TOS-wise.
Kinda like the first computers were initially room-sized with vacuum tubes, then desk units, then pocket PCs, etc. Perhaps phasers developed along similar lines. No particular reason to believe that, but I like it.
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