pressure by the network to introduce phasers early on?

[watermelony2k]

Anyone else find it strange that the Enterprise crew started out with plasma turrets and EM-33 plasma pistols, which suddenly got switched to more phaser-like weapons like the phase cannon, phase pistol? Ditto with the sudden replacement of torpedoes by the photonic torpedoes.

Was there network pressure to introduce more easily identifiable star trek elements to the show?

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

I bet the network didn't even know what a phaser was.

 

[Timo]

It makes dramatic sense to meet our heroes at a point of transition, rather than at some random non-juncture of history. The Suits could have understood that much, and green-lighted a writer-producer suggestion for showing "the timepoint where Trek first became Trek". The initiative and drive would have come from the writers and producers, though.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Romulans "invented' the photon torpedo. Spock and Kirk were going WTF is this thing back in The balance of terror? It's ridiculous how it played out.

Here's what I think happened.

Some script editor had a tanty then threw his toys about having to keep fracking fiddling with Braga's scripts every time he would use terms like Photon torpedoes and Phasers, and since this hypothetical person couldn't yell at the boss... They just made it really really easy for him.

Though the switchover to Phase pistols happened in the pilot, and Reed asked what a Photonic Torpedo was in Sleeping Dogs halfway though season one, and even invented the force field much to even T'Pol's amusement in Vox Sola. The holo deck was discovered in episode five...

Hey?

Did these idjits know waht a frakcing "Human adventure" is?

 

[Jack Bauer]

watermelony2k said:
Anyone else find it strange that the Enterprise crew started out with plasma turrets and EM-33 plasma pistols, which suddenly got switched to more phaser-like weapons like the phase cannon, phase pistol? Ditto with the sudden replacement of torpedoes by the photonic torpedoes.

Was there network pressure to introduce more easily identifiable star trek elements to the show?

Yes. Originally in B&B's concept for the show the Enterprise had no transporters. UPN insisted that transporters were a necessary element in Star Trek.

 

[Timo]

The Romulans "invented' the photon torpedo. Spock and Kirk were going WTF is this thing back in The balance of terror?

Naah. The Romulans invented (or at least first wielded against our heroes) the plasma cloud weapon that looked nothing like a photon torpedo. When torpedoes began flying in TOS, they were not considered novel in any sense...

In fact, no technology in TOS was considered particularly novel, save for the M-5 computer, the Romulan cloak of invisibility and perhaps a couple of the chamber of horrors devices from the UFP mental-penal institutions. Things like phasers and transporters were taken for granted; giving them at least a century of history was thus a smart move from the makers of ENT.

Perhaps these things shouldn't have been portrayed as human inventions, though. The stories would have been just as well served if transporters were a hand-down from Vulcans (and perhaps they were, despite the braggings of that Erickson guy) and photon torpedoes were the result of interstellar industrial espionage (and there's nothing to say they weren't).

Frankly, once a civilization in Trek discovers warp drive, it's only a matter of time before they have purchased all the high tech there is for sale in the interstellar community, either over or under the counter. There would always be parties willing to sell, and Earth would have the will to buy, paying with its newborns if need be.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[pookha]

the phase pistols and phase canons are so far down the chain in terms of power and versatility to what a connie had i just saw it as a step in progress toward what they would eventually have.

 

[MrPointy]

Could anyone tell me what the difference between a phase cannon/pistol and a phaser is?

 

[bryce]

It was already established in TOS that Pike's crew had "lasers" and that the Romulan War was fought with primitive nuclear weapons.

I don't see why the crew couldn't have had hand lasers and nuclear tipped "spacial torpedoes". Just calling them "phase pistols" and "photonic torpedoes" was a lame attempt to make them sound like TOS/TNG without actually having the exact same technology (though *what* the differences were, I dunno...)

There is no reason, that for story, we couldn't have had lasers (with a taser-like stun feature) or even "phased lasers" ("laser" for short, as per "The Cage", "phaser" later on, as the "phasing" became more advanced or whatever) &/or a dual "laser/phased particle beam gun" instead of "phase pistols"...and nuclear mines/torpedoes and the occasional primitive (and expensive, VERY unstable) antimatter weapon instead of "photonic weapons".

The Transporter, we already know had been around (and used for humans) prior to TNG for 200 years, so having them was fine. but I would have liked to see them slower, noisier, more power hungry, operated by a 2-man team, and more risky for human transport. (And the sparkly effect should have been gold, not TNG silver!)

I did like in the 4th season how the updated the transporter platform to look more TOS-like!

 

[Noname Given]

MrPointy said:
Could anyone tell me what the difference between a phase cannon/pistol and a phaser is?

About the same difference as a Laser and a Phaser were in the first TOS pilot, The Cage.

As the series showed, Phase Cannons were the pre-cursor, or eventually became the 'Phasers' of the 23rd centuey. As shown in the IaMD episodes, 'Phasers' had a lot more firepower and punch than 'Phase Cannons' of the Terran Empire.

 

[Nebusj]

MrPointy said:
Could anyone tell me what the difference between a phase cannon/pistol and a phaser is?

Oh, they're completely different. A phaser pistol is a hand-held device which on the touch of a button shoots out a beam of colored light and which can be used to stun or to kill the target. A phase pistol, meanwhile, is a hand-held device whch on the touch of a button shoots out a beam of colored light and which can be used to stun or to kill the target.

The differences are more dramatic with ship's phasers and phase cannons. Ship's phasers are hull-mounted devices which on the Captain's command shoot out a beam of light which can damage or destroy a target -- or just bounce off the shielding. Phase cannons, meanwhile, are hull-mounted devices which on the captain's command shoot out a beam of light which can damage or destroy a target -- or just bounce off the hull plating.

You can see how they're radically different devices and how a story with one set is fundamentally different from a story with the other set.

 

[pookha]

a tos phaser had multiple settings and not just two.
they could also vaporize a person or object into nothingness.

 

[Guy Gardener]

TOS phasers could also blow up on purpose.

I couldn't believe that that was still a surprise four years in.

 

[watermelony2k]

i still think they should have went with bullet-firing pistols, nukes, and missiles.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You mean like Battlestar Galactica?

I was always pissed that GI Joe cartoons looked like they were using regular fire arms until they shot laser bolts at each other. It just didn't mesh with the fecking toys I was buying!