The Power of a Hand Phaser

[Joshua Howard]

In "Ensigns of Command" Data fries (for lack of a more appropriate descriptive term) a rather crude aqueduct as a demonstration of force in his efforts to make a case for evacuation due to the Sheliak.

The force of the kill setting, under those circumstances, is shown to be powerful enough to travel through the pipe network and up the hill (the camera pans out over the settlement-at-large after he fires the shot at ground level), presumably evaporating all of the water in the pipes, or possibly melting the network.

I was just re-watching that episode, and I got to thinking that it doesn't seem like a hand phaser should be able to have quite that far-reaching of an effect. What do you folks think?

 

[Amaris]

The type of material for the aqueduct may have been the type that easily transferred energy, and so the effects of the phaser setting were stretched farther than normal.

 

[Michael]

Like Data, the producers were going for an impressive visual effect in that scene. I guess that's the only explanation for the way the phaser worked in that scene.

 

[Snaploud]

He probably manipulated the settings to best transfer the energy along the aqueduct. Also, we don't know whether or not Data was lying regarding the abilities of his phaser. He was, after all, going for dramatic effect.

 

[Doug Otte]

Like Data, the producers were going for an impressive visual effect in that scene. I guess that's the only explanation for the way the phaser worked in that scene.

Groovy avatar, NCC-1701!

Doug

 

[Holdfast]

I believe the Type II phasers are powerful enough to vacuum up even ground-in dirt...

 

[SchwEnt]

^^^ I agree. Also love the avatar, NCC-1701.

 

[Mojochi]

Doesn't Worf vaporize solid rock in Chain Of Command?

 

[Timo]

Yup; this specifically calls for setting 16, supposedly the highest one available. Riker threatens to use the same setting for evaporating "half a building" in a "Frame of Mind" dream sequence.

The thing about "Ensigns of Command" is that Data's shot doesn't do squat to the water in the aqueduct. Sure, an impressive light show is generated, but the water isn't evaporated, shunted to another realm, or otherwise hurt: only a few seconds after the shot, we see water again running from the aqueduct to the pool behind our characters!

Probably Data fired the gun at stun setting or something, and the phaser effect just has the quality of traveling in a given medium almost indefinitely. It's only when the effect hits a medium boundary (say, water/aqueduct, or body/air, or body/floor) that it stops and settles for doing its thing on the original medium instead of propagating to the next one.

Timo Saloniemi