TOS Weaponry Question

[Timo]

I suggest you watch TNG again then, because they made an effort never to show phasers at warp, and the TNG tech manual states that phasers cannot be fired at warp. VOY showed phasers being fired at warp, but then again, VOY was a crap show that threw all continuity out the window.

I maintain that TNG made no such effort - they just avoided showing warp in general. Every other incarnation of Star Trek ever televised showed phasers at warp: DS9, VOY and ENT all did it, honoring the tradition firmly established in TOS and TAS. That's Star Trek as it always was intended.

It is not silly for phasers to be regarded as light weapons that can't be used at FTL...

Well, at least it makes you look pretty silly when phasers are used at FTL!

The "laser theory" has never matched the onscreen facts, and thankfully has never been proposed by a character or a paraphernalia book. Obviously, phaser beams are something else altogether - such as particle beams.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BolianAuthor]

You can maintain TNG made no such effort all you want. But if you watch it, you will see I am right.

As for my looking silly... not really... the TNG tech manual says that phasers cannot be used at warp. That is in writing. TNG made a great effort to adhere to it. That is fact. DS9, probably didn't violate the rule on purpose, but I'm sure it did in a few episodes. VOY and ENT both blatantly ignored any continuity, so I don't cite them as evidence of adhering to anything.

 

[Mytran]

So, Starfleet has the technology to make sensor beams, communication beams and meteorite deflector beams travel FTL, but not weapons?

Hmm...

 

[Jonas Grumby]

Nothing was ever said in TOS about phasers being light-based or limited to light-speed. Indeed, they were demonstrably shown on numerous occasions to be explicitly FTL.

If TNG says differently, then TNG either got it wrong or simply decided to do it differently. But that doesn't effect what was established in TOS. And the topic is "TOS Weaponry Question."

 

[BolianAuthor]

^

Exactly... TOS is the topic, and that is what I am concerned with. But I am pointing out for TNG, phasers were always explicitly stated to be unusable at warp speeds. It is in writing, in the TNG tech manual, and no matter how anyone claims otherwise, they can't unprint it from the book.

If TOS depicted phasers being fired at warp speeds, IDK what to say really. In any case, that doesn't apply to my original question, which is what the proper COLOR is for both phaser and photon torpedo in TOS.

 

[Navigator_NCC2120]

Phasers were a different matter. Starship phasers were normally blue, and most people's mental image of TOS phasers is correctly blue. In a few exceptions ("Who Mourns for Adonais," "The Apple," and "The Doomsday Machine") the phasers are red, which might indicate a higher phaser setting; with the hand phasers, only red beams caused disintegration or disruptor effects.

The ship's phasers were also red in the Season 1 episode "The Corbomite Maneuver". It was the first episode filmed after the 2 pilots. Here is a picture.

The ship's phasers were actually amber or orange in the Season 2 episode "The Doomday Machine", not red. Here is a picture.


Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
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[Captain Robert April]

The TOS Writer's Guide doesn't say anything about whether or not you can fire phasers at warp (but then, even the third revision, April 17, 1967, doesn't mention photon torpedoes, but does talk about the phasers being able to be set like depth charges - think "Balance of Terror").

The Voyager Writer's Tech Manual, however, does mention that the phasers are light-speed weapons and are therefore "relatively ineffective at warp speeds." Since the material is largely cut-and-pasted from the TNG Writer's Tech Manual, it's relevant.

 

[Captain Robert April]

^

Exactly... TOS is the topic, and that is what I am concerned with. But I am pointing out for TNG, phasers were always explicitly stated to be unusable at warp speeds. It is in writing, in the TNG tech manual, and no matter how anyone claims otherwise, they can't unprint it from the book.

If TOS depicted phasers being fired at warp speeds, IDK what to say really. In any case, that doesn't apply to my original question, which is what the proper COLOR is for both phaser and photon torpedo in TOS.

The hard truth is that there is no "proper color". It's whatever the effects house decided on and which stock footage the editor inserted into the sequence.

 

[Mytran]

The ship's phasers were actually amber or orange in the Season 2 episode "The Doomday Machine", not red. Here is a picture.

I should also point out that the phasers came out of a weird place in that episode, as shown here:

 

[Timo]

...Ah, the ventral portside phaser bank, hidden from view by the sensor dome!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

Hmm, that might work! It would also assign a purpose to the 3 "nubs" at the bottom of the saucer dome, highlighted here in red:

 

[Timo]

Since all the TOS beams come from the vicinity of the dome, and since "Paradise Syndrome" verbally establishes four separate phaser banks existing (and visually establishes at least three of them being in that location), it would be rather elegant to say that each of those three knobs was a (twin) bank, and so was the knob at the very bottom of the dome. A nicely symmetric layout there, nicely compact and clustered into what we could argue is a dedicated lump of fighting hardware.

Since all the four emitters in "Paradise Syndrome" are eventually combined into firing from one and the same location for the final burst, I'd go with the good old speculation that the knobs on the dome rim are set on a rotating ring, and that firing all three in combination at a forward target would involve rotating each of them to the forward position in turn (while the other two cooled down). Generally, the ring would be rotated so that the firing bank would be dead ahead - but in a battle where the ship maneuvered a lot, such as when circling the DDM, the banks might fire in various directions, and from positions other than dead ahead.

If the ring doesn't rotate, then the asymmetric placement of the banks would be even stranger than the idea of an off-centerline bridge axis...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[GSchnitzer]

Who want to be the poor shlub to dig through trekcore.com and dig up every picture of a phaser firing?

I'm on it, dude. Photon torpedoes already done.

LOL... awesome.

Well, yes, I am really asking about TOS ship-mounted weapons in particular. I just want to know what color the phasers and photons are supposed to be, as a general rule... I realize that the settings aside... the variations can be chalked up to change in FX people and budget, but that's why I'm asking.

1. The Corbomite Maneuver (red phasers fired forward at Balock’s cube)

2. Balance of Terror (silvery phaser blobs fired forward at Romulan ship)

(Note that the phasers are self-contained silvery energy blobs quanta of energy—like depth charges—so that the episode is more like the movie “The Enemy Below.” Scene 91 from the “Balance of Terror” script reads “The Enterprise suddenly zooms into sight through the comet’s semi-transparent tail—cutting loose with energy ‘blips’ from its phaser weapons.”)

3. Arena (phasers fired forward at Gorn ship)

4. Arena (red photon torpedoes fired forward at Gorn ship)

5. The Alternative Factor (silvery phasers fired to a planetary target—a single beam)

6. Errand of Mercy (silvery phaser blobs fired forward at Klingon ship)

7a. Who Mourns for Adonais (Preview) (blue phasers fired at a planetary target)

7b. Who Mourns for Adonais (Preview) (blue phasers fired at a planetary target)

7c. Who Mourns for Adonais (red phasers fired at a planetary target)

7d. Who Mourns for Adonais (red phasers fired at a planetary target)

8a. The Doomsday Machine (amber phasers fired at the “planet killer”)

8b. The Doomsday Machine (amber phasers fired at the “planet killer”—single beam)

9a. The Apple (red phasers fired at planetary target)

9b. The Apple (red phasers fired at planetary target)

10. Journey to Babel (purple phasers fired forward at Orion vessel)

11a. Obsession (blue phasers fired forward at vampire cloud)

11b. Obsession (silvery photon torpedoes fired forward at vampire cloud)

12. A Piece of the Action (green phasers fired at a planetary target)

13. Patterns of Force (blue phasers fired forward at incoming missiles)

14a. The Ultimate Computer (silvery photon torpedo fired forward at the Woden)

14b. The Ultimate Computer (blue phasers fired forward at incoming attack force)

15. Elaan of Troyius (silvery photon torpedoes fired forward at Klingon ship)

16a. The Paradise Syndrome (amber deflector fired forward at asteroid)

16b. The Paradise Syndrome (blue phasers fired forward at asteroid)

17. The Tholian Web (phasers fired forward at Tholian ship)

18. For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky (blue phasers fired forward at incoming missles)

19. Day of the Dove (blue phasers fired forward at Klingon ship)

20. The Lights of Zetar (blue phasers fired forward at Zetar “storm”)

 

[blssdwlf]

Wow - thanks Greg!

One could make the argument that the red phasers were transitioned over to the blue phasers and that the photons were upgraded from red to silver Interesting to see that the phaser blips/proximity blasts make at least two episode appearances.

 

[Timo]

One might also argue that Kirk got less timid about using the high-power blue setting as he gained combat experience.

Most of the blue beams were fired in "great anger", against targets that would not have succumbed to less, but absolutely had to. The primitive missiles from "Patterns of Force" and "FtWIHaIHTtS" probably shouldn't have warranted such walloping, though, nor the Tholians in their titular ep.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[GSchnitzer]

One might also argue that Kirk got less timid about using the high-power blue setting as he gained combat experience.

Most of the blue beams were fired in "great anger", against targets that would not have succumbed to less, but absolutely had to. The primitive missiles from "Patterns of Force" and "FtWIHaIHTtS" probably shouldn't have warranted such walloping, though, nor the Tholians in their titular ep.

Timo Saloniemi

Well, it was Spock who fired the phasers in "The Tholian Web." I'm not convinced he would have used some kind of "great anger" setting.

 

[Timo]

Indeed. Then again, he ordered the rare blue setting for the hand phaser warning shots in "The Galileo Seven"... Perhaps his approach to warning shots in general is "maximum force across the bow", then perhaps followed by "light stun at secondary hull"?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

It could also be that the phaser colors were a result of constant tweaks and upgrades but had have no correlation to setting or power. (Like the constantly tweaked Engine Room ) The only color that seems to be specific to a setting was the stun setting.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

May favorite shot will always be "The Alternative Factor" one.

 

[Navigator_NCC2120]

One might also argue that Kirk got less timid about using the high-power blue setting as he gained combat experience.

Most of the blue beams were fired in "great anger", against targets that would not have succumbed to less, but absolutely had to. The primitive missiles from "Patterns of Force" and "FtWIHaIHTtS" probably shouldn't have warranted such walloping, though, nor the Tholians in their titular ep.

Timo Saloniemi

Well, it was Spock who fired the phasers in "The Tholian Web." I'm not convinced he would have used some kind of "great anger" setting.

Agreed. Thanks Greg for the pictures. I just recently saw "The Tholian Web" online and additionally, Spock ordered Sulu to divert auxiliary power to the shields to which Sulu replied "But Sir, that would reduce our phasers by 50%" (or something similar to that). So the phasers in that scene should either be amber or red not blue in my opinion.


Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
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