NX Class Weapons

[Luis]

Phasers are more slower that light, because in TOS we can see a alien female evading a Phaser, because she live accelerated in the time. I not remember the chapter.

My idea of how evolved weapons :

Plasma cannon --> Phased Canon (ENT) --> "Phased" Laser (Pre-TOS, The Cage era) --> Phaser

Spatial (Nuclear) Torpedo (Early ENT and Romulan Wars) --> Photonic Torpedo --> Photon Torpedo

I think that the Spatial Torpedos were used much in Romulan Wars. Because Photonic Torps, which the tech of these era, was build in low quantity, too low for be used by all fleet in a war. Plus, any body thought about if Spock say WHO used these weapons or If He say that ONY was fight wich these weapons?
I explain the "lasers", like the Romulans used some kind of big x-ray laser on big ships that can cut a unshielded ship like a knife can cut butter. And for "nuclear", well, We have Spatial Torps, and I never see in Ent, a Romulan ship firing Photon(ic) torps....

 

[Praetor]

My idea of how evolved weapons :

Plasma cannon --> Phased Canon (ENT) --> "Phased" Laser (Pre-TOS, The Cage era) --> Phaser

Spatial (Nuclear) Torpedo (Early ENT and Romulan Wars) --> Photonic Torpedo --> Photon Torpedo

I think that the Spatial Torpedos were used much in Romulan Wars. Because Photonic Torps, which the tech of these era, was build in low quantity, too low for be used by all fleet in a war.

I tend to agree.

I also like your overall point: we don't know who used what, or if they used other stuff, too.

I explain the "lasers", like the Romulans used some kind of big x-ray laser on big ships that can cut a unshielded ship like a knife can cut butter. And for "nuclear", well, We have Spatial Torps, and I never see in Ent, a Romulan ship firing Photon(ic) torps....

Or maybe phase cannons were a type of laser all along, different enough from the later phasers that Spock would dismiss them as "lasers"?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Well, they use higher power settings and so on, but as for "using frequency" to better penetrate those defenses, I can't think of anyone ever doing this other than the Duras Sisters.

Or LaForge, to defeat the Borg.

The exception that proves the rule. Borg defenses operate unlike any other technology in the trekiverse. LaForge (well, actually Shelby and Data) had to get creative.

Incidentally, we don't know WHY those frequencies were more effective against the Borg. By the time Locutus was through with them, they weren't.

But all the better - it just establishes that "frequency" in Trek doesn't have to have anything to do with the frequency of EM radiation

Actually it seems to suggest exactly that, since Geordi uses the term "high narrow band" for the frequency that does the trick. This directly implies EM radiation, since "bandwidth" is a term that applies to little else in this context.

Phasers hitting starships can create radiation for all I care.

But they don't. Hence the point.

Your own approach would defeat you here, though. If the target is indeed transformed from solid to vapor, then there'd be a heat wave and other such real-world effects.

This, again, isn't the case with simple boiling of water, nor is it really the case with common combustion of materials (as Chief O'Brien put it once, "The man just incinerated in front of me"). I actually wouldn't be surprised of every vaporized humanoid leaves a small pile of ash (off camera) on the exact spot where he was standing.

Irrelevant, as once again the observed properties are decisive. Photons don't do FTL

Neither do phasers. As for the overall point on sensors, we know that MOST sensors are EM-based. Long-range sensors--which are not EM based--are apparently not (meant to be) very precise, but plot contrivance screws this over all the time. Some days Voyager can scan planets for life forms fifty light years away, other days they have to be in orbit of the thing just to tell if it's Class-M.

Sounds utterly silly. We see the phaser effect propagate at speeds vastly below c

Only twice, already covered.

and vastly above c[p/quote]Not demonstrably in the entire history of Trek.

It's one hell of a job trying to fit into the data the idea that there's something invisible there moving at c when nothing visible is moving at c. Why go to that trouble?

Because the actual speed of phaser beams is never STATED to be anything other than C. The Tech Manual describes phaser range as approximately one light second and gives every indication phaser beams propagate at the speed of light. The show gives this indication as well, as is the original intent of the creators since, in the first place, phasers were just glorified lasers anyway.

And "a lot" is a relative thing anyway - contrasted with what else a phaser does, the heavy nuclei spray is probably still perfectly irrelevant.

As far as cutting things and/or causing them to explode, particle weapons are invariably less effective in this task than laser beams. It's also worthy to note that a particle-based weapon--neutral or otherwise--wouldn't propagate in any kind of atmosphere particularly well and would be better off replaced by an atmosphere-specific type of weapon (I always assumed this was why Klingons in the TOS era used sonic disruptors instead of phaser-like weapons as their Starfleet counterparts.)

 

[Timo]

The exception that proves the rule.

What rule? There's no specific way in which "frequency" of phasers, torpedoes or shields plays a role in Trek drama, save for making the weapons have increased or decreased odds of penetration. And that tells us less than nothing about whether the usual beam weapons are laserlike, particle beam -like or perhaps based on the transporter principle.

This directly implies EM radiation, since "bandwidth" is a term that applies to little else in this context.

Why? "Bandwidth" is valid terminology whenever "frequency" is - it is a range of allowed frequencies. There's nothing related to EM radiation there, as for example sound has frequency and bandwidth. A burst from a machine gun has frequency and bandwidth, for that matter.

But they don't.

Create radiation? How could we tell? There's a big flash of light, there's death and destruction. How can we claim there is no radiation?

I actually wouldn't be surprised of every vaporized humanoid leaves a small pile of ash (off camera) on the exact spot where he was standing.

That, or then ash blown to the air in a fine aerosol thanks to the heat wave. No prob with that. But the act of change from solid/liquid body to no solid/liquid body must be one of phase change. If not from solid/liquid to gas/plasma, then perhaps to some more exotic phase. In the former case, the magnitude of the phase change energies necessarily means a heat wave, which we don't get. In the latter, the side effects, waste energies and whatnot could go to the same phase where the victim went, providing us with the neat and tidy (hand) phaser effect we see.

Neither do phasers.

What the hell? How can you claim phasers don't do FTL, when they demonstrably hit targets at warp? And "overlapping warp fields" can't be the solution, because we learn from other sources how difficult and even dangerous it is to overlap the propulsive warp fields of two starships.

Some sort of a dedicated FTL field unrelated to the clumsy propulsive ones can of course sheath the phaser beam, in which case it could go FTL regardless of whether it consisted of laser radiation, electrons, or perhaps shiny ball bearings. But at that point, the fact comes to play that the exact effect we see moving at FTL in starship combat is seen moving at paintball velocities in ground combat. Why complicate this very clear-cut idea of phaser beams as STL glowing effects that can be shoved to FTL by scifi trickery, with the arbitrary idea that they are in fact lightspeed beams that are both slowed down to paintball speeds by scifi trickery, and accelerated to FTL? Getting things to move STL doesn't require trickery unless one desperately wants to use it, so why dig the big hole of claiming that the phaser is a laser and then try to climb out of it by saying that some aspects (really, all the demonstrable aspects!) of that laser manifest as STL visuals?

STL:

Only twice, already covered.

Nope, the effect moves STL every time. We can see it do so. The two episodes where time was being tampered with only serve to make this fact more blatant.

High FTL:

Not demonstrably in the entire history of Trek.

Except for all the warp battles between starships. TNG was a curious exception to this, apparently because it was too expensive to do both the TNG warp effect and the TNG phaser effect in the same shot. All other shows have demonstrated warp-to-warp firings of phaser beams, and some have shown warp-to-sublight and sublight-to-warp firings.

A side note:

Some days Voyager can scan planets for life forms fifty light years away, other days they have to be in orbit of the thing just to tell if it's Class-M.

We should probably consider that long range scans may have high resolution if they aren't realtime. That is, our heroes could check on lifeforms by passively watching a planet via a good telescope; if it had them 17 years ago, it's worth assuming there are some there now as well. Realtime measurements might require the fancy "FTL radar" beams that may lack the resolution, though.

Because the actual speed of phaser beams is never STATED to be anything other than C.

But it is never stated to be c, either. So why not pick, say, 500 m/s, when it better reflects the visual reality?

The Tech Manual describes phaser range as approximately one light second and gives every indication phaser beams propagate at the speed of light.

That's starship phasers, not the phaser as a phenomenon. And hand phasers tell us additional facts about the phenomenon, such as that it's speed is not c in the usual case.

...would be better off replaced by an atmosphere-specific type of weapon (I always assumed this was why Klingons in the TOS era used sonic disruptors instead of phaser-like weapons as their Starfleet counterparts.)

Lasers don't do well in atmospheres, either. And they are more suspect to agents introduced in the air than particle beams are, that is, to what might be "active defenses". Particle beams suffer pretty much equally in clean and dirty air.

As for Klingons using sonic disruptors... hardly. Just because their sidearms look a bit like Eminian sonic guns is hardly proof of anything, especially when Klingon weapons demonstrate phaserlike, un-Eminianlike behavior in every turn. (John M. Ford's take on the Eminian issue in Final Reflection is delicious: according to him, Klingon weapons exports benefit from the fact that translators usually blur the lines of different sorts of disruptors, making cheap and weak sonic ones sound more attractive than they are. )

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The exception that proves the rule.

What rule? There's no specific way in which "frequency" of phasers, torpedoes or shields plays a role in Trek drama

Exactly. In point of fact, it usually doesn't. The only time it does, it is laced with terminology that implies EM radiation.

Why? "Bandwidth" is valid terminology whenever "frequency" is - it is a range of allowed frequencies. There's nothing related to EM radiation there, as for example sound has frequency and bandwidth. A burst from a machine gun has frequency and bandwidth, for that matter.

Except that machineguns are described in terms of "rate of fire" or "rounds per minute," since it fires BULLETS and not electromagnetic waves that can best be described by their wave properties.

On the other hand, I suppose somewhere in the world there's a weapons expert idiotic enough to describe a Vulcan gun as firing "at a frequency of thirty five hundred hertz"

Create radiation? How could we tell?

Radiation alarms and/or dialog (you know, the indocators that pop up every time the ship encounters any form of potentially deadly radiation, often as a product of its own systems)

That, or then ash blown to the air in a fine aerosol thanks to the heat wave.

Possibly. There's no plausible reason to assume an explosive reaction would be the result, though. Plenty of heat to be sure, but most materials do not deflagrate just from the application of heat alone.

But the act of change from solid/liquid body to no solid/liquid body must be one of phase change.

Not at all. As with your aerosol reference, you know it is possible to vaporize a glass of water without heating it. Vaporization is just as possible with a chemical reaction--ordinary combustion, for example--as it is with heat. And since phasers do not have a setting that melts people instead of vaporizing them (what a fun concept!) then it's probably a chemical reaction.

The more likely candidate here is radio frequency heating. A microwave beam can cause you terrible pain by heating up the water molecules under your skin and at nerve endings, and at higher settings it can KILL you by cooking you from the inside. My assumption on phasers is that they work fundamentally the same way--a type of coherent EM radiation--except that the force carriers are MUCH higher energy (nadions, being a type of ultra-high energy photons) and the phasers are tuned to deliver their effects to specific targets depending on setting. This is why the stun setting works on living organism, but no stun setting exists that will disable a computer or another ship's navigational system (and there ought to be, if you think about it).

What the hell? How can you claim phasers don't do FTL, when they demonstrably hit targets at warp?

I'm surprised at you, Timo. You know those phaser beams are still traveling at C relative to the ship that fires them. And according to Einstein, they are also traveling at C relative to the ship they hit.

In detail: when two ships are traveling at exactly warp 7, one in front of the other, their relative velocity is exactly zero. When one ship shines a flashlight at the other, relative to the first ship, the photons are traveling at the speed of light. Relative to the second ship, the photons are also traveling at the speed of light, because--regardless of their warp factors--their relative velocity is still ZERO. And even if one ship is moving close to or faster than the speed of light with respect to the other, Einestein tells us that the speed of light is STILL c from both points of view.

Nope, the effect moves STL every time.

Again, this is not supportable by anything but your extremely active imagination. And for the third time, both time-dilation instances were extremely inconsistent to the point that they don't tell us anything useful about phaser beams. Wink of an Eye could only make sense if phaser beams "really" move at something like 300 meters per second (the rate at which Kirk's acceleration could make ANY amount of sense in light of the timing of the episode). Even for a particle beam moving at 30 km/s--ridiculously low for such a device--then Kirk would have aged a WEEK in the time it took for Uhura to realize he was gone.

Realtime measurements might require the fancy "FTL radar" beams that may lack the resolution, though.

Realtime "FTL radar" appears to be the "gravitic sensors" referenced in STXI (as I have said for years, and it was nice to finally hear it on screen). Apparently waves propagate in subspace at arbitrary superluminal speeds, and since subspace is related in some way to gravitation, you can tell what's happening on a distant planet by reading the subspace waves generated by its gravitational field. What you can't do is scan for life signs this way, unless the thing you're scanning for is a six-mile space amoeba...

But it is never stated to be c, either. So why not pick, say, 500 m/s, when it better reflects the visual reality?

Because it doesn't reflect visual reality. You're still thinking of "Wink of an eye" as if every phaser beam ever fired looked something like that. BEYOND that one reference, they've been fast enough to pass for "speed of light."

That's starship phasers, not the phaser as a phenomenon. And hand phasers tell us additional facts about the phenomenon, such as that it's speed is not c in the usual case.

The usual case is in an atmosphere, where the speed of light is lower.

Lasers don't do well in atmospheres, either. And they are more suspect to agents introduced in the air than particle beams are, that is, to what might be "active defenses". Particle beams suffer pretty much equally in clean and dirty air.

They don't pay me enough to explain all the things that are wrong in this paragraph.

As for Klingons using sonic disruptors...

Backstage reference, IIRC.