I reckon they'll have phlasers.
Will they use Lasers or Phasers?
- Thread starter Jayson
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PHASER was actually adopted in 1992 as a term standing for "phaseonium laser", which is defined as a "laser without inversion (LWI) that creates quantum coherence via Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT)." By making the laser emitter transparent to the same frequency it emits, the emitter doesn't re-absorb the beam, thus increasing the laser's efficiency, reducing the needed energy input and reducing heat in the device.
My limited understanding of the concept is that a weaponized version might behave like the phaser of TNG -- it would stun, (or with reconfigured electronic components capable of handling many times more current, kill). But I don't believe it would be able to "disintegrate".
The quantum interference employed in this type of laser is what led me to speculate the "Cage" gun might actually act as a phaser consisting of three interacting lasers.
That's interesting... in the mid-1980s we had a logistics analysis computer program at the Pentagon (nothing classified here) that got dubbed PHASER because, far as I can tell, some airman liked the word. But as far as I can tell, neither that nor the phasonium laser have anything to do with the rayguns on "Star Trek"...except that us trekkies sometimes get to name things.
Roddenberry's vision of the future changed from the time he shot the first pilot (THE CAGE) to when he shot the 2nd (WNMHGB). It was laser in the previous and phaser in the latter. So which vision of the future should they respect? The total of 2 or 3 mentions of the word "laser" in THE MENAGERIE or the countless mentions of the word phaser in TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY?
The only documentary evidence that I've seen for the change in Roddenberry's "vision" as regards the rayguns is in "The Making Of Star Trek." Very simply, according to a memo in the book, he became concerned that lasers might be common enough by the time that Trek got on the air that it would be a good idea to change the name of the weapons. So they made up the word phaser, and an unofficial after-the-fact explanation for the name is included in the book.
No, they're not. Lasers can't do half the things that phasers were later shown to do. Yes, they can both burn holes in things and heat them up - but that's ALL a laser can do. Based on the things phasers and shown to do, we can make some educated guesses about how it might accomplish it.
By your argument, "starship" and "biplane" are interchangeable terms because they're both capable of zooming around above a planet's surface.
We're not discussing real-life lasers - as I specifically pointed out, and you quoted but ignored.
We're discussing the things called "lasers" in "The Cage."
They are no different in essence than phasers. The two devices have different names, that's all. No science more sophisticated or realistic than Buck Rogers' rayguns or "Forbidden Planet's" hand blasters was involved.
They don't operate any differently than phasers, except that the characters twist the front in order to increase power instead of rotating a knob.
Trek laser = phaser = phase pistol = blaster = raygun. No "scientific" distinctions, no functional difference ever canonically established. Just a name change, as documented in GR's memos of the time.
Nope, you're arguing with someone who understands the show's "technology" at least as well as you do but doesn't buy your unsupported assertions about it.
I agree with Juan. The Cage/The Menagerie never showed the "laser" doing anything but what a current laser "could" do. They did not stun nor vaporize. The overload that No. 1 was attempting is something that a hand held laser would probably be able to do IF there was such a thing.
I like to think that the Talosians, in transmitting their thoughts to Spock's courtmartial just used their colloquialism of "laser" for the Federation word phaser.
I can make any statement you like sound reasonable if you let me use "would probably" and "IF there was such a thing" in the sentence.
Everything the laser does in "The Cage" is something that the phasers would later be demonstrated to do - including, as you point out, setting it to explode like a bomb (which, despite the "would probably" and "IF" involved is not an observant usage of scientific information about how lasers work in the real world; it is, god forbid, nothing more than an arbitrary plot gimmick).
That the phasers had more functions added to them later doesn't demonstrate that they're different from the lasers in "The Cage," which were devices the size of a pistol with ray-beams of adjustable strength capable of burning or blowing things up - exactly like phasers.
When in "Star Trek", the tech not been anything other then a plot device?
Sharr
North Pole-aris said:
I can make any statement you like sound reasonable if you let me use "would probably" and "IF there was such a thing" in the sentence.
Everything the laser does in "The Cage" is something that the phasers would later be demonstrated to do - including, as you point out, setting it to explode like a bomb (which, despite the "would probably" and "IF" involved is not an observant usage of scientific information about how lasers work in the real world; it is, god forbid, nothing more than an arbitrary plot gimmick).
That the phasers had more functions added to them later doesn't demonstrate that they're different from the lasers in "The Cage," which were devices the size of a pistol with ray-beams of adjustable strength capable of burning or blowing things up - exactly like phasers.
That they DID have more functions added to them DEFINES them as something other than lasers (Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation), a PHASER. While they were not meant to be different in as had the show been picked up right away and there were no thought about it, it might have been called a laser for a while, just like Starfleet/Federation was UESPA.
Is Spock going to show emotion and smile and be a "Vulcanian"?
I mean... if it was in the Cage and early episodes of TOS... we should really include ALL mistakes, right?
I mean... if it was in the Cage and early episodes of TOS... we should really include ALL mistakes, right?
No more or less than the behavior of the so-labeled "lasers" in "The Cage" defined them as something other than lasers.
Roddenberry was concerned, in fact, that using the term "laser" in the pilot was going to make it too easy for the audience to argue with the rayguns doing things that lasers didn't do. He opted in favor of "laser" anyway because it was a familiar word, then changed his mind for the second pilot.
They're all just ray-guns.
Yeah... just not seeing how. If they stunned someone, or disintegrated something, I might agree. However, they worked exactly like a high-powered laser weapon would. Since they were also called lasers, Occam's Razor dictates that Starfleet used hand lasers in the 2250's.
Anything else is just substitution based on the assumed intent of the author. Really, what's wrong with Starfleet using high-powered lasers and then switching to phasers once the technology to make them portable came to be?
Except a laser fires rays, and a phaser does not.
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