erewhon:
It can't be - there's TOS episodes where things move out of the way. The episode with the polluted water comes to mind. ("Blink of an eye"?)

As I say, it's right around here where Trek goes whack. Same as Voyager's little problem about distance, travel time, maximum stated speed...

It's described as being a hand held near light speed energy beam weapon (not necessarily a laser in an of itself) capable of levelling a mountain with little to no problem. It's depicted as something less potent than a modern pistol combined with a musket's lack of accuracy. The Starship depictions are equally bad.

TOS, in some respects, you can forgive. It really was 'Wagon Train to the stars' cowboys & indians stuff. It wasn't until TNG that Paramount really started pumping out fluff about the ship spec's and such. Which the writers then decided to ignore.

A hand phaser both is and isn't a weapon of mass destruction, both answers are canon.

erewhon:
It's a beam of fast nadions. Whatever those are.

Pretty much. It's a beam weapon firing techno-babble. Actually... that'd be awesome, something you can shoot someone with and it makes them spout random bollocks as fast as they can.

Vaneshi: What's whack is you never see the TV show represent these capabilities; yet they are legit according to the sanctioned, paramount staff written, technical fluff. I suspect it's because the show is supposed to be 'nice humans in space' not 'now watch this city explode'.

I also hate it when shows do that, but I'm not above using fluff in a geek fight!

If I understand memory alpha correct, Roddenberry wanted to use lasers but was afraid people would spot him farking up the science.
...and if you think about it, Phasers grew to use every weapon trope in the book. They have a bottomless magazine that's always empty, storm trooper like sniping ability, and a dozen settings for kill (but its never set to kill when pointed at a main character).

Its the wagon train 6 (to 20) shooter in a sexier package.

way south: If I understand memory alpha correct, Roddenberry wanted to use lasers but was afraid people would spot him farking up the science.
...and if you think about it, Phasers grew to use every weapon trope in the book. They have a bottomless magazine that's always empty, storm trooper like sniping ability, and a dozen settings for kill (but its never set to kill when pointed at a main character).

Its the wagon train 6 (to 20) shooter in a sexier package.


Didn't the Phaser generate most of the gun tropes related to sci-fi shows?

It's one of the reasons I think rebooting the franchise is a good thing, you can start off with a bible and make sure people follow it or GTFO, I'm not necessarily sure I like the JJ movie as a mechanism towards that end... good popcorn muncher though.

Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation is superior to Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation IMHO



Though this one might as well be a rifle with the size of the 'power pack'



/acronyms ftw

Vaneshi: Didn't the Phaser generate most of the gun tropes related to sci-fi shows?

It's one of the reasons I think rebooting the franchise is a good thing, you can start off with a bible and make sure people follow it or GTFO, I'm not necessarily sure I like the JJ movie as a mechanism towards that end... good popcorn muncher though.

Actually, I did like the reboot.
Originally Star Trek was an adventurous morality play, not technically detailed Sci-Fi. People liked exploring humanity by way of idealized humans confronting races with familiar flaws. They could overlook the tech inconsistencies for character development.

The first reboot breaks with the idealized humans part, but it still wanted to be character driven (with more than a few gratuitous explosions...).
I think that is the right direction. The red matter stuff is easily forgiven.

/No one has a right to complain about shoddy plot mechanics after they used whales to save starfleet.

Brainsick: Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation is superior to Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation IMHO

Sounds cool but the photon energy is so much lower that MASERs are generally sort of 'vaginal' for total power output.

Now, if you use a FEL or CARM to put out your coherent microwaves, you can really throw some power downfield.

AF likes CARMs on their flying microwave death planes.

way south:
/No one has a right to complain about shoddy plot mechanics after they used whales to save starfleet.

I wasn't really commenting on the plot more the 'jesus christ I'm blind' lens flare he seemed fond of using in that movie. Especially the opening scenes on the bridge.

Nero was very... un-Romulan though.

The sniper rifle on DS9 fitted with mini transporter-so you could beam your bullet to a spot right in front of the target's face-was pretty spiffy.

When Odo was describing the weapon, two things came to mind for me:
1. Sisko seemed pretty excited about the idea of "A gun?!" being used. Maybe he wanted a smokewagon like Hawk used to carry...
2. The Borg episodes and their ever adaptive sheilds always made me wonder why Picard and them weren't getting 24th century versions of an AA-12 or something out of the replicator-especially after disengaging the safties on the Holideck allowed Picard to mow Borg down like he was a recreating the St.Valintine's Day Massacre. Seemed odd to me that they knew they only had a few shots with their phasers or pulse emitters on the Borg, yet they didn't change weapons or carry multiple weapons or an axe or something.

way south:

/No one has a right to complain about shoddy plot mechanics after they used whales to save starfleet.

Which was the highest grossing Trek film.

I have a phaser pistol and a laser cat.

The answer to accuracy issues is adding a laser sight to the phaser, is it not? I don't care if it seems dumb, that's the way to hit your target the first time.

"Oh, I'll be shooting a high-power beam of light? Let me aim with a low-power beam of light so I know I'm accurate."

How was this never used? Seriously.

Vaneshi: way south:
/No one has a right to complain about shoddy plot mechanics after they used whales to save starfleet.

I wasn't really commenting on the plot more the 'jesus christ I'm blind' lens flare he seemed fond of using in that movie. Especially the opening scenes on the bridge.

Nero was very... un-Romulan though.

It's a product of the shaky cam era.
Maybe some day they'll re-cut the thing without that annoying flare, but I don't think it ruined the movie as a whole.

TyrantII: way south:

/No one has a right to complain about shoddy plot mechanics after they used whales to save starfleet.

Which was the highest grossing Trek film.

Whales dude... Whales.

I_Hate_Iowa: The answer to accuracy issues is adding a laser sight to the phaser, is it not? I don't care if it seems dumb, that's the way to hit your target the first time.

"Oh, I'll be shooting a high-power beam of light? Let me aim with a low-power beam of light so I know I'm accurate."

How was this never used? Seriously.

Because, TV show.
Burdening the viewer with the realities of aiming was an unnecessary step until they figured out that those elements could be used to add drama to a fight scene or death.

As for real life, I would use a laser sight for close ranges.
...But I think the problems are the same ones you'll have with a laser sighted pistol.

At twenty yards you'll see a clear spot of light on the target and have no trouble aiming. At fifty yards and beyond, you'll see a much smaller spot that appears to dance all over the place, and the wiggle only gets worse with distance. That is the natural motion of your hand. The chart I posed further up is a list of things people do to make it worse.
You can try to fight it (and believe me, I've tried) but it wont go away.

If you have a stock and foregrip, you can brace the gun against your shoulder which makes a much better platform. The wiggle goes away till your well past a hundred yards, but that point becomes difficult to see.

/A laser rifle, unlike a real one, isn't affected by windage or gravity.
/An optic that's aligned will tell you everything you need to know to shoot at the limits of human vision.
/Being a tv show, the distance where a laser would be used for dramatic effect is well beyond its realistic useful range.

way south:
It's a product of the shaky cam era.
Maybe some day they'll re-cut the thing without that annoying flare, but I don't think it ruined the movie as a whole.

On that we shall have to disagree, I like the movie but I have to wear sun glasses to watch it or I get a migraine. Way to much flashing lens flare shiat. I really hope the next one doesn't have it quite so much.

I want a high powered laser so i can drive down the street early on garbage day and slice open every garbage bag on the street. It'd be like a giant racoon street party!

Vaneshi: way south:
It's a product of the shaky cam era.
Maybe some day they'll re-cut the thing without that annoying flare, but I don't think it ruined the movie as a whole.

On that we shall have to disagree, I like the movie but I have to wear sun glasses to watch it or I get a migraine. Way to much flashing lens flare shiat. I really hope the next one doesn't have it quite so much.

The next one will most certainly be better. They ran through the gambit of stupid crap in the reboot, so this one should be a better movie. Not that I didn't like the reboot, but there was some weak/irritating elements to it that I'd assume won't be present in the next one.

way south: echri: since "ballistics" don't really apply to beams of light i'm pretty sure a pistol sized phaser would be just as accurate as a rifle form factor.

Ballistics isn't the reason most people miss their target.

[dl.dropbox.com image 375x373]

If you took a pistol and strapped it to a table you could probably get decent accuracy out to fifty yards at least. With my craptastic marksmanship, the safest place for a bad guy to be is standing in front of me at that distance.
Its all in the grip, and it takes alot of practice to iron that out.

If you remove the noise and recoil then maybe people will stop flinching. But unless you've got some aiming assistance, putting beam on steel at that range is still going to be tricky without a shoulder rest.

/I hope the 2nd amendment will protect my right to bear energy weapons.
/Cause I'd like to find out how tricky it will be.

Where does "Hand Numb from Cold Beer" appear on your chart?

Was this filmed in his workshop or his parent's basement?

OgreMagi: Vaneshi: The US military REALLY wants something like a phaser, we occasionally see links appearing on Fark about research in to them.

There are a few problems with lasers as weapons.

1. Power. It takes a lot of power to produce a beam that will have any effect at a distance.
2. Atmosphere. Outside of a vaccuum, lasers lose their power in a very short distance. Overcoming this requires MORE POWER.
3. Size. Because of the power requirements, making something man-portable is not possible.

This applies to lasers, not to science fiction weapons that may not even be possible. Until there is a fundamental breakthough in power storage, portable lasers as a weapon will not be obtainable.

/I used to work in a laser lab

The ".45 longslide with laser sighting" gun in Terminator (1984) had a real laser but they couldn't make the power pack internal to the prop, at least not on budget. A cable is running down Schwarzenegger's sleeve.

Does anyone disagree with me that star trek has no toilets because your piss and shiate get teleported directly into space from inside you?

/anything else would be uncivilized.

Tater1337: would be interesting to get about 7 of those lasers, a couple prisms and mirrors and get all the beams to overlap. and a bigger battery, and cooling fins.....

/would burn my name on a wall at random places
//or subbys name

I know it's you, Chairface.

reggaejunkiejew: Does anyone disagree with me that star trek has no toilets because your piss and shiate get teleported directly into space from inside you?

/anything else would be uncivilized.

A) That's from a webcomic

B) There are actually toilets all over Starfleet vessels; there's one directly off the bridge on the USS Enterprise D that can be seen on blueprints and set designs.

Really? I'm the first?