Phasers and their Displayed Effects

[l33telboi]

Some time ago, i started a thread on SB that dealt with phasers and their method of operation.

Here's the OP:

A reveleation of sorts hit me today while on IRC and discussing a few things with my fellow no-life friends (and enemies, such as the swede Palp). In any case, the revelation was in regards to phasers, although it started out as me trying to figure out if the 'phase disrupter' mentioned in Starcraft had any real life science behind them in them in real life.

Turns out it does. Well, almost at least.

Ever seen a show where people talk about shifting someone out of phase? Basically, making him invisible and/or untouchable by others? Well, that thought seems to have been derived from real science theories about sending mass out of phase with our space/time.

The specifics on what i'm talking about can be found here.

Now this does not deal with Sci-fi phasing specifically. But rather about shifting the phase of normal stuff like sound. But interestingly enough, if we assume matter has a wavelength and it works much like the phase of sound, phasers can actually phase matter out of our own phase (i know, i'm overusing the word phase).

And so, the pieces start falling into place.

First off, consider the funky visuals attributed with vaporization and phasers. Matter seems to simply dissapear when they are 'phazorized'. Well this is exactly what would happen if the phase of that matter was shifted. The matter, from our point of view, would simply dissapear, as if it never existed. No hardocre discernable effects from our point of view (the air would rush in to fill the gap just left, but other then that, nothing much would happen).

Is this what phasers do, rather then the whole NDF deal in the technical manual? The name of the weapon, as well as the visuals, seem to suggest so.

It would also explain the frequent use of the word frequencies when talking about weapons and shields.

Simply put, phasers are set to send something into a specific phase (which is designated by a frequency) and shields are designed to protect against attacks from specific phases (frequencies). This is why the shields have a weakness against energy weapons with certain frequencies, yet not against objects with mass (torpedoes, debris, etc). Simply because the shield does not exists in that one part of the space/time continuom to protect against weapons.

So, am i completly lost here? Do i have it all backwards? Becuase if this is all right, then it would have huge ramifications when talking about the damage a phaser can do. And it would also explain visuals on multiple accounts.

In any case, i wondered what thoughts people here have in regards to it. The people on SB were surprisingly welcoming of it.

[Praeothmin]

Except that in many cases, we do see some vaporization when phasers hit something.

[GStone]

If it were true, chaulk it up to phasing that didn't entirely stick, so it got loose from the material bonds and became free floating...whatever, which cause secondary effects, like heating?

[Mike DiCenso]

Not to rain on your parade, but we have numerous examples of phasers burning, heating, rapid thermal expansion effects, and melting things in very DET-like fashion. Many examples were covered extensively nearly a year ago in this thread:

http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=101

Also bear in mind that we have several statements from ST:ENT's "Regeneration", TNG's "The Mind's Eye", and DS9's "Business as Usual", which place hand weapon firepower in the megajoule and gigajoule ranges. This does not necessarily mean that a phaser does not transition matter out of the continuum, but on some settings a phaser simply is a DET weapon, while on others it uses disruption and other weirdness to phase transition out a target.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

I've also seen it mentioned in one of the threads here that Phasers, in certain ways, exhibited properties not unlike a Lightsabre.

Lightsabres don't vaporize materials, they simply cut through without displaying any vaporized flesh when cutting through someone.
Sometimes, it doesn't even cauterize the wounds, like in ANH hope, when OBI-Wan cuts the arm off of the spacer, or in ESTB when Han cuts the Taun-Taun open with Luke's lightsabre.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Lightsabers (particularly in the prequel trilogy) display apparent thermal effects as well at times.

[Praeothmin]

Jedi Master Spock wrote:

Lightsabers (particularly in the prequel trilogy) display apparent thermal effects as well at times.

Like I said, they display the same effects as Phasers... :)

[l33telboi]

I never meant that lower settings on hand phasers would involve phase-shifting. Only the higher 'disintergrate' setting and apparently the phasers on starships as well.

[SailorSaturn13]

Its the HIGH phaser setting that creates a thermal effect.


And ST shields are IMPENETRABLE by matter.

[GStone]

Not to rain on your parade, but we have numerous examples of phasers burning, heating, rapid thermal expansion effects, and melting things in very DET-like fashion. Many examples were covered extensively nearly a year ago in this thread:

http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=101

Also bear in mind that we have several statements from ST:ENT's "Regeneration", TNG's "The Mind's Eye", and DS9's "Business as Usual", which place hand weapon firepower in the megajoule and gigajoule ranges. This does not necessarily mean that a phaser does not transition matter out of the continuum, but on some settings a phaser simply is a DET weapon, while on others it uses disruption and other weirdness to phase transition out a target.
-Mike

What's more weird is that, according to the TNGTM, phaser beams are a combination of EM energy and proton emissions with varying amounts per setting with the protons coming from the crystal core after being hit by rapid nadions. My guess is that all the EM stuff comes from the crystal, just like the protons, and the internal computer regulates how it's used, but then, it really funks up the phaser beam at higher settings for the transition. I wish Okuda and Sternbach included how the transitions were done or at least what is done to the phaser beam before being released to make the transition. However...my guess would be that how the transition is done is based on how the other things that phases stuff they use. Something related to that. Brainstorming, my initial guess would be some kind of brute force version of the borg's procedure to cross into parallel realities. We've seen phasers bring a full person into phase more with reality (VOY: "Scientific Method"). Seven probably just reversed the process.

The EM energy might be set to create a small inter-reality opening and everything around it gets sucked in. But, because of the decrease in strength with distance for EM energy, the opening is very localized and in very rare cases would the energy of other objects get pulled in. Like with that one alien operative that was vaporized and some of the carpet got burnt/melted in DS9: "A Simple Investigation".