How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

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Re: How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

Post by Kor_Dahar_Master » Wed Sep 29, 2010 3:51 pm

Praeothmin wrote:What is funny is that, in TWoK, the same type of Phaser that completely "disrupts" Captain Terrell without any steam or even a trace of his body, merely burns the Ceti Alpha eel and leaves a pile of ash on the ground...

Different settings, different effects?
Different life form composition?, one carbon based and one silicon based?.

It was kinda sandy on Ceti Alpha after the disaster so a silicon life form would have a good chance of surviving what killed all the other life forms when the disaster hit.

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Re: How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

Post by Praeothmin » Wed Sep 29, 2010 5:07 pm

And yet Carbon-based lifeforms survive just well in our deserts on Earth...
I don't see why the Ceti Alpha eel needs to be silicon based, unless it had breast implants... ;)

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Re: How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

Post by Kor_Dahar_Master » Wed Sep 29, 2010 5:56 pm

Praeothmin wrote:And yet Carbon-based lifeforms survive just well in our deserts on Earth...
I don't see why the Ceti Alpha eel needs to be silicon based, unless it had breast implants... ;)
I just think would explain the differance in phaser effect as we know earlier phasers had some issues with silicon based lifeforms.

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Re: How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

Post by Praeothmin » Wed Sep 29, 2010 7:27 pm

Yes, but did Phasers affect other Silicon Lifeforms like they did the Ceti Alpha Eel?

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Re: How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

Post by Kor_Dahar_Master » Wed Sep 29, 2010 7:54 pm

Praeothmin wrote:Yes, but did Phasers affect other Silicon Lifeforms like they did the Ceti Alpha Eel?
Well we only have examples from TOS episodes with older lower power type 1 phasers being inefective against The Horta (a silicon based lifeform).

However type 2 phasers onwards did have effects against the Horta and the phasers in ST:WOK were type 2.

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Re: How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

Post by Mike DiCenso » Wed Sep 29, 2010 8:17 pm

The problem here is that we don't know the power output of a Type-I phaser that Appel initally used against the Horta before the Enterprise arrived. If the guy didn't really know what he was doing and just used one of the low-level kill settings, it likely would not have done more than make the creature uncomfortable, but was enough to drive it off.

Later on, Kirk surmises and Spock agrees that the Horta is armor plated and this is bourne out by the creature's appearance, and by the substatial piece the two manage to shoot off.

At any rate, "The Devil in the Dark" is woefully out of kilter with the rest of Trek where we have seen phasers of all sizes used against solid rock (read silicon), and it either heats it up to the glowing point, or causes massive explosive effects. Thus your Ceti Eel as slicon probably doesn't hold much merit, and chain-reaction or not, a phaser still outputs a fair amount of energy as per episode like TNG's "The Mind's Eye" where we hear of a rifle routinely outputting 1.05 megawatts.
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Re: How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

Post by Lucky » Thu Sep 30, 2010 3:50 am

Praeothmin wrote:What is funny is that, in TWoK, the same type of Phaser that completely "disrupts" Captain Terrell without any steam or even a trace of his body, merely burns the Ceti Alpha eel and leaves a pile of ash on the ground...

Different settings, different effects?
I'd guess the ell generates some form of shielding. We seem to see this in other phaser resistant creatures. It certainly would explain it being the only known living creature on the planet.

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Re: How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

Post by Who is like God arbour » Thu Sep 30, 2010 6:25 am

Are you really debating that the Ceti Alpha eel was especially resistant against phasers?

Why not simply assuming, that Kirk has changed the settings of the phaser before firing?

Would you shoot at a eel that is so small that it can come out of an ear of a grown man with an amount of energy that is enough to phaserise said grown man?

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Re: How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

Post by Lucky » Sun Oct 03, 2010 3:08 am

WILGA wrote:Are you really debating that the Ceti Alpha eel was especially resistant against phasers?

Why not simply assuming, that Kirk has changed the settings of the phaser before firing?

Would you shoot at a eel that is so small that it can come out of an ear of a grown man with an amount of energy that is enough to phaserise said grown man?
Well that might work as well, but do we have any reason to think the setting was changed?

I guess the phaser could have some sort of scanner in it.

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Re: How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

Post by Who is like God arbour » Sun Oct 03, 2010 6:14 am

Is the fact, that the phaser had two different effects not reason enough?

The first time, a 200 pound man vanishes and the second time, a tiny creature that comes out of an ear, only starts to burn when hit with the phaser beam.

Either the tiny creature is very very resilient or there were two shoots with two different settings.

What is more plausible?

And why does the phaser have to have a scanner in it? Isn't it more plausible to assume, that Kirk changed the settings?

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Re: How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

Post by Mike DiCenso » Sun Oct 03, 2010 7:29 am

Kirk changing settings actually makes some sense in the context of the situation, the Ceti eel had just dropped out of poor Chekov's ear, and right next to his head. I don't think that given how narrow and tiny the beam was, that Kirk left it on the same setting, especially since the critter was right next to his head and a full-power disintegration shot would have severely injured or even killed him.
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Re: How many UFP commandoes would take over the Death star

Post by User1446 » Sun Oct 03, 2010 10:51 am

Mike DiCenso wrote:The problem here is that we don't know the power output of a Type-I phaser that Appel initally used against the Horta before the Enterprise arrived. If the guy didn't really know what he was doing and just used one of the low-level kill settings, it likely would not have done more than make the creature uncomfortable, but was enough to drive it off.

Later on, Kirk surmises and Spock agrees that the Horta is armor plated and this is bourne out by the creature's appearance, and by the substatial piece the two manage to shoot off.

At any rate, "The Devil in the Dark" is woefully out of kilter with the rest of Trek where we have seen phasers of all sizes used against solid rock (read silicon), and it either heats it up to the glowing point, or causes massive explosive effects. Thus your Ceti Eel as slicon probably doesn't hold much merit, and chain-reaction or not, a phaser still outputs a fair amount of energy as per episode like TNG's "The Mind's Eye" where we hear of a rifle routinely outputting 1.05 megawatts.
-Mike

Phasers have all sorts of adustments including beam-width, power, frequency and effects. However "Devil in the Dark" is not inconsistent, since a Horta is obviously not an ordinary creature, being able to move through rock as easily as people move through air: therefore it would need to be much denser and stronger than ordinary rock, at least on the outside. Indeed, they said that it can tunnel through rock faster and more efficiently than a phaser could: so naturally it can resist a phaser, and required the highest and most focused setting of two phaser II beams in order to even injure it.

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