Canon NDF

[Lucky]

What does a disruptive nuclear effect have to do with phasers?

[Bridge]

(at Red Alert) 

WORF: Forward tubes armed and ready, Captain. 

PICARD: Fire. 

WORF: A direct hit, sir. 

DATA: The asteroid has shattered. However, the core is still intact and still on a collision course with Tessen Three. 

RIKER: Is it big enough to cause a threat? 

DATA: Yes, sir. It is of sufficient size and density to cause planetwide damage. 

PICARD: Time to impact. 

DATA: It will reach the upper atmosphere in forty four seconds and impact on the planet eleven seconds later. 

RIKER: Ready torpedoes. 

WORF: Aye, sir. 

DATA: Sir, the core is composed of nitrium and chrondite. It is unlikely another photon torpedo will be of any effect. 

PICARD: Mister Worf, prepare a tractor beam. 

WORF: Aye, sir. 

DATA: Thirty seconds to impact. 

WORF: Captain, I am unable to get a positive lock with the tractor beam. There is magnetic field interference emanating from the core materials. 

PICARD: Activate a deflector dish. If we project a particle beam, we may be able to produce a disruptive nuclear effect within the core.

WORF: Aye, sir.

DATA: Impact in seventeen seconds.

WORF: Particle beam activated. The target has been destroyed, Captain.

Picard wants to cause a Disruptive Nuclear Effect, but seemingly does not consider phasers?

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... 119&page=1
Note the unphaser like explosion. It looks almost like it was hit with photon torpedos.


This would mean that phasers are likely not DNE/NDF weapons, correct?

[mojo]

looks like an ordinary early 90s scifi tv explosion to me, complete with huge sparks showing that the actual explosion was tiny. what's the problem again?

[Lucky]

looks like an ordinary early 90s scifi tv explosion to me, complete with huge sparks showing that the actual explosion was tiny. what's the problem again?

The explosion was caused by the fabled Disruptive Nuclear Effect(DNE)/Nuclear Disruptive Force(NDF) that many claim phasers use to make things disappear.

The only canon example of the DNE/NDF is a violent explosion rather then the gental just disappear often seen with phasers and disruptors.

It's just something I came across a long time ago that no one seems to have noticed.

[Mr. Oragahn]

One problem, and one point of interest. First, it's not the first time that we see phasers or disruptors get fired at a target for a prolonged period of time until the target suddenly pops, sometimes little thermal effect at all.

The problem is that it has not the traits of the usual material degradation that is generally called NDF. That slow phenomenon was never given a name, yet it's been seen in numerous episodes.

That said, the slow process could be a cousin of the more violent one: the faster it happens, the messier it is. So if the effect is given time, it can slowly and cleanly eat a target away. However, if the reaction occurs within a fraction of a microsecond all of sudden, then the nice dissolving won't take place and atoms will be scattered in a way that's explosive.

[Mike DiCenso]

You guys are forgetting ST:ENT's "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part 2" where Mirror Archer essentially states that phasers on their highest settings disintegrate things:

ARCHER: From what I'm told, the maximum setting can actually disintegrate a person. I've been looking forward to trying it.

What's more interesting is that in "The Omega Glory", we know that Captain Tracy had his phaser on maximum setting, draining his phaser rather quickly in the final battle with the Yangs.
-Mike