You just know this conversation went down in the lab:
Boffin 1: "these hand phasers are terrible, i'd rather be using a tommy gun"
Boffin 2: "Who cares? It's not like anyone's going to get in to a gun fight on a star ship. With advanced targeting sensors and the ridiculous accuracy of a ship's weapons conventional ground combat would makes absolutely no sense"
Quark:"War. What is it good for? If you ask me, absolutely nothing."
hmm, given that the title of that episode was also a play on a song lyric, I wonder how many more were in there that I missed. I may need to rewatch it.
I agree with the tactical advantage thing, it just seems like the Klingons would be the last race in the entire Alpha Quadrant to use them.
They'd be the last to develop them, sure. But then, they just ransomed them from the Romulans.
They'd certainly use them though. They aren't stupid in space combat.
Ground combat, on the other hand...
Sometimes the guy who brings the knife to a gun fight wins, because clearly that dude is fucking crazy.
Usually it's either the guy with the gun is incredibly incompetent with the weapon or the knife guy is a goddamn super-human entity that is immune to physics (like Val Armorr). That's why it's difficult for me to take close combat knife fighting Klingons against opponents with phasers seriously, excluding Red Shirts those people are to stupid to live.
Being crazy only works if you can back it up. Otherwise they're easy pickings against competent opponents.
Klingons apparently have backup clavicles. I don't even know how that works, except that apparently they get broken during sex if DS9 is any indication.
Pretty sure they're built from the ground up for fucking things up in close combat, and getting the Klingon there to do the job.
Hell, TNG had Worf pull a Lazarus after they tore out/up his spine. Assuming Klingon medical technology was better, and their approach to using it was more reasonable, they'd be a really goddamn scary race to fight. You'd shoot one, and he'd probably be back up on his feet with a minigun for a hand a day later.
You know there's some Klingon out there who'd want a minigun prosthesis for a hand, too. More dakka seems to be a slightly underlying concept in some of their captains.
Phasers can blow up buildings. You can't bring back people from a pile of ashes.
How often does that happen, though?
The impression I got was that a phaser might be able to do that, but that it'd probably drain the charge on the thing.
Kira has a nice segment in DS9 explaining why a phaser isn't really the best weapon. It's got a ton of features and a very high max power setting compared to some other setting guns, but that means one of them is more prone to breaking or malfunctioning. Also, it means the shots take more of a charge and it's much more complicated to use.
That segment was stupid because we never, ever see a phaser malfunction or see anyone use it on anything other than its default setting. It only makes sense as a metaphor for the M16 vs. the AK47.
We also never see them detonating mountains like some of the canon claims they can.
The closest we ever got to a situation where the Federation was fighting "dirty" was the war episode in DS9, and it was kind of implied that a good deal of the tech they were using was starting to break down from wear and tear.
There was an episode of TOS where a saboteur stashed a phaser set to overload behind a random wall panel, and they were legitimately afraid it was going to blow up the entire ship.
I think the most amusing part of the klingons beaming aboard in waves is that they could have just beamed aboard a bunch of bouncing betties first and then beamed on klingons.
They'd have saved thousands of klingon lives doing so, too.
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
I agree with the tactical advantage thing, it just seems like the Klingons would be the last race in the entire Alpha Quadrant to use them.
They'd be the last to develop them, sure. But then, they just ransomed them from the Romulans.
They'd certainly use them though. They aren't stupid in space combat.
Ground combat, on the other hand...
Sometimes the guy who brings the knife to a gun fight wins, because clearly that dude is fucking crazy.
Usually it's either the guy with the gun is incredibly incompetent with the weapon or the knife guy is a goddamn super-human entity that is immune to physics (like Val Armorr). That's why it's difficult for me to take close combat knife fighting Klingons against opponents with phasers seriously, excluding Red Shirts those people are to stupid to live.
Being crazy only works if you can back it up. Otherwise they're easy pickings against competent opponents.
Klingons apparently have backup clavicles. I don't even know how that works, except that apparently they get broken during sex if DS9 is any indication.
Pretty sure they're built from the ground up for fucking things up in close combat, and getting the Klingon there to do the job.
Hell, TNG had Worf pull a Lazarus after they tore out/up his spine. Assuming Klingon medical technology was better, and their approach to using it was more reasonable, they'd be a really goddamn scary race to fight. You'd shoot one, and he'd probably be back up on his feet with a minigun for a hand a day later.
You know there's some Klingon out there who'd want a minigun prosthesis for a hand, too. More dakka seems to be a slightly underlying concept in some of their captains.
Phasers can blow up buildings. You can't bring back people from a pile of ashes.
How often does that happen, though?
The impression I got was that a phaser might be able to do that, but that it'd probably drain the charge on the thing.
Kira has a nice segment in DS9 explaining why a phaser isn't really the best weapon. It's got a ton of features and a very high max power setting compared to some other setting guns, but that means one of them is more prone to breaking or malfunctioning. Also, it means the shots take more of a charge and it's much more complicated to use.
That segment was stupid because we never, ever see a phaser malfunction or see anyone use it on anything other than its default setting. It only makes sense as a metaphor for the M16 vs. the AK47.
We also never see them detonating mountains like some of the canon claims they can.
The closest we ever got to a situation where the Federation was fighting "dirty" was the war episode in DS9, and it was kind of implied that a good deal of the tech they were using was starting to break down from wear and tear.
There was an episode of TOS where a saboteur stashed a phaser set to overload behind a random wall panel, and they were legitimately afraid it was going to blow up the entire ship.
There was also that episode in TNG, where a phaser was used to cause a few small sparks and shut down the security systems so the guy could escape from the Worf.
I agree with the tactical advantage thing, it just seems like the Klingons would be the last race in the entire Alpha Quadrant to use them.
They'd be the last to develop them, sure. But then, they just ransomed them from the Romulans.
They'd certainly use them though. They aren't stupid in space combat.
Ground combat, on the other hand...
Sometimes the guy who brings the knife to a gun fight wins, because clearly that dude is fucking crazy.
Usually it's either the guy with the gun is incredibly incompetent with the weapon or the knife guy is a goddamn super-human entity that is immune to physics (like Val Armorr). That's why it's difficult for me to take close combat knife fighting Klingons against opponents with phasers seriously, excluding Red Shirts those people are to stupid to live.
Being crazy only works if you can back it up. Otherwise they're easy pickings against competent opponents.
Klingons apparently have backup clavicles. I don't even know how that works, except that apparently they get broken during sex if DS9 is any indication.
Pretty sure they're built from the ground up for fucking things up in close combat, and getting the Klingon there to do the job.
Hell, TNG had Worf pull a Lazarus after they tore out/up his spine. Assuming Klingon medical technology was better, and their approach to using it was more reasonable, they'd be a really goddamn scary race to fight. You'd shoot one, and he'd probably be back up on his feet with a minigun for a hand a day later.
You know there's some Klingon out there who'd want a minigun prosthesis for a hand, too. More dakka seems to be a slightly underlying concept in some of their captains.
Phasers can blow up buildings. You can't bring back people from a pile of ashes.
How often does that happen, though?
The impression I got was that a phaser might be able to do that, but that it'd probably drain the charge on the thing.
Kira has a nice segment in DS9 explaining why a phaser isn't really the best weapon. It's got a ton of features and a very high max power setting compared to some other setting guns, but that means one of them is more prone to breaking or malfunctioning. Also, it means the shots take more of a charge and it's much more complicated to use.
That segment was stupid because we never, ever see a phaser malfunction or see anyone use it on anything other than its default setting. It only makes sense as a metaphor for the M16 vs. the AK47.
We also never see them detonating mountains like some of the canon claims they can.
The closest we ever got to a situation where the Federation was fighting "dirty" was the war episode in DS9, and it was kind of implied that a good deal of the tech they were using was starting to break down from wear and tear.
There was an episode of TOS where a saboteur stashed a phaser set to overload behind a random wall panel, and they were legitimately afraid it was going to blow up the entire ship.
There was also that episode in TNG, where a phaser was used to cause a few small sparks and shut down the security systems so the guy could escape from the Worf.
I had to respect Worf in that one. When Kirk discovered an overloaded Phaser, he tried to dispose of it. When Worf discovered one, he actually disarmed it. Say what you will about his combat prowess, he still has guts.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
I agree with the tactical advantage thing, it just seems like the Klingons would be the last race in the entire Alpha Quadrant to use them.
They'd be the last to develop them, sure. But then, they just ransomed them from the Romulans.
They'd certainly use them though. They aren't stupid in space combat.
Ground combat, on the other hand...
Sometimes the guy who brings the knife to a gun fight wins, because clearly that dude is fucking crazy.
Usually it's either the guy with the gun is incredibly incompetent with the weapon or the knife guy is a goddamn super-human entity that is immune to physics (like Val Armorr). That's why it's difficult for me to take close combat knife fighting Klingons against opponents with phasers seriously, excluding Red Shirts those people are to stupid to live.
Being crazy only works if you can back it up. Otherwise they're easy pickings against competent opponents.
Klingons apparently have backup clavicles. I don't even know how that works, except that apparently they get broken during sex if DS9 is any indication.
Pretty sure they're built from the ground up for fucking things up in close combat, and getting the Klingon there to do the job.
Hell, TNG had Worf pull a Lazarus after they tore out/up his spine. Assuming Klingon medical technology was better, and their approach to using it was more reasonable, they'd be a really goddamn scary race to fight. You'd shoot one, and he'd probably be back up on his feet with a minigun for a hand a day later.
You know there's some Klingon out there who'd want a minigun prosthesis for a hand, too. More dakka seems to be a slightly underlying concept in some of their captains.
Phasers can blow up buildings. You can't bring back people from a pile of ashes.
How often does that happen, though?
The impression I got was that a phaser might be able to do that, but that it'd probably drain the charge on the thing.
Kira has a nice segment in DS9 explaining why a phaser isn't really the best weapon. It's got a ton of features and a very high max power setting compared to some other setting guns, but that means one of them is more prone to breaking or malfunctioning. Also, it means the shots take more of a charge and it's much more complicated to use.
That segment was stupid because we never, ever see a phaser malfunction or see anyone use it on anything other than its default setting. It only makes sense as a metaphor for the M16 vs. the AK47.
We also never see them detonating mountains like some of the canon claims they can.
The closest we ever got to a situation where the Federation was fighting "dirty" was the war episode in DS9, and it was kind of implied that a good deal of the tech they were using was starting to break down from wear and tear.
There was an episode of TOS where a saboteur stashed a phaser set to overload behind a random wall panel, and they were legitimately afraid it was going to blow up the entire ship.
There was also that episode in TNG, where a phaser was used to cause a few small sparks and shut down the security systems so the guy could escape from the Worf.
I had to respect Worf in that one. When Kirk discovered an overloaded Phaser, he tried to dispose of it. When Worf discovered one, he actually disarmed it. Say what you will about his combat prowess, he still has guts.
I think the most amusing part of the klingons beaming aboard in waves is that they could have just beamed aboard a bunch of bouncing betties first and then beamed on klingons.
They'd have saved thousands of klingon lives doing so, too.
Yes. In the "real world" that would be the number one strategy. If you find a hole, send a bomb. I remember the Stargate movie did something similar to that.
I think the most amusing part of the klingons beaming aboard in waves is that they could have just beamed aboard a bunch of bouncing betties first and then beamed on klingons.
They'd have saved thousands of klingon lives doing so, too.
Yes. In the "real world" that would be the number one strategy. If you find a hole, send a bomb. I remember the Stargate movie did something similar to that.
Yeah, on Atlantis too, when they discovered that the Wraith ships didn't (initially) have anti-beaming jammers, they immediately took them out by beaming nukes aboard.
I agree with the tactical advantage thing, it just seems like the Klingons would be the last race in the entire Alpha Quadrant to use them.
They'd be the last to develop them, sure. But then, they just ransomed them from the Romulans.
They'd certainly use them though. They aren't stupid in space combat.
Ground combat, on the other hand...
Sometimes the guy who brings the knife to a gun fight wins, because clearly that dude is fucking crazy.
Usually it's either the guy with the gun is incredibly incompetent with the weapon or the knife guy is a goddamn super-human entity that is immune to physics (like Val Armorr). That's why it's difficult for me to take close combat knife fighting Klingons against opponents with phasers seriously, excluding Red Shirts those people are to stupid to live.
Being crazy only works if you can back it up. Otherwise they're easy pickings against competent opponents.
Klingons apparently have backup clavicles. I don't even know how that works, except that apparently they get broken during sex if DS9 is any indication.
Pretty sure they're built from the ground up for fucking things up in close combat, and getting the Klingon there to do the job.
Hell, TNG had Worf pull a Lazarus after they tore out/up his spine. Assuming Klingon medical technology was better, and their approach to using it was more reasonable, they'd be a really goddamn scary race to fight. You'd shoot one, and he'd probably be back up on his feet with a minigun for a hand a day later.
You know there's some Klingon out there who'd want a minigun prosthesis for a hand, too. More dakka seems to be a slightly underlying concept in some of their captains.
Phasers can blow up buildings. You can't bring back people from a pile of ashes.
How often does that happen, though?
The impression I got was that a phaser might be able to do that, but that it'd probably drain the charge on the thing.
Kira has a nice segment in DS9 explaining why a phaser isn't really the best weapon. It's got a ton of features and a very high max power setting compared to some other setting guns, but that means one of them is more prone to breaking or malfunctioning. Also, it means the shots take more of a charge and it's much more complicated to use.
That segment was stupid because we never, ever see a phaser malfunction or see anyone use it on anything other than its default setting. It only makes sense as a metaphor for the M16 vs. the AK47.
Not true. In TNG we see a Type II phaser set to its highest setting and vaporizing someone. We also see the beam at the low setting, melting rocks so Geordi can get out of the space cave.
In DS9 we see them set to kill to fight the Jem'Hadar
In Voyager we see Tuvok adjust the beam settings and stun an entire room of people.
Edit: Archonex; a standard photon torpedo carries a small amount of matter and anti-matter to create an explosion comparable to a nuclear weapon were it to be released in an atmosphere.
I think the most amusing part of the klingons beaming aboard in waves is that they could have just beamed aboard a bunch of bouncing betties first and then beamed on klingons.
They'd have saved thousands of klingon lives doing so, too.
Yes. In the "real world" that would be the number one strategy. If you find a hole, send a bomb. I remember the Stargate movie did something similar to that.
Yeah, on Atlantis too, when they discovered that the Wraith ships didn't (initially) have anti-beaming jammers, they immediately took them out by beaming nukes aboard.
Voyager also does that against borg. The borg don't care about putting up shields, so they just teleport antimatter bombs aboard.
Since none of the borg are able to get word out (because they're destroyed instantly every time), they don't know to adapt to it. They just learn to stay the fuck away from the USS Voyager.
I agree with the tactical advantage thing, it just seems like the Klingons would be the last race in the entire Alpha Quadrant to use them.
They'd be the last to develop them, sure. But then, they just ransomed them from the Romulans.
They'd certainly use them though. They aren't stupid in space combat.
Ground combat, on the other hand...
Sometimes the guy who brings the knife to a gun fight wins, because clearly that dude is fucking crazy.
Usually it's either the guy with the gun is incredibly incompetent with the weapon or the knife guy is a goddamn super-human entity that is immune to physics (like Val Armorr). That's why it's difficult for me to take close combat knife fighting Klingons against opponents with phasers seriously, excluding Red Shirts those people are to stupid to live.
Being crazy only works if you can back it up. Otherwise they're easy pickings against competent opponents.
Klingons apparently have backup clavicles. I don't even know how that works, except that apparently they get broken during sex if DS9 is any indication.
Pretty sure they're built from the ground up for fucking things up in close combat, and getting the Klingon there to do the job.
Hell, TNG had Worf pull a Lazarus after they tore out/up his spine. Assuming Klingon medical technology was better, and their approach to using it was more reasonable, they'd be a really goddamn scary race to fight. You'd shoot one, and he'd probably be back up on his feet with a minigun for a hand a day later.
You know there's some Klingon out there who'd want a minigun prosthesis for a hand, too. More dakka seems to be a slightly underlying concept in some of their captains.
Phasers can blow up buildings. You can't bring back people from a pile of ashes.
How often does that happen, though?
The impression I got was that a phaser might be able to do that, but that it'd probably drain the charge on the thing.
Kira has a nice segment in DS9 explaining why a phaser isn't really the best weapon. It's got a ton of features and a very high max power setting compared to some other setting guns, but that means one of them is more prone to breaking or malfunctioning. Also, it means the shots take more of a charge and it's much more complicated to use.
That segment was stupid because we never, ever see a phaser malfunction or see anyone use it on anything other than its default setting. It only makes sense as a metaphor for the M16 vs. the AK47.
We also never see them detonating mountains like some of the canon claims they can.
The closest we ever got to a situation where the Federation was fighting "dirty" was the war episode in DS9, and it was kind of implied that a good deal of the tech they were using was starting to break down from wear and tear.
There was an episode of TOS where a saboteur stashed a phaser set to overload behind a random wall panel, and they were legitimately afraid it was going to blow up the entire ship.
That's likely because the panel was a power distribution area and phaser energy cells probably have the same capacity for explosion as the hydrogen fuel cell seen in Terminator: Rise of the Machines.
It is essentially like placing a bomb right next to a major fuel line on board a destroyer.
I think the most amusing part of the klingons beaming aboard in waves is that they could have just beamed aboard a bunch of bouncing betties first and then beamed on klingons.
They'd have saved thousands of klingon lives doing so, too.
That is one point of Star Trek that really annoyed me: None of the races seem to be very military minded, except maybe the Breen.
Pre-Enterprise, I had always wondered where the Federation Army was, especially some form of marines for boarding actions. During DS9, some sort of ground forces would have seemingly been incredibly useful. This is all ignoring the apparent uselessness of handheld phaser technology in a fight - people could dodge the beams! How the hell did that make sense?
Actually, on the topic of handheld weapons, I would be equipping everyone with the weapon Dr. Soran used in Generations. That thing kicked ass. It seemed to be useful for general destruction of material and people.
Rewatched SFDebris' review of The Thaw today. Part of me now wants to stick my hand into alternate universe land and see how TOS, TNG and DS9 would have handled that script.
Rewatched SFDebris' review of The Thaw today. Part of me now wants to stick my hand into alternate universe land and see how TOS, TNG and DS9 would have handled that script.
Transporters can't really be used offensively because they're really easy to jam.
In fact, pretty much all Trek technology, including phasers, can be jammed with the right type of magic radiation. So the real question is why they didn't use more primitive weapons like guns and chemical explosives during the Dominion War since the effectiveness of their energy weapons are reduced by jamming fields?
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Boffin 1: "these hand phasers are terrible, i'd rather be using a tommy gun"
Boffin 2: "Who cares? It's not like anyone's going to get in to a gun fight on a star ship. With advanced targeting sensors and the ridiculous accuracy of a ship's weapons conventional ground combat would makes absolutely no sense"
hmm, given that the title of that episode was also a play on a song lyric, I wonder how many more were in there that I missed. I may need to rewatch it.
There was an episode of TOS where a saboteur stashed a phaser set to overload behind a random wall panel, and they were legitimately afraid it was going to blow up the entire ship.
They'd have saved thousands of klingon lives doing so, too.
There was also that episode in TNG, where a phaser was used to cause a few small sparks and shut down the security systems so the guy could escape from the Worf.
I had to respect Worf in that one. When Kirk discovered an overloaded Phaser, he tried to dispose of it. When Worf discovered one, he actually disarmed it. Say what you will about his combat prowess, he still has guts.
We just watched that episode last night.
Yes. In the "real world" that would be the number one strategy. If you find a hole, send a bomb. I remember the Stargate movie did something similar to that.
Yeah, on Atlantis too, when they discovered that the Wraith ships didn't (initially) have anti-beaming jammers, they immediately took them out by beaming nukes aboard.
Not true. In TNG we see a Type II phaser set to its highest setting and vaporizing someone. We also see the beam at the low setting, melting rocks so Geordi can get out of the space cave.
In DS9 we see them set to kill to fight the Jem'Hadar
In Voyager we see Tuvok adjust the beam settings and stun an entire room of people.
Edit: Archonex; a standard photon torpedo carries a small amount of matter and anti-matter to create an explosion comparable to a nuclear weapon were it to be released in an atmosphere.
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Voyager also does that against borg. The borg don't care about putting up shields, so they just teleport antimatter bombs aboard.
Since none of the borg are able to get word out (because they're destroyed instantly every time), they don't know to adapt to it. They just learn to stay the fuck away from the USS Voyager.
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That's likely because the panel was a power distribution area and phaser energy cells probably have the same capacity for explosion as the hydrogen fuel cell seen in Terminator: Rise of the Machines.
It is essentially like placing a bomb right next to a major fuel line on board a destroyer.
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Ah. I'm mixing it up since I remember the TNG crew just walking around on board a cube during one episode and the borg not caring.
That is one point of Star Trek that really annoyed me: None of the races seem to be very military minded, except maybe the Breen.
Pre-Enterprise, I had always wondered where the Federation Army was, especially some form of marines for boarding actions. During DS9, some sort of ground forces would have seemingly been incredibly useful. This is all ignoring the apparent uselessness of handheld phaser technology in a fight - people could dodge the beams! How the hell did that make sense?
Actually, on the topic of handheld weapons, I would be equipping everyone with the weapon Dr. Soran used in Generations. That thing kicked ass. It seemed to be useful for general destruction of material and people.
Be that as it may, it was still kick ass. Also 1000s of times better than the ones in 2009's Star Trek.
i'm afraid
I liked the new design. Physically showing when a phaser is lethal or on stun was a good improvement.
The only real difference (besides that) I saw was more chrome on what was essentially the old-school zap-gun, it just looked a little less plastic.
*checks google images*
And that memory is wrong anyway.
GIS for original series phasers.
It looked like a plastic toy. The dinky little pew-pew noises it made were even worse.
It is glorious.
In fact, pretty much all Trek technology, including phasers, can be jammed with the right type of magic radiation. So the real question is why they didn't use more primitive weapons like guns and chemical explosives during the Dominion War since the effectiveness of their energy weapons are reduced by jamming fields?