Star Trek 10 Things You Didn't Know About Phasers
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00:00Phasers have been a staple of Star Trek since the original series.
00:04They may look similar to typical laser weapons seen in a lot of sci-fi, but they're actually
00:09much more powerful and complicated.
00:13Starting with archaic lasers, Starfleet weapons evolved into early phase pistols and phase
00:17cannons in the 22nd century, which led to the standard handheld and ship-mounted phasers
00:22that we've seen since.
00:24If you ignore the laser weapons that Pike's crew used in the first pilot, though, you
00:29can argue that laser was just used at this time as an anachronism for phaser, similar
00:35to calling them guns.
00:37These devices have been made in many different varieties and have several interesting features
00:41that rarely come up in the franchise.
00:44Here we're going to look at some of the most outstanding facts about phaser technology and
00:49learn everything we can about Starfleet's main weapon along the way.
00:53With all that being said, I'm Bree from Trek Culture and here are 10 things that you didn't
00:58know about phasers.
01:00Number 10.
01:01Phaser Overloads.
01:04Phasers require a huge amount of energy to function, and if one is configured to release
01:08all of its stored energy at once, it will overload, emitting a high-pitched noise and exploding
01:13violently.
01:15Someone attempted to assassinate Captain Kirk by hiding a phaser set to overload in his cabin
01:19in the episode The Conscience of the King.
01:22Upon hearing the distinctive sound, Kirk began ordering an evacuation of the whole deck and calling
01:28for a double red alert, which is, like, twice as bad as a normal red alert.
01:33Kirk was eventually able to find the overloading phaser and proceeded to drop it in a waste
01:37chute in the corridor, likely murdering several unfortunate redshirts in lower decks.
01:42Later, in the episode That Witch Survives, Kirk's phaser had its overload triggered while in
01:47his hand, forcing him to throw it away like a grenade.
01:50An overloading phaser even showed up in the Next Generation episode The Hunted, where a man named
01:55Roga Dinar tried to use them as bombs aboard the Enterprise-D.
01:59Number 9.
02:00Phasers as survival tools.
02:03Starfleet hand phasers have many uses as survival tools.
02:07Of course, stranded officers could use them to hunt for food, but they could also be used
02:11to heat up rocks, as Wesley did in the episode Final Mission, to keep himself and Captain
02:16Picard warm, as well as several other examples.
02:20If the phaser was turned up to a higher setting, it could completely vaporize the rock, allowing
02:25officers to drill themselves out of a cave if the entrances collapsed.
02:29They could also be used in more unique survival situations.
02:33In Discovery's first episode, Captain Georgiou used a phaser to reopen a well, letting the
02:37water flow again.
02:39La Forged used one to melt silver ore into climbing equipment in the Next Generation episode
02:44The Enemy to get himself out of a pit.
02:47Aside from their use as tools, Starfleet hand phasers got their energy from small power cells,
02:52which could be used to power communications equipment and other machines.
02:56Number 8.
02:58Transporter Phasers.
02:59In the final episode of Star Trek Picard The Last Generation, Seven and Rafi's team
03:04came up with a new phaser modification.
03:06They were able to retake the bridge of the Titan A by connecting their phasers to the transporter
03:11systems.
03:12Anyone who was shot was sent to the transporter buffer.
03:15A standard gun setting probably wouldn't have worked well on these drones, so that
03:19was a great way to incapacitate their assimilated crew members without harming them.
03:24After retaking the bridge, Seven joked that they may have just invented the portable beam-me-up,
03:29but this actually wasn't the first time we've seen something like this in Star Trek.
03:33In the Next Generation episode Gambit, Picard was captured by mercenaries who shot him with
03:38a transporter-connected phaser to make it appear as though he was vaporized.
03:43The crew of the Enterprise all mourned his death before discovering that he was actually
03:47still alive.
03:49Number 7.
03:50Power Levels.
03:52Hand phaser power levels range from a light zap, enough to clean graffiti off of ships'
03:56walls or cause slight skin irritation, all the way up to total vaporization.
04:01In between the two extremes, phasers could also burn targets, but more interestingly, the
04:06famous stun setting allows users to harmlessly incapacitate most species when in combat.
04:12A phaser would need to be modulated carefully to a very specific frequency depending on the
04:17mission's requirements.
04:18For example, in the DS9 episode Homefront, they found a frequency that was low enough
04:23to cause no permanent harm, but high enough to force a changeling to revert to their liquid
04:28form.
04:29Many may not know that starship phasers can actually be set to stun as well, allowing a ship
04:34to stun an entire city in one blast.
04:37However, we've only seen this in action once in the original series episode A Piece of the
04:42Action.
04:43Number 6.
04:44The Science of Phasers.
04:47The exact way phasers work has only been explained on screen through sparse references
04:52to beam intensity, nadeon particles, and other confusing technobabble, but the Star Trek Next
04:58Generation Technical Manual from 1991 went into a bit more detail.
05:03According to the reference book, the term phaser was short for phased energy rectification,
05:09and a phaser beam was generated by a complicated interaction between plasma and superconducted
05:14lithium copper that would cause a so-called rapid nadeon effect, dissolving the strong nuclear
05:20force in the plasma.
05:22From there, a stream of energy would then be fired and pulses through a special superconducting
05:26crystal in the emitter.
05:28The intensity and frequency of these pulses would determine the effect of the blast, from
05:32heating to disintegration.
05:35All of this is consistent with what we've seen on screen, apart from the fact that phasers
05:39are generally referred to as particle beam weapons, which fire fictional rapid nadeon
05:44particles rather than a beam of electromagnetic energy.
05:48People have gone into a lot of work trying to describe the way phasers function, but the
05:53way they originated was much less scientific.
05:56In The Cage, the first Star Trek pilot featuring Captain Pike's crew, Starfleet used laser weapons.
06:02These were changed to phasers two days into filming the second pilot, and in the reference
06:07book The Making of Star Trek, released in 1968, Gene Roddenberry explained that the reason
06:12was that he knew people would be yelling lasers can't do that at their screens whenever the weapons
06:17were used for fantastical things like stunning people or vaporizing targets without damage
06:22to the surrounding area.
06:24By creating an entirely fictional technology, they were able to avoid scientific inaccuracies
06:29by just making it all up.
06:32Number 5.
06:33Ship Phaser Variance
06:35In the next generation, we got to see a new evolution of the starship phasers in the form
06:40of phaser strips.
06:42Phaser strips are long lines of large numbers of phaser emitters that run all across a ship's
06:46hull.
06:48Energy would travel along these lines and converge on the best possible spot for targeting.
06:53A galaxy-class ship like the Enterprise-D came equipped with 12 separate phaser strips,
06:58allowing them to fire in almost any direction.
07:01We don't know when exactly Starfleet switched from primarily using phaser banks like those
07:06on Kirk's Enterprise to phaser strips like in the next generation.
07:11But the earliest ship we've seen with phaser strips is the Ambassador-class Enterprise-C from
07:16the year 2344, which we saw in the next generation episode, Yesterday's Enterprise.
07:22Some ships, such as the Defiant, came equipped with pulse phaser cannons which rapidly fired
07:27concentrated bursts as opposed to the steady beams of particles that shoot from standard
07:32phaser arrays.
07:33Number 4.
07:35Handheld phaser variants.
07:38Handheld Starfleet phasers can generally be classified into three main types.
07:42Type 1 phasers are the smallest variants resembling remote controls and are referred to as cricket
07:48phasers in the Trek community.
07:50Type 2 phasers, on the other hand, more closely resemble the design of a pistol and Type 3s were
07:56more like rifles in appearance.
07:58Different phaser types have different power levels and firing modes, but all were capable
08:03of both stunning and disintegrating targets.
08:06In addition, all types could fire either a steady beam or concentrated blasts.
08:11The TV remote design of the Type 1s reinforces the idea that these devices are tools as well
08:17as weapons, and the Type 2s are apparently more combat-focused, explaining the gun-like look.
08:24During the original series era, Type 1 phasers could actually be slotted into Type 2s, for
08:30some reason.
08:31Type 3 rifles seemed to be employed mostly in times of war.
08:35They showed heavy use both during the Dominion War and the Federation's engagements with the
08:39Borg.
08:41All three types of hand phasers have been redesigned countless times in Trek history, but they usually
08:46stick to these categories.
08:49A phaser bazooka also appeared in a holographic program in the Lower Decks episode Crisis Point,
08:55but these probably aren't a real thing, despite how cool they would be.
08:59Although there was that one shoulder cannon that Worf sported in Star Trek Insurrection.
09:05Number 3.
09:06The difference between phasers and disruptors.
09:09Phasers and disruptor weapons differ in several key ways.
09:14For starters, a phaser can be set to stun, whereas a disruptor is a purely lethal weapon.
09:19This difference was an easy way to show the contrast between the violence of alien empires
09:24like the Klingons, and the comparatively humane Federation.
09:27Also, as mentioned earlier, phasers fire pulses of fictional particles called nadions, whereas
09:33disruptors seem to be much more blunt, simply disrupting the molecular bonds of their targets.
09:40And while both phasers and disruptors are capable of disintegration, disruptors often do so in
09:46a much slower and more painful way.
09:48However, Starfleet still used disruptors occasionally.
09:52In the original series episode, Obsession, we learned that Type 2 Starfleet phasers actually
09:57have a mode called the Disruptor B setting, suggesting those specific weapons combined both phaser and
10:04disruptor tech.
10:062. Wide Beams and Phaser Sweeps Hand phasers are typically seen firing one, narrow,
10:13highly accurate beam, but they could be configured for many more firing patterns.
10:18By adjusting the width and height of their spread, phasers could actually shoot wide beams
10:22or a cone-shaped phaser sweep.
10:25Wide beams, also called full spread, could be used to quickly take out a whole room of opponents.
10:30Phaser sweeps, however, were most effective when you needed to hit every single part of a room.
10:35Starfleet used phaser sweeps throughout DS9, in episodes like Homefront and The Adversary,
10:41to locate changeling infiltrators.
10:42As we mentioned earlier, these sweeps were set to a specific frequency that would cause
10:47any changelings disguised in the room to revert to a liquid.
10:51It's likely that these settings aren't typically used in large-scale firefights, like the Siege
10:56of AR-558, simply because they consume way more power than a direct beam.
11:031. They're totally not guns.
11:07In Volume 2, Issue 12 of Star Trek The Magazine, Herman Zimmerman explained that Gene Roddenberry
11:12took issue with how some phasers looked similar to guns, specifically the rifles and the pistol
11:17grips of the Type 2 phasers. Presumably, he preferred the aesthetics of the Type 1 crickets.
11:24This all tracks with Gene's history of promoting nonviolence in the franchise. However, logically,
11:30it's all a bit confusing, seeing as even Type 1 phasers were vastly more dangerous than
11:35even a modern military tank, despite looking like something you'd use to unlock your car.
11:41Of course, the stun setting allows Starfleet officers to nonviolently resolve conflicts
11:45in a way that a gun never could. But in the wrong hands, they have the potential to cause
11:50unimaginable destruction. After all, a single misplaced phaser could disrupt the power balance
11:56of an entire pre-warp civilization. Those were 10 things that you, hopefully, didn't know about
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12:24I hope you have a great rest of your day, and don't forget to live long and prosper.