1.) Phaser beams are visible in vacuum.
2.) Phaser beams have an effective range of 300000 km.
3.) Phaser beams are variable in speed.

First, the explanation: choose a particle other than the photon for the beam. This particle is neccessary to allow flexibility that the photon does not allow. Rick Sternbach has said on a few occasions that he favors nadions for the beam composition, and that is indirectly supported by "Time and Again" (VGR). Others have proposed chromions, so named for reasons I cannot recall at the moment. I'll just call them phaser particles for convenience. These particles have a few interesting properties.

First of all, their behavior is entirely dependent upon their energy state. With increasing energy, phaser particles travel faster. A 1 MW hand phaser propegates at a few hundred km/s. A 1 GW ship phaser, however, travels at nearly c. It may be that the effect is exponential, or there may be some other formula to determine the speed. I know what the TNG Tech Manual says, but there is ample evidence for STL hand phaser beams, not the least of which are several cases of people dodging them...

As phaser particles travel, they lose energy by emitting photons. Older phasers were relatively inefficient, and lost blue-spectrum photons. Newer phasers have refined the process to emit orange-spectrum photons, resulting in a longer effective life due as less energy is lost per unit time.

Guess what? This not only covers how phasers are visible in vacuum, but it also explains why they have a range of around one light-second. A traditional laser or EM device would not have this limitation... sure, a ship could maneuver given time, but the beam itself would likely still have plenty of destructive potential well beyond 300,000 km. As the phaser particles travel, they lose both energy and speed... by 300,000 km, they might be only half of their original power, by 1,000,000 km they may be practically useless.

So, what emerges? Well, we have the emitter crystal. At the application of energy, the rapid nadion effect occurs in the crystal, releasing phaser particles in a beam towards the target. The beam's energy decreases as photonic radiation, as a result, it slows and loses effectiveness at a given rate. When the beam hits the target, it disrupts the atomic structure of the substance. At low power, it merely excites the electrons of the atoms, causing a mild stun effect similar to electrical shock. At higher power levels, it is possible to excite the entire molecular behaviors, inducing heat effects and burning weaker materials. At higher levels still, the particles are capable of breaking apart atomic nuclei.

At this point, the disrupted matter, rather than expanding in an explosive cloud of superheated gas as one would expect, is transitioned out of the continuum. However, half of the mass remains, converted into new phaser particles in a chain reaction. This is readily visible as humanoids are "eaten away" while being vaporized. The effect is dependent upon target composition; specifically, the nuclear binding energy. Lower elements such as carbon are easier to vaporize than higher elements such as iron, or alloys such as duranium.

There is a lot more to this explanation... including a whole lot of nitty-gritty number-crunching regarding phaser effectiveness; i.e., comparing the applied power with the effective result. If anyone really wants it, I'll post it, but it's still a little experimental at this point. It is also still unclear as to exactly what the relationship is between the particles and subspace... they may be "phased" between realspace and subspace, they may oscilate between the two (which tied into an enourmously complex transporter explanation I posted to s.e.rick a while back), or there may be Baloo's "field" around the beam.

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I'm the only one who understands me, and I ire of my company.
--Paul Cargile