I remeber reading someplace on the net about how the phaser rings on the Galaxy classes were inefficent due to having to recharge and making a big target. He said that a replacement would be a phaer blister, which was like a phaser bank, but had the 'modern' phasers. If you understood that, do you think it would be practical?
Man, I wish I could find that site.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
A.) Since the whole thing is fictional, it seems impossible to say that strips are "inefficient," since, if they were, Starfleet would presumably not use them.
B.) We have seen that it is possible to install modern phasers in the turret mounts of older ships.
C.) That modern starships do not utilize turret mounts unless they have very special reasons (Ex: The Defiant and her famous disappearing regular phaser mount.) suggests that there are advantages to strips that are not present in turrets.
D.) Since a decent-sized phaser strip does not utilize the entire length of the strip to "charge," it would seem that a strip is more resistant to enemy fire, not less. The entire strip (or at least most of it) would have to be destroyed to render the phaser inoperative.
Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
Stripped phasers were made to replace phaser blisters, going back seems like a rather silly idea. The firing arc, redundancy, and flexibility offered by stripped phasers, among other things, are unmatched by old phaser blisters.
Posted by Red BWC (Member # 818) on :
I think you are confusing phaser bank for phaser blister, because it said that they were developed to counter the borg...
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
WAITwaitwaitwaitwaitwait....are you proposing some sort of pimple-like phaser-block blob on the hull that pops out little phaser bolt pus streams? Beam-weapon acne?
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
And in the atmosphere that pus stinks too....
What would the difference be between a bank and a blister???
Posted by Red BWC (Member # 818) on :
Well, intsead of a place firing a shot, these are a group of them arranged in a shep for a firing arc. (Think of the Excelsior, for instance.)
Ah, hell, I dont know.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
Kind of like arguing who's imaginary friend can beat up the other's.
Then again, so are more dangerous debates, i.e. religious.
Therefore, continue in the interests of world peace Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Red BWC: I think you are confusing phaser bank for phaser blister, because it said that they were developed to counter the borg...
Ah, right, so they are a modern thing then.
quote:Originally posted by Red BWC: Well, intsead of a place firing a shot, these are a group of them arranged in a shep for a firing arc. (Think of the Excelsior, for instance.)
A modern thing built to fight the Borg based on the Excelsior-class?
Confusion is running rampant here. Let's look at what we have...
TOS phasers, which I shall ignore cause I can.
Movie-era phasers, which we only ever saw in TWOK. Used turrents.
TNG and beyond phasers, which are in a strip.
Movie-era ships in TNGs time, which used turrents, but fired phasers that looked and sounded like phaser-strips.
Fuck-off machine gun phasers, used by the Defiant, because it is Teh B0000rG K1lll3r!!!!!
By "phaser blisters", are you referring to the Miranda et al in TNGs time type of phaser?
Posted by Red BWC (Member # 818) on :
Imagine a Defiant firing a regular phaser shoot out of it's phaser cannon.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Right. So pretty much like a Miranda firing a regular phaser shot out of its turrent. Or an Excelsior.
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
I think he might be describing something along the lines of several phaser cannons placed along the hull in a strip-like pattern and firing phaser pulses like the Defiant's phasers (or like the Reliant's roll-bar phasers or the Enterprise's turret phasers in ST2)
I remember some fan ship that featured these blisters and thought them to be quite redundent in design and operation since it would just be set of turreted banks or cannons placed along the hull. Nothing special or new.
In fact, now that I think about it, the ship was a refitted/upgraded Intrepid class. The blisters were placed right beneath the dorsal strips (following the course the strips took along the hull) on the saucer and they still kept the strips.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
You guys are probably thinking of Paul Cargile's Starfleet Military Reserves. There's a page there on some kind of advanced phaser that combines the principles of the strip phaser emitter with the compactness of the old phaser bank.
Of course, it's all just so much technobabble, but that's what we live for, right? Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
That's a total fanboy site if I've ever seen one. And by fanboy, I mean the supermegabattleshipdreadnaught building sorts.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Welll.... yeah, kinda. But I think that the inspiration behind this site was, "what kind of weapons could the Federation field if they put their minds to it, rather than relying on the tired old phasers and torpedoes?" Yeah, it's a bit fanboyish, but at least it's pretty well thought-out. And some of the gadgets are pretty interesting, IMO.
Posted by Red Ultra Magnus Pym (Member # 239) on :
In the lands of Britain, is "turrent" equivalent to "turret?"
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Cargile used to be One of Us, and I submit that his (and Baloo's) project there is very interesting, if self-evidently a work of fan fiction.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
No Simon. It is interesting if it is, well, interesting. It is not interesting because we know the people. If that were true, then we would all read everyone's fanfiction. And I don't think any of us wants that.
UM: Sorry, I was thinking abut current buns. Mmm.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I didn't mean to tie those two concepts together like that, Liam. I meant to point out both that Cargile used to post here, and as a result some of us are familiar with his stuff, and that I thought it interesting on its own.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
No you didn't. I won. Yes.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Welll.... yeah, kinda. But I think that the inspiration behind this site was, "what kind of weapons could the Federation field if they put their minds to it, rather than relying on the tired old phasers and torpedoes?" Yeah, it's a bit fanboyish, but at least it's pretty well thought-out. And some of the gadgets are pretty interesting, IMO.
A thought occurs:
One of the hallmarks of fan-boyish (if such a word exists) design at least in the ST universe, would be the overuse of throw-away ideas used to advance a story in Star Trek.
Such throw-away ideas, say the Genesis device, multiphasic torpedos, the Doomsday device, trilitium explosives, etc. are randomly thrown around by the stereotypical fanboy to arm their "super-haxxor warp 9.9^99 extreme Borg killing dreadnoughts"
An interesting thing that this phenomena reveals is the fact that the Star Trek universe, in a way more than any other is far from internally consistent. You have "Wagon Train to the Stars" metaphors mixing with naval AND air force metaphors, mixed with the occasional bit of science fiction.
The result is you have contrived situations like sensors that can see through walls, but no privacy concerns, transporters that can recreate a person perfectly molecule by molecule but still...a fair number of characters that still cook because they can tastes the difference, technology that seems to eliminate all manual labour and service jobs, yet a populace that still manages to find stuff to do.
You have an education system not remarkably different from ours, yet people mysteriously become experts on quantum mechanics at 18.
People now get addicted to Everquest, yet the existence of holodecks that can practically supplement reality seem to create next to no problems (in terms of addicting people...not blowing up the ship in weird ways) Well...aside from Barclay and Nog...but note that they are comic relief.
Nanotechnology, yet people still get common colds.
Even though its three centuries from now, warfare on the ground or in away teams is still handled by hand weapons that seem in some ways inferior to simple guns.
Its all remarkably contrived especially when you consider the fact that "real" science fiction writers can create entire books on one simple change in society. An example would be "The Light of Other Days" by Clarke which postulates a world where stable wormholes can be created. The resulting changes from, the complete loss of privacy, the legal system, crime, the usage of instanteous comunications cover an entire book.
Yet, Star Trek gives us a world where the average Joe still reads, cooks, plays baseball, and shops. Despite the prescence of almost unlimited energy, time travel of all things, and three centuries of technology, society has no major changes beyond the fact that people have a perfect economic system without greed. (barring the Ferengi) I don't buy it....and if this had something to do with fan-boys I've long forgot it
Good Night.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Don't ever read The Light of Other Days. You'll never again be able to safely feel that you aren't being watched...
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I think what Mucus is highlighting is the realism vs drama argument, and also the fact that, IN Star Treks case, we want the society to be recongisable. It's a nice society where lots of good stuff happens, but things aren't so perfect as to make it sterile. Hence we have unlimited food, but purists can still claim that the "real thing" is better. You get the best of both worlds. People are often afraid of change, of new technology. Star Trek balances this by having just enough contrived imperfection to still make things "human".
Regarding the weapons, some can be explained. Presumably all data on Genesis was classified and/or destroyed, for instance. And perhaps there were unforseen problems with the other weapons to, or maybe the advancements got channeled into weapons we do see (such as Quantumn torpedoes, or the Defiants fuck-off phaser cannons). The rest, well, Kirk's crew forgot that they got a working cloaking device, that they found chemicals that gave you telekentic powers, and that they could speed up a person so that he appeared in the blink of an eye. It's Starfleet tradition.
Would a TV show version of The Light of other days be successful? Would it be successful enough to last, in various forms, for over 30 years?
Posted by koy'peled Oy'tio (Member # 796) on :
quote:Originally posted by Red BWC: I think you are confusing phaser bank for phaser blister, because it said that they were developed to counter the borg...
It seems you know alot about a site you can't remember...
Posted by Prismatic EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
quote:Originally posted by koy'peled Oy'tio:
quote:Originally posted by Red BWC: I think you are confusing phaser bank for phaser blister, because it said that they were developed to counter the borg...
It seems you know alot about a site you can't remember...
one can remember a detail about a site without remembering the name or URL of that site.
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