posted
Have we ever actually figured out what a disruptor is? We know that, loosely speaking, a phaser is a particle beam containing something called rapid nadions; question is, what does a disruptor do?
It's canon that three major races use disrputors: Klingons, Romulans, and Breen (even though their rifle, used also as the Federation TR-116, has been labelled in diagrams as a phaser). With one exception - Romulan hand weapons - all their weapons, ship-based or personal, fire energy bolts.
Likewise we know that the Federation, the Ferengi (I think), the Cardassians and the Jem'Hadar use phasers (or did the latter use polaron beams, at least on their ships?). Most of these have been seen to be beam-based, except for certain late-model Starfleet phaser rifles and the Defiant-class' pulse cannons. There's also the pulse weapons on the Reliant, which I think were just phaser beams fired in short, pulsing shots.
Next, do phasers utilise plasma in any way at all? I started thinking about this while looking at Bernd's page:
. . . which goes on about the differences between phasers, phase weapons, and plasma weapons. It's my understanding that phasers don't use plasma, which surely means that if the Defiant-class' weapons fire plasma enclosed in a magnetic envelope, then technically speaking they're not phasers. Which may be completely wrong, I should really have researched this more!
It's also a theory of mine that the pulse-firing phaser rifles (including the Compression Phaser Rifle) may also be technically disruptors, I just can't prove it yet. . .
posted
We've seen disruptor beams from Rommie Warbirds on a few occasions, and from Vor'chas in Way of the Warrior. And the Klingon hand weapons in ST:VI fired beams, too, I think.
Cardassian weapons have also been somewhat questionable, referred to as both phasers and disruptors. Always beam-based, anyway.
The Breen do indeed have disruptors, though it was unclear whether they were firing photon torpedoes or disruptor pulses during the battle scenes in DS9.
The DS9TM made it pretty clear that the Defiant's pulse weapons were 100% plasma free (no MSG, either.)
There's also the consideration that as a visual trick the VFX guys have on occasion slowed down apparently lightspeed phasers ever-so slightly so as to give the eye an increased perception of direction of fire. You can only really see this on slow-mo, of course, but if one wishes to be really anal-retentive about canon then I guess we have to say phasers can in fact go at a couple thousand km/h.
So, we have disruptors which are mainly pulse but occasionally beam based. And phasers which are mainly beam but occasionally pulse.
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posted
Disruptor - (noun) Weapon used to disassociate the molecular coesion of an object, animate or in-animate. Color is used for those rare occasions that manual targetting is nessecary.
Webster's New Galactic Dictionary, 2215 Edition
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
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quote:Cardassian weapons have also been somewhat questionable, referred to as both phasers and disruptors. Always beam-based, anyway.
Actually, just remembered that the Galors in "Ensign Ro" fired purple(?) pulses. What did the Galor fire in "The Wounded"?
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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posted
They fired beams in "The Wounded", IIRC. My theory is that the Cardassian ship was using torpedoes in "Ensign Ro". Since Cardassian torpedoes suck, it explains why so many was used and at such a close range.
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