Laser, set to burn! Taser, set to sizzle! Phaser, set to DISINTEGRATE!
We don’t need no damn stun! Stun ain’t no freakin fun!
Indeed, the endless fun one can have playing with energy directed weapons.
But how can you make a decision? For the more resourceful of us out there, the choice is most likely an easy one to make It may not even be a close call or contest for those scrappy survivalists. But forget those dependable manly men and boy scouts. Now it’s your turn. You must decide.
If you had one choice, only one selection to use a device in various ways, employ and take with you on a mission or in the thick of a conflict - what device would it be?
Laser
It’s the more recognized of all the devices. Everybody knows a laser. We use their optical brilliance in holiday decorating. If you’re a laser pointer user, if you love CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, you know lasers, since they all use a form of a laser beam to decode the digital information.
What of true laser guns? Or laser pistols? It is an important distinction, since the military has been employing lasers in some form for many years. Those devices are enormous and heavy - no putting them in your pocket. What of a pistol we could simply sling on our hips like our alien busting Enterprise crew?
Though efficient for tasks like decoding music and video, ringing up items at the store or a handy dandy laser pointer, lasers aren’t so good in the battlefield - yet anyway. Lots of logistical problems must be overcome before they are employed on a more widespread basis. They can fail under even simple things like smoke, fog, dust or rain in the atmosphere. Lasers are powerful and accurate, but not exactly reliable.
Taser
A Taser may not be so multi-purpose like a laser or phaser, but it still sure packs a wallop of a punch. It’s also probably the most energy efficient type of gun out of the three. Most comfortable of all: It also really exists.
Defined as an electroshock weapon and first introduced to the public in 1993, this choice is plainly for real. It has been effectively employed by civilians and police officers for decades.
On its surface, it’s not the most powerful or versatile, but certainly has been proven in the field over a long duration. One could theorize that aside from using it to incapacitate an opponent, it could also be used to interfere with machinery, traps or even take down a similarly powered electric grid of field by employing it offensively.
Phaser
By any measure, Gene Roddenberry was a true visionary. His creative concepts forever changed the way sci-fi fans look at the genre. Although similar stories, movies and TV shows came before his original Star Trek, Captain Kirk’s Enterprise morphed millions of us into loyal trekking fans. The show even impacted real world science and tech - such as the communicator (cell phone) motivated NASA to study the Enterprise bridge set-up and is even said to have influenced elements of Apples iTunes.
Roddenberry also took the sci-fi staple - rayguns - and reinvented them. The blaster or lethal laser would be tweaked into a device which could also deliver non lethal blasts. It could stun a life form. It could kill them or fully disintegrate them. It could even provide life sustaining heat or say get around an energized force field - by rotating through its many dynamic frequencies. Let’s face it, phasers aren’t only efficient, they’re downright cool.
The problem with a phaser - of course since it’s fictional - it uses a ton of energy and may be problematic in a place where charging back up is prohibitive or impossible.
So, what’s our armed endgame? What do you choose, my modern warrior?
We’re faced with a complex choice which can be oversimplified compounded by not counting on the circumstances we find ourselves facing. What exactly is our mission or need for the weapon? Do we need to take down violent opponents? If so, how are they armed? Hunting large game for sustenance? Do the environmental elements require heat for firewood or rocks to hold back frigid temperatures?
Many variables to consider in the end, but one thing’s clear - the only real and proven device remains the Taser, the 2nd runner up, the laser, could be handy in so many ways if reduced in size and modified around atmospheric hurdles, while the phaser remains the most versatile, yet most fantasy laden of them.
Oh. I nearly forgot. You’re thinking: What’s my choice? Let’s see…. Just to be certain, I’ll take all three with me!