Star Trek Tech: Captain Kirk's Hand Phaser Is Your Friend
Phasers Stun, Kill, Vaporize and Even Make A Sweet Cup Of Coffee
Red Alert! Red Alert! Enemy target acquired! Phasers locked on! Fire!
Planning on going off on an especially dangerous away mission to an exotic alien world bursting with risky danger? Or do you just want to impress your hard to impress friends and stun their annoying butts when they get too hard to handle? Simply set your phaser to stunning! Phasers - remember, don’t leave your Starship or warp capable home without one. Oh, the fascination with Star Trek’s most powerful invention appears beyond limitless.
When will our passionate lover affair with the phaser end? Why, it doesn’t really have to end, does it?
And is it any wonder we’re so fascinated by Captain Kirk’s familiar sidearm? It’s the raygun to shame all other sci-fi combat hardware. Yeah, don’t think lightsaber because it’s not even in the same league. A Jedi plasma sword is ultra cool, but it’s kinda one dimensional. A Starfleet issued phaser lives up to its name with all manner of cool phases - stun, kill, vaporize and even produces simple comforting heat.
But isn’t a phaser merely a cooler version of a laser? Nope, not even close.
A Gun Which Isn’t Just A Phase
Even casual Trek fans may not realize that a laser and a phaser are two very different things. A laser stands for Lights Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. A phaser is an acronym for Phased Energy Rectification. Although, of course, a true phaser - the way Gene Roddenberry envisioned them - doesn’t really exist, the concept of a device utilizing energy transmission in phases or different frequencies gives much more fictional, flexible firepower than a heat producing laser.
A simple way of looking at the difference is how red lasers are used in DVD players, gun targeting systems or laser pointers, while higher frequency blue lasers are employed in a higher capacity and video bitrate in a blu-ray disc movie player. A phaser, theoretically, could produce all of those frequencies or phasers in one device, thereby having multi-functional capability at the touch of a button.
After Roddenberry’s original series graduated to the feature films, new phaser models were crafted and prop and toy makers sold them to eager collectors.
When Star Trek: The Next Generation warped onto our syndicated broadcast landscape, yet another phaser model was introduced. The sleek, updated model has since become one of the most popular phaser versions.
Star Trek is known for all kinds of incredible tech, but arguably, the phaser numbers among the most powerful, recognizable and handy to Trekkers everywhere. Phasers aren’t just for stunning bad guys or killing rampaging creatures. The multi-functional devices have been employed in a number of ways to survive or even make beverages.
Phasers boast such complexity, a whole article on the phaser stun function could and perhaps should be written. One of the most important elements Gene Roddenberry wished to include in his phaser design was a non lethal option for his characters to use on opponents. Stunning an intruder, and then interrogating them, is a far more efficient and human option than Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon simply killing off or vaporizing people left and right.
In The Enemy Within, after his landing party is stranded on a frozen planet, Sulu (George Takei) uses a phaser to warm some nearby rocks. He jury rigs a kind of rock constructed space heater to save the lives of himself and his party. Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) during The Corbomite Maneuver, makes the crew steaming hot coffee even though the power goes out in the galley. She cleverly utilizes a hand phaser to zap the water and heat it to necessary perfection. On other occasions, a phaser is set to power overload - becoming an impromptu IED bomb to cause real woe and destruction onto the enemy of the week.
So, remember, phasers are capable of many helpful things when employed in all kinds of scenarios. When you hear a buddy call a Star Trek phaser - Captain Kirk’s trusty sidearm - just a simple raygun, inform or remind them this fantastic space age pistol does a lot more than only takedown alien creatures.