phasers causing explosions

[McAvoy]

What I would like to know is how or why in the Dominion War energy weapons cause a disengrating or 'eating away' effect on ships.

Like the top of that Excelsior that looked like is rusted in seconds?

Yep.

It's not just the Dominion that does that but the Cardassian ODP does as well. Perhaps the Dominion gave them some technology for those platforms.

Federation, Romulan and Klingon weapons don't do that...

[Graham Kennedy]

Phasers show an "eating away" effect, sometimes.

See here at about 55 seconds :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unzks94N ... re=related

Or here :


Klingon Disruptors do the same thing sometimes, notably when Kruge kills his subordinate for destroying the USS Grissom.

[McAvoy]

Well that is true. I meant starship weapons though.



Usually we see either phasers scortching or blowing holes in the hulls of starships. But never eating away at the hull. I think off of the top of my head, only the E-nil demonstrated this and that was a self destruct.

[Captain Seafort]

Well that is true. I meant starship weapons though.

Look at Graham's first clip - it's the E-D eating lumps out of a Borg cube in "Q Who?"

[mwhittington]

Phasers are supposed to "phase" matter out of the space time continuum, aren't they? Perhaps instead of explosions, what we're seeing is that part of the target being phased out of existence.

[kostmayer]

Judging by the lingering screams, the lungs must get phased last.

[McAvoy]

Well that is true. I meant starship weapons though.

Look at Graham's first clip - it's the E-D eating lumps out of a Borg cube in "Q Who?"

Ywah it does seem like it does. But it is different from the cascading like effect of the Dominion weapons though. E-D's weapons make a large explosion after hitting the cube where the holes are about as large as the explosions themselves.

[Mark]

Well that is true. I meant starship weapons though.

This used to confuse me as a kid when I'd watch re-runs of TOS. Hand phasers would disintagrate a target, where as ship phasers really wouldn't show much effect against ships. My little boy's brain thought that the ships getting shot with phasers should disintegrate as well, since they are using the same basic tech.

Then, I got all screwed up when the Enterprise blasted the Excaliber with phasers. The ship seemed fine, but we learned the crew was dead.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Well that is true. I meant starship weapons though.

This used to confuse me as a kid when I'd watch re-runs of TOS. Hand phasers would disintagrate a target, where as ship phasers really wouldn't show much effect against ships. My little boy's brain thought that the ships getting shot with phasers should disintegrate as well, since they are using the same basic tech.

Then, I got all screwed up when the Enterprise blasted the Excaliber with phasers. The ship seemed fine, but we learned the crew was dead.

1960's special effects. And yes, i know there has to be some IU reason... except maybe this time there isn't one?

[Mark]

Maybe the hull was built out of an alloy that doesn't vape, but still conducts heat, thus vaping the crew but leaving the ship???????????

It's about all I can come up with.

[Lighthawk]

The phasers were set to "Neutron Bomb".

[McAvoy]

I agree.

I figured aside from not damaging the ship but killing everyone on board thing, that the reason why TOS ships did not get damaged is perhaps armor or hull of the day is superior to the weapons. That is my theory at least.

[Coalition]

The hull is built out of a material that prevents phaser chain reactions running rampant? This way you lose part of the hull, rather than a phaser eating away a larger hull chunk.

ST6 showed how material dependant a hand phaser was (it destroyed the metal pot without harming the stuff inside, or the galley counter). STI showed us hand phasers that were used to fire shots at a rock wall, and the wall exploded about a second later (as though explosives were planted inside ). The edges of the wall were cool to the touch, so it wasn't thermal.

[Graham Kennedy]

Phasers are supposed to "phase" matter out of the space time continuum, aren't they? Perhaps instead of explosions, what we're seeing is that part of the target being phased out of existence.

Most of what might be going on is speculative, but even at low settings phasers put out enough heat to heat rocks up by hundreds of degrees. I imagine at high settings there is a degree of "phasing" and / or disintegration (which has also been mentioned), in addition to considerable heating / more conventional explosion.