VOY s1e12 “Cathexis”
Things that hand phasers can do:
- Stun
- Kill
- Disintegrate
- Explode
- Sick lightshow that impresses everybody
Don’t forget heat rocks!
even melting gravel and pebbles together to make climbing spikes.
being able to self-destruct with the precision to either act as a flashbang OR destroy an entire ship somehow.
But only a couple of times.
my favorite example of “we can do this extraordinary thing and we will never talk about it again”:
- starfleet can create copy of dead or lost people using transporter
- seven is literally necromancer and can resurrect dead…
- That alien transporter with a range of 40,000 light years (the spatial trajector) that just can’t work on Voyager because it has an incompatible power supply
- Infinitely fast travel at warp 10 that comes with serious, but entirely curable side-effects
Isn’t there a plant in TOS that can heal wounds that’s never brought up again?
If we’re counting Kelvinverse stuff, the plot twist in Star Trek Into Darkness in which magic villain blood turns out to be the universal cure for Actual Death also qualifies.
My favorite is the repair tool from S1 PIC, the one powered by imagination. Lets just create and forget a magic wand that commoditizes the entire engineering department 🙃
I’m going to be honest - the first season of PIC was so bad I tried to forget about pretty much everything but Laris. I am pleased to report that I successfully forgot everything about the imagination repair tool and still no longer recall it.
I hope you didn’t start watching the second season.
Misreading that as Turok really threw me off for a second
The survivors of AR-558 coming home and being asked why they didn’t use the wide beam setting.
Iirc, this is basically mag-dumping the phaser, so probably not useful for… Well, anything but exactly this scenario and checking for changelings
Also works on the type 3 phaser rifle, but you’re probably right about the power cell drain.
Might I add, this is also only displayed on Voyager.
They do phaser sweeps on DS9 for Founders, but only for a few episodes.
Right, I meant in an offensive capacity.
That makes sense, but there should have been one person in the back who came forward every now and then and just reset the field then withdrew to recharge.
Ouch.
Tuvok knows that nothing beats the Spread Gun
but the laser is so cool
Contra and Metal Slug. So much good times.
God dammit, you guys unlocked a lot of memories.
Like going to CiCi’s Pizza and playing Metal Slug, Power Stone, Striker 1945, Crusin’ World, Rampage…
I need to reinstall my emulators.
I don’t remember seeing arcade machines at CiCi’s…
I miss Anderson’s rational voice of reason in an unrealistic sci-fi style of acting.
Someone should’ve written down what happens when you shoot something with a zat three times.
just a piece of paper on the wall of the mess
Know your Zat!
1 tap = stun
2 taps = kill
3 taps = vaporizeDid you use the correct amount of taps?
Did you use the correct amount of taps?
I hear one of them is still tapping
I always quad-tap with my zat. Just in case.
Like Kira said, “… It’s a little more complicated, so it’s not as good a field weapon. Too many things can go wrong with it. I think you should stick with the Cardassian rifle. Smaller, easier to use, and if we get boarded I don’t want you to have to think too much about the weapon you’re using.”
Maybe people in starfleet forget the features available in the pinch of the moment. (&/or writers “forget” for convenient writing devices).
… Or maybe starfleet academy['s training] is not as great as the much lauded (but lacking merit (?)) “competence porn” selection bias that we see gives the impression of.
Phasers are super versatile but they need to be programmed. That’s not something you want to be doing on the battlefield - which is why the default function is “point and click to shoot”.
And most of the time we see phasers used - aside from the occasional stone heating or vaporising - it’s in a battle situation where reaction time matters. Tuvok had a moment to set things up, but in most other situations, that moment might be deciding if you live or die.
Wish they’d explored Kira mentoring Ziyal more. Coulda been her lil badass protégé.
Wasn’t she, though?
Ziyal was doing terrorism on occupied DS9 right alongside Kira.
She baked a hasperat soufflé to help break out Rom.
