Your opinions: Minimum phaser setting to affect a stormtrooper?

[Lord Revan]

Funny thing how phasers have no recoil, the beam is suppose to carry signifigant amount of KE (remember "each action has opposite but equal reaction") so if level 1 stun blast has enough KE to ragdoll a grown man thru KE from the beam alone then it should ragdoll the shooter as well (the equal part means equal in strength and opposite refers to the vector that's facing the oppose direction).

then there's the matter of collateral damage since phaser beams (or bolts or what fuck you want to call them) don't appear to have any signifigant mass and more most likely massless. now for a massless beam the KE is secondary effects and you can calculate it if you know the "virtual" mass of the beam, but the catch is said KE is always insignifigantly small fraction of the total energy meaning rest of the energy has to go somewhere. since the momentum for a massless object is p=E/c and using the standard momentum formula we get that mv=p/v, so mv=E/(c*v). Now it shouldn't take much to figure out that unless the total energy of the beam is something truly staggering the kinectic energy is gonna so small as to be irrelevant and if the energy is something truly staggering it has to go somewhere and phasers have never shown anywhere close to the collateral effects that would cause (probably because it would be utterly leathal for miles around the beam).

[darthy2]

Pasers having a high energy capacity was never contested. The TNG TMP explicitely says so (to the point that a single hand phaser power cell has enough energy to power the saucer phaser arrays for hours of continuous fire).
The fact remains that we never see a a hand phaser show the side effects inherent to vapourization so whatever they do, Occam's Razor says it isn't vapourization. 'Vapourization but some funky technobabble makes all the inevitable side effects not show up somehow' loses, especially as you can't vapourize a humanwith a hand phaser beam even if a 'desintegrate' level shot had the energy, leave alone in the manner depicted. All the beam would do is drill a hole through the target, evaporate the matter immediately surrounding the beam path likely making the body explode and go merrily on its way to expend the vast majority of its energy on whatever else is in its path. Not what I recall seeing in Trek.
Also not seeing how any of this is relevant to phaser stun working through stormtrooper armour (leave alone by KE).

Occam's razor says not all the dialogue can be wrong. Occam's razor also speaks in probablity too, not absolutes. If we don't know how the phasers actually work, it's best to rule on the side of an in-canon explanation. We agree that we don't know exactly how the phasers work or what they do exactly so that's an unknown variable in the explanation.

My theory is that the targets are vaporized just as all of the dialogue says but somehow the negative effects of the vaporization are not shown because the effect of the phaser removes the intense heat with a dampening field (VOY "Alter Ego"), by pushing it into subspace (DS9 "The Visitor"), transporter technology (DS9 "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges", TNG "Gambit") or some other technological explanation. The same negative effects you would expect to see with a vaporized target coincidentally happen to be the same effects the writers could not put in the show because of the limitations of realism on tv when balancing with a good story. This is also why you do not see blood much, budget issues.

[Batman]

Pasers having a high energy capacity was never contested. The TNG TMP explicitely says so (to the point that a single hand phaser power cell has enough energy to power the saucer phaser arrays for hours of continuous fire).
The fact remains that we never see a a hand phaser show the side effects inherent to vapourization so whatever they do, Occam's Razor says it isn't vapourization. 'Vapourization but some funky technobabble makes all the inevitable side effects not show up somehow' loses, especially as you can't vapourize a humanwith a hand phaser beam even if a 'desintegrate' level shot had the energy, leave alone in the manner depicted. All the beam would do is drill a hole through the target, evaporate the matter immediately surrounding the beam path likely making the body explode and go merrily on its way to expend the vast majority of its energy on whatever else is in its path. Not what I recall seeing in Trek.
Also not seeing how any of this is relevant to phaser stun working through stormtrooper armour (leave alone by KE).

Occam's razor says not all the dialogue can be wrong.

'It does no such ting.

Occam's razor also speaks in probablity too, not absolutes. If we don't know how the phasers actually work, it's best to rule on the side of an in-canon explanation.

Indeed. And the in-canon explanation is phasers DON'T vapourize.

We agree that we don't know exactly how the phasers work or what they do exactly so that's an unknown variable in the explanation.
My theory is that the targets are vaporized just as all of the dialogue says but somehow the negative effects of the vaporization are not shown because the effect of the phaser removes the intense heat with a dampening field (VOY "Alter Ego"), by pushing it into subspace (DS9 "The Visitor"), transporter technology (DS9 "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges", TNG "Gambit") or some other technological explanation. The same negative effects you would expect to see with a vaporized target coincidentally happen to be the same effects the writers could not put in the show because of the limitations of realism on tv when balancing with a good story. This is also why you do not see blood much, budget issues.

Leaving SoD. Automatic fail. The reasons why they did it out in the real world don't figure into it.. We never see a phaser actually vapourize anything, therefore phasers don't actually vapourize anything.

[darthy2]

It does no such ting.

It sure does. Every time someone says something was varporized from a phaser, that's another assumption we need to assume that they do not mean vaporization according to you.

Indeed. And the in-canon explanation is phasers DON'T vapourize.

Leaving SoD. Automatic fail. The reasons why they did it out in the real world don't figure into it.. We never see a phaser actually vapourize anything, therefore phasers don't actually vapourize anything.

Well of course they vaporize. There are scenes where we see smoke or steam after the vaporization. You either did not know this or you meant to say their entire body does not vaporize? I'm staying in SoD. I'm pretending that the target is vaporized just like the story is supposed to have us believe. You're violating SoD by making excuses for the phasers not doing what they say it does.

[darthy2]

This example from voyager episode "The 37's" is telling. Voyager encountered humans who were wearing protective gear and the stun setting was still effective on them.

[Batman]

It does no such ting.

It sure does. Every time someone says something was varporized from a phaser, that's another assumption we need to assume that they do not mean vaporization according to you.

According to the visuals which 100% of the time fail to show vapourization and, even ignoring Starfleet doesn't know what they're talking about half the time anyway, people use imprecise terminology. Who knew? It never happens in real life, does it? Oh wait.

Indeed. And the in-canon explanation is phasers DON'T vapourize.

Leaving SoD. Automatic fail. The reasons why they did it out in the real world don't figure into it.. We never see a phaser actually vapourize anything, therefore phasers don't actually vapourize anything.

Well of course they vaporize. There are scenes where we see smoke or steam after the vaporization.

Smoke means 'burning' not vapourization.
You either did not know this or you meant to say their entire body does not vaporize?[/quote]
OF COURSE I DID as we NEVER EVER see that happen. We see the body made to glow funnily and go away.

I'm staying in SoD.

You wouldn't recognize SoD if it bit your legs off and pummeled you to death with them.

I'm pretending that the target is vaporized just like the story is supposed to have us believe.

I don't give a flying fuck what YOU think the story is supposed to have us believe, what it SHOWS us is the phaser targets glowing funilly and going away with none of the inevitable side effects of vapouriation so...no vapourization.

You're violating SoD by making excuses for the phasers not doing what they say it does.

Unlike you I actually know what SoD means. I'm accepting that since what we SEE phasers do doesn't match what they SAY phasers do, since visuals trump dialogue and since people routinely use words imprecisely in the real world AS WELL as in Star Trek, no vapourization.
Not that this little tanget is relevant to whether or not phasers can defeat stormtrooper armour, on lowest stun, through KE/momentum, which you unsurprisingly have spectacularly failed to show.

[Batman]

This example from voyager episode "The 37's" is telling. Voyager encountered humans who were wearing protective gear and the stun setting was still effective on them.

Yup. It tells us you have no fucking clue what you're talking about. All that image tells us is that one of the guys in the suits was HIT. We have no idea what happened afterwards, we have no idea what setting that phaser was on, we have no idea about the composition of that suit, we know 'nothing' about the situation but you naturally jump straight to 'people wearing protective clothingcan be stunned by phasers! Therefor anybody wearing ANY sort of protection can be!'

[darthy2]

According to the visuals which 100% of the time fail to show vapourization and, even ignoring Starfleet doesn't know what they're talking about half the time anyway, people use imprecise terminology. Who knew? It never happens in real life, does it? Oh wait.

How ignorant are you? I just said there are plenty of scenes that show vaporization.



You can see the steam in this scene in TNG "Chain of Command pt 1"



and DS9 "A simple investigation". Where there is vapor, there is vaporization.



Smoke can be an indication of vaporization yes. But I also said vapor.

You wouldn't recognize SoD if it bit your legs off and pummeled you to death with them.

I'm using this definition

The term suspension of disbelief or willing suspension of disbelief has been defined as a willingness to suspend one's critical faculties and believe the unbelievable; sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment

you must be using this one? http://www.stardestroyer.net/wiki/index ... _disbelief

Suspension of disbelief is the practice of treating fictional stories, TV shows, movies, etc. as if they were documentary footage or narrations of real events. It allows objective analysis of a visual medium.

That's not what suspension of disbelief is though. That's called equivocation. You're actually doing the opposite of suspension of disbelief by exploiting flaws in the visuals instead of interpreting the visuals the way they were meant to be interpreted according to dialogue and the plot of the shows rather than over analyzing it as the true definition of suspension of disbelief says you're not supposed to do.

You wouldn't recognize SoD if it bit your legs off and pummeled you to death with them.

Actually it looks like you don't recognize it. SoD does not mean overly nitpick visuals.

I don't give a flying fuck what YOU think the story is supposed to have us believe, what it SHOWS us is the phaser targets glowing funilly and going away with none of the inevitable side effects of vapouriation so...no vapourization.

But since you don't know how the phaser process works, you don't really know what's happening. That's why we can default to the dialogue since they are telling us what's happening.

Unlike you I actually know what SoD means. I'm accepting that since what we SEE phasers do doesn't match what they SAY phasers do, since visuals trump dialogue and since people routinely use words imprecisely in the real world AS WELL as in Star Trek, no vapourization.
Not that this little tanget is relevant to whether or not phasers can defeat stormtrooper armour, on lowest stun, through KE/momentum, which you unsurprisingly have spectacularly failed to show.

You do not know what SoD is. I provided you with the standard definition. We'll see if you're capable of learning it.

Yup. It tells us you have no fucking clue what you're talking about. All that image tells us is that one of the guys in the suits was HIT. We have no idea what happened afterwards, we have no idea what setting that phaser was on, we have no idea about the composition of that suit, we know 'nothing' about the situation but you naturally jump straight to 'people wearing protective clothingcan be stunned by phasers! Therefor anybody wearing ANY sort of protection can be!'

Yes, just like we have no idea what the stormtroopers armor is made of. I take it this means you are conceding you have "no fucking clue" what you're talking about as well? We actually do know what happened afterwards, that person was disoriented. You'll need to watch the episode. The phaser was on stun. We can make an inductive logical argument that since people wearing protective gear are hit with a stun setting are usually affected by it then a phaser on stun will probably affect a stormtrooper as well.

[Lord Revan]

Here's a rather important question to Darthy and Watch-man if stormtrooper armor is truly as ineffective as you claim it is, why is it used? The empire is 19 years old at start of the OT surely if stormtrooper armor didn't "protect against anything" it would been swapped for an armor that does during those years or are you truly suggesting that everyone with in the imperial military was drooling moron and didn't get that useless armor is useless.

[darthy2]

Here's a rather important question to Darthy and Watch-man if stormtrooper armor is truly as ineffective as you claim it is, why is it used? The empire is 19 years old at start of the OT surely if stormtrooper armor didn't "protect against anything" it would been swapped for an armor that does during those years or are you truly suggesting that everyone with in the imperial military was drooling moron and didn't get that useless armor is useless.

Maybe it's to intimidate people. This is the question you need to wrestle with. Star Trek needs to wrestle with the why no seat belts on the bridge question.

[Esquire]

Multiple people have done so in this thread alone. You're the one insisting the armor is useless against all logic without providing any evidence.

[NecronLord]

[Preexisting ban on account Marsh8472 enforced on sockpuppet darthy2 ~ NL]

[Lord Revan]

Multiple people have done so in this thread alone. You're the one insisting the armor is useless against all logic without providing any evidence.

not mention he totally missed the point of my question. since we know for a fact that ST armor went thru at least 2 versions (the OT version and the TFA version, 4 if you count the 2 clonetrooper armor versions) and seeing as the TFA version doesn't seem signifigantly more blaster resistant we cannot assume it's that much more protective, so why didn't anyone in the 54 or so years this been going on say "you know maybe we should use armor that's not totally shit, it can even look the same lets just not use materials that don't even stop a wet fart".

There's nothing wrong with the basic design of the Stormtrooper armor there's no large gaps in the armor even the neck joint gap isn't that bad when you consider that in combat a stormtrooper is not gonna just stand in static pose and let you shoot them. any "weakness" would be due to the materials used not the overall design.

So the question is rather simple if it's only due the materials used that Stormtrooper armor is shit crap when why hasn't the empire switch those materials, and we know (semi-)resistant materials to blasters do exist as Sabine Wren got hit in the face by her own bolt deflected back at her but survived with the only lasting seeming to be that sabine died her hair and armor a different color. We also know that empire does control Mandalore so it's not like they wouldn't have access to what ever material Sabine's armor is made out of.

If your argument relies on the opponent being utterly moronic then maybe it's time to rethink that argument, but then Marsh was stupid enough to outright admit he broke the rules so he got banned for it, guess I don't have to ask if he was allowed to come back as he was quite clearly not. That said the topic on this thread is not to bash banned users so lets get back to the topic at hand.

Honestly I could see high level stun settings being effective against Stormtroopers it might just daze them but in combat that's enough you don't have to kill the enemy and prisoners are more usefull then corpses (you can't interrogate a corpse after all). As for outright killing a stormtrooper with 1 shot I dout a low level kill is enough but high level might be and a "vaporize" setting is certainly enough.

[Prometheus Unbound]

I think it's obvious that the 16 settings are Technical Manual silliness.

Actually in the TNG episode, The Vengeance Factor, we clearly see Riker going through all 16 settings. He skips quite a few but there are 16 little lights and he goes through all of them.

Picard does this in STFC (tilts phaser to camera - Maximum setting. If you'd fired this you'd have vapourised me).

O'Brien in Hard Time (DS9) - he goes through them one by one in a camera close up.


Someone, I think it's Riker, suggested "Level 16" when trying to blast some rocks. Was that the Vengeance Factor one?

"Setting 16 ought to do it" is the line, but I dunno which episode.



I doubt Stun would have much effect on them. Even low level Kills can be stopped by Klingon armour.

Yeah as someone above said - setting 9, 10, 11. High Heat/Disrupt or very low vapourise should do it to get a confirmed kill.

I can't imagine they're immune to them.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Indeed. And the in-canon explanation is phasers DON'T vapourize.

Well they call it that.

Whatever the phrase is meant to be (disintegrate?) we clearly see it multiple times on screen in all series.


I take it you mean vapourisation in the way that causes like a massive explosion that'd take out a city or something?

No, phasers clearly don't do that They're not raw power weapons.

[Batman]

I mean vapourize as in 'turn into vapour'. Given how quickly it usually happens, superheated vapour. And yet none of the side effects of an adult human's mass being turned into superheated vapour are ever witnessed. Whatever you want to call it, hand phasers don't vapourize. They make stuff glow funnily and go away.
Not that phasers could do it if they HAD the raw energy-given the beam is usually at best an inch across it won't apply the energy evenly to all of the target's mass. It'll drill a tunnel through the target, vapourize the tissue immediately surrounding the beam likely causing it to blow apart and go on its merry way to make a mess of whatever else is in the beam's path.

[WATCH-MAN]

I mean vapourize as in 'turn into vapour'. Given how quickly it usually happens, superheated vapour. And yet none of the side effects of an adult human's mass being turned into superheated vapour are ever witnessed. Whatever you want to call it, hand phasers don't vapourize. They make stuff glow funnily and go away.

And yet those who should know how a phaser affects its target are saying that it is vaporizing it.

And you are saying that they make "stuff glow funnily and go away".

Why not assuming that phaser vaporize AND make the glowing vapour "go away"?

That would match with what is said AND shown and eliminates the necessity to dismiss dialogue or to assume that the people who know more about phasers than we do, do not know what it is doing.

Not that phasers could do it if they HAD the raw energy-given the beam is usually at best an inch across it won't apply the energy evenly to all of the target's mass. It'll drill a tunnel through the target, vapourize the tissue immediately surrounding the beam likely causing it to blow apart and go on its merry way to make a mess of whatever else is in the beam's path.

That would be the case if a phaser were a laser.

But is is no laser.

A phasers beam-characteristics are largely unknown. It is known that phasers fire nadion particle beams. But is is unknown what exactly nadions are and how exactly these nadions interact with matter.

[Captain Kruger]

I think the "standard kill" setting is just one that causes some kind of fatal neurological shock in the target. Notice when Picard shoots the ensign who's being assimilated in First Contact, the ensign stops squirming and drops silently but has no wound on his chest, not even a tear in his shirt. I'm guessing this setting exists mainly to have a lethal weapon without using much more power per shot than heavy stun, but it also plays into the Federation mentality of not making things messy.

Obviously that won't work against stormtroopers. You'll have to get into the settings that start tearing apart matter at the molecular level - how high a setting you need depends on how tough stormie armor is. Hard to say, since blaster bolts always burn right through those suits.

[Captain Kruger]

The argument is not flawed, you didn't understand it because of your illiteracy.

Re-read the last clause of Esquire's statement you posted. There are two important words in that passage, one of them a basic high-school level word and one even small children should understand. You either ignored those words on purpose, or did not understand them.

If you think that it might be a good idea to reconsider your position in the presence of a group whose members have all the same opinion, are reassuring each other, are considering themselves as "reasonably well-informed" and together are all telling you that your opinion is wrong - you probably would reconsider your position in the presence of Christian fundamentalists too.

You're assuming that religious nuts count as "well-informed". In what world is that true?

[Batman]

I mean vapourize as in 'turn into vapour'. Given how quickly it usually happens, superheated vapour. And yet none of the side effects of an adult human's mass being turned into superheated vapour are ever witnessed. Whatever you want to call it, hand phasers don't vapourize. They make stuff glow funnily and go away.

And yet those who should know how a phaser affects its target are saying that it is vaporizing it.
And you are saying that they make "stuff glow funnily and go away".
Why not assuming that phaser vaporize AND make the glowing vapour "go away"?

Because a) the vapour wouldn't glow, it'd just rapidly expand and make a mess of the surroundings and b) it includes an unnecessary step. Why assume it's vapourization but 'somewhow' all the side effects required by that magically don't show up because of technobabble when it's far more sensible to conclude it isn't vapourization in the first place?

That would match with what is said AND shown and eliminates the necessity to dismiss dialogue or to assume that the people who know more about phasers than we do, do not know what it is doing.[/i]
Or we could again do the sensible thing and conclude that, just like real world humans, Trek people sometimes use language imprecisely.

Not that phasers could do it if they HAD the raw energy-given the beam is usually at best an inch across it won't apply the energy evenly to all of the target's mass. It'll drill a tunnel through the target, vapourize the tissue immediately surrounding the beam likely causing it to blow apart and go on its merry way to make a mess of whatever else is in the beam's path.

That would be the case if a phaser were a laser.
But is is no laser.
A phasers beam-characteristics are largely unknown. It is known that phasers fire nadion particle beams. But is is unknown what exactly nadions are and how exactly these nadions interact with matter.

If you have no fucking clue what the beam does how do you know it's vapourizing anything?

[Esquire]

And yet those who should know how a phaser affects its target are saying that it is vaporizing it.

And you are saying that they make "stuff glow funnily and go away".

Why not assuming that phaser vaporize AND make the glowing vapour "go away"?

That would match with what is said AND shown and eliminates the necessity to dismiss dialogue or to assume that the people who know more about phasers than we do, do not know what it is doing.

In that case, tell me - where are the stabilizing grooves on the inside of a phaser rifle? Where are the gunpowder reserves for Defiant's phaser cannon? By the your 'logic,' a phaser rifle must fire a gyroscopically-stabilized metal round in addition to an energy beam, and starship weaponry must be powered by gunpowder as well as battery arrays.

Language is imprecise. Science is not. Practically every word in all languages I'm familiar with has or will take on meanings different from its original sense to a greater or lesser degree. We can either posit an invisible second main effect of phaser fire with no evidence - indeed, perhaps with negative evidence - for doing so, or we can assume that when Starfleet officesr use the word 'vaporize' to describe something with none of the characteristics of an actual vaporization, their being slightly imprecise in their word choice. Tell me, which do you think makes more sense, and why?

[Esquire]

Stupid edit timer. 'Officers' and 'they're,' obviously.

[Lone Browncoat]

Having a good chuckle at all this.
Remembering "Family Guy's" "Its A Trap!"
Re-watching right now....

@ 42 minutes and 21 seconds........

What does the Stormtrooper say?

[Esquire]

...Would you care to expand?

[Lone Browncoat]

"This armour's useless!!Why do we even wear it?"

Was in stitches, the first time I heard it. Still funny when I re-played it this morning.
Ya gotta see it. They manage to tell the same story in 56 minutes that took Lucas two hours plus.
I'd rather go into battle with the gear from "HALO".