Why does ST ships only fire one beam?

[Master of Ossus]

Mmmm... I do not think that a lack of gunners is the problem with ST ships, at least until they are forced to target manually. Ships the size of a GCS definitely should have the capability of engaging numerous smaller targets simultaneously, and we have seen even the little Intrepid-class Voyager engage multiple targets simultaneously.

[Doomriser]

It makes sense for the E-D to have extra phasers near the torpedo tube because, remember, that stardrive section of the ship is supposed to be able to operate independently of the saucer, which carries the main battery.

[Master of Ossus]

I don't think it makes sense to have multiple weapons covering an almost identical firing arc, and the stardrive section should almost never fire phasers, because torpedoes are so much more powerful. On the other hand, I also think that we have to accept the existence of that phaser there because of that episode. It bothered me, too, though.

[Darth Yoshi]

Don't forget, phasers have a smaller blind spot than torp launchers, so they're not as vulnerable to TRD. ALthough if the E-D is in a position to be afflicted with TRD, that means its shields are gone and it's dead already.

[Mr Bean]

Yes the ship is rather defensless from a top side assult isn't it? Most of its powerful weapons are elsewhere...

[Vympel]

The stardrive section does have its own phaser emitters- right on the plate where the docking clamps are. A phaser bank right in the torpedo tube still makes no sense.

[Solid Snake]

Master Wong, you are right about "Phaser Capacitors", but the only time i have heard the term is in the masterpiece game "Star Trek: StarFleet Command"
God damn i love that game

[Isolder74]

Master Wong, you are right about "Phaser Capacitors", but the only time i have heard the term is in the masterpiece game "Star Trek: StarFleet Command"
God damn i love that game

Yes and in it you can fire your phasers in more than on directions at a time.

[consequences]

Starfleet Command got it from the board game it is based on, Starfleet Battles, neither of which is canon unfortunately

[Cpt_Frank]

The phaser capacitor is also seen during WOK I believe it's a small red display.

[Master of Ossus]

The stardrive section does have its own phaser emitters- right on the plate where the docking clamps are. A phaser bank right in the torpedo tube still makes no sense.

But, unfortunately, it appears to exist. There is no reasonable explanation for its existence, as the Saucer-section's phasers EASILY cover that arc, as does the more powerful torpedo tube, but if it is seen on screen, it must be true.

[Cpt_Frank]

Now placing a phaser there would be pretty...stupid. Absolutely possible it exists.

[Master of Ossus]

I agree. A phaser array there is completely moronic by any standards. There is no reason for it to exist, but apparently it does! Someone must pay for this.

[Setesh]

Cpt_Frank barked:

Now placing a phaser there would be pretty...stupid. Absolutely possible it exists.

Cosidering the fact they build 2 backup systems to the sensors but route them all through the same ODN so a grenade can shut them down. Yeah sounds right.

"Data fire Torpedoes"

"I cannot sir"

"What? Why"

"The backup phaser in the Torpedo tube overloaded, the tube is melted shut."

"Oh cra..."

BOOM

[Howedar]

You guys take suspension of disbelief too far. It is simply ludicrous (well, even more ludicrous than normal) to assume that there is a phaser there in that hole as well as the torpedo launcher.

[Cpt_Frank]

The worst thing about this is: the phaser array could actually be useful somewhere else, but they chose the exact location where it is completely useless.

[Master of Ossus]

You guys take suspension of disbelief too far. It is simply ludicrous (well, even more ludicrous than normal) to assume that there is a phaser there in that hole as well as the torpedo launcher.

We have two possibilities. One is that ST ship designers are morons. The other is that the canon is incorrect. It is fairly canon that ST ship designers are morons, so I think the extra phaser bank is corroborated by other canon evidence from ST.

[Howedar]

B&B have babbled about that mistake a number of times, and that episode was the first one done by a new FX studio. I think in this one particular case we can disregard that phaser shot.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Hmmmmm, I think it's obvious it was a mistake. We've only seen this in on episode, firing from a place were it has no pupose being.

But lets look at it another way, in ANH Luke yells to Leia, after he kills the DS, "Carrie!" as he exits his X-Wing when he gets back to the base. Are we to assume that this is a middle name? A nickname? Something Luke invented just then to call Leia? Nope, of course not, it was a mistake, and we are not to take it as canon, even though it was in the movies.

Although this isn't the best analogy, however. Since it isn't so blatanly obvious it was just a mistake, after all dialouge-when outrageous enough-can be tossed aside, SFX aren't as easy, however my point stands.

[Vympel]

I always thought Luke was saying 'Hey!' instead of 'Carrie!' but that's because I had an old VHS tape. Very funny mistake.

A better analogy would be the ROTJ uniform screw-up- all the Imps were the same rank.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Actually, Ben Burt (SW sound engineer) and his crew spent some time going over that during their work on Star Wars for the Special Edition. They listened to multiple takes of the line from source tapes (which should automatically dispel the rumor) and playing them to others.

Their conclusion (and the final say on the matter) is that Mark Hamil did indeed say "Hey!" and not "Carrie!".

Just wanted to clear this up.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Fine, no "Carrie!" but it sounded a helluva lot like it to me...in any event Vympels example fits better too.

[Isolder74]

It appears that in the next generation that centralization has become the rule rather than the exception. All Phaser energy is stored in one system instead of the multiple banks of capaciters that the TOS uses. Gone is the Phaser control room, as is the systems exposed in an open room. As seen in the motion picture when V'ger's Plasma Torpedo a large unit that was the shield generators sparks flew from it. Now the only thing in the "engine" room is the warp core and a bunch of stupid shiny consols. no wonder the ship seems to always be falling apart, no one can get to critical systems to properly maintain them.

[Patrick Degan]

One possibility is that, at the time of the "Darmok" incident, the Enterprise was field-testing an experimental fixed-axis phaser cannon, for which the forward photorp launcher was removed to accomodate it. It could be that the weapon, if we accept this theory, required a direct link to the warp core and necessitated the disconnection of the Enterprise's standard phaser systems to make the phaser cannon functional. A test of a new anti-Borg weapon, perhaps?

If this theory is valid, and the installation of this one weapon required the disabling of the ship's main weapons, then this touches upon the observed weakeness of Federation starships of the 24th century, being their overly-centralised system architecture. Everything on that accident-waiting-to-happen appears routed through central points of failure —the computers, the weapons, the warp systems. Instead of a selector control which would enable the ship to either use its standard weapons or its superweapon, everything has to be linked into the central power core or the central computer core, which means any modification entails a considerable engineering effort involving the necessary disabling of one or more subsystems. The original USS Enterprise, as has been evidenced in too many episodes of TOS, had multiple backup systems for everything —dual phaser control ("Balance Of Terror, Arena"), a minimum of three power reactors ("Catspaw" and "Day Of The Dove"), and independent computers tied into but not wholly slaved to the ship's main library computer ("Mirror Mirror"). Nothing of the sort is in evidence aboard the Enterprise-D. Every control system is slaved to the central computer core; so much so that a holodeck malfunction or an illegal access at any particular point can completely shut off ship control from the bridge. All power systems are tied into the warp power system, and all weapons are controlled from the main bridge or the battle bridge.

The centralisation of all systems made it impossible for the Yamato's engineers to isolate the Ikonian programme in their system before the ship blew herself apart from a reactor/fuel control malfunction; likewise, the Enterprise and the ChR Haakona were similarly crippled and only the total shutdown and wipe of the affected computer cores made restoration possible. The words "manual override" appear completely unknown in the 24th century Starfleet lexicon.

By anybody's standards, the Galaxy-class vessels are accidents waiting to happen.

[Isolder74]

yes the Enterprise IS a hackers Dream. just got to get into one computer and you've got a shiny new toy.