Talk:Laser pistol

Reversion
I am reverting your edit Shran because you are wrong about the year thing. You are taking the year the episode was in, I was referring to the year the expedition left because that is when the laser pistols would have been issued. --TOSrules 08:10, 31 Aug 2005 (UTC)
 * Ooooh, okay, sorry. I was wondering about that, actually, because I didn't remember lasers being used in the episodes. However, is the year 2161 a canon year or is it an estimate? --From Andoria with Love 08:13, 31 Aug 2005 (UTC)
 * yes although I do not recall the reference off hand, I do remember they referred to when the expedition was launched, the actual year come from MA. --TOSrules 08:15, 31 Aug 2005 (UTC)
 * Okay, here's what was really confusing me: I believe you meant 2261, not 2161. The latter year seemed... unlikely, lol! Anyways, I've corrected the info. :) --From Andoria with Love 08:21, 31 Aug 2005 (UTC)
 * My bad, I typed the year wrong, I don't know why I was thinking 2161 --TOSrules 08:22, 31 Aug 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps because that was when the Federation was founded? :D Either way, don't worry about it, I gotcha covered. ;) --From Andoria with Love 08:31, 31 Aug 2005 (UTC)

You say laser, I say phaser; let's call the whole thing off.
The prop used by Brown and Andrea in and by Crater in  is the same as the prop used by Spock in. In none of these episodes is the prop/weapon referred to by name. But Kirk has a phaser rifle in "Where No Man...." And Andrea vaporized the android-Kirk --with a laser? In none of the preceeding episodes did the weapons used have such an effect.

If we can call a weapon that looks like the lasers from a laser, can't we just as easily call them phasers as 1)the newer model has that unindentified wheel thing and 2) Kirk is brandishing a phaser rifle. By this time, it seems that the Harvey P. Lynn memo had taken hold: they switched from rockets to impulse power, after all. --GNDN 08:28, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Just curious, is there a terrible problem with a laser pistol being used at the same time as a phaser rifle? --OuroborosCobra talk |undefined  21:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Not really. Phasers may have just been coming into common usage during the 2260s, and ship's personnel didn't yet carry them all the time. It's entirely possible that they carried lasers for a little while even after phasers were introduced. --From Andoria with Love 21:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know if I would consider it a "terrible problem," but I do believe that the on-screen evidence supports the existence of phaser pistols as opposed to the continued use of antiquated lasers.  What, may I ask, was the point of adding the wheel-dingus to the  version of the prop but to suggest that there was a substantial upgrade (of sorts, admittedly), to the weapon? More to the point, phasers have always been shown to inflict a variety of harms: from stunning a victim to vaporizing him.  Yet there is no on-screen evidence of lasers doing anything but burning or blasting.  In, though, we see all manner of destruction being wrought.  Again, I admit that this a small point, but I advert to the work done by Lynn to stand  for the proposition that the further the franchise got from referring to objects that have properties and limitations known to the 20th century, the better. --GNDN 22:10, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Page 18 (21 in PDF), of the revised shooting script of refers to Brown wielding a "phaser (old style)".  See the script here.  --GNDN 18:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Cool, but the problem is that the weapon was called a laser on-screen in The Cage & The Menagerie, and was never referred to as a phaser. However, a background note regarding the script calling a phaser should be added. --From Andoria with Love 18:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

You say laser REDUX
Okay, GNDN explained things this to me more fully on IRC last night, and I think I agree with what he is saying. Basically, the laser pistols in "The Cage" were referred to as lasers, so info on those can (and should) stay on this page. However, when the pistols are seen in, they are altered slightly to include a wheel thingamabob on its side, while the script calls this weapon an old style phaser. Since Roger Korby's expedition had been there since 2261, this type of phaser had been around since then. In addition (backtracking about ten episodes), the laser pistols seen in had also been altered with the wheel, so technically those were the same type of phasers carried by Korby and his team, so I don't think there's any harm in saying that the "laser pistols" seen in "WNMHGB" and "WALGMO?" are actually early forms of phasers since they were apparently intended to be phasers by that time. So perhaps we should move the info from those eps to the phaser article. What sayeth everyone else? --From Andoria with Love 03:30, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Holy crap, I forgot all about this. So, um... does anybody else have any input? Anybody? --From Andoria with Love 03:11, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I have no idea how you can gauge what a lazer can, and can not do in the 23ed century. i believe Pike refers to the fact that the weapon has various settings in the scene where he blows a hole on the wall near the end of the episode. I am not sure but I thought someone said something about setting them to kill, and we also have a reference to them using full power against the entry way and not so much as a scratch. --72.194.110.83 04:52, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Removed speculation
Removed this.


 * Since the Earth Starfleet of the 22nd century utilized plasma weapons and phase weapons, it is odd that Starfleet would issue a more primitive weapon such as a laser in the mid-23rd century. One explanation could be that the 23rd century term "laser" might mean something more complicated than the lasers we know of today. It is possible, too, that the term "laser" might be the shortened colloquial use of a more complicated technological name, such as "phase laser" or "multiphasic laser," and that these laser weapons represented a mid-point between the earlier phase pistol and the phaser commonly used in the mid-to late 23rd century and beyond.

as something no longer suggested to be the case i think... --Pseudohuman 12:38, June 24, 2011 (UTC)