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Forums > Home› Star Trek Online General Discussion

A thought on why TOS-Phasers are blue (in-universe)

lilchibiclarililchibiclari Member Posts: 1,193 Arc User
in Star Trek Online General Discussion
From Enterprise, we know that the Andorians had superior starship technology to Earth (shields, warp engines, weapons) at the time that the Federation was founded. The Andorian's Phase Weapons were shown to be blue, in contrast to the red/orange of the ones used by Earth Starfleet. If, then, the Phasers used by the Federation in the first several decades after its founding were based on Andorian designs, this would explain why they were blue up through the TOS era.

However, when the Constitution class was given its big refit in the early 2270s, one of the changes was to boost Phaser output by powering them directly from the Warp plasma instead of from the ship's EPS conduits (this being the reason for the Phasers going down when the Warp engines malfunctioned in TMP). This change might explain the beginning of the shift back to red/orange Phasers, since the Andorian design was no longer dominant.

Comments

  • unotetsuunotetsu Member Posts: 662 Arc User
    Makes sense, all we had in the NX-01 days were very primitive "phase cannons" which were probably more laser than phaser, the andorians had a superior tech, so we used their phasers until SCE (starfleet Corps of Engineers) were able to make Earth Phasers better than andorian phasers.
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  • gradiigradii Member Posts: 2,824 Arc User
    Must have bigger EPS conduits! MORE WARP CORES!
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  • jade1280jade1280 Member Posts: 868 Arc User
    Federation "the unitied front representing several species" shared their tech with each other to further their own strength.
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  • kjwashingtonkjwashington Member Posts: 2,529 Arc User
    nixboox wrote: »
    Well...probably not. In the Original TOS, not the remastered version, the phasers were inconsistent not only in their color but also in their function. They were both pulse phasers, beam phasers, and some type of torpedo...they even had a stun setting. The colors ranged from blue and white to red and yellow and even green. The only rational explanation, and the one that we find consistent in TNG, is that phaser color is a function of frequency, not power

    That's right! I remember during one of the TNG Borg episodes they ordered the phasers to rotate frequencies and it ended up looking rainbow like! I guess TOS Star Fleet just used the blue frequency the most.
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  • tenderbitstenderbits Member Posts: 117 Arc User
    They probably had a specific frequency range that they use that would minimize interference with other systems... guidance, sensors, magical thingies, etc.
    Maybe on rare occasions they could go outside this range?
    Think about all of the systems running on the ship - It might have been like trying to pull a couple extra amps from early space craft. It can be done, but that power has to be routed from another system. Showers and bathrooms systems go offline when they change to a different phaser frequency. Or, maybe they come back online when they change frequencies, this would explain why they are never in use during regular ship activities.
  • captsolcaptsol Member Posts: 921 Arc User
    coolbatman wrote: »
    need to re-think that design,just give 'em bigger eps conduits and a separate warp core to power them, just think if during 'doomsday machine' that if they went thru the warp drive, scotty wouldn't have been able to get the constellation's phasers to work, b/c as he said' the warp drive is a hope-less pile of junk' (being burnt out)......anyhoo, enuff random spewage from me........

    In TMP that's exactly why the phasers didn't work in the wormhole. They were tied through the warp engines for more power according to Decker and so when the warp engines were offline so were the phasers.
  • sharpie65sharpie65 Member Posts: 679 Arc User
    That being said, in TOS-Remastered the phasers are definitely shown as being blueish-white - the same as Andorian phase-cannons in ENT. Maybe the Constituion's Warp 7-drive was Andorian in design?
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  • officerbatman81officerbatman81 Member Posts: 2,761 Arc User
    If someone is going for a TOS canon build it it would be nice to have a full range of retro phasers, like craftable retro blue phaser cannons and omnis, etc. And a episode blue phaser omni.
  • zerokillcf2011zerokillcf2011 Member Posts: 545 Arc User
    Agree. It's nice to be able to do episode replay and get multiples of the retro phaser beam arrays (which some like myself spend WAY to much dilithium upgrading to UR mark XIV), but no way to get matching DBB or Omni's.
  • sorceror01sorceror01 Member Posts: 1,042 Arc User
    zerokillcf2011 wrote: »
    Agree. It's nice to be able to do episode replay and get multiples of the retro phaser beam arrays (which some like myself spend WAY to much dilithium upgrading to UR mark XIV), but no way to get matching DBB or Omni's.

    Actually, in the AoY mission "Battle of Caleb IV", you can totally get a retro-style blue phaser Dual Beam Bank, a well as a Dual Cannon.
    I guess dual heavies weren't invented then? Or at least, not for usage on Starfleet ships?
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  • trejgontrejgon Member Posts: 323 Arc User
    sorceror01 wrote: »
    zerokillcf2011 wrote: »
    Agree. It's nice to be able to do episode replay and get multiples of the retro phaser beam arrays (which some like myself spend WAY to much dilithium upgrading to UR mark XIV), but no way to get matching DBB or Omni's.

    Actually, in the AoY mission "Battle of Caleb IV", you can totally get a retro-style blue phaser Dual Beam Bank, a well as a Dual Cannon.
    I guess dual heavies weren't invented then? Or at least, not for usage on Starfleet ships?

    and I'm sad that these dbb are not twi phasers like arrays are :P

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  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,009 Arc User
    trejgon wrote: »
    and I'm sad that these dbb are not twi phasers like arrays are :P

    I was wondering about that as well. What's the point of having those? pig-2.gif​​
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  • talonxvtalonxv Member Posts: 4,257 Arc User
    sharpie65 wrote: »
    That being said, in TOS-Remastered the phasers are definitely shown as being blueish-white - the same as Andorian phase-cannons in ENT. Maybe the Constituion's Warp 7-drive was Andorian in design?

    Actually if you watch that godawful last episode of ENT, there's a scene where malcom and mayweather are talking and they are talking about the new Warp 7 capable federation ships and how malcom is getting a posting to one and Mayweather might get a posting to one as well after NX-01 is decomissioned.
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  • giannicampanellagiannicampanella Member Posts: 424 Arc User
    I think the reason is that the film franchise evolved from TOS & TMP's bright futuristic style into a very dark Meyer-Trek aesthetic, and blue no longer matched the monster maroons and dark earth-toned & wood-paneled interiors. By the time you get to TNG, Command uniform color becomes berry red as well, and the entire Enterprise-D set became flesh toned and earth toned, so similarly, blue would have been jarring.

    Sadly, not until JJ Trek did Trek return to a bright futuristic style, and thus blue phasers, which look better and make more sense anyhow (blue signifying hotter), mesh much better with the sets and models and costumes again.

    In-universe, there is absolutely no reasonable excuse to my mind. It's basically an original Gorn costume situation. I just retcon. I have personally never taken anything in Trek to be canon.
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