Section 2 Technology

2.3 Weaponary

2.3.2 Personal Phasers

Hand Phasers

Hand phasers (acronym for PHASed Energy Rectification) operate on the same principal as the larger phasers and convert stored energy into tightly focused beams of energy. (Sternbach and Okuda 1991). The Type I Phaser was a small handheld weapon that could generally be fitted into the "pistol grip" of the type 2 phaser pistol. The Type II phaser was significantly more powerful than the smaller Type I. Type III phasers were a form of rifle weapon and included the compression rifles first seen on Star Trek: Voyager. (See pp 356 Okuda and Okuda). Hand phasers work on much the same principle as larger ship board weapons but the superconductiong crystal is of a LiCu 521 type and has a 3% improvement in thermodynamic efficiency at 92.65%. energy is stored within a replenishable sarium krellide cell. Sarium Krellide holds a maximum of 1.3*10^6 megajoules per cubic centimetre with a maximum leak rate of no more than 1.05 kilojoules per hour.

In a Type I phaser cell the sarium krellide unit measures 2.4*3 and holds 7.2*10^6 MJ and in the Type II 10.2 * 3 holding 4.5 * 10^7 MJ recently upgraded to 8.79*10^7. The latest Type IIIb phaser rifle supports a swappable power cell with 3.45 * 10^8 Megajoules. Given that almost no thermal and unwanted EM energy signatures are carried in the beam, these weapons reflect a very efficient design. However, it is important to appreciate the levels of damage a phaser can cause based on electromagnetic properties and on those caused by nadions.

We will attempt to ascertain the effect of the rapid nadion effect. There is a comparatively simple relationship between energy discharge and the damage to rock, given the data from Sternbach and Okuda 1991 pp 137, we can attempt to ascertain energy discharge for the various phaser settings.

Nadions are subatomic particles that have the ability to liberate and transfer the strong nuclear forces, from Star Trek Voyager's Demon, we can see that a phasers nadion burst can disrupt electromagnetic bonds. The strong interaction is the force within a nucleus of an atom that binds the nucleons together. Given that there is an inherent repulsion in an atom's nulceus whereby the coupling of the positive charged protons will cause the matter to explosively decouple a method was required to hold them together. It is now understood that the force that binds the nucleus is from the interaction of a set of particles known as quarks. In 1961 two physicists, Murray Gell Man  of the United States and Yuval Ne'eman of Israel, proposed a particle classification scheme, from this theory known as the Eight Fold Way, was developed a theoretical set of particles that worked in groups of three to create nucleons. It was in 1964  that Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as a physical basis for the scheme, adopting the term from a passage in James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake. 

Quarks come in one of six "flavours"  of which all baryons such as the proton or pi meson are constructed. Each flavour has one of three colours, all matter is made of white quark combinations, that is the cancellation of all primary colours, red, green and blue. For each quark, there is a corresponding anti-quark. Quarks interact with each other primarily through the strong force via gluons. 

The following table shows properties of the 6 species. Charge is measured in units if the electron's charge = 1.6 x 10^-19 Coulomb.

see Fermilab web site www.fnal.gov  

If  the rapid nadion effect can affect the strong nuclear force it may well alter the "damage a phaser can do to an object. That is, the energy released might not be the significant factor in damage to a target. The graphs below chart among other things how much the nadion effect changes with phaser intensity. Given that we know a relative value for the energy used by the phaser at each level (Sternbach and Okuda 1991), we can correlate this with the nadion effect and see how much the decorrelation of the strong nuclear force effects matter.

Graph 1 Shows the general relationship between impactor and crater size, we will use this relationship in deducing the absolute energy emitted by a phaser at various energy settings. this will allow an appreciation for the impact of nadions in decoupling matter. 

From what we know about the Energy Discharge and the absolute energy discharge we can create a relationship to allow exact energy discharge for lower level phaser discharges.

The preliminary extrapolated equations are below. The energy should be accurate for all double figure but clearly breaks down for lower levels

It should be possible to calculate the exact discharges using the following equations.

Let:

• The discharge energy index = D
• Energy at target = E
• SEM:NDF ration =S
• The Phaser Setting = P

Therefore

• D = f (P)
• E = f (D)
• S = f (P)

Approximate relationships

• D = 0.4641*e^(0.9803*P)
• E = 1*10^-9 * D^2.5455
• S = 0.2444 P^2 - 1.966 P +3.1145

Table to Show Comparative Alien Sidearms

Table values from Zimmerman et al. 1998

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