As a matter of fact, you also have a classical blaster bolt from the same rifles coming at the camera and looking wide in the same way.Mike DiCenso wrote:Okay, I re-watched ANH, The SW stun beam is not quite a wide field effect. The stormtrooper's blaster shoots out a ring-shaped beam not even half a meter wide. I realized that what we are seeing is not a wide beam per se, but the camera angles are such that when the beam is fired, it heads towards the camera, only appearing to get bigger because of perspective, and when the scene cuts to Leia being hit as she tries to run, the ring-bolt gets smaller, again due to perspective, but when we see it reach her, it is about the same size as when the ST fired it. So no, this is not actually a wide beam shot like what we see in Trek, but something else entirely different, and is indicative of some fundamental difference between the kill and stun settings for a blaster.Praeothmin wrote:Mike, if the stun beam is made of excited electrons, or whatever particles, I have no issue with a Lightsabre deflecting it, since the sabre's got a forcefield keeping the blade toghether.
-Mike
Phaser vs. Lightsaber
-
Mr. Oragahn
- Admiral
- Posts: 6865
- Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
- Location: Paradise Mountain
-
Mike DiCenso
- Security Officer
- Posts: 5839
- Joined: Fri Aug 18, 2006 8:49 pm
Yes, that is also true. When viewed from the side, blaster bolts and turbolaser bolts are usually symmetrical along their lengths. Only when the camera angles change do we see perspective come into play and the bolt looks bigger or smaller on it's ends.
So in the case of the stun settings for blasters, why the relatively wide ring shape and not a lower power narrow bolt? Can it be that the blaster can tone down it's power levels, and has to dissipate the bolt in some manner in order to stun a humanoid target? Is this why the ST who shot her had to make sure that Leia was okay?
-Mike
So in the case of the stun settings for blasters, why the relatively wide ring shape and not a lower power narrow bolt? Can it be that the blaster can tone down it's power levels, and has to dissipate the bolt in some manner in order to stun a humanoid target? Is this why the ST who shot her had to make sure that Leia was okay?
-Mike
-
2046
- Starship Captain
- Posts: 2046
- Joined: Sat Sep 02, 2006 9:14 pm
- Contact:
The RotS novelization refers to "galvened particle beams" in reference to both space-based and handheld weaponry.
This line is extra-special: " {...} the bolts flared between their blades until their galvening faded and the particles of the packeted beams dispersed into radioactive fog."
Before you get excited, "galven" is a nonsense word. It sounds as if it comes from the same root as "galvanic", but the root of that is a guy named Luigi Galvani who played with frog's legs and electric current in the 18th Century. So that's not it. Damn tempting, but it just isn't so.
We can presume based on the statements, however, that this galvening is either some sort of energetic containment barrier or, possibly, some sort of self-containment field (field-field, not Trek barrier-field) that permeates the entirety of the bolt and holds all the particles together for a time. Either of those might enable bolt deflection as observed.
So whatever this galvening action is, we can presume it is somehow responsible for the lightsabre deflections, unless we wish to argue that particles of radioactive fog are deflectible in such a manner.
Meanwhile, phasers are particle beam weapons which fire, at least in part, some exotic thingamabob called a nadion. There is no evidence that comes immediately to mind for any sort of beam containment field. This would imply that a lightsaber would possibly stop, but not deflect, phaser fire . . . it would be the same as if you shot a stream of fog at it.
However, we've also seen phasers made into forcefield projectors and all sorts of other wacky stuff, so it's possible there is some sort of containment field thingy in play there, as well.
All of the above having been said, however, the simplest and most direct answer is "we have no frickin' idea, nor shall we ever be likely to."
This line is extra-special: " {...} the bolts flared between their blades until their galvening faded and the particles of the packeted beams dispersed into radioactive fog."
Before you get excited, "galven" is a nonsense word. It sounds as if it comes from the same root as "galvanic", but the root of that is a guy named Luigi Galvani who played with frog's legs and electric current in the 18th Century. So that's not it. Damn tempting, but it just isn't so.
We can presume based on the statements, however, that this galvening is either some sort of energetic containment barrier or, possibly, some sort of self-containment field (field-field, not Trek barrier-field) that permeates the entirety of the bolt and holds all the particles together for a time. Either of those might enable bolt deflection as observed.
So whatever this galvening action is, we can presume it is somehow responsible for the lightsabre deflections, unless we wish to argue that particles of radioactive fog are deflectible in such a manner.
Meanwhile, phasers are particle beam weapons which fire, at least in part, some exotic thingamabob called a nadion. There is no evidence that comes immediately to mind for any sort of beam containment field. This would imply that a lightsaber would possibly stop, but not deflect, phaser fire . . . it would be the same as if you shot a stream of fog at it.
However, we've also seen phasers made into forcefield projectors and all sorts of other wacky stuff, so it's possible there is some sort of containment field thingy in play there, as well.
All of the above having been said, however, the simplest and most direct answer is "we have no frickin' idea, nor shall we ever be likely to."
-
GStone
- Starship Captain
- Posts: 1016
- Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:16 am
- Location: Undercover in Culture space
I think it was in ENT's pilot in the second half. Archer is fighting what's his name suliban in the time echoing chamber. We see that there are brief glimpses of what's happening next, but only a quarter to a half second into the future. At one point, there's a phase pistol fired and we see a beam hit (I think) Archer. It's semi-transparent and it's hitting his chest. Then, we see him look down before an opaque stream of energy flies to him.
I've been going back and forth on this, but I don't think it was just the phase pistol's beam on a delay because every time we see a future 'echo' of what's gonna happen, it is consistent in how much into the future it is. When the pistol is fired, the echo is slowed down, just like fight scenes are slowed down for dramatic effect. However, when you speed that portion up to compensate for the deliberate slowing down, the distance into the future of the echo would still be inconsistent with all the other future time echos during the whole fight, as well as all the other future time echos from scenes with future guy in them. This would be one echo that just happened to be a different time length for the suliban and the pistol (as well as the different echo length also occuring to the beam, while it's making contact with Archer) with the echo and nonecho portions of Archer still reacting, as he had been during the entire fight.
Also, Archer seeing this was gonna hit him was something he used to avoid getting hit. The particle beams of the phase pistols are traveling at speeds that are too fast for the eye to keep up with, which makes them seem no different than the speed of light. Only cameras are able to pick up on the fact that they are not traveling at c. If it really was the same time echo into the future as everything else, Archer and the suliban would have been able to avoid getting hit during the hand-to-hand portion of the fight and they didn't. Blows were landed. Should we think that Archer, with the help of the time echo, somehow got the ability to pull a spider-man and dodge the beam?
If there was no deliberate slowing down for dramatic effect, Archer would not have had several seconds to watch the future echo of a phase pistol beam strike him, so he could get out of the way. When you compare it to the hand-to-hand at normal speed during the rest of the scene, it sticks out so badly that there's no way it could be seen as just an accident by the cg people.
The point is that it could be an indication of something projected by the pistol just before the particle beam is fired that isn't normally picked up on because the firing happens so fast in normal time. Maybe a path clearing field that moves particles and bits out of the way, maybe creating something vacuum-like. I can't be certain if this was a feature incorporated into phasers or some version of it. If it clears things out, it might act as a temporary barrier to external stuff, which could make it a 'straw' or 'funnel' instead of a bottle.
I've been going back and forth on this, but I don't think it was just the phase pistol's beam on a delay because every time we see a future 'echo' of what's gonna happen, it is consistent in how much into the future it is. When the pistol is fired, the echo is slowed down, just like fight scenes are slowed down for dramatic effect. However, when you speed that portion up to compensate for the deliberate slowing down, the distance into the future of the echo would still be inconsistent with all the other future time echos during the whole fight, as well as all the other future time echos from scenes with future guy in them. This would be one echo that just happened to be a different time length for the suliban and the pistol (as well as the different echo length also occuring to the beam, while it's making contact with Archer) with the echo and nonecho portions of Archer still reacting, as he had been during the entire fight.
Also, Archer seeing this was gonna hit him was something he used to avoid getting hit. The particle beams of the phase pistols are traveling at speeds that are too fast for the eye to keep up with, which makes them seem no different than the speed of light. Only cameras are able to pick up on the fact that they are not traveling at c. If it really was the same time echo into the future as everything else, Archer and the suliban would have been able to avoid getting hit during the hand-to-hand portion of the fight and they didn't. Blows were landed. Should we think that Archer, with the help of the time echo, somehow got the ability to pull a spider-man and dodge the beam?
If there was no deliberate slowing down for dramatic effect, Archer would not have had several seconds to watch the future echo of a phase pistol beam strike him, so he could get out of the way. When you compare it to the hand-to-hand at normal speed during the rest of the scene, it sticks out so badly that there's no way it could be seen as just an accident by the cg people.
The point is that it could be an indication of something projected by the pistol just before the particle beam is fired that isn't normally picked up on because the firing happens so fast in normal time. Maybe a path clearing field that moves particles and bits out of the way, maybe creating something vacuum-like. I can't be certain if this was a feature incorporated into phasers or some version of it. If it clears things out, it might act as a temporary barrier to external stuff, which could make it a 'straw' or 'funnel' instead of a bottle.