Even before the development of true interstellar space-craft by various cultures, it was clear that directed-energy devices would be necessary to assist in clearing gas, dust, and micrometeoroid material from vehicle flight paths. Emerging space-faring races are continuing to employ this method as an excellent way to maximize shipboard energy budgets, because relatively small energy expenditure produces a large result. Material in space can be vaporized, ionized, and eliminated as a hazard to space flight. It did not take an enormous leap of imagination, of course, to realize that directed energy could also prove to be an effective weapon system.

The lead defensive system maintained by Starfleet Command for sublight use for the last century is the phaser, the common term for a complicated energy release process developed to replace pure EM devices such as the laser, and particle beam accelerators. Phaser is something of a hold-over acronym, PHASed Energy Rectification, referring to the original process by which stored or supplied energy entering the phaser system was converted to another form for release toward a target without the need for an intermediate energy transformation. This remains essentially true in the current phaser effect.

· The actual composition of phaser energy stems from the combined effects of matching the laser and particle beam principles into one beam. Particle beams deliver a tremendous amount of energy, but their effects, although spread over a wide area, lack the penetration capabilities of a laser. Lasers have excellent penetration, but lack the 'punch' of a particle beam. As the development of combining these two vastly different principles began to yield some results, research moved from the theoretical to the experimental. It was soon discovered that high-energy photons could be projected in a synchronized energy form with positrons modulated to the inverse frequency. The coherent nature of this joining was found to yield the release of sub-atomic bonds of matter in the beam. Phaser energy is released through the application of the rapid nadion effect (RNE). Rapid nadions are short-lived subatomic particles possessing special properties related to high-speed interactions within atomic nuclei. Among these properties is the ability to liberate and transfer strong nuclear forces within a particular class of superconducting crystals known as fushigi-no-umi. The crystals were so named when it appeared to researchers at Starfleet's Tokyo R&D facility that the materials being developed represented a virtual "sea of wonder" before them.

Phasers were also found to effect energy fields and not just matter. As development continued, it was found that phaser energy could impart a disruption of both magnetic and bio-electric fields. Lower power phaser beams could literally disrupt the micro-electrical charges transmitted via the biological nervous systems of many lifeforms. By experimentation, the proper frequency, and modulation, was determined to isolate the specific bio-electrical differences between the motor and autonomic nervous systems. This allowed the development whereby a lifeform hit by a phaser beam could have its motor functions temporarily 'shorted out' but no danger to its more critical biological functions such as neural activity, respiration, and circulation. The lifeform hit by such a phaser beam would be 'stunned', if even for only a short period of time. It was discovered however, that prolonged exposure, or repeated use, on a lifeform could prove fatal. It was this major development which cleared the way for the Federation to widely adopt the phaser as the perfect defensive weapon, allowing its personnel to have the ability for defense while practicing the non-violent tenets set up by the Federation Founders.

Over the past one hundred years, the phaser has evolved with the advent in technologies, allowing for even greater degrees of variation and uses. Phasers systems come in a variety of sizes and differences in power output and capabilities are just as diverse. With the increase in nanotechnology, phasers used by nanoprobes and mircodrills provide the capability to cut to micron tolerances. The largest phasers, mounted on planets and Starbases for defense, measure output in terawatts. Special phasers capable of only cutting chlorophyll based planet life are used throughout the Federation in farming. Phasers tuned for aquatic use allow use underwater without the risk of imparting their energies by boiling the water they travel through.

One unique characteristic of the phaser is the visible light that the beam emits. One byproduct of the emitter crystal as the phaser energy is emitted is a spectral alignment of the outer valence of photons to the crystals refractive characteristics. It has been observed that phaser beams come in a variety of colors, red, blue, green, white, etc and this occurs simply because the emitter crystals vary from phaser type to phaser type and from crystal manufacturer to crystal manufacturer. In fact, specialized crystals have been developed to prevent any visible light from being emitted by the phaser beam, but the process is extraordinarily complicated, as each crystal can take over two years to manufacture. These specialized phasers are limited to Special Forces and special operations vessels.

Phaser Systems

The Matrix, as befitting a vessel of its size and importance, mounts some of the heaviest array of offensive and defensive weapon systems of any Federation starship in its class. The main strength of this class lies in the same primary weapons as installed in the Galaxy class. The main ship's phasers are rated as Type X, the largest emitters available for starship use. Individual emitter segments are capable of directing 5.1 megawatts. By comparison, the small personal phasers issued to Starfleet crewmembers are Type I and II, the latter being limited to 0.01 megawatts. Certain large dedicated planetary defense emitters are designated as Type X+, as their exact energy output remains classified. The Gabriel class supports 10 phaser arrays in two sizes, located on both dorsa ventral surfaces as well as arrays for lateral coverage. Fire control for these weapons permits them to target multiple enemy craft for simultaneous attack, as well as to pinpoint locations along the surface of any hostile vessel in order to cripple or immobilize enemy craft with minimal loss of life. By allowing phaser power to be "massed" from numerous energized weapon hard points, this feature gives the Matrix a 360-degree arc of fire around the ship.

A typical large phaser array aboard the USS Matrix, such as the upper dorsal array on the Saucer Module, consists of two hundred emitter segments in a dense linear arrangement for optimal control of firing order, thermal effects, field halos, and target impact. Groups of emitters are supplied by redundant sets of energy feeds from the primary trunks of the electro-plasma system (EPS), and are similarly interconnected by fire control, thermal management, and sensor lines. The visible hull surface configuration of the phaser is a long shallow raised strip, the bulk of the hardware submerged within the vehicle frame.

In cross section, the phaser array takes on a thickened Y shape, capped with a trapezoidal mass of the actual emitter crystal and phaser-transparent hull anti-erosion coatings. The base of an array segment sits within a structural honeycomb channel of duranium 235 and supplied with supersonic regenerative LN2 cooling. The complete channel is thermally isolated by eight hundred link struts to the tritanium vehicle frame. The first stage of the array segment is the EPS submaster flow regulator, the principal mechanism controlling phaser power levels for firing. The flow regulator leads into the plasma distribution manifold (PDM), which branches into two hundred supply conduits to an equal number of prefire chambers. The final stage of the system is the phaser emitter crystal.

Upon receiving the command to fire, the EPS submaster flow regulator manages the energetic plasma powering the phaser array through a series of physical irises and magnetic switching gates. Iris response is 0.01 seconds and is used for gross adjustments in plasma distribution; magnetic gate response is 0.0003 seconds and is employed for rapid fine tuning of plasma routing within small sections of an array. Normal control of all irises and gates is affected through the autonomic side of the phaser function command processor, coordinated with the Threat assessment/ tracking/ targeting system (TA/T/TS). The regulator is manufactured from combined-crystal sonodanite, solenogyn, and radium tritonide, and lined with a 1.2 cm layer of paranygen animide to provide structural surface protection.

Energy is conveyed from each flow regulator to the PDM, a secondary computer-controlled valving device at the head end of each prefire chamber. The manifold is a single crystal boronite solid, and is machined by phaser cutters. The prefire chamber is a sphere of LiCu 518 reinforced with wound hafnium tritonide, which is gamma-welded. It is within the prefire chamber that energy from the plasma undergoes the handoff and initial EM spectrum shift associated with the rapid nadion effect (RNE). The energy is confined for between 0.05 and 1.3 nanoseconds by a collapsible charge barrier before passing to the LiCu 518 emitter for discharge. The action of raising and collapsing the charge barrier forms the required pulse for the RNE. The power level commanded by the system or voluntarily set by the responsible officer determines the relative proportion of protonic charge that will be created and pulse frequency in the final emitter stage.

The tri-faceted crystal that constitutes the final discharge stage is formed from LiCu 518 and measures 3.25 x 2.45 x 1.25 meters for a single segment. The crystal lattice formula used in the forced-matrix process is Li>>:Si::Fe>:>:O. The collimated energy beam exits one or more of the facets, depending on which prefire chambers are being pumped with plasma. The segment firing order, as controlled by the phaser function command processor, together with facet discharge direction, determines the final beam vector.

Energy from all discharged segments passes directionally over neighboring segments due to force coupling, converging on the release point, where the beam will emerge and travel at c to the target. Narrow beams are created by rapid segment order firing; wider fan or cone beams result from slower firing rates. Wide beams are, of course, prone to marked power loss per unit area covered.

In their primary defensive application, the ship's phaser arrays land single or multiple beams upon a target in an attempt to damage the target structure, sometimes to complete destruction. As with other Starfleet-developed hardware, the Type X phaser is highly adaptable to a variety of situations, from active low-energy scans to high-velocity ship-to-ship combat operations. The exact performance of most phaser firings is determined by an extensive set of practical and theoretical scenarios stored within the main computers. Artificial intelligence routines shape the power levels and discharge behaviors of the phaser arrays automatically, once specific commands are given by responsible officers to act against designated targets.

Low-energy operations provide a valuable direct method of transferring ship's energy for a variety of controlled applications, such as active sensor scanning. In high-energy weapon firings, several interrelated computer systems work to place the beam on the target, all within a few milliseconds. Long- and short-range sensor scans provide target information to the Threat assessment/tracking/targeting system (TA/T/TS), which drives the phaser arrays with the best target coverage. Multiple targets are prioritized and acted upon in order. The maximum effective tactical range of ship's phasers is 300,000 kilometers.

Targets protected by defensive EM shields and surface absorptive-ablative coatings may still be dealt with, but with a commensurate increase in power to defeat the shields. Phasers may be fired one-way through the ship's own shields due to EM polarization, with a small acceptable drag force penalty at the inner shield interface.

Threat vessels will be encountered with a wide variety of shields that act upon phaser emissions to reduce their effectiveness; the type most often confronted spreads the beam cross section, redirecting the energy around the shields and back into space. Higher power levels will usually overburden the shields and allow the phaser to hit the target directly, although more sophisticated adversaries possess highly resistant shield generators. It has been the experience of some starship tactical officers that rapid-firing volleys at different parts of a shield bubble can weaken it. The phaser arrays on a Gabriel class ship are located to achieve maximum beam dwell time on a target.

Generally speaking, regardless of the actual beam type, pulse or continuous, or the specific threat situation, the most effective tactic is to maintain contact between the beam and the threat shield or physical hull. Computer sequencing of the arrays will always attempt to expose the target, even while the arrays are recharging. Conversely, the best tactics for minimizing disabling return phaser fire are to present the smallest visible ship cross section to the Threat weapons, and continue changing attitude so as to deny the beams any sites on which to inflict concentrated energies.

In Cruise Mode, all phaser arrays receive their primary power from the warp reaction chamber, with supplementary fusion power from the impulse engine systems. Recharge times are kept to <0.5 seconds. Full power firing endurance is rated at ~45 minutes. In Separated Flight Mode, the Saucer Module is cut off from the main electro-plasma system, and it must then rely on increased fusion generator output to power the arrays. Recharge times can be maintained at <0.5 seconds, but firing endurance drops to 15 minutes at full power. Survival during crises depends on the understanding by Tactical Officers of the constraints of both modes.

As with the navigation system, which is directly linked to the tactical system within the main computers, phaser algorithms take two distinct forms, baseline code, and self-rewriteable code. Both code types cover all known advantages and weaknesses of Threat vessels, including simulated adversaries used for training purposes and analysis routines for new Threat types. The rewriteable symbolic code performs primarily high-speed autonomic functions related to the defense of the Matrix, quickly reacting to danger from outside and repairing internal damage. Only 10% of the rewriteable code is needed for weapon fire control routines; they are fairly straightforward and are complicated only by firing sequences, precise timings, and unusual targeting requirements. All stored rewriteable code is routinely transferred to Starfleet Headquarters and remote sites by secure means for high-level analysis.

Bibliography

Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual – by R. Sternback and M. Okuda
Starfleet Dynamics – by D. Schmidt
The Star Trek Encyclopedia – by M. Okuda and D. Okuda
Star Trek Chronology – by M. Okuda and D. Okuda
Star Trek Concordance – by B. Trimble

Author – Lt. Wayne N Snyder
Date: July 11, 1998