More Trek-tacular fantasies

[Darth Tedious]

I've been debating with a few Trek fanboys over the last week or so, and have come across some absolutely outrageous stuff. I'd love to know if anyone's heard these ones before:

On the subject of the Borg vs. Death Star:

No contest, the Death Star couldn't possibly rotate fast enough to keep a Borg cube targeted. The Borg would warp in, cut holes in the Death Star's hull, then begin transporting over to assimilate its surviving crew.

Do these guys have any concept of scale? Or realise the functional uses of blast doors?

Pulse cannon, ion weapons and any kind of laser are way outdated by Federation standards, not to mention the Borg...

Has there ever been any example of ion weapons in Trek, ever?

When I pointed out that Trek don't have the Death Star plans (and don't know the DS's weakness):

But what of the Defiant? She can cloak and get in and their sensors are more advanced so they would probably find the weakness.

There are more, but I think this is a good place to start...
Thoughts, anyone?

[Stofsk]

Thoughts, anyone?

This stuff has been done so many times before it's no longer fun or funny.

Empire wins due to overwhelming numbers in manpower and warships and vast industrial capacity. Case closed.

And you can say all that without bashing Trek either. Scandalous!

[Purple]

Lol, let me give it a shot can I? Can I? I always wanted a shot at a Trekkie.

No contest, the Death Star couldn't possibly rotate fast enough to keep a Borg cube targeted. The Borg would warp in, cut holes in the Death Star's hull, then begin transporting over to assimilate its surviving crew.

This is quite possibly true for the main super laser. However as evidenced and specifically stated by the movie dialog the Death Star is the most heavily armored and heavily armed battle station known to their galaxy. And these weapons also include an idiotic amount of standard starship grade turbolasers. And as evidenced by footage from ANH when the star destroyer uses similar weapons on the Correlian corvette these can easily track and destroy medium sized craft like the cube. And that is if they do not use the same tractor beam they used to capture the Millennium Falcon on it.

As for the rest, even if the Borg could penetrate the hull they would hardly scratch the surface as the station is just freaking huge and is not built like a water balloon where if you pierce the skin all the stuff inside leaks out. After all, if this were the case the rebells would not have to try and hit a single incredibly hard to access weak spot but could have just rammed the Death Star to make a hole in the hull.

Finally, it is questionable if the Borg would survive long in the Death Star. This is not only because of their utter lack of tactical capability but simply due to the sheer number of troops inside it. Even if the Borg managed to assimilate 10 men for each 1 of theirs that is killed this will in the end simply not be enough to stem the tide of storm troopers. And in the tight corridors of the Death Star accuracy does not play a part...

[avatarxprime]

I've been debating with a few Trek fanboys over the last week or so, and have come across some absolutely outrageous stuff.

There are more, but I think this is a good place to start...
Thoughts, anyone?

As Stofsk pointed out this really has been done to death. Just point the Trekkie to the main site and be done with it. Also, learn to use the search feature, you can probably find an answer to anything that person seeks to throw at you between the main site and the SWvsST sub-forum. Still, if you really want thoughts and to take it to him...

No contest, the Death Star couldn't possibly rotate fast enough to keep a Borg cube targeted. The Borg would warp in, cut holes in the Death Star's hull, then begin transporting over to assimilate its surviving crew.

As to the DS being able to rotate fast enough, maybe, maybe not. However, Purple already pointed out that the DS is covered in anti-capship scale turbolasers that would rip that Cube apart, the DS was designed to hold off a fleet-scale assault on itself after all. I would point out though that the Borg deciding the revolve around the DS pre-supposes a level of tactical ability in ship-to-ship combat thus far unscene in any Borg encounter. Look at every episode of TNG, First Contact, and most of VOY. When the Borg come to fight they fly in a straight line to their target and then park themselves near it (tractor beam range for a ship, geo-stationary orbit for a planet) and go with the pew-pew. The only consistent level of deviation from this is making course corrections to match the target's movements (something they won't have to do against the DS). The exceptions in VOY come from stuff like the Unimatrix Zero arc where it was free Borg controlling the ships. The person you are debating will of course be more than happy to provide instances of the Borg using tactical manuvering in combat situations.

Pulse cannon, ion weapons and any kind of laser are way outdated by Federation standards, not to mention the Borg...

Please, an essentially "Oh, Science!" rail gun was considered top of the line tech as of VOY (see the episode "Retrospect" for the isokinetic cannon in like the first minute of the episode) and to top it all off, as being vastly more powerful than anything Voyager had in its arsenal. Now then, a point by point rebuttal.

Pulse cannon
False, Pulse cannons are still considered usable weapons, see DS9 episodes concerning the birth of the Maquis. As far as its relation to SW goes, umm, what type of pulse cannon are you guys discussing?

Ion weapons
Debatable, Data used an improved ion weapon via everyone's favorite Swiss Army Knife the deflector dish on a Bird of Prey in Generations. Now this was to attack a known weakness but it does show that preventing these kinds of attacks is a concern. Next, an ion weapon is essentially a particle beam weapon, something that still has its place in ST, they are used to trigger solar flare (TNG "Descent, Part II"), slag asteroids (TNG "The Cost of Living") and disable ship shields (DS9 "For The Uniform"). Finally, it's not like they are immune. Ships suffer damage from "ion storms" depending on intensity, even Borg ships (see VOY "Dark Frontier") and its believable for ships to die in them (DS9 "Who Mourns for Morn?"). Now Starfleet has a handy classification system, because apparently ion storms are simply tornadoes IN SPAAAACCCCEEEE! They even use the F# designation system except instead of F1-5 they go F1-8+ The issue is whether or not SW ion cannons are of sufficient intensity to cause damage. Now anyone familar with the power disparity between ST and SW would say yes, but I imagine this fellow would not. Look here for some discussion on how's and why's

Laser
First off, ummm, No Limits Fallacy much? The power behind something matters, look at the asteroid field chase scene in TESB, the Star Destroyers are vaporizing asteroids left and right with single TL bolts. Even if you want to say "ST can do that too" consider the time difference. A phaser beam needs to stay on the target for an extended length of time, or in the case of pulse phaser be fired repeatedly, to produce a similar effect. Secondly, good thing turbolasers are lasers. When was the last time you saw a laser beam interact with another the way the DS Superlaser beams do? It's actually (simply via effect) more akin to the S8472 planet buster weapon and we all know that thing can slag Borg ships (more than one in fact) and TL technology, whether Superlaser or other all share a common tech base so yeah... Borg die, a lot.

But what of the Defiant? She can cloak and get in and their sensors are more advanced so they would probably find the weakness.

sensors are more advanced
Your opponent will of course be happy to provide instances showing this superiority of ST sensors vs SW sensors, especially in an environment like that around the DS where the jamming was so potent that it affected the fabric of space-time.

She can cloak
Your opponent will of course also be happy to provide some measure of proof (fits in quite nicely with the sensors issue) that ST cloaks are effective against SW sensors. Besides, SW has senors to detect cloaked vessels, they're called Crystal Gravfield Traps. However, these are rare and one might not be on the DS, that's fine though. Luckily for SW, ST cloaked ships can also be detected with tachyon based sensors (no mention of such a weakness has ever occurred with SW ships that I am aware of) as seen in TNG "Redemption II" and DS9 "Once More Unto the Breach." Well considering an A-wing has a tachyon based sensor system I'm fairly confident a small moon sized top-of-the-line battle station will have something comparable, although obviously scaled up.

[Purple]

About detection, is it even needed at all?

I mean if the DS uses human crews to fire the guns like in the scenes from the movie can't they just notice that big shiny green lasers are coming out of thin space and scraping at the hull? And if so why would they not just manually aim at the general location saturating it with fire until the lasers stop coming?

[Ryag Han]

hmm. im new here but trust me i know what you mean!
i have been debating on sciforums.com for some 40 pages ( http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=7435 ) with some trekkies and they go over with their delusion over and over and over and over and over and over again.
stuff like gigatones turbolasers won't even scratch trek shields (the guy in question named fedr808, goes on by bringing the argument that trek shields use gravitons and that SW uses simple shields that can only block plasma and therefore are infective against their "superior graviton base shields).

he then goes on saying that their "frequencies shield" can allow curtain things (like light) to pass. when i got on to say "why then can't LASERS (LIGHT) pass through their navigation shield?" he goes on a rampage to debunk it. just reed from page 1020 to 1040 (if you have the time) and you will see just how deluded some trekkies are.

i go by the name of George1 there.

[Ryag Han]

No contest, the Death Star couldn't possibly rotate fast enough to keep a Borg cube targeted. The Borg would warp in, cut holes in the Death Star's hull, then begin transporting over to assimilate its surviving crew.

he obviously forgets the thousands of turbolasers. this is a stupid thing to say really. even for them. the second DS could even use its superlaser on the cube. i would like to see how would they counterattack that!

Pulse cannon, ion weapons and any kind of laser are way outdated by Federation standards, not to mention the Borg...

i am not to sure what he means by pulse cannon, but ion cannons would wreak chaos on their systems, Borg or not. and of course they forget SW doesn't use true lasers, but that is expected from trekkies.

But what of the Defiant? She can cloak and get in and their sensors are more advanced so they would probably find the weakness.

i figure that the DS is important enough to have crystal gravfield trap (CGT). even if it wouldn't, the Defiant is way to big (170 meters in length, 134 meters in width, and 30 meters in height) to get through the DS shields. the fighters were small enough to do so, but considering the Defiant's size (and that it would have to decloak to fire) it would be easily defeated!

[Patrick Degan]

No contest, the Death Star couldn't possibly rotate fast enough to keep a Borg cube targeted. The Borg would warp in, cut holes in the Death Star's hull, then begin transporting over to assimilate its surviving crew.

As to the DS being able to rotate fast enough, maybe, maybe not. However, Purple already pointed out that the DS is covered in anti-capship scale turbolasers that would rip that Cube apart, the DS was designed to hold off a fleet-scale assault on itself after all. I would point out though that the Borg deciding the revolve around the DS pre-supposes a level of tactical ability in ship-to-ship combat thus far unscene in any Borg encounter. Look at every episode of TNG, First Contact, and most of VOY. When the Borg come to fight they fly in a straight line to their target and then park themselves near it (tractor beam range for a ship, geo-stationary orbit for a planet) and go with the pew-pew. The only consistent level of deviation from this is making course corrections to match the target's movements (something they won't have to do against the DS). The exceptions in VOY come from stuff like the Unimatrix Zero arc where it was free Borg controlling the ships. The person you are debating will of course be more than happy to provide instances of the Borg using tactical manuvering in combat situations.

Or, just for shits and giggles, the Death Star crew could focus tractor beams from at least three different docking ports upon the cubeship and pull it apart.

[lord Martiya]

Maybe Tarkin will just decide to let the pilots do some target practice and let the fighters loose. All those fighters, firing at once...

[Collossus]

Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Specifications
Cargo Capacity 9,700 infantry
Crew 37,000
Passengers 1800

borg cubes could possibly have 100,000+ crew but I cant find official figures..

Ok so just have the basic crew of an ISD I and how many drones are on a single cube? I know the attrition rate of imperials will benefit the Borg somewhat through people they can add to the collective but based purely on numbers of a single ISD not approaching anywhere new the numbers of the DS I believe they are severely outgunned and outnumbered, this isn’t even taking into consideration the fact that the cube somehow got past there defenses.

take into consideration this is just comparing a cube to an ISD I

[aussiemuscle308]

On the subject of the Borg vs. Death Star:

No contest, the Death Star couldn't possibly rotate fast enough to keep a Borg cube targeted. The Borg would warp in, cut holes in the Death Star's hull, then begin transporting over to assimilate its surviving crew.

Since when have the borg ever done anything like evasive manoeuvres? on trek all they ever do is walk/fly straight into oncoming fire.

[Iroscato]

Silly, silly uberTrekkies...

First off, the Death Star is fucking MASSIVE. The sheer size of the thing means it would days and days for cubes to inflict something approaching damage into it. Simple argument, sure, but forms the basis of many more.

Next up, weapon placements. The DS has thousands of turbolaser batteries, quite enough to rip any ship to pieces.

Also, the DS`s one weakness, a vent some tit forgot to cover up (can you imagine what happened to the poor bastard if the emperor found out? Brrrr...) was only able to be exploited by some whiny little kid using the force to guide him, so unimaginative cyborgs wouldnt stand a snowballs chance in hell.

Nuff said.

[Ryag Han]

Silly, silly uberTrekkies...

First off, the Death Star is fucking MASSIVE. The sheer size of the thing means it would days and days for cubes to inflict something approaching damage into it. Simple argument, sure, but forms the basis of many more.

they wouldn't last long enough to inflict any significant damage.
[/quote]
Next up, weapon placements. The DS has thousands of turbolaser batteries, quite enough to rip any ship to pieces.

Also, the DS`s one weakness, a vent some tit forgot to cover up (can you imagine what happened to the poor bastard if the emperor found out? Brrrr...) was only able to be exploited by some whiny little kid using the force to guide him, so unimaginative cyborgs wouldnt stand a snowballs chance in hell.

Nuff said.[/quote]
well, the guy who helped design the DS,or i think he did it mostly or entity, Bevel Lemelisk,DID GOT IT FROM PALPATIN. wanna know what happen to him?
palpatin got him executed (bitten to death by ferocious flesh-eating piranha beetles) cloned and had his consciousness transferred into the clone,with the memories of his death,and did that about five or six times,with various execution methods like:
thrown out of an airlock, lowered into a vat of molten copper, trapped in a vault with clouds of acid mist, etc...
Brrrr! indeed!

[avatarxprime]

No contest, the Death Star couldn't possibly rotate fast enough to keep a Borg cube targeted. The Borg would warp in, cut holes in the Death Star's hull, then begin transporting over to assimilate its surviving crew.

As to the DS being able to rotate fast enough, maybe, maybe not. However, Purple already pointed out that the DS is covered in anti-capship scale turbolasers that would rip that Cube apart, the DS was designed to hold off a fleet-scale assault on itself after all. I would point out though that the Borg deciding the revolve around the DS pre-supposes a level of tactical ability in ship-to-ship combat thus far unscene in any Borg encounter. Look at every episode of TNG, First Contact, and most of VOY. When the Borg come to fight they fly in a straight line to their target and then park themselves near it (tractor beam range for a ship, geo-stationary orbit for a planet) and go with the pew-pew. The only consistent level of deviation from this is making course corrections to match the target's movements (something they won't have to do against the DS). The exceptions in VOY come from stuff like the Unimatrix Zero arc where it was free Borg controlling the ships. The person you are debating will of course be more than happy to provide instances of the Borg using tactical manuvering in combat situations.

Or, just for shits and giggles, the Death Star crew could focus tractor beams from at least three different docking ports upon the cubeship and pull it apart.

I had this mean image of the DS spinning and the Cube spinning the match it (since matching the target's motion is all the Borg ever do) and the Commanders of the DS just going "What is wrong with these people? Oh well, commence primary ignitiion, let's put these idiot 'Borg' out of their misery."

[noncredible]

Direct them to the Five Minutes page. It gives them a sense of scale. Then tell them to read the rest of the site. Tell them that if they have questions, to make an account on the forums and post it here. It probably won't even get through the troll screening for stupidity, but whatever.

[Darth Tedious]

Thanks for the thoughts so far, everyone. I hope a few laughs were had at the silliness of the suggestions.
Re the Five Minutes page: It had already been linked! Maybe noone bothered to look...

The debate has quietened down, it seems. I pointed out the difference in speed between hyperdrive and warp, and a few other Warsies started mentioning the disparity in industrial output. Talk has turned more to interesting discussion of technological differences, and debate of a few strictly ST-based things (like whether on not time-travel really works in Trek). I think some of the Trekkies started taking me more seriously when they figured out I love Trek too.

There was some Borg-wank at one stage, but it was quickly silenced by mention of Imperial subspace jamming.

Or, just for shits and giggles, the Death Star crew could focus tractor beams from at least three different docking ports upon the cubeship and pull it apart.

That is the best and funniest suggestion of the lot! Love it!

hmm. im new here but trust me i know what you mean!
i have been debating on sciforums.com for some 40 pages ( http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=7435 ) with some trekkies and they go over with their delusion over and over and over and over and over and over again.
stuff like gigatones turbolasers won't even scratch trek shields (the guy in question named fedr808, goes on by bringing the argument that trek shields use gravitons and that SW uses simple shields that can only block plasma and therefore are infective against their "superior graviton base shields).

he then goes on saying that their "frequencies shield" can allow curtain things (like light) to pass. when i got on to say "why then can't LASERS (LIGHT) pass through their navigation shield?" he goes on a rampage to debunk it. just reed from page 1020 to 1040 (if you have the time) and you will see just how deluded some trekkies are.

i go by the name of George1 there.

I read a couple of pages, and all I could see was dogpiling and personal atacks directed at you and Mike Wong. They were all happy to call his calcs "deluded Nazi-esque propaganda", but provided none of their own. Maybe someone should invite them to come here and debate with Mike themselves...

Just going off what you said, they don't even seem to be able to make a cohesive technobabble-based arguement. If ST shields are graviton based, how the fuck do they stop phasers? Phasers are pure energy weapons, and aren't affected by gravity! And how the fuck can gravity have a frequency?!?

[Batman]

1. Gravity most definitely does affect pure energy. Remember why black holes are called that?
2. Phasers are most certainly not pure energy weapons, as their discharges move noticeably (sometimes embarrassingly, in the case of hand phasers) below c.

And what in Valen's name are 'simple' shields?

[Korto]

well, the guy who helped design the DS, I think he did it mostly or entirely, Bevel Lemelisk, DID GET IT FROM PALPATINE. Wanna know what happen to him?
Palpatine had him executed (bitten to death by ferocious flesh-eating piranha beetles), cloned and had his consciousness transferred into the clone with the memories of his death, doing that about five or six times with various execution methods like:
thrown out of an airlock, lowered into a vat of molten copper, trapped in a vault with clouds of acid mist, etc...
Brrrr! indeed!

Bolded section : I feel Palpatine missed a bet of a bet there; I mean, it sounds impressive, but I think any body part reaching the copper is going to have the nerves destroyed so fast it'll be painless. Far better to rotate him above on a spit, and let the radiant heat do the job, or use boring old boiling water instead. Anyway, there's a good chance that a body entering molten copper will cause a steam explosion and kill the guy outright.
I occasionally thought about testing what would happen when meat goes into molten copper, but never did it. Too concerned about the sanctity of my skin, I guess.

PS - Fixed your spelling and grammar a bit.

[Iroscato]

well, the guy who helped design the DS, I think he did it mostly or entirely, Bevel Lemelisk, DID GET IT FROM PALPATINE. Wanna know what happen to him?
Palpatine had him executed (bitten to death by ferocious flesh-eating piranha beetles), cloned and had his consciousness transferred into the clone with the memories of his death, doing that about five or six times with various execution methods like:
thrown out of an airlock, lowered into a vat of molten copper, trapped in a vault with clouds of acid mist, etc...
Brrrr! indeed!

Bolded section : I feel Palpatine missed a bet of a bet there; I mean, it sounds impressive, but I think any body part reaching the copper is going to have the nerves destroyed so fast it'll be painless. Far better to rotate him above on a spit, and let the radiant heat do the job, or use boring old boiling water instead. Anyway, there's a good chance that a body entering molten copper will cause a steam explosion and kill the guy outright.
I occasionally thought about testing what would happen when meat goes into molten copper, but never did it. Too concerned about the sanctity of my skin, I guess.

PS - Fixed your spelling and grammar a bit.

Umm...Ok...

[Darth Tedious]

1. Gravity most definitely does affect pure energy. Remember why black holes are called that?

Sorry, bit of an overstatement. I should have said 'gravity of non-black hole magnitude'. I don't believe ST sheilds can generate gravitational effects in that league. Never mind performance, lack of visual distortion indicates otherwise. And hand phasers appear to be unaffected by planetary levels of gravity. Strange, because as you point out...

2. Phasers are most certainly not pure energy weapons, as their discharges move noticeably (sometimes embarrassingly, in the case of hand phasers) below c.

Sorry, my mistake. I'd been listening to Trektards telling me how phasers work. How stupid of me! Apparently they use *magic-technobabble* radion particles (which appear to be unaffected by gravity anyway)?

My actual point was the weakness of the arguement being put forward, and I stand by that sentiment. Phasers aren't pure energy , but they don't appear to be affected by gravity (which raises further questions).

And what in Valen's name are 'simple' shields?

Good question... This is why these guys should come here and debate! They'll be roasted alive!

[Purple]

Sorry, bit of an overstatement. I should have said 'gravity of non-black hole magnitude'. I don't believe ST sheilds can generate gravitational effects in that league. Never mind performance, lack of visual distortion indicates otherwise. And hand phasers appear to be unaffected by planetary levels of gravity. Strange, because as you point out...

I think that they probably are effected but it is just that as with visible light and quite a lot of other things you don't really notice said effect because it is minute. Just like you don't notice the time dilation effects of standing on the earths surface. That would indicate something much more down to earth than magical particles, particles with a minute mass. Hence that might be a better theory.

[Jawawithagun]

1. Gravity most definitely does affect pure energy. Remember why black holes are called that?

It should be pointed out that there is no such thing as "pure" energy.

[Batman]

It should be pointed out that there is no such thing as "pure" energy.

I'd argue EM radiation is, but I was mainly just using the phraseology of the post I responded to.

1. Gravity most definitely does affect pure energy. Remember why black holes are called that?

Sorry, bit of an overstatement. I should have said 'gravity of non-black hole magnitude'.

Gravity affects energy period. It's just that below the stellar mass threshold the effects are sort of hard to notice.

I don't believe ST shields can generate gravitational effects in that league. Never mind performance, lack of visual distortion indicates otherwise.

That's probably where the Trektards would being up their frequency shenanigans again. 'Ah, but you see, it doesn't affect visible light because of its frequency!' Groovy. Visible light lasers, anyone?

And hand phasers appear to be unaffected by planetary levels of gravity. Strange, because as you point out...

2. Phasers are most certainly not pure energy weapons, as their discharges move noticeably (sometimes embarrassingly, in the case of hand phasers) below c.

Sorry, my mistake. I'd been listening to Trektards telling me how phasers work. How stupid of me! Apparently they use *magic-technobabble* radion particles (which appear to be unaffected by gravity anyway)?

It's nadion particles (which I'm not sure are canon to begin with) and over the the distances infantry phasers are used, I very much doubt you'd see the effects of gravity on modern day rifle bullets either, so that doesn't necessarily make them 'magic' particles (they pretty much need to be regardless to explain what phasers do, but the lack of a visible drop in trajectory is essentially irrelevant)

My actual point was the weakness of the arguement being put forward, and I stand by that sentiment. Phasers aren't pure energy , but they don't appear to be affected by gravity (which raises further questions).

Again, that doesn't mean very much. Over the distances involved, the effects of gravity might well have been unnoticeable, and that presupposes whatever phaser beams are made of is heavier than air.
The complete and utter lack of recoil in hand phasers suggests that there's not all that much mass in a phaser discharge.

[Darth Tedious]

That's probably where the Trektards would being up their frequency shenanigans again. 'Ah, but you see, it doesn't affect visible light because of its frequency!' Groovy. Visible light lasers, anyone?

Good call! But then they bring up they 'lasers don't work' thing...

It's nadion particles (which I'm not sure are canon to begin with) and over the the distances infantry phasers are used, I very much doubt you'd see the effects of gravity on modern day rifle bullets either, so that doesn't necessarily make them 'magic' particles (they pretty much need to be regardless to explain what phasers do, but the lack of a visible drop in trajectory is essentially irrelevant)

Sorry, *N*adion (damn late at night when I typed). Memory Alpha had a few Voyager references, so they seem to have been canonised.
Modern day bullets fall at the rate of gravity, but phaser beams are a lot slower than bullets (as you pointed out). That is why it would seem gravity doesn't affect them terribly much. Which is a problem- how would a gravity-based shield work well against something which is not easily swayed by gravity (like a phaser beam) and fail to stop something which gravity has a huge effect on (like the hull of a ship that is ramming you)?

My whole point (as badly worded as it was) is that the idea of ST shields being gravity-based makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever.

[Batman]

That's probably where the Trektards would being up their frequency shenanigans again. 'Ah, but you see, it doesn't affect visible light because of its frequency!' Groovy. Visible light lasers, anyone?

Good call! But then they bring up they 'lasers don't work' thing...

Which is why there was never any occasion whatsoever, throughout all of TNG, where the Big E was affected by so-called lasers. Or was in danger of being destroyed by unfocused EM radiation. Oh wait.

Modern day bullets fall at the rate of gravity, but phaser beams are a lot slower than bullets (as you pointed out). That is why it would seem gravity doesn't affect them terribly much.

They're also almost invariably used in an earth-normal presumably sea level atmosphere, so unless the phaser beam was heavier than air it would simply float.