Weapons in Star Trek
Wikimedia list article
The Star Trek fictional universe contains a variety of weapons, ranging from missiles (photon torpedoes) to melee (primarily used by the Klingons, a race of aliens in the Star Trek universe). The Star Trek franchise consists mainly of several multi-season television shows and fourteen movies, as well as various video games and merchandise. Many aspects of the Star Trek universe impact modern popular culture, especially its fictitious terminology and the concept of weaponry on spacecraft. The franchise has had a widespread influence on its audiences from the late 20th to early 21st century. Notably, Star Trek's science fiction concepts have been studied by real scientists; NASA described it in relation to the real world as "entertaining combination of real science, imaginary science gathered from lots of earlier stories, and stuff the writers make up week-by-week to give each new episode novelty." For example, NASA noted that the Star Trek "phasers" were a fictional extrapolation of real-life lasers, and compared them to real-life microwave based weapons that have a stunning effect.
Energy weapons
The franchise depicts various weapons which mostly fit the motif of the raygun, the most prominent of these being the "phaser". These directed-energy weapons emit energy rather than a projectile, though some (particularly in newer Star Trek shows) do fire bolts/pulses. A hand phaser can be set to "stun" or "kill".
Phaser
Phasers are common and versatile phased array pulsed energy projectile weapons, first seen in the original Star Trek series and later in almost all subsequent films and television spin-offs. Phasers range in size from small arms to starship-mounted weaponry.
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