Star Trek Ruminations

In the earlier post “ Nothing New Under the Sun . . . ” I wrote about the progressive revelation I had regarding how far back the use of the wide angle phaser setting goes. Recently I came across some additional information on a Star Trek forum. [Unfortunately the thread, and evidently the entire forum, are no longer there anymore.] To summarize the discussion: There are at least two other places the wide beam phaser setting was mentioned or used that I had overlooked. One was in the Next Generation episode “Power Play.” Troi, Data, and O’Brien were “possessed” by alien life forms and had taken hostages in 10-Forward. One rescue option that was discussed was to storm 10-Forward with wide beam phaser fire—stun everybody, sort it out later. Secondly, on Deep Space Nine wide beam phasers were used to sweep rooms for hidden changelings. (There is a third reference on this forum to another use or mention of it in an episode of TOS , however in the post there was some uncertainty as to wh...

Some reviewers have criticized “Cathexis” ( Voyager ; season one) as a retread of alien possession clichés. Well, maybe I’m a sucker for alien possession clichés, because I thought it was one of the more interesting episodes of the first season. For one thing, I liked the sense of paranoia it created, and learning that Chakotay is the consciousness at work on the ship lets you to see the “alien’s” efforts in a new light during a second viewing. But one of the most memorable details of the episode is Tuvok’s use of the phaser to stun the entire bridge crew at once. Later in the episode, speaking as the alien intruder, he says, “This phaser is set to wide beam dispersal and set to kill.” “Wide beam dispersal.” I remember thinking (as a fourteen year old kid) how cool that was – a never before seen bit of Star Trek lore. But if the plot of “Cathexis” is a retread of sci-fi story lines, so is this seemingly unique detail. Of all the Star Trek series, I am least familiar with The Original...