{"id":18,"date":"2010-08-23T13:40:26","date_gmt":"2010-08-23T20:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hotnerdgirl.wordpress.com\/?p=18"},"modified":"2024-02-27T07:49:45","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T07:49:45","slug":"lightsabers-vs-phasers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/2010\/08\/23\/lightsabers-vs-phasers\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightsabers vs. Phasers"},"content":{"rendered":"
Stop looking at me like that. My "I heart the Dark Side" shirt is dirty.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All girls, nerd or not, love something big, strong and powerful they can hold in their hands.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking, of course, about weapons.<\/p>\n

What did you think I meant?<\/p>\n

In the epic battle between Star Trek and Star Wars, there are a few topics that really get nerd blood boiling.\u00a0 One is the Enterprise vs. the Millennium Falcon.\u00a0 The other is lightsabers vs. phasers.\u00a0 Today I want to focus on weapons.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll start with some of my back story.\u00a0 I come from a military family and I have four (count \u2018em FOUR) Dad\u2019s.\u00a0 How\u2019d you like to be my boyfriend meeting the parents for the first time?\u00a0 My biological Dad was career Navy.\u00a0 He worked in nuclear subs and can shoot a torpedo like nobody’s business.<\/p>\n

Don is a direct descendent of Davy Crockett.\u00a0 He practiced qi gong and kung fu.\u00a0 He relates to Native Americans and walks a fine line between awesome and crazy.<\/p>\n

Popi was a Green Beret and Special Forces during and after Vietnam.\u00a0 He is a 5th<\/sup> degree black belt in Tang Soo Do, a 4th<\/sup> degree black belt in Hwa Rang Do, a 3rd<\/sup> degree black belt in Hapkido, and a 1st<\/sup> degree black belt in Judo and received some of his training from none other than Chuck Norris himself.<\/p>\n

In other words, my Dad\u2019s can kick your Dad\u2019s asses and they didn\u2019t exactly leave me in the dark.\u00a0 Imagine me coming at you with a weapon!\u00a0 I stabbed a guy with a fork once during college (he got fair warning) and have witnesses to prove it.\u00a0 My weapons education started at a young age.\u00a0 My fascination with science fiction started at a young age.\u00a0 It is only natural that I would want to possess both a lightsaber and a phaser.\u00a0 The ultimate sword and the ultimate gun.\u00a0 *le sigh*<\/p>\n

So which weapon is superior?\u00a0 Both are comprised of energy technology.\u00a0 Both can be used as tools when not serving as weapons.\u00a0 Both have nifty designs that seem innocuous when not in action.<\/p>\n

The lightsaber is essentially a sword.\u00a0 An awesome, retractable sword.\u00a0 It requires years of training to master and when combined with the mental and physical skill of a Jedi, can be a weapon and a shield simultaneously. It is damaging only as far as the Jedi can reach, unless it is being used to ricochet the blast of an E-11 back to its originator. Positives: you build and become one with your lightsaber.\u00a0 I can imagine a Jedi bestowing the name Tenel<\/em> on his lightsaber much the way a Marine might name his rifle Betty<\/em>.\u00a0 Negatives: you can\u2019t shoot anything out of it so unless someone is firing at you and you can bounce it back, it\u2019s really only good for close range fighting.\u00a0 Anything it touches is toast so be careful not to activate it while it\u2019s in your pocket.<\/p>\n

My my. Is that a phaser in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The phaser is essentially a gun.\u00a0 An awesome, nadion particle shooting gun.\u00a0 It takes far less time to learn, anyone can seem to pick it up pretty quickly, although it\u2019s always good to practice your aim.\u00a0 It\u2019s not one setting-fits-all like the lightsaber.\u00a0 Phasers can be conveniently adjusted anywhere from \u201cstun\u201d to \u201ckill\u201d to \u201cvaporize on contact.\u201d\u00a0 The frequencies can also be changed when fighting an enemy with adapting personal shields such as the Borg.\u00a0 Positives: you can learn how to operate it quickly and can make multiple types of adjustments to the weapon.\u00a0 Negatives: it\u2019s not really a personalized weapon.\u00a0 When not in use, it gets stuck back in the closet until the next time it\u2019s needed.\u00a0 Make sure you know what setting it\u2019s on before you fire or your buddy who\u2019s possessed by an alien entity won\u2019t be making it back to sick bay.<\/p>\n

I may be getting myself in trouble with the Star Wars crowd on this one (I AM called Princesstrek afterall) but I gotta go with the phaser.\u00a0 It\u2019s good for close and distance fighting.\u00a0 It can shoot a steady stream of laser so you can kill and weld with the same tool.\u00a0 It comes in multiple styles or \u201ctypes\u201d including rifle and shuttlecraft versions.\u00a0 Control-wise it\u2019s not THAT different from a remote control and I can wield one of those like nobody\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

Lightsabers are kick ass and I will admit that they are far more attractive than your typical phaser.\u00a0 But when it comes to practicality and functionality, the phaser wins every time.<\/p>\n

Sorry Luke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All girls, nerd or not, love something big, strong and powerful they can hold in their hands. I\u2019m talking, of course, about weapons. What did you think I meant? In the epic battle between Star Trek and Star Wars, there are a few topics that really get nerd blood boiling.\u00a0 One is the Enterprise vs. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[379,439,686,885,896],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-versus-vs","tag-girl","tag-hot","tag-nerd","tag-star-trek","tag-star-wars"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}