#phaser two

What I want, but will not happen, is that the next generation (ha) of Star Trek shows goes back to phaser one and two. The hand phaser and the pistol grip. From The Original Series into The Next Generation, phasers weren’t really guns. Then TNG got rid of the hand phaser because they were “too small to see on screen.” TNG’s phaser two—aka the dustbuster—gradually morphed into a pistol. The Dominion War brought us the phaser rifle, Enterprise introduces the MACOs because 9/11 fucked up everything. Decades later and Strange New World’s phasers aren’t just guns, they’re AR-15s. Gross. Bullshit. Crypto-fascist. Star Trek doesn’t need a “tactical” aesthetic and Starfleet doesn’t need its own version of Blackwater. Give the crew their little stun rectangles again. Demilitarize Star Trek.