Spotlight on an Original Weapon – Phase Bow

A phase bow serves a ton of purposes.

Background

Hunting is Star Trek: Enterprise canon, and occurs during a visit to a so-called “rogue planet” where Eska hunters are seeking a creature that turns out to be sentient. Oops.

However, I didn’t want hunting to be too easy. Plus I wanted Doug to be more of a skilled hunter, and not just a blind shooter. Hence, when he hunts game (with or without Melissa, and with or without Calafan friends), he uses a phase bow.

Mechanics

Much like a standard bow and arrow,  a phase bow, instead, uses phased energy rectification (much like a canon phaser itself does), but the resultant emissions are pulses almost like what particle weapons emit. Arrows are, of course, unnecessary.

Phase bows come in several sizes. In Temper, I reveal there’s a smaller size for women. In Fortune, it’s revealed that the phase bow that Doug uses is huge, and is too heavy for Melissa to lift by herself, even though she is rather physically strong. There is even a child’s version available.

The weapon has a distinctive thwack sound, as small bursts of greenish light are propelled to their marks.

Aiming is possible either by eye or by using settings on the device. The image above is not an actual phase bow; it’s just a bow image. I imagine a real phase bow would have dials and switches and the like. This would be to change the settings for different-sized game, daylight versus nocturnal and any number of other modifications and options.

When Doug and Melissa use phase bows, they bring down either linfep or perrazin. So far, there are no scenes of anyone bringing down an elekai with a phase bow. However, those very large birds would normally require a lot of work to hunt, whether with a phase bow or any other type of weaponry.

In the E² stories, there are no phase bows, so procul are dispatched with phase rifles.

Upshot

I’m not so sure I’ll have too many other occasions to show hunting. And not every hunter likes going old school. But I love the idea of a phase bow, and that it fairly seamlessly combines very old technology with the very new. Frankly, it surprises me that no one else in Star Trek fan fiction seems to come up with it.