Memory Alpha      Heat beam      36,545pages on     this wiki
Revision as of 15:42, April 17, 2013 by Renegade54 (Talk |
contribs)       A heat beam was any of various forms of focused,
infrared energy that could be directed at a specific target.
Heat beams may be used to thaw or melt objects; standard hand
phasers had a setting for this. More powerful heat beams were
sometimes used as weapons, although phasers were generally more
effective.      The computer Landru at Beta III had arrays of
heat beams that it could use against targets in orbit; these
beams were powerful enough to prevent the USS Enterprise from
doing much else while under attack, including leaving orbit or
transporting to and from the planet's surface. Ultimately, the
defense drained enough power that the ship was unable to
maintain a stable orbit. Had the situation continued, the ship
would have burned up in the atmosphere, probably forcing the
crew to flee to the planet's surface. This is likely the
sequence of events that led to the d