Picard: Maximum setting. If you had fired, you'd have vaporized me.
Lily: It's my first ray gun.
Lily: It's my first ray gun.
"Don't move! Or I'll fill you full of... little yellow bolts of light."
— John Crichton, Farscape
"While you've been carrying out your continuing mission to explore strange new girls, I have been more productively engaged in analysing that weapon you captured from the Princess. It appears to work by means of a Trenasian crystal that amplifies a coherent stream of monochromatic light while simultaneously adjusting the amplitude—" The President stopped when he realised everyone was staring blankly at him.
"It's a raygun, OK?"
"It's a raygun, OK?"
— Captain Proton and the Planet of Lesbians
They watched in helpless horror as the alien pointed what appeared to be an oversized hairdryer at them. From its gaping maw spewed a beam of energy so raw, so horrific, so utterly incomprehensible it could not be described before the advent of hard science fiction.
As she watched a door dilated to reveal a half-dozen Psiborgs clustered around a semi-portable energy projector; its nucleo-electric power pack, liquid-helium cooling coils and radiation-proof gunshield a stark contrast to the handheld rayguns of space western tri-vids.
Elfangor: <How about this idea? You can keep the Dracon beam, just don't point it at anyone.>
Loren: It's called a Dracon beam, huh? What's it do?
Arbron: <It fires an energy beam which causes an exceedingly painful death. Which is why we'd really prefer it if you didn't fire it.>
Loren: Oh. A phaser. Like on that old Star Trek show. I can't believe they took that off the air. Now it's just on reruns.
Loren: It's called a Dracon beam, huh? What's it do?
Arbron: <It fires an energy beam which causes an exceedingly painful death. Which is why we'd really prefer it if you didn't fire it.>
Loren: Oh. A phaser. Like on that old Star Trek show. I can't believe they took that off the air. Now it's just on reruns.
— Animorphs — The Andalite Chronicles
"We had rays that would kill you by coagulating your proteins as though you were a hard-boiling egg. We had rays that would carry a deadly electrical shock, of course — that was beginner's stuff — poison rays which would turn your blood into furniture polish. We had different types of disintegrator, which either made you vanish completely or turned you into fine dust or pocket-flug: about the only thing they had in common with each other was that they seemed to take quite a few seconds to do the job, which could be a serious defect in a real side-arm. Edmond Hamilton, having heard that matter is really energy and that waves out of step cancel each other, invented a heterodyning ray which blanked you out like an unwanted radio program; the victim disappeared with a loud bang, while the gun itself hummed like an Atwater-Kent loudspeaker. We had rays which drive you insane; rays which would throw you into convulsions; rays which would paralyze you; rays which would melt you down like a tallow candle."
— James Blish, More Issues At Hand
"I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate."
— Roy Batty, Blade Runner
[after an angry robot has crushed the Captain's ray gun]
Technician: Your favorite ray gun...!
Captain: He wrecked Nancy...
Captain: He wrecked Nancy...
Unlike a single bullet, the beam of light from a high-power military laser acts more like a directional, narrow strip of extreme heat. A bullet drills a hole through flesh, the exit hole generally markedly bigger than the entrance wound. Not so with a laser. It is precisely the same size as it exits the human body as when it entered. Also, light has no mass, so there is no impact. As the laser struck Finnegan, it didn't lift him off his feet, or throw him backward, nothing initially as dramatic as that.
But the power was so awesome that in the instant the blaster came to life its vivid blue beam had penetrated clean through the helpless Finn, hitting the wall only a couple of paces to the left of J.B., who immediately threw himself flat on the floor, hands over his head as chunks of liquid concrete and charred wood fell from the side of the corridor. Stinking smoke erupted from the front and back of Finn's coat, tiny flames flaring red and yellow. Every staggering movement of the dying man only increased his horrific suffering. His skin was scorched black, the flesh broiled by the immense power of the blaster. The heat was so intense that the wretch's intestines began to explode and melt, and his blood boiled instantly where the laser had touched him.
But the power was so awesome that in the instant the blaster came to life its vivid blue beam had penetrated clean through the helpless Finn, hitting the wall only a couple of paces to the left of J.B., who immediately threw himself flat on the floor, hands over his head as chunks of liquid concrete and charred wood fell from the side of the corridor. Stinking smoke erupted from the front and back of Finn's coat, tiny flames flaring red and yellow. Every staggering movement of the dying man only increased his horrific suffering. His skin was scorched black, the flesh broiled by the immense power of the blaster. The heat was so intense that the wretch's intestines began to explode and melt, and his blood boiled instantly where the laser had touched him.
— Death Lands, "Crater Lake"
