A perfectly cromulent explanation. Now, as to why the character is still able to breathe, despite their lungs being phased relative to the ordinary air molecules on the ship…
actually it would be a wicked cool plot device if fluidic volumes were susceptible to interaction with objects independent of phase due to the quantum level brownian motion interactions of unincorporated particles–and that this is a fundamental cornerstone of why things like atmospheric containment barriers and structural integrity fields can exist, and just nobody fucking noticed that out-of-phase sapients are still consuming oxygen and SLIGHTLY displacing atmosphere!
Like, they can’t reliably create coherent pressure waves to create audible speech, but if they blew really hard into someone’s ear they’d actually feel something very faintly. I mean, canonically this isn’t so, but if I were a writer, I’d actually go there and make that stipulation even if it perturbs prior established canon. It’d be just FUNNY you know?
There actually was an episode in one of the 1990s series (voyager or TNG or something) where someone who was ‘out of phase’ due to a ‘transporter accident’ (as one does) was able to cause a disruption of flow in a plasma conduit or something by reaching into it; the superheated charged particles were not able to harm them but their interference made the conduit buzz or rattle or something and a crewmember recognized there was a particular pattern to it (like morse code) and they were able to communicate through it.
Hoshi was out of phase and stuck her hand in a plasma conduit to try and communicate with Captain Archer in Enterprise but it was all a hallucination so technically we still don’t know if it’s possible.
A perfectly cromulent explanation. Now, as to why the character is still able to breathe, despite their lungs being phased relative to the ordinary air molecules on the ship…
actually it would be a wicked cool plot device if fluidic volumes were susceptible to interaction with objects independent of phase due to the quantum level brownian motion interactions of unincorporated particles–and that this is a fundamental cornerstone of why things like atmospheric containment barriers and structural integrity fields can exist, and just nobody fucking noticed that out-of-phase sapients are still consuming oxygen and SLIGHTLY displacing atmosphere!
Like, they can’t reliably create coherent pressure waves to create audible speech, but if they blew really hard into someone’s ear they’d actually feel something very faintly. I mean, canonically this isn’t so, but if I were a writer, I’d actually go there and make that stipulation even if it perturbs prior established canon. It’d be just FUNNY you know?
There actually was an episode in one of the 1990s series (voyager or TNG or something) where someone who was ‘out of phase’ due to a ‘transporter accident’ (as one does) was able to cause a disruption of flow in a plasma conduit or something by reaching into it; the superheated charged particles were not able to harm them but their interference made the conduit buzz or rattle or something and a crewmember recognized there was a particular pattern to it (like morse code) and they were able to communicate through it.
Hoshi was out of phase and stuck her hand in a plasma conduit to try and communicate with Captain Archer in Enterprise but it was all a hallucination so technically we still don’t know if it’s possible.