[Tlhingan-hol] nuq bop bom: 'ay' cha'vatlh loSmaH Hut: nuH bey

[Qov]

At 10:57 '?????' 7/31/2012, Steven Boozer wrote:
>Qov:
> > laQbe' nISwI'. Mossam ghopDaq rIHwI' tu'lu'. [312] ghobtaHvIS
> > lelta'. Mossam qab mupmeH nISwI' lo'choH qImyal.
> >
> > [312] A Canadian army-trained weapons technician indicated
> > that mishandling of a weapon, such as getting the trigger
> > twisted while it was knocked against the ground in a struggle
> > could prevent it from firing. But I decided that crafty Mossam
> > was more interesting than lucky Mossam, and had her pull out
> > the power pack "clip" instead, leaving the damage to the weapon
> > to be discovered as qImyal tries to jam the charge back in.
>
>IIRC Klingon disruptor pistols - at least 23rd century TOS versions 
>- don't have those tongue-like switches (protected by a trigger 
>guard) we're accustomed to on Earth.  I believe there's a button on 
>the back that one thumbs - {Sen} "use the thumb" - to fire the 
>pistol.  See Okrand's article in HolQeD:

A specifically twisted trigger is no longer relevant to the plot. 
It's not important how the damage was caused anymore, maybe it's just 
from qImyal shoving the power pack back in when there was blood on 
it. Probably it's not damaged at all; it just got set to overload in 
the struggle.

>   nISwI' HIch Sen
>   fire the disruptor pistol
>
>literally "use the thumb in the way it's most appropriately used on 
>a disruptor pistol", "use the thumb to activate the disruptor 
>pistol", "thumb the disruptor pistol" (cf. HQ 10.2:8).

lI', qatlho'.

>I found a model of a Klingon disruptor pistol

They're calling it a beH. Is it sort of midway between a beH and a HIch?

>  at http://www.angelfire.com/tx4/purpleelaphants/images/beH1.jpg
>http://www.angelfire.com/tx4/purpleelaphants/images/beH2.jpg
>http://www.angelfire.com/tx4/purpleelaphants/images/beH3.jpg
>
>The last image clearly shows a rectangular blue trigger {chu'wI'} 
>button on the handle {qengwI' naQ} (?) right below the decorated 
>rivet {veragh}.

That's a rivet?

>Now I'm not a weapons technician, but this seems an obvious design 
>flaw as dropping the weapon could accidentally fire it.  Not to 
>mention making it dangerously easy to (mis)fire the weapon in one of 
>those classic struggling-over-the-gun scenes so common in movies and 
>television!

Heck, there are two such scenarios in my story, one of which *does* 
result in random shots being fired, and this one results in the 
overload of the weapon, so I'm at least proving your point.

- Qov