Thoughts on Exotic Weapons Systems

The "Thoughts on Exotic Propulsion System" thread was so fun, i decided to make one for Exotic weapons.

Anybody have any concepts?

Or if you know of any that the military uses, or links pertaining to Alien Craft Weapons Systems let us know.

Well when Ronald Regan announced his Star Wars defense shiled back in the 1980s, the Russians were quite cagey for a while and such a provocative move like that could have led to war. But there was no war, if anything it contributed to the collaspe of the Cold War. Why was this? Well i like the theory which states Star Wars was not so much about defense against Russia's nukes but more to do with defending ourselves from hostile ailens!. The Russians were secretly informed of the true purpose of the shield and a new era of coperation took place.

Makes you think though if they had that kind of technology back then, what have they got today? !!!!

reply to post by Crabmeat


Excellent of you to start such a thread Crabmeat! Star and Flag from me.

Now while I cannot prove this allegation, it has been theoriezed that the HAARP research facility in Alaska can be used to heat the ionosphere. With enough power, such an microwave emmitter could serve as a form of Earth defense against objects (even asteroids) at a certain level of the atmosphere. For a real worldwide defense though, it would take several similar arrays acting in sync.

Also, since it's sort of an obvious one, I've never really understood exactly how a 'photon torpedo' would work?

Anyway, great idea for a thread. I'm looking forward to reading some of the ideas people have.

-WFA

I'm not a super trekkie but my conception of a 'photon torpedo' is as follows:

the compression of photons that zip around a particle which attracts the photons. to help with the visualization, imagine a baseball. this baseball isn't the photons, but it's an atom which attracts photons. take more baseballs and let them spin around the core baseball at incredible speeds. let these outer baseballs represent the photons being attracted by the center atom.
project that central, photon attracting atom anywhere and the photons will gleefully follow. upon impact the core atom would be ripped apart by the photons creating an atomic explosion. the speed of the remaining photons (the ones not used to rip the central atom apart) would increase the heat and pressure of the atomic explosion, increasing the explosive yield by several denominators.

photon torpedo. too tired and drunk to know if what i said makes sense, or if it's logically sound.

Tired and Drunk and you can still spell out a conceivable mechanism that can actually be tested!

Welcome to my friend's list Crabmeat.

I thought of another exotic weapons system for your consideration...

Imagine an array of telescopes using intereferometry to communicate and orbiting in a stable La Grange location. The mirrors for those already sync'd up scopes could also have use in the application of a space laser.

Now while it might not be a blast from the Death Star, such a weapon could feasibly heat up a near Earth asteroid, and perhaps alter it's course if a collision was a high possibility.

Just a thought.

-WFA

an array of satellites, to be used as a means of a weapon, or defense measure against stray meteors, although good, is not preferred by the scientific community. each array would have to be aligned perfectly before firing and placing such a quantity of delicate gear would warrant high risk of damage from stray particles.

for a similar effect im thinking using a engineered diamond (yes, humans make artificial diamonds today. not talking about cubic zirconium, i'm talking about real diamonds, made in a lab) whose elements are arranged in such a prism effect as to make a laser bounce around on the inside of the stone 1000fold before leaving in an intensified beam.

P.S. light sabers are cool but they're impossible.

*Cracks Knuckles*

Hello my kind of topic! Says the science fiction designer and game developer to the computer!

Ahem, what kind of exotic weapons would you guys like to cover today?

Magnetic Field Encased Plasma weapons?
Plasma Beam Emitting weapons?
Direct Energy Laser weapons?
Hyper Accelerated physical weapons?
Mass Condensing weapons?
Matter to Energy Conversion weapons?
Butterfly Affect Bombs?

List goes on and on... what would you like to learn about first? Most of these fictional / exotic weapons are potentially feasible with advanced technology or little quirks within quantum physics/other things that theories hint at but are yet proven.


+ 1 Star, + 1 Flag, + Friendship on both of like minded people!

[edit on 20-4-2008 by Foxe]

Originally posted by Foxe
Ahem, what kind of exotic weapons would you guys like to cover today?

Magnetic Field Encased Plasma weapons?

I think that's as good a place as any to start.

As Crabmeat already stated, Light Sabers in reality seem to be impractical. The only way I could see it working, would be to contain plasma inside a cylindrical magnetic field. But anyone who throws a permanent magnet at you will pretty much disable your weapon

You could theoretically have a thin superhard charged metal that extends and retracts at the center of the blade, since plasma tends to stick to metal. That would theoretically keep the plasma in sword form in the presence of another magnetic field.

I still have no idea how you would continuously feed the plasma flow

_____________________________________________________________

Also, any space based weapon that attempted to use magnetic fields as a housing for a warhead (plasma, light, or whatever) against another spacecraft would be virtually ineffective if that spacecraft could employ magnetic fields around the craft. (Or as in the newest Star Trek theory, polarize the hull plating) You could potentially disrupt the warhead's housing before the warhead could reach the ship.

For these reasons I've sort of considered this possibility impractical.

I do feel though, that if you're going to head out into space to explore, you should go heeled. As I stated in JediMiller's thread about shooting an Alien, I don't think it's the right option unless you aren't given another choice. That being stated, I do feel that defenses are good to have, if needed. Just because you've got a powerful exotic weapon doesn't mean you have to use it, it just means you can if you need to.

Sorry if that's off topic, but I thought some perspective on ethics might be important in a thread of this nature.

Foxe (or anybody) would you like to elaborate on some potential applications for some of the other theories you proposed?

Does anyone know if there is a way to get around the problems I outlined above? I can't think on one.

___________________________________________________________

On another tangent to this general idea, I've often reflected that if a spaceship used some sort of electromagnetic railgun as one type of propulsion system (in addition to most likely different stages designed for different speeds, see the companion thread on Exotic Propulsion for more detail)... anyway, if one used a railgun already for propulsion, this same system could be directed as a weapon if needed.

Additionally (using several systems together to maximize efficiency) waste material from the ship that would need to be 'dumped' anyway could be used as propellent/ammunition. A waste system could in theory be designed to process waste (both human and ship waste) into 'pellets' of propellent/ammunition, to be expelled through the engine/weapon.

Just some thoughts.

-WFA



[edit on 20-4-2008 by WitnessFromAfar]

On the subject of a light saber. It is not an energy beam of plasma or a laser. Its an exotic energy state weapon. The beam itself is not hot. The energy blade causes atoms to fall apart... aka: breaking down matter. As matter breaks down at an extreme speed, it heats up. In short: This is why the saber can instantly jab into an object and cut it without a burn mark... but if a saber is left into an object, it will cause the object to slowly melt itself.

Thats why when a limb is cut by a saber, there CAN be blood vapor, because the blood and meat in contact with the blade...

It has an extremely strong magnetic field that is extended along the energy blade, and the energy blade itself does not put out energy or heat unless it is in contact with matter.... in short, the light saber is a lethal weapon. Basically operating in a similar sense to matter-deconstruction rays used in so many sci-fi movies/books of old.

Also a side note, it has been stated by US Weapons Researchers that we could make a light saber with current technology, but its uses would be extremely few, and would require a large battery pack. Source was from Military Channel, so it COULD be military propaganda on 'how cool we are' etc... or not... who knows!


_____________________________________________________________


As for Magnetic Field Encased Plasma Weapons... this is from Star Wars as well, but not entirely. However,
I must remind everyone, this is based on fiction MIXED with science. If a real weapon were to be made, it may or may not act as it does in the movies...


Plasma itself will disperse out into space when fired as a weapon... eg: it would not be very efficient in and of itself in the distances of space combat... so a magnetic field is used to encase the plasma...

I will run it through: Power System activates and the plasma is generated in the weapon, magnetic fields pull the plasma forward and encase it as it travels through the mechanics of the weapon, and a 'barrel' sends it out at the target... basically an energy rail gun in a sense?

This being, the plasma is kept stable within the magnetic field as it travels to the target... as to how a said field could be kept in place, theres multiple theories. One is projected fields, another is partial-matter encasement of the plasma... to keep a magnetic field there... or the plasma itself, interacting with the magnetic field, might keep it there. I can not say how this would work, its one of the big question marks on this form of exotic weaponry.


Once the bolt reaches the target, the field disperse in contact, the plasma energy deposited onto the target. The plasma expands and the energy is released. Boom.

A fiction note here, Heavy Turbo Lasers are said plasma weapons. They are capable of putting out 1 gigatons of energy per 'bolt' and firing once per second at a stable power rate. A super star destroyer has 250 heavy turbo lasers, and 250 small turbo lasers (another power rate).. a combined total of 505 gigatons of energy output from those weapons alone. Per second. The range of a Heavy Turbo Laser is enough to traverse 1.2 AU with ACCURACY. Meaning, ships did not have to be in close range to do the dirty work. Planetary Turbo Lasers, if they were on Mars, could bombard Earth... for example.

This is why these weapons are used for large ship to ship combat, planetary defense systems, and bombardment of planets... in the Star Wars universe at least.




Next?

reply to post by Crabmeat


As you can see fromthis FOIA report, aliens might not employ weapons if they have no need for them.

The Iranian official decided to scramble an F-4 from Shahrokhi AFB(difficult to read in the document) to investigate. The brilliance of the object was clearly visible from 70 miles away. As the F-4 moved within 25 nm (nautical miles) of the object it lost all instrumentation and communications forcing him to break off and return to Shahrokhi. As he did so he regained control of instrumentation and communications.

Scramjet, thats considered electronic warfare thus a weapon. Even if its a side affect of their machinery, it still was employed as a weapon. Active or Passive gear or interference used for protection is still a weapon in general terminology.

Weapons do not have to be a lethal thing or even aimed at beings.

I'm not sure if what you guys said above about lightsabers and how they do, and how they continue to work, makes sense. My understanding of a lightsaber, after playing many star wars games, and watching the movies of course, the handle has an energy source which creates light. the light is channeled through focusing crystals (which in the movie/games, the starwars universe) which are very rare and expensive. I know as fact that humans can create precious stones, so perhaps we could create one that would intensify the beam of a laser. the only problem i see here is a laser doesn't stop propelling forward until it hits something, and in turn bounces back. light sabers didn't have such a function but if there was a reflective plate, or perhaps a quantum sized reflector then lightsabers as i understand them, from the star wars universe, are possible. as for the offensive properties, an intense light would slice through just about anything. i was under the impression that wounds in star wars never bled because the heat would singe shut the blood veins.

as foxe pointed out though, with current technologies and energy sources, a wannabe jedi would have to carry a huge pack of energy.

as for the plasma torpedo, being contained in a magnetic field... it sounds good and all, but it's impractical. weapons are disposable devices. you shoot. it hits. boom. you shoot you miss. sucks. but you can't risk missing something that costs a crap load of money to create. accuracy would have to be 100%, ability of deflection by the target would have to be none, to make such an expensive weapon practical.

How about the successor to the successor of the SR-71. Whatever it may be, you better believe it's flying around out there...

Offensive - Gravity Disruptor - which I find a fascinating concept...but have no idea how it would come about. How would you go about destabilizing gravity?

DNA locking; genome locking; species locking for targeting systems. 'Here, hunter-killer drone, here's a sample of blood...'

Not any of these are new ideas. For the truly exotic, I'd go with a giggle-ray. Reduces onslaught to inane girly giggling.

How about a Herkimer Battle Jitney? It's the finest
nonlethal military vehicle ever made.

In it's turret there's a process which results in an accelerated
flow of electrons that creates such a powerful magnetic force.
I asked if it was like a huge electromagnet.
it's an electro-nuclear-magnet. It's the next inevitable phase.

Er... I forgot my address book. Have you seen it?
It's denim... with a kitten on the front... says "hang tough".

I love this site and it's credo.
'We struck down evil with the mighty sword of teamwork
and the hammer of not bickering' (you can't buy this)


[edit on 20-4-2008 by IronMan]

A battery creates energy which is focused through a crystal which is then refined through more acute focusing crystal/s (the ones that are 'refined' and 'special' that Jedi seek)... the energy is then channeled up through emitting devices in which it is controlled by the electromagnetic field to keep it in 'sword' shape.

It is a beam of energy that disassembled atoms at rapid rates. This is what creates the heat, cutting, light, and sounds of a light saber as it sliced through objects or the air. Its not light, light is just a side-affect.

And yes, watch Episode 1 again. When Maul is cut in half, theres a mist of blood (in my 1st release VHS at least). Thats the steamed off blood from the intensely dispersed atoms (aka: the cut)... If you watch Episode IV again, you will see the cut off arm in the cantina has blood as well, but it is not pouring blood out. the wounds ARE sealed from that same heat, but some blood does occur during the cut, usually as a mist. Post cut it is almost always clean...


As for the energy weapon device I mentioned, thats not a torpedo. Thats a round from the cannon. Its how ALL energy cannons in Star Wars pretty much work. With the exception of a few designs (eg: continious beam weapons like on the Republic LAAT/i Gunship.).

They are not lasers or just energy, but plasma encased in magnetic energy.


Thats just one form of energy weapons.


A proton torpeedo is SIMILAR in a sense, but it can lock onto targets if I am not mistake... the Turbo Laser bolt is just a dumb-fired 'cannon ball'

You could compare it to the explosive cannon balls of olden days... you have a sphere of iron, and a core of explosives. Boom.

[edit on 20-4-2008 by Foxe]

reply to post by Foxe


Yes, technically it would fall under the definition.. I guess I tend to think of a "weapon" as being designed specifically for offensive purposes.

Whatever the case, their use of weapons would be related to their environment. If they have no natural enemies, they have no need for weapons. Just a little bug spray when silly humans get too hostile.

Yup!

I like that definition! A little bug spray when humans become a problem, hehe...


"HumOFF!" "Whats this for, Yalari?" "Keeps those pesky humans off our craft!"

Quick weapon concepts and their inner workings:

Weapon A: "Make HOOMAN go Boom BOoM"
an alien, or human for that matter, could make a radio or microwave beam that instantaneously makes water boil. point it at a human, and that 75% of our bodies would start to boil making 'hooman go boom boom'

Weapon B: Plasma Charger
this weapon concept requires two separate satellite/energy dischargers. one is a simple laser shot at a target, the other would be a energy gun that shoots precisely calibrated waves. the waves intersect the laser before hitting the target, and the waves distort the high powered laser enough to burn it into plasma. because the interaction occurs before hitting the target, it's safe for me to assume ( i assume it's safe to assume) that the plasma will remain plasma for the few moments before the target is struck

Weapon C: Heart Attack
who needs fancy weapons when you can just introduce the mcdonalds franchise to all the exotic races of the universe?

Weapon D: Rosy O'Donald
self explanatory

the list goes on, and i'm joking to much to get back on track :p

Nice Thread,

I'm surprised that no one has brought up CERN yet. I can see the CERN project providing unlimited potential (in the future) for more complex/powerful weapons because let's face it, the military isn't half interested in it are they.

I'd be interested to see what some of you other ATS'ers think will come out of the CERN research as far as advanced weapons go.

Could we built some kind of massive particle accelerator in space that would blow the bejesus out of anything coming our way.. such as Asteroids & Unfriendly EBE's etc?

IRM
Thats a big sparkley one from me

what can come of CERN? Why, a whole array of particle weapons

i can see the scientists learning more fundamental concepts of behavior on a particle scale, finding ways to manipulate individual particles for possible rewards.

imagine a laser for example, which instead of firing many photons at a time, or chemicals, we have tons of chemical lasers btw, it fired a steady, constant singular stream of photons. imagine 5 or 100 of these miniature barrels firing off single jets of photons. a laser like that would slice through anything on a particle level.

a common trend with technology is you make something new and use it for how ever many years and the new model will be smaller. look at cellphones in the last 15 years. computers since they were made, look at PALM pilots of bajebus sake. every thing's getting tiny, and people are even working with quantum computers. it's insane.
anyway, imagine a small version of the particle accelerator. i'm talking super miniature, the size of a yo-yo. put that into a gun, slap a handle on it, and create a mechanism connected to the particle accelerator that works as a hatch once the particles reach critical mass. this hatch leads to a barrel which shoots that particle, BOOM! hell, who needs a small one when you can make a giant one, on earth? just fire those babies at the moon. who needs that thing anyway?

[edit on 21-4-2008 by Crabmeat]