Meson cannon vs. Meson screen

[Trent]

I was wondering which would be easier to build, the meson cannon or the meson screen? Which do you think a group like Ine Givar could get plans for easier?

I know the cannon was invented first, but then no one needed screens until there was a meson cannon, so it might be easier to build a screen actually.

 

[mike wightman]

Meson screens are a whole TL above the canon in order of discovery.
Since screens are used to defend cities they may be easier to "research" than the more tightly controlled weapons.

 

[Renaissance Man]

It is always easier to tear things to pieces than to hold them together. Just look at tank armour vs. the latest shoulder fired weapons.

Seeing as we can only speculate on the actual mechanisms by which meson technology works, I'd say the cannon is first and easier.

 

[Trent]

Well, yes, but look at it this way: What's a higher tech level, the hiroshima bomb or the microprocessor in your computer? Which would be easier to bet the plans for and the stuff to build?

 

[Icosahedron]

Maybe you chose a poor example there, Trent. You can build a crude nuke in your garage with the aid of a shady contact and some plans off the internet (so I'm told) but you need a whole factory and an army of personnel to make a chip. Admittedly, you could build a computer from parts easy enough, though.

Dunno about the mesons, depends how they work IYTU. The gun is just an accelerator, but we're not told how the screen makes them prematurely decay.

 

[Trent]

Maybe you chose a poor example there, Trent. You can build a crude nuke in your garage with the aid of a shady contact and some plans off the internet (so I'm told) but you need a whole factory and an army of personnel to make a chip. Admittedly, you could build a computer from parts easy enough, though.

Dunno about the mesons, depends how they work IYTU. The gun is just an accelerator, but we're not told how the screen makes them prematurely decay.

Hmm, I've alwasy assumed that the screen basically slows down the mesons, making them decay before they reach the target on the same principle that, if you had a robot car loaded with a time bomb that would detonate at a fixed time and you put, say, lots of heavy rocks on the road to slow the car down the bomb would still detonate at the same time but at a point in space removed from the target.

Oh, that bit about building a nuke in your garage with stuff from the net? Forget it, it doesn't work. I was in a really bad mood for a while and tri... Uh, never mind, just take it from me, it doesn't work.

 

[VT1099ace]

I'm thnking researchers could discover the principles and process of how it works and a governemt (naturally) weaponizes it (offensive) until a potential foe gets access to the same technology, then a defense gets developed against it...explains the tech difference between offensive and defense meson devices IMHO

 

[dean]

My take is that it's easier to direct almost any form of energy into a destructive purpose because the amount of control is less.

Making a gasoline bomb is a fairly simple matter; making a gasoline engine much more complicated.

Making an atomic bomb, actually fairly simple; making an atomic generation plant, much more complex.

Harnessing energy for works of "good" is almost always harder than using the same energy to destroy. Follows the principle of entropy.

No real reason meson weapons would be different.

 

[whartung]

Meson screen came first, as a meson screen is effectively a meson detector. Perhaps it took more time to handle the larger powerloads of a combat meson gun, but I'd think the tech started with the screen.

 

[mike wightman]

Not according to Traveller canon:

meson gun TL11,

meson screen TL12

 

[mike wightman]

Making an atomic bomb, actually fairly simple; making an atomic generation plant, much more complex.

Other way around

An atomic power station is actually the more simple of the two, it only gets complicated when you introduce safety controlls, radiation shielding and other boring stiff like that.

All you need is some uranium giving out radiation that heats stuff up, use this to boil water, use the steam to drive a turbine - easy.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Same for the fuel/air explosives. The concept is simple and occurs "in the wild" since man mines coal and uses enclosed grain mills. Actually getting a good dispersal and firing is rather complex stuff even when you just want to simulate such an explosion in a highly controlled environment not to mention "in the wild"

WWII germany build some mighty fine gasoline engines but FAE experiments failed.

 

[dean]

Other way around

An atomic power station is actually the more simple of the two, it only gets complicated when you introduce safety controlls, radiation shielding and other boring stiff like that.

All you need is some uranium giving out radiation that heats stuff up, use this to boil water, use the steam to drive a turbine - easy.

I will refer back to my position that the productive use requires more control. Sure, "primitive" nuclear plants that simply rely upon the naturally emitted radiation would be a simple matter to build, as long as you don't mind replacing all the operators every couple years.

 

[dean]

Same for the fuel/air explosives. The concept is simple and occurs "in the wild" since man mines coal and uses enclosed grain mills. Actually getting a good dispersal and firing is rather complex stuff even when you just want to simulate such an explosion in a highly controlled environment not to mention "in the wild"

WWII germany build some mighty fine gasoline engines but FAE experiments failed.

Didn't say Fuel-Air explosive. I said Gasoline Bomb - Molotov cocktail-style. Much simpler to use gas to simply start a fire than produce usable energy. Even if you consider a gasoline fired boiler.

 

[mike wightman]

I will refer back to my position that the productive use requires more control. Sure, "primitive" nuclear plants that simply rely upon the naturally emitted radiation would be a simple matter to build, as long as you don't mind replacing all the operators every couple years.

A simple atomic reactor was built long before the atom bomb.

 

[Icosahedron]

Only because they were using it as a 'relatively' safe way to figure out how the atomic reactions worked. Once they figured out the details, bombs were the first application.

 

[BlackBat242]

And that reactor did not generate any power, it simply sustained a reaction so that measurements could be made.

And 2 years 6 months is not "long before", especially as they were part of the same weapons project. Not a power-generation project, a weapons project.

 

[dean]

Thank you gentlemen

 

[mike wightman]

Fermi's first reactor was not part of the manhatten project, but it was pivotal in the development of the reactors that were used to generate the plutonium needed for the first bombs.

No reactor - no bomb. Reactor came first.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Not totally true. The Hiroshima unit used Uranium instead of plutonium. Less effective (12.5 vs 20KT) but easier to build (They tested a Nakasaki-style unit in Alamo Gordo)