High tech energy weapon components?

[robject]

At very high tech levels, beyond the Imperial maximum, we have weapons like fusion rifles, neural guns, distintegrators, relativity rifles, and so on. We may have exotic weapons like plasma grenades and meson launchers (whatever THAT means).

That's all fine - I think we have enough concepts in the OTU to carry us well into the TL20s. What I'm wondering are the sorts of components that go into these weapons.

High energy weapons could have all sorts of side effects. Of course plasma and fusion weapons could have radiation bleed and maybe a lot of heat. What about neural weapons? And disintegrators -- might they have annoying possible complications that their design has to account for? Not to mention relativity and stasis weapons, and the need to properly project those fields (rather than having them leak onto the attacker, or leave a trail of chaos in their wake).

Any thoughts on these? Thanks in advance.

 

[McPerth]

What about neural weapons?

While not specified (at least AFAIK) in MT (the only version I know about to describe neural weapons), I've always assumed they are stopped by psionic shields (both, telepathyc ability and artificial ones).

And disintegrators -- might they have annoying possible complications that their design has to account for?

About desintegrators, as I imagine them, they should also leave huge amounts of radiation due to molecular/atomic degradation they produce. After all, in MT (the only version I know to describe them, as most ultra-high TL you talk about) they are described as disrupting the strong molecular attrraction that holds matter together (RM, page 59), and in their use in combat they are stopped by nuclar dampers (RM page 98 tables).

In any case, in MT they are less powerful than Meson Guns...

 

[mike wightman]

Depends on the type of radiation you are talking about.

"Molecular forces" are ionic bonds, covalent bonds and, to a lesser extent, hydrogen bonds and van der vaal force.

Make molecules fall apart and you generate electromagnetic radiation i.e. light. There is insufficient energy in molecular bonds to generate x-rays, the best you will get are uv. Lots of thermal radiation and visible flash I would expect too.

 

[McPerth]

Depends on the type of radiation you are talking about.

"Molecular forces" are ionic bonds, covalent bonds and, to a lesser extent, hydrogen bonds and van der vaal force.

Make molecules fall apart and you generate electromagnetic radiation i.e. light. There is insufficient energy in molecular bonds to generate x-rays, the best you will get are uv.

As I understand it (there have been decades since I sudied chemistry or physics), the main way to disrupt those forces would be strong ionic changes, and probably that would mean ionizing radiation, either as by-product or as part of the desinegration beam.

And the fact that nuclear dampers protect against them also makes me thing that radiation is a part of them (as told above)

 

[aramis]

Depends on the type of radiation you are talking about.

"Molecular forces" are ionic bonds, covalent bonds and, to a lesser extent, hydrogen bonds and van der vaal force.

Make molecules fall apart and you generate electromagnetic radiation i.e. light. There is insufficient energy in molecular bonds to generate x-rays, the best you will get are uv.

So, disintegrate Sappy, and all his friends get a flash-tan...

Keep in mind, UV can do a LOT of damage.

 

[mike wightman]

As I understand it (there have been decades since I sudied chemistry or physics), the main way to disrupt those forces would be strong ionic changes, and probably that would mean ionizing radiation, either as by-product or as part of the desinegration beam.

And the fact that nuclear dampers protect against them also makes me thing that radiation is a part of them (as told above)

Nope, ionizing radiation is alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays. there isn't enough energy in a molecular bond to create those particles from the energy available in the chemical bond.

I can accept nuclear dampers interfering with the strong and weak nuclear forces, and even interfering with the quantum effects keeping the electrons orbiting the nuclei and hence destabilising molecular bonding.

But creating ionising radiation from the molecular bond energy would require you to be creating energy from nothing, and if you can do that you are violating the laws of thermodynamics in a way that I can't imagine.

 

[aramis]

Dampers work by altering the nuclear forces. Which would include the electron shell stability, I think.

Concentrating the energy into ionizing radiation would require exactly such operation... but note that, in theory, a properly tuned and powerful damper should be able to cause a person's Iron to fission spontaneously. Amongst other interesting effects.

 

[McPerth]

Nope, ionizing radiation is alpha particels, beta particles and gamma rays. there isn't enough energy in a molecular bond to create those particles from the energy available in the chemical bond.

Also X-ray, cosmic rays and neutrons are among ionizing radiation...

I can accept nuclear dampers interfering with the strong and weak nuclear forces, and even interfering with the quantum effects keeping the electrons orbiting the nuclei and hence destabilising molecular bonding.

But creating ionising radiation from the molecular bond energy would require you to be creating energy from nothing, and if you can do that you are violating the laws of thermodynamics in a way that I can't imagine.

Seeing that in MT the smallest disintegrator (disintegrator turret, TL 18+) requires 4000 Mw of dedicated power (RM: page 74), I'd not call it creating energy from nothing, just converting the energy applied to it...

 

[atpollard]

So, disintegrate Sappy, and all his friends get a flash-tan...

Keep in mind, UV can do a LOT of damage.

That's why you need your anti-oxidants.

 

[whulorigan]

Dampers work by altering the nuclear forces. Which would include the electron shell stability, I think.

Actually, the force between the nucleus and the electrons is primarily the electromagnetic interaction (positive protons and negative electrons). Electrons are leptons, which do not feel the Strong Nuclear Force. The Weak Nuclear Force is what governs particle (primarily Beta) decay. The electron is stable, however.

By causing the nucleus to shed neutrons, the nuclear isotope would be altered and possibly cause secondary decay events (alpha, beta, gamma, neutron, and/or fission), which might in turn transmute the atom into a different element. Which might mean that you would now have an ion of the new element. Or the released decay particle(s) might cause an ionization event in the electron structure. If the disintegrator is strong enough (and I would presume it must be fairly strong - much more than standard Nuclear Dampers), the entire nucleus might photodissociate (i.e. the nucleus flies apart entirely - which would be quite an energy release, unless the disintegrator/damper mediates that somehow).

In any event, hard radiation would come from Nuclear Decay, not ionization of the atomic electron orbitals.

Prior versions of Traveller have always held that the Disintegrator works by operating on atomic nuclei thru modifying nuclear forces. T5 suggests the same, but makes mention of the fact that it causes the decay to occur gradually:

T5. p.397:
Option Suppression enables the device to completely suppress the strong nuclear force (rather than merely lessen it), producing a disintegration effect. Atomic nuclei degrade into their component particles.

The disintegration effect is gradual rather than dramatic: objects within the field receive an accumulating series of hits (equal to device TL) per turn. All objects are affected without regard to intervening armor or other fields (except, the contents of a Nuclear Damper field are unaffected).

T5 also makes reference to the "Disruptor", which suppresses the charge on the electron and causes the surface of the material that it contacts to "boil away" as it ionizes.

 

[aramis]

Keep in mind: Dampers can reduce or increase fissionability. Striker, Rule 39, book 2, page 11, notes that damper boxes must be used to carry certain types of rounds, to prevent premature decay of the extremely short half-life elements. Same page, rule 40, notes that they can suppress the strong nuclear force causing rapid (but safe) decay.

So, we can see from just that one page alone that it can affect the strong force in either direction.

Rule 40.E. (bk 2 p 12) notes that the damper can be used to safe a radioactively contaminated area.

CT Bk 5 HG also notes that they affect strong force.

So, that means that, when enhanced, no alpha/beta decay, and thus no chain reaction. Suppress it, and you get chain reactions that can't normally happen.

But also, a damper allows fusion that wouldn't normally happen - fusion is when the SNF engages to finish bringing two separate but forced close together nuclei into contact and being one nucleus. So, suppress the SNF, and Fusion stops cold.

Which basically means, the setting fluff isn't supported by the weapons tables...

 

[Carlobrand]

...Which basically means, the setting fluff isn't supported by the weapons tables...

To which particular setting fluff are you alluding?

 

[aramis]

To which particular setting fluff are you alluding?

The description of how dampers work in the fluff makes them the potential soft-kill weapon from hell - no power, no fight.

But there's no provision for killing powerplants with damper batteries.

 

[Ulsyus]

With regard to the weapons, the common element is the projection of an interactive force or energy that would be contained within a particular volume, otherwise aiming them is going to be a problem (maybe an effect for having experimental or prototype versions of these? They're area affect, and that area blows out with these early types?)

What's the vision for these things? Are handheld disintegrators like those out of the original Star Trek? Point and cease to be? Or do they cause small volumes of matter to cease (a flash, no apparent effect other than a bit of someone just disappears, greasy smoke wafts from a hole in someone's chest, whatever), more like a disintegrator version of a other weapons?

As for dampers and power plants, given that we're talking about technology that we only have the theoretical understanding of these (ok, so there's some fusion experimentation happening, calm down there) what if it were possible to align one's own power plants with dampers so that the frequency/resonance/hypoehms they operated at were synchronised and the plant could just continue functioning as per normal?