Quark plasma

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2002-12-08 01:05pm

It sounds nifty. Would it be practical as a sci-fi weapon in any form, or would the energy spent making it be better used directly poking holes in enemy ships?

Evil Sadistic Bastard · Post by **Evil Sadistic Bastard** » 2002-12-08 01:07pm

Uhhh explain please?

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2002-12-08 01:09pm

If I understand correctly, it's matter that's been heated to the point that subatomic particles break down and you get a substance that's very similar to the uber-heated matter that filled the universe right after the Big Bang. It sounds like it would be a useful weapon (either fired like a turbolaser bolt or contained in a shell or missile warhead), but I'm wondering if it might take so much energy to create it in useful quantities that it would be simpler just to use that energy in a more traditional weapon, like a high powered laser.

Evil Sadistic Bastard · Post by **Evil Sadistic Bastard** » 2002-12-08 01:12pm

I say it's best to refine existing tech rather than go after new tech. SO going after quark plasmas is not highly recommended.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2002-12-08 01:15pm

This would definitely be "uber", not something I'd expect to see deployed within my lifetime. I ask because I'm trying to come up with a primary weapon for the ships in an original sci-fi idea of mine, and I'd like to use something a little more exotic than lasers, antimatter, or KE warheads, but not something totally made up, either.

Evil Sadistic Bastard · Post by **Evil Sadistic Bastard** » 2002-12-08 01:16pm

RedImperator wrote:This would definitely be "uber", not something I'd expect to see deployed within my lifetime. I ask because I'm trying to come up with a primary weapon for the ships in an original sci-fi idea of mine, and I'd like to use something a little more exotic than lasers, antimatter, or KE warheads, but not something totally made up, either.

Dimension gate generators.

Pinch off a part of his ship into an alternate dimension.

Or use psionic weapons.

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2002-12-08 01:31pm

RedImperator wrote:This would definitely be "uber", not something I'd expect to see deployed within my lifetime. I ask because I'm trying to come up with a primary weapon for the ships in an original sci-fi idea of mine, and I'd like to use something a little more exotic than lasers, antimatter, or KE warheads, but not something totally made up, either.

Give it some weird name, or something related to it's inventor, in the veins of... I don't know, SDnetkicksfundieass Cannon, something like that.

Quark Plasma sounds too technobabble, and when you try to explain it, you'll fall in the same pitfalls that ST has fallen... Explain just to yourself, and don't go into much detail, otherwise, you'll get a headache! I know, I had the same problems!

Look at Turbolasers, they're not Turbo, they're not Lasers, so what are they? Who cares, the name's cool! Get a cool name!

Besides, as soon as the quarks were out of their initial conditions, they would start to form particles (joining, decaying, the usual stuff) and you would get your basic sci-fi plasma, which has been shown to be a brain-bug.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-12-08 02:12pm

The quark plasma would quickly recombine to form baryons and other particles outside of the environment it was created in. I don't see how shooting a quark plasma at a ship would be any more effective than just blasting it with a laser of equal intensity.

And, besides, if you can heat matter up to such a degree that you can create a quark plasma in the first place, you've probably got more innovative weapons. Or, you could simply heat the enemy vessel up to that degree to turn it into a quark plasma itself.

Oh, and creating a quark plasma is somewhat impossible. The force binding quarks together in the proton, for example, is extremely strong. With the amount of energy you'd have to inject into the particle to split it apart, you'd end up creating a whole new, massive particle, anyway. That is why there are no free-roaming quarks left in the universe.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2002-12-08 08:10pm

Well, that explains it, then. Another unfeisable idea bites the dust.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2002-12-08 10:39pm

RedImperator wrote:I ask because I'm trying to come up with a primary weapon for the ships in an original sci-fi idea of mine, and I'd like to use something a little more exotic than lasers, antimatter, or KE warheads, but not something totally made up, either.

'Exotic' and 'not totally made up' are generally contradictions in terms. Real physics limits one to things that go Boom (with a chemical, nuclear or antimatter basis), things that go Smash (KE weapons) and things that Cook (maser/laser/graser/particle beam). If you want anything more exotic you're going to have to invent some new physics.

If you're short of ideas as to what to invent, get your hands on some Uber-tech SF books, such as the Xeelee sequence or the Culture collection. Also consider taking a look at Greg Bear's Anvil of Stars and Moving Mars for some rather interesting weapons concepts.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-12-08 11:04pm

Well fine. You can have your exotic weaponry. I'll just have a Star Destroyer with 200 gigaton heavy turbolaser batteries that'll blow your ship out of the stars. No technobabble required. Just pure math.

Don't subscribe to the Trek idea that fancy terminology is better than actual results. It isn't. You could spill all the technobabble you want and speak of a "quark plasma beam," and all I'll say is, "Yeah? Can it do it better than a laser?"

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2002-12-08 11:14pm

Its a shame that whenever you rip quarks from one another, the energies required create new quarks.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2002-12-08 11:46pm

Durandal wrote:Well fine. You can have your exotic weaponry. I'll just have a Star Destroyer with 200 gigaton heavy turbolaser batteries that'll blow your ship out of the stars. No technobabble required. Just pure math.

Don't subscribe to the Trek idea that fancy terminology is better than actual results. It isn't. You could spill all the technobabble you want and speak of a "quark plasma beam," and all I'll say is, "Yeah? Can it do it better than a laser?"

What? I put the idea up here, several people pointed out its problems, I dropped it. It sounded like a good idea, but I found out it wasn't before I wasted time writing about it, which was the point of bringing it up.

ClaysGhost · Post by **ClaysGhost** » 2002-12-09 05:12am

Durandal wrote:Well fine. You can have your exotic weaponry. I'll just have a Star Destroyer with 200 gigaton heavy turbolaser batteries that'll blow your ship out of the stars. No technobabble required. Just pure math.

Don't subscribe to the Trek idea that fancy terminology is better than actual results. It isn't. You could spill all the technobabble you want and speak of a "quark plasma beam," and all I'll say is, "Yeah? Can it do it better than a laser?"

I'm searching for a non-technobabble explanation of turbolaser operating principles, and not finding one. I'm also searching for any equivalence between a turbolaser and laser, and not finding it. Further, my attempt to establish why "quark-plasma beam" is any worse as as a piece of meaningless terminology than "turbolaser" appears doomed too.

I'm wondering if there's any difference between "200GT turbolaser" and "200GT quark-plasma beam" and "200GT monkey-giblet cannon"; I suspect there isn't.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-12-09 10:54am

ClaysGhost wrote:
Durandal wrote:Well fine. You can have your exotic weaponry. I'll just have a Star Destroyer with 200 gigaton heavy turbolaser batteries that'll blow your ship out of the stars. No technobabble required. Just pure math.

Don't subscribe to the Trek idea that fancy terminology is better than actual results. It isn't. You could spill all the technobabble you want and speak of a "quark plasma beam," and all I'll say is, "Yeah? Can it do it better than a laser?"
I'm searching for a non-technobabble explanation of turbolaser operating principles, and not finding one. I'm also searching for any equivalence between a turbolaser and laser, and not finding it. Further, my attempt to establish why "quark-plasma beam" is any worse as as a piece of meaningless terminology than "turbolaser" appears doomed too.

I'm wondering if there's any difference between "200GT turbolaser" and "200GT quark-plasma beam" and "200GT monkey-giblet cannon"; I suspect there isn't.

Except that one uses SI units. The other does not.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2002-12-09 11:59am

So let me see if I understand this: if it's just technobabble, it's bad. But if it's technobabble with an SI unit slapped on it, it's great! So Voyager would have been a great show if only when they remodulated an inverse tachyon beam through the main deflector dish, they had said "We're remodulating a 16kw inverse tachyon beam through the main deflector dish." In that case, my quark plasma cannons can fire a 12 petawatt shot accurately at .999999c anywhere within 80 AU, with a refire rate of 14 shots per second. Excuse me while I grab a Kleenex.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-12-09 01:39pm

If it's that powerful, then who cares what it is?

And I'm sorry that I flew off the handle, there. I was just stressing out over my physics final.

Cthulhu-chan · Post by **Cthulhu-chan** » 2002-12-09 03:53pm

I think the point being made is that if you're going to make an "uber tech" weapon, try to explain it as little as possible, or you'll wander into technobabble-land.

Also: Monkey-gibblet cannon 0wnz0rz.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2002-12-09 07:27pm

Durandal wrote:If it's that powerful, then who cares what it is?

And I'm sorry that I flew off the handle, there. I was just stressing out over my physics final.

No problem. By the way, I was thinking about much more modest numbers--around 600-750mt for the heavy canons, ~1gt for the torpedo warheads, and about the same for the ultra-heavy siege weaponry. Yes, an ISD would own those ships, but they're in kind of the same situation Trek is in...relatively young spacefaring civ.

ViciousMink · Post by **ViciousMink** » 2002-12-13 02:50am

The quark plasma mentioned here, properly 'quark-gluon plasma' or as Stephen Baxter coined the term, 'quagma,' has been created now, by using a supercollider accelerating iron isotopes at high-fractional-c velocities and impacting them against gold targets. The quagma lasts for microseconds but it is providing insight into the formation of the universe.

As a research tool, quagma has a lot of potential. It can provide a lot of research-fodder for many years to come. As a weapon, well, who knows. It's probably a lot easier to just slam a rock into a target at a hundred kilometers a second. 'Smooshed' is 'smooshed,' wether it's done with a kinetic kill weapon or a quagma... uhm, a quagma whatever.

For some ideas of what quagma could be used for in a more practical (and way, way, way, near-magitech) sense, see Stephen Baxter's 'Vacuum Diagrams.' (Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence almost puts Banks' Culture novels to shame in terms of sheer scope and scale. And it is most assuredly not mere technobabble.)