Sci-fi weaponry question

russellb6666 · Post by **russellb6666** » 2004-01-06 04:29pm

I'm currently getting the basics of a Sci-fi fic written down and ready and I was thinking of useing a Death Star sized railgun as the uber battle sation the good guys have to defeat but i'm just wondering if a "RailStar" would be possible let alone technically feasible. If so how technilogically advanced a society would have to be (i.e. star trek level, star wars level, Culture,ect) to build it so it would cause DS1 type planetary damage because once I figure that out I can to begin to get my story more together.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-01-06 05:41pm

I'd expect that the railguns slug would punch clear through the planet, killing everyone and scorching the surface but not blowing it apart. Anyway, you?d need at least Star Wars if not higher tech.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2004-01-06 05:55pm

One word. Conservation of momentum (Joke there of course

). The stress from recoil would be obscenely powerful. You'd need Culture level tech (or maybe even Time Lords) to deal with it effectively IMO.

Or you could technobabble it away as I do with the relavistic weapons in my universe.

An easier way to do it would be to give the projectile its own technobabblicious field drive to acellerate it, pulling the energy and momentum out of some alternate dimension of funkiness.

russellb6666 · Post by **russellb6666** » 2004-01-06 07:52pm

NecronLord wrote:One word. Conservation of momentum (Joke there of course ). The stress from recoil would be obscenely powerful. You'd need Culture level tech (or maybe even Time Lords) to deal with it effectively IMO.

Or you could technobabble it away as I do with the relavistic weapons in my universe.

An easier way to do it would be to give the projectile its own technobabblicious field drive to acellerate it, pulling the energy and momentum out of some alternate dimension of funkiness.

darn I was hoping it wouldn't take a large tech level as I have not read either the culture or Time lords series of books and I'm not very knowledgeable about their strengths or weaknesses. Ok then excluding a superlaser railgun or any of the other Star Wars uber weapons what kind of planet destoying thing could be built into something the size of the DS1 and not have trek level technobabble to make it work?

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2004-01-07 08:09am

A DS1 sized railgun? Wouldn't that be almost like a moon-sized Magnum or some other gun, shooting huge-ass bullets at planets? Because that would be absolutely hilarious. The good guys could fly in through barrel and destroy the gun powder-powered reactor core, or some such.

As for other ideas without technobabble: You can use a very huge laser to destroy a planet. The only technobabble you would need would be for powering the thing, and probably cooling. But that goes with all such weapons (weapons that can destroy planets that is).

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2004-01-07 09:59am

Hmmm..... instead of using railguns, you could just put a warp drive in the bullet and send it to super fast speeds and BOOM!

And that bullet could contain obscene amounts of anti-matter. Like.... a thousand tons of anti-matter? Imagine what wonders that could do

But, that would be sheer overkill.

Comosicus · Post by **Comosicus** » 2004-01-07 10:34am

As far as I know a railgun is not a gunpowdered weapon (but I can be wrong ... I'm not a native English speaker), but a weapon that propells the projectile using electromagnetic fields. Even if that is not the name of that type of weapon, I think you can use this idea ... and I don't think this thing will have such a powerfull recoil (I can be wrong again

) ... you can have as an example the Gauss rifle from Fallout 2 , but at a DS1 size

About the impact ... you can make the projectile explosive or something like that

this should take care of that planet ... if not destroying it entirely, then at least cracking it

Post by **NecronLord** » 2004-01-07 11:45am

russellb6666 wrote: darn I was hoping it wouldn't take a large tech level as I have not read either the culture or Time lords series of books and I'm not very knowledgeable about their strengths or weaknesses.

The Time Lords are from the British Sci Fi Series Doctor Who (Which is, co-incidentally, the longest running Sci Fi Series ever), their crappiest spacecraft is flat out invunerable to all but their own weapons, and vastly larger on the inside than the outside and can travel to any point in time and space, and apparently has a realspace speed of 1.314 e 13 C (Stupidly ueber though all that sounds, the ship is quite unarmed, though in some of it's apocrytha we see a millitary version, which is much scarier, and could easily lay the smackdown on the empire on its own and really the kind of smackdown the empire could lay on the UFP at that, anyway, the ship is basically just used as a narrative point, good way to get your characters anywhere and anywhen you want) Just FYI. There's also a link to Culture info on the OSF forum.

Ok then excluding a superlaser railgun or any of the other Star Wars uber weapons what kind of planet destoying thing could be built into something the size of the DS1 and not have trek level technobabble to make it work?

Well, the Culture tend to do it in ships a few hundred meters long, so there's a neat tech level. Pretty much anything that releases the required energy at the target. It's up to you how dense it would need to be, or you could have a chain reaction weapon like Dr Device (Ender books).

russellb6666 · Post by **russellb6666** » 2004-01-07 05:49pm

I just had a really off-the-wall-what-the-hell-are-you-sniffing idea for a giant uber weapon I could use: A giant DeathStar sized Sledgehammer, practical it isn't I know or maybe not even possible but I still have this mental picture of the GIANT SLEDGEHAMMER OF DOOM coming up on an unsespecting planet really big rocket fire on the back of the top of the hammer and the planet is destroyed galligar style

. So what do you think? good idea or just so horribly stupid it makes your head implode?

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2004-01-07 06:21pm

russellb6666 wrote:I just had a really off-the-wall-what-the-hell-are-you-sniffing idea for a giant uber weapon I could use: A giant DeathStar sized Sledgehammer, practical it isn't I know or maybe not even possible but I still have this mental picture of the GIANT SLEDGEHAMMER OF DOOM coming up on an unsespecting planet really big rocket fire on the back of the top of the hammer and the planet is destroyed galligar style . So what do you think? good idea or just so horribly stupid it makes your head implode?

Head...Imploding...damn...wrong...head...

buzz_knox · Post by **buzz_knox** » 2004-01-08 12:45pm

russellb6666 wrote:I just had a really off-the-wall-what-the-hell-are-you-sniffing idea for a giant uber weapon I could use: A giant DeathStar sized Sledgehammer, practical it isn't I know or maybe not even possible but I still have this mental picture of the GIANT SLEDGEHAMMER OF DOOM coming up on an unsespecting planet really big rocket fire on the back of the top of the hammer and the planet is destroyed galligar style . So what do you think? good idea or just so horribly stupid it makes your head implode?

Sort of like the Space Maid from Spaceballs, but with a major case of PMS?

AdmiralTDM · Post by **AdmiralTDM** » 2004-01-09 08:55am

What ever happened to just nuking the hell out of the basterds the good old fashioned way? It worked in Battlestar Galactica...

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-01-09 11:15am

Planet busting weapons are ridiculas. It would be better to uses nukes to turn the surface into a wasteland.

victorhadin · Post by **victorhadin** » 2004-01-09 11:31am

We need antimatter.

Lots of antimatter.

-So goes my thesis on the subject of hurting planets.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-01-09 11:37am

An ant-matter bomb actualy. Just anti-matter without any containment would quickly dissipate in space once launched.

victorhadin · Post by **victorhadin** » 2004-01-09 11:52am

OMG! REALLY!?

I just intended to spray it from a big aerosol can too!

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2004-01-09 10:18pm

A mass driver (a gizmo that flings a meteor into a planet) could easily leave a world a wasteland, though it wouldn't blow it up or anything. Mass drivers are pretty common in sci-fi. They're seen in B5, the Marvelverse (showed up in an episode of Justice League), and Star Wars Time Tales. It's more practical than your huge ass railgun idea as there's no need to make the ammo; it can be grabbed from nearby space.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-01-10 05:12am

victorhadin wrote:OMG! REALLY!?

I just intended to spray it from a big aerosol can too!

Try new Planet-b-Gone for all your genocidal needs. Shake well before using and watch your enemies quail in fear.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-01-10 03:21pm

Trogdor wrote:Mass drivers are pretty common in sci-fi. They're seen in B5, the Marvelverse (showed up in an episode of Justice League), and Star Wars Time Tales.

A nitpick: Justice League is DC, not Marvel. I thought that was obvious.

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Sci-fi weaponry question

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