Turbolaser idea

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2005-06-01 05:25am

Regarding the effects of turbolasers and firepower. I had an idea about that. Let's treat a turbolaser like a gamma-ray laser that is so focused it is microscopically thin and apply that to some scenarios.

I just came up with this since

1) Saxton says on his site the beams might be microscopically thin, which would explain alot why there is little collateral damage and be very effective at penetrating armored hulls.

2) Turbolasers pretty much do not interact with air and such, only dense objects and would as such not loose alot of energy to an atmosphere.

Thus it seems to me that a turbolaser could be on some level analogous to a gamma ray laser, it fires luxons of some kind, is a beam, is highly focused and is transparent to non-opaque things.

So what if those SPHA-T's where firing teraton level gamma-ray lasers with microscopic cross-sections in AOTC, what would have happened? Would we have seen massive atmospheric effects? Would the dust kicked into the air after the coreship dropped have made firing them again a dangerous proposition?

What if the turbolasers that vaporized the asteroids in TESB where replaced with lasers like this? Would it punch through or still vape them(assuming the beam power was in the KT- low MT range)?

What is a 200GT gamma-ray laser with a microscopic cross-section was fired on an earth like planet from space? What sort of effects could we expect?

The problem here is that I do not have the required knowledge of physics and math to figure out these scenarios, if one could and they yield results that could be very close to the movies then I think we have something here.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2005-06-01 06:26am

Not sure about the effects on the target, but a gamma ray laser certainly wouldn't have a visible portion with a propogation velocity that's actually discernible. There's also the matter of the weapons recoiling.

Also, I'm not sure about this but the turbolaser bolts have higher energy transferrence efficiency (was going to say "force coupling" heh) than a laser would.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2005-06-01 06:33am

Cykeisme wrote:Not sure about the effects on the target, but a gamma ray laser certainly wouldn't have a visible portion with a propogation velocity that's actually discernible. There's also the matter of the weapons recoiling.

They are not relevant, for all it's exotic portions, the turbolaser fires a beam of luxons like a laser does, so in those areas we should be able to use the known properties of such a laser beam.

How it would be generated and recoil are not relevvant factors.

Also, I'm not sure about this but the turbolaser bolts have higher energy transferrence efficiency (was going to say "force coupling" heh) than a laser would.

How do you know that?

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2005-06-01 08:08am

I'm not clear about the point of the original post.
Are you asserting that turbolasers are gamma ray lasers, or that gamma ray lasers can produce destructive effects in a target similar to turbolasers?

If it's the former, then I believe the points I mentioned discount this. Capital ships have superstructure reinforcements and hardpoints designed specifically to resist the massive recoil that is described as otherwise being able to otherwise tear a ship apart. If the problematic recoil was the cost of merely having a "tracer" bolt effect, I doubt it's worth it.
Much more knowledgeable individuals and I have expounded on the myriad properties exhibited by turbolasers which preclude their being "lasers" of any frequency.

If it's the latter you're getting at (gamma ray lasers having similar target effects), then I'm not qualified to make qualitative assessments.

I'd mistakenly taken calculations of lower limits for turbolaser yield (on the site) and took it to mean that turbolaser yield was close to the lower limits. So natch on that topic, my bad.

Edit: Added the word "any" before the word "frequency", which I'd left out somehow.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2005-06-01 08:13am

Cykeisme wrote:If it's the latter you're getting at (gamma ray lasers having similar target effects), then I'm not qualified to make qualitative assessments.

Yes, I think they might be very similar, thus it might be an idea to use such an imaginary weapon to figure out target effects, it might yield interesting results.

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-06-01 10:58am

I think a lot of the stigma about "OMG 200 GTs, where is teh mushroom cloud?!!1!/!1!!?!" comes from the fact that we're rating things in "gigatons," which is a unit typically associated with explosives (things that go boom) rather than energy weapons (things that go piew piew).

Say to someone, "This energy beam fires a beam rated at 200 GTs" and they'll say, "Where are the atmospheric effects from such a blast?" Say to someone, "This energy beam fires a beam rated at 8.4x10^8 TJ" and they won't bat an eye. It's a brainbug, perhaps, but that's always been the way I've reacted to it.

On an only moderately related topic...

I really don't want to derail the thread with this, but:

HDS wrote:They are not relevant, for all it's exotic portions, the turbolaser fires a beam of luxons like a laser does

That irritates the shit out of me. "Hey, let's totally ignore the visible properties of something, which is what we use to analyze it to begin with, and arbitrarily assign an explanation we like." I'm not blaming you or anything, but that's really what it boils down to.

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2005-06-01 11:50am

McC wrote:That irritates the shit out of me. "Hey, let's totally ignore the visible properties of something, which is what we use to analyze it to begin with, and arbitrarily assign an explanation we like." I'm not blaming you or anything, but that's really what it boils down to.

We've gone over this before... there is certainly plenty of paying attention to the visuals. But none of this is relevant to what HDS is trying to do in this thread. Do a search for the other turbolaser threads to see the tie-ins to visuals. Don't do it in here.

This thread asks the question: if turbolasers were replaced with gamma-ray lasers, what would be the effects in these scenarios? Can we get to answering that question instead of stating the obvious, that they aren't gamma-ray lasers? He knows that part already, otherwise he wouldn't be asking what would happen if they were replaced with them...

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-06-01 12:07pm

Mad wrote:We've gone over this before... there is certainly plenty of paying attention to the visuals. But none of this is relevant to what HDS is trying to do in this thread. Do a search for the other turbolaser threads to see the tie-ins to visuals. Don't do it in here.

McC wrote:I really don't want to derail the thread with this

It was a rant. Let it lie.

Mad wrote:This thread asks the question: if turbolasers were replaced with gamma-ray lasers, what would be the effects in these scenarios? Can we get to answering that question instead of stating the obvious, that they aren't gamma-ray lasers? He knows that part already, otherwise he wouldn't be asking what would happen if they were replaced with them...

According to Wikipedia, Gamma rays (which are indistinguishable from high-energy X-rays, apparently) affect things through three methods: the photoelectric effect, Compton scattering, and pair production. I dunno if this would hold true for a gamma ray lasers as well, but I would imagine so...

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2005-06-01 03:24pm

McC wrote:
HDS wrote:They are not relevant, for all it's exotic portions, the turbolaser fires a beam of luxons like a laser does
That irritates the shit out of me. "Hey, let's totally ignore the visible properties of something, which is what we use to analyze it to begin with, and arbitrarily assign an explanation we like." I'm not blaming you or anything, but that's really what it boils down to.

Its called canon.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2005-06-01 03:36pm

I'm curious.. why haven't we all been discussing energy outputs in units of Joules instead of tons of TNT from the beginning?

Is it because weapons traditionally have their yields described in megatons?

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-06-01 03:44pm

Cykeisme wrote:I'm curious.. why haven't we all been discussing energy outputs in units of Joules instead of tons of TNT from the beginning?

Is it because weapons traditionally have their yields described in megatons?

More or less because it's easier to write it. Compare 200 GT with 8.4x10^8 TJ. Joules are, basically, 'too small.'

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2005-06-01 04:32pm

Ah, I see. That's certainly true.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2005-06-01 04:45pm

McC wrote:Say to someone, "This energy beam fires a beam rated at 200 GTs" and they'll say, "Where are the atmospheric effects from such a blast?" Say to someone, "This energy beam fires a beam rated at 8.4x10^8 TJ" and they won't bat an eye. It's a brainbug, perhaps, but that's always been the way I've reacted to it.

The question still needs to be asked though. While diret energy transfer methods and explosive methods force couple differently, the atmospheric effects should be the same because the atmospheric effects are the result of thermal bloom from the energy, The difference would be that an explosive releases more of its energy into the atmosphere to have the effects.

That siad, a high frequency laser is an imperfect chouce for modeling TL behavior after. In many ways it is more similar to the way a particle beam will behave. Hence why a new explanation was required in the ICS, and why people have a hard time accepting that explanation - they keep trying to shoehorn it into existing models when its qualities make it something new.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2005-06-02 03:03am

I would like to see some behavioral predictions and scenarios using that then, so we can see how well it works.