Lightning guns

[Agemegos]

You want a futuristic weapon? Have your civilization figure out how to miniaturise nuclear warheads to the point where you can fit one inside a 9mm round. Or perhaps invent some sort of super-efficient containment system that lets them fill a 9mm bullet with antimatter.

One idea I had was that you might assemble an artificial molecule with a pair of ferromagnetic atoms either side of a large cavity like the inside of a buckyball. Maybe if you squinted a bit and didn't know enough about organic chemistry this would form an itsy bitsy eeny-teeny Penning trap, just big enough for a pair of positrons in opposite spins w.r.t. the fields of the ferromagnetic atoms. The thing ought to be stable so long as you don't distort it too much (shock) or break down the moleucule (flame, ionisation). When you did, the two positrons would escape, annihilating two electrons to produce four brutal gamma rays. These will be absorbed by the surrounding material, ionising, heating and compressing it and releasing positrons from adjacent molecules. In other words, it would be an explosive.

If we say very roughly that the molecule is about C(120)H(120)Fe(2) it would have a molecular weight of about 1672 AMU. Its disassembly would involve a 0.000 014% conversion of mass to heat and shock, or 13 GJ per kg. That isn't anything like the yield-for-mass of atomic weapons, but it is orders of magnitude better than chemical reactions, and it is scalable to much smaller charges than nukes are good for.

A bullet containing a gram of of that stuff would ruin somebody's day.

And then, when technology improves, you can put an anti-proton in place of the two electrons, for 8,500 times the yield. Bang!

And it might be useful as a high-specific-impulse rocket fuel.

[Agemegos]

By the way, I call the below "chelated antimatter".

One idea I had was that you might assemble an artificial molecule with a pair of ferromagnetic atoms either side of a large cavity like the inside of a buckyball. Maybe if you squinted a bit and didn't know enough about organic chemistry this would form an itsy bitsy eeny-teeny Penning trap, just big enough for a pair of positrons in opposite spins w.r.t. the fields of the ferromagnetic atoms. The thing ought to be stable so long as you don't distort it too much (shock) or break down the moleucule (flame, ionisation). When you did, the two positrons would escape, annihilating two electrons to produce four brutal gamma rays. These will be absorbed by the surrounding material, ionising, heating and compressing it and releasing positrons from adjacent molecules. In other words, it would be an explosive.

If we say very roughly that the molecule is about C(120)H(120)Fe(2) it would have a molecular weight of about 1672 AMU. Its disassembly would involve a 0.000 014% conversion of mass to heat and shock, or 13 GJ per kg. That isn't anything like the yield-for-mass of atomic weapons, but it is orders of magnitude better than chemical reactions, and it is scalable to much smaller charges than nukes are good for.

A bullet containing a gram of of that stuff would ruin somebody's day.

And then, when technology improves, you can put an anti-proton in place of the two electrons, for 8,500 times the yield. Bang!

And it might be useful as a high-specific-impulse rocket fuel.

[Admiral Valdemar]

To stick up for the underdog here, I happen to like my phased plasma rifle (The gun they use in Terminator, it's just a cosmetic thing, I just like it, okay). I do not, however, go into the modus operendi (sp?) of such fancy weapons when I write about them. In fact, I don't even worry about whether or not they're possible or even practical, because not much else in the story is practical either (there's a good guy, a bad guy, the good guy kills the bad guy and gets the girl in the end, and he uses a really big, really fancy gun to do this with).

There's really no reason you can't have your lightning gun, just don't get too far into trying to JUSTIFY it. It's good enough to just SAY something works. If you tell a good story, I won't bother to undercut you for saying your "lightning gun" is stupid.


Org roared and charged Hero, chainsaw in one hand and machete in the other, shouting "I'm gonna kill ya until ya die from it humie!"

Hero raised his lightning gun and fired. Org stopped in his tracks, but not by his own will. The sudden jolt of electricity caused his soft tissue to illuminate like a lightbulb, a confused looking skeleton prominent in the brilliant glare. Hero released the trigger. Only a thin film of ash settled on the deck where Org once stood.


...or something like that. Don't bother explaining how it works, if you feel you must, just use it. Part of writing good sci fi, at least by my experience, is to follow your instinct.

Aside from the name, which is somewhat anomalous (phased meaning what?), the weaponry in the Termie universe is doable, since it is basically handheld particle beams. The visual and aural effects are pretty much spot on (that one scene in T2 prior to the credits showing odd trajectory fire is very skewed atmospheric interference with the beam, which will disperse over distance due to the Earth's magnetic field and gravity, etc.).

[wolveraptor]

I don't seek to explain how stuff works: indeed, whenever I read some pointless monologue from a character or the narrator on how some weapons works, I feel nauseous. I just compulsively worry about whether weapons I devise are inherently stupid, so I can't comfortably write with them until I know they're semi-plausible at least.

[Agemegos]

I've been trying hard to think up a sci fi weapon that didn't resort to the usual cliches of plasma and lasers, but weren't as boring as plain old bullets and missiles.

Try smallarms that fire minaturised rocket-propelled grenades with HEAT warheads. About 10-12mm calibre ought to be enough. And solid-fuel rockets ought to be chep enough. They can have little pop-out fins if you are firing them in air, but if you want to use them in vaccuum you would have to make them with three tiny offset jets that gave them a stabilising spin.

The ammo might be a bit heavy, but the weapons should be light to offset that. And with a bit of work you ought to be able to make the weapon itself essentially recoilless, which is handy in 0-gee combat.

The rockets are likely to be visible (like trcer), and to leave a thread of smoke behind them. That is a definite disadvantage in military use, but on the other hand, full-auto fire ought to be spectacular. Noisy, too.

[Winston Blake]

Aside from the name, which is somewhat anomalous (phased meaning what?), the weaponry in the Termie universe is doable, since it is basically handheld particle beams. The visual and aural effects are pretty much spot on (that one scene in T2 prior to the credits showing odd trajectory fire is very skewed atmospheric interference with the beam, which will disperse over distance due to the Earth's magnetic field and gravity, etc.).

If you're talking about the bit where Connor looks out over the battlefield, i figured that might have been due to intervening smoke clouds happening to make a burst look like a single wacky round. If the visual effects are pretty much spot on, how do you account for low velocity of the bolts?

[Admiral Valdemar]

If you're talking about the bit where Connor looks out over the battlefield, i figured that might have been due to intervening smoke clouds happening to make a burst look like a single wacky round. If the visual effects are pretty much spot on, how do you account for low velocity of the bolts?

In the first film, the bolts are instantaneous. In T2, they vary from shit-fast, to damn-slow. The irony here is that T2 was a massive budget blockbuster, and the first film was a low-budget B-movie. If they were continuous beams, they'd be like the heat-rays in the 2005 WOTW movie, which even showed beam colouration shift depending on particulates in the atmosphere (you can get red, green and blue lightning for instance).

[Winston Blake]

I've been trying hard to think up a sci fi weapon that didn't resort to the usual cliches of plasma and lasers, but weren't as boring as plain old bullets and missiles.

Try smallarms that fire minaturised rocket-propelled grenades with HEAT warheads. About 10-12mm calibre ought to be enough.

And solid-fuel rockets ought to be chep enough. They can have little pop-out fins if you are firing them in air, but if you want to use them in vaccuum you would have to make them with three tiny offset jets that gave them a stabilising spin.

This faction better be rolling in cash, because each one of those is going to cost a bundle. Raufoss rounds (made of a relatively simple hard core, little block of HE and some incendiary stuff) apparently cost US$35-50 each, and this proposal has a tiny HEAT warhead (whose penetration depends on diameter), multiple rocket motors and folding fins. I wouldn't be surprised if a grunt could blow away several thousand dollars in a few seconds.

Though of course, if you're a genetically engineered demigod, cost isn't such an issue.

The ammo might be a bit heavy, but the weapons should be light to offset that. And with a bit of work you ought to be able to make the weapon itself essentially recoilless, which is handy in 0-gee combat.

Recoil in space isn't as powerful as commonly assumed:

If you are sure you won't hit anything but the space pirate, a standard handgun like a .45 automatic might do. One might think that the recoil would be uncontrollable in free fall, but both Dr. Schilling and Erik Max Francis are of the opinion that such recoil is vastly overrated. In a firefight, you'd be trying to keep behind some cover (or you'd be dead) so you'd be braced in some fashion. Any bracing at all would take care of the recoil. Erik (working with somebody else's figures) calculates that the recoil will spin you at the minuscule rate of a few degrees per second. (bullet momentum 4 kg m/s, fired from 40 cm from the center of the axis, the angular momentum imparted to the marksman is thus 1.6 kg m2/s. Divide that by marksman's moment of inertia, and you get an angular speed of 0.05 rad/s, or less than 3 deg/s.) If you wanted to use your handgun for propulsion, Trip the Space Parasite calculates that a .45 automatic will give 0.12 m/s of deltaV to a 50 kg person.

The rockets are likely to be visible (like trcer), and to leave a thread of smoke behind them. That is a definite disadvantage in military use, but on the other hand, full-auto fire ought to be spectacular. Noisy, too.

Smokeless propellants are probably perfectly feasible, but then again, as with the Gyrojet, you still get condensation trails sometimes (e.g. in the cold early morning).

[Shroom Man 777]

Frangible means a projectile which is designed to shatter and covers several different types of thing. Some Frangible pistol ammo for example is intended only for training, and shatters when it hits a wall so it can’t ricochet. Other Frangible ammo is designed to shatter only after it has pierced armor, doing much more damage to whatever is behind that armor then a single solid projectile would have.

These are the same bullets they use when dealing with airplane hijackers, am I correct?

[SVPD]

What's wrong with just giving it a name like "a disruptor" or "a phaser" or "a turbolaser" or "a thermal detonator" and describing the effects without trying to explain how something that doesn't actually exists works?

That's a rhetorical question, isn't it?

Semi-Rhetorical. What I was getting at was that if you want to write something sci-fi, but stick to the laws of physics as we understand them, at some point you simply have to say "This is a <insertnameofcooldevicehere> and this is what it does.

Look at phasers or hyperdrive. Do we have any actual knowledge of how such devices might work? No, but we have to accept that they do for suspension of disbelief to work.

When you write an original sci fi work (not a fanfic or extension of someone else's work) you're creating canon. What works in your universe works because you say so. In honorverse, for example, huge starships violate conservation of momentum because Weber says so. If you're going to violate fundamental laws of physics you either have to invent some imaginary undiscovered principle and explain it, or simply say "this is what this machine does" and leave the details of operation to the imagination of the reader.

[Cykeisme]

Look at phasers or hyperdrive. Do we have any actual knowledge of how such devices might work?

Curtis Saxton postulated a hypothesis that describes the nature of hyperdrive very well does not conflict with the physical laws that we are aware of, and with a minimum number of unknown terms.
Personally, such explanations enhance the experience for me.

[Sea Skimmer]

These are the same bullets they use when dealing with airplane hijackers, am I correct?

Yup they use a form of non AP frangible ammo. Works better then hollowpoints, but its also costs more.

[Ford Prefect]

Personally, I find the idea of a gun that shoots lightning to be hot.

Err, yes. Anyway, I personally use 'bullets' in my writings; though in the case of military grade repeaters they're closer to hyperfast drones made out of defects in space/time (wrap your head around THAT ). Generally, I would only explain this weapon - and the fact it has a muzzle flash - for pure comedy value.

[Sonnenburg]

Let me suggest the following:
-Remember that technology doesn't spontaneously emerge. Someone created this thing. Why did they do this and not something else? I doubt people at the Pentagon get the contract proposals and say "Wow, this one is expensive, has a pitifully short range, and isn't very effective, but it's wicked cool looking! Buy a few million!"
-If you want a weapon that does something, devise a logical way for it to do that. If you want a weapon that looks a certain way when used, devise a logical way for it to work. In other words, making a lightning bolt leap out and zap someone is technically suspect. If you want the effect of it, why bother making it an actual lightning bolt when you can devise another means of accomplishing the same thing? Likewise, if you just like the image of a lightning bolt, why not make it something else that simply has the appearance of a lightning bolt?

[wolveraptor]

"Wow, this one is expensive, has a pitifully short range, and isn't very effective, but it's wicked cool looking! Buy a few million!"

Can you imagine how awesome our weapons would be if they actually said this? We'd probably have Mega-phased Distortion Beam Cannons or Interpolated Particle Acceleration Rays.

The image is what I'm really looking for, but I can't for the life of me think of any force of energy that has the same look. What else has the bifurcating and or jagged pattern and flashy glow of lightning?

[Darth Wong]

The image is what I'm really looking for, but I can't for the life of me think of any force of energy that has the same look. What else has the bifurcating and or jagged pattern and flashy glow of lightning?

Who gives a fuck? Why are you wanking about the visual image of your weapon anyway? I don't care how you write your lovingly crafted visual description of what the weapon looks like as its beam scythes through the air; it's going to come off as wanking.

Besides, what kind of idiot wants such a highly visible and distinctive trail leading people back to his shooting position?

[Sonnenburg]

"Wow, this one is expensive, has a pitifully short range, and isn't very effective, but it's wicked cool looking! Buy a few million!"

Can you imagine how awesome our weapons would be if they actually said this? We'd probably have Mega-phased Distortion Beam Cannons or Interpolated Particle Acceleration Rays.

And Americans would be speaking Arabic after losing to Iraq. Don't get caught up in names/tech. Ten thousand years of technological advancement, and our soldiers still carry something those first warriors did that were huddled in caves: a knife. Why? Because however advanced technology gets, a good sharp edge will always be a useful weapon and tool. For your new technology to be adopted, it's got to have something that makes it better than what's already there, or it's not a weapon, it's a toy.

The image is what I'm really looking for, but I can't for the life of me think of any force of energy that has the same look. What else has the bifurcating and or jagged pattern and flashy glow of lightning?

I don't think anything does according to known science. Darth Wong brings up an important point: Why would someone devise a weapon to do this? There are many disadvantages, how are you going to address them?

[wolveraptor]

I don't give a shit if it's wanking to describe one's weapons: I'm only writing stuff for my own enjoyment, not for anyone else's.

Besides, what kind of idiot wants such a highly visible and distinctive trail leading people back to his shooting position?

I'm using this as a short range weapon, remember? You're already visible at that propinquity.

[wilfulton]

Aside from the name, which is somewhat anomalous (phased meaning what?), the weaponry in the Termie universe is doable, since it is basically handheld particle beams. The visual and aural effects are pretty much spot on (that one scene in T2 prior to the credits showing odd trajectory fire is very skewed atmospheric interference with the beam, which will disperse over distance due to the Earth's magnetic field and gravity, etc.).[/quote]

A phased plasma weapon is somewhat iffy because plasma is inherently chaotic (from Mike's plasma weapons page). Mostly I just like the name.
My phased plasma rifle is actually quite like Terminator's, luminal (or near luminal) bolt/beam. I explain it in dialoge form, however, as something along the lines of "Phased has nothing to do with the output, just the means of handling the plasma," and I leave it at that.

Quite frankly, I care less if a weapon is labelled an "atomic toilet plunger" and fires flaming balls of shit at the bad guys until they explode in a nuclear fireball. I just don't what to hear all the phased quantum fuckulations that make it work.

But do keep in mind also, you're hearing this from a guy that found the Halo novels rather enjoyable, despite the fact that neither Nylund nor Dietz could keep their numbers straight. So long as he didn't try to explain how anything worked, it was fine.

[wolveraptor]

And Americans would be speaking Arabic after losing to Iraq. Don't get caught up in names/tech. Ten thousand years of technological advancement, and our soldiers still carry something those first warriors did that were huddled in caves: a knife. Why? Because however advanced technology gets, a good sharp edge will always be a useful weapon and tool. For your new technology to be adopted, it's got to have something that makes it better than what's already there, or it's not a weapon, it's a toy.

I was joking about the Phased Distortion whatchamacallit things. I do recognize the need for practicallity, which is why I changed it to something that was already in development. This, however, doesn't mean I couldn't think up something that's both cool and practical.

I think the disadvantage that affects me even at short range is that this weapons would be drawn towards metal structures, plentiful on a futuristic battlefield. On the other hand, since it's non-lethal, it might be for civil peace enforcement; I don't expect there to be overwhelming amounts of metal in urban areas: enough concrete would render this weapon worthwhile.

[brianeyci]

Look at phasers or hyperdrive. Do we have any actual knowledge of how such devices might work?

I'm sure you already know this, but looking to television for advice on how to create a science fiction universe for writing is a terrible idea. Take out Orson Card's How to Write Science Fiction and turn to his chapter on universe creation where he mentions Star Trek. Writers have to avoid any association with warp drive so as not to appear like they only know science fiction from Trek. The reason is people who read books are more sophisticated and just won't accept the Captain of a starship going on away missions. The suggestions in this thread are right--you should not focus on what's looking cool, but what kind of questions are popping in your reader's mind when you make this universe. These kind of people (intelligent, informed people) are the kind of people who are going to read your novels or short stories and if they think that a lightning gun is stupid, it is frankly stupid not to listen. Give the people what they want. It's the curse and blessing of writing for an intelligent audience. On the one hand you can't just shovel shit in their mouth. On the other if you give them sugar they'll be devoted.

Unless you're creating your universe for your own ego. If you are, why are you bothering to ask.

Phasers are important in the Star Trek universe because it gave Captain Kirk a stun setting. Also completely disappearing people is something arguably worse than death. I think that's the same kind of question you should be asking, that's already been mentioned--what does your new technology do that's better than the old.

You're right that you don't need to worry about explaining the mechanics in the story. But I think everything should do a job. A lightning gun should do a job. Maybe it's a weapon of a sadistic killer that likes to electrocute people. Maybe it's the only thing effective against shields. Whatever. But I don't think it should be just because it looks cool or sounds cool. Fans won't accept that. They'll accept a lightning gun--look at Palpatine electrocuting people, that's not real lightning and it's a magical power, but only under the right circumstances.

I personally like the idea of a 12 mm gun with a HEAT bullet, fins and rockets. Yum yum, for elite soldiers only though .

Brian

[wolveraptor]

Unless you're creating your universe for your own ego. If you are, why are you bothering to ask.

I can't be as satisfied with something if I have the nagging feeling that its premise is bullshit. But all the stuff I got on writing styles or what people will like is not what I was looking for when starting the thread.

[brianeyci]

I thought of a couple more justifications for the development of a lightning gun.

• The military's looking at it and built a prototype. And why not, look at the US military blowing money on powered armor, Future Soldier and Future Combat System. Even if a lightning gun is stupid, if it becomes possible in the future you'd better believe there would be billions blown on it. But then somehow, someone on the inside steals the prototype and goes on a rampage with it because he thinks it's particularly gruesome and makes a statement. Even if it can only shoot a few meters, it's the fear factor.
• The entire military's equipped with these weapons, because the military's government are fundamentalists and in their holy book/bible/doctrine/whatever there's a story of a god shooting lightning bolts like Thor and they find it an honorable way to fight.
• The lightning gun is used on spaceships because bullets are too powerful aka the PPG excuse. Body armor is particularly vulnerable to it, but bulkheads aren't

All these are based on "lightning" being a colloquialism, that is it's not really lightning but just looks like it. In your story you would never have what's called an information dump (go down to "As you know Bob") explaining the mechanism of your lightning gun. So why worry about how it works? I think the best thing to do is worry about what it does, not how it works. Then you can figure out how it works later, if its absolutely necessary. I know that Asimov and SF greats used to do it, but SF has evolved. I think that the biggest difference between SF today and SF in the past is that today SF readers have read the Asimovs, the Herberts, all the classics, and won't stand for the kind of writing that has one character explain a technology to another character when realistically they should both already know how it works. Looking at really old issues of Amazing Stories and other magazines you have characters talking to each other like this,

"As you know Harry, this gun works through X and does this with Y."

"Yes, and the only place that would be useful would be..."

"Here, in the South Docks! He must be here!"

I guess I don't have to tell you why this doesn't work anymore .

And there's a billion other reasons if you really want a lightning gun in your story. But note that it doesn't start with the lightning gun at least with me... I would think of the story I want to tell first, then think what would be the best tools for the story.

Brian

[Ford Prefect]

Who gives a fuck? Why are you wanking about the visual image of your weapon anyway? I don't care how you write your lovingly crafted visual description of what the weapon looks like as its beam scythes through the air; it's going to come off as wanking.

Because visual description is an important part of the storytelling process? Investing a fair amount of time in your ability to show events (not just action scenes, of course) can draw a person into what could be a rather bland experience. This is especially true of action scenes, which need vibrant description so that stay exciting for the reader, and not a chore to work through.

[Darth Wong]

Who gives a fuck? Why are you wanking about the visual image of your weapon anyway? I don't care how you write your lovingly crafted visual description of what the weapon looks like as its beam scythes through the air; it's going to come off as wanking.

Because visual description is an important part of the storytelling process? Investing a fair amount of time in your ability to show events (not just action scenes, of course) can draw a person into what could be a rather bland experience. This is especially true of action scenes, which need vibrant description so that stay exciting for the reader, and not a chore to work through.

Vibrant descriptions of what's happening to the people and/or their vehicles are what draws in readers. Vibrant descriptions of how certain technologies or weapons work are not.