Lightsaber style Weapon Idea

[Link the First]

Hey SD, I was looking for another opinion on a slightly crazy idea. It was originally for a scifi universe that I wanted to be more realistic than most, but the idea of a lightsaber-type weapon was too cool to pass up. I call it an arc saber because of how it works.

The handle is basically a lightsaber or sword hilt, as usual with the blade missing. A microscopically thin wire is coiled up in the business end. When activated, an electrical current is sent through the wire (which is insulated except right at the tip). The electricity arcs back from the tip to the hilt, creating a plasma blade that resembles a lightning bolt (or a lightsaber blade). For added help, magnets can repel the wire to keep it straight, though the wire's own EM field might align it anyway (not entirely sure about that). In addition, an ultraviolet laser can fire at a small mirror on the end of the cord, reflecting back and forth between that and the hilt until it converts the air into a conductive plasma blade, giving the electricity a straight path to follow.

I would imagine striking with this thing would result in the electric arc jumping from right around the wire directly into the target, though that depends on the angles involved and what exactly your target is (specifically whether it is more conductive than the air). The wire should make it the equivalent of an extremely sharp blade, which would be more effective when the electric arc heats everything around it.

I'm guessing this would be dependent on fictional materials, but I could live with that.

[Covenant]

It's already been done in a variety of ways. You'll in particular want to look up the variable sword from Known Space for a weapon that, while not exactly the same, is similar. It's a cool idea, and if you'd been born about 40 years ago, you may have been the first guy to think it up! Sadly, you got screwed by an accident of chronology.

In any case, the problem is always keeping the blade together in any sort of monofilament device. Known Space uses slaver stasis fields for it, but in your case, you're using EM wierdness. Thing is, even so, you're just gonna get it all fucked up and it'll break. Any EM device powerful enough to do that and able to fit in a sword-size hilt would be a terrifying weapon on it's own, and the electrical stuff... yeah, just no good. All it would do is jump the current into the first target and die. What good is that?

For a more effective lightning weapon, consider the ever cool twin-laser device that ionizes a corridor through the air and allows it to pass a current down into a target without any interceding material.

Besides, as we all know, plasma weapons are stupid. Plasma isn't any hotter than what it's been heated to, so you could just as well make a hot gas gun as a 'plasma' gun, since that's all plasma is. And a hot gas sword is as silly as a Steam Sword. Does a Steam Sword sound devastating to you? No? Well, this is why.

Really, if you could design a superstrong material, make a real full-sized sword out of it and it'll be way better. Or put a bead of it on the tip of your bullets as a penetrator. Swords can have their usefulness, but there are very few ways to actually IMPROVE a sword while keeping the inherent usefulness of it intact.

[Sarevok]

I dunno, why not call it magic sword of +5 cuttiness instead of bothering with technobabble ? The great thing about Star Wars lightsaber was that they never bothered explaining how it works beyond it's a glowstick of almighty doom. I doubt it would been better Obiwan lectured Luke about focused plasma field blades. You will just end up looking silly trying to use star trek subspace babble to justify a weapon that just exists because it's cool and flashy.

[Link the First]

I was actually planning to use the electrolaser as a separate weapon; two UV lasers create the path and it has variable settings... maybe even switching the lasers from UV to red or IR and using those directly to attack in the kill mode, with all of the other fun laser bits (laser optics get you a laser sight or scope; in this case you could get both since the gun uses two lasers).

The plasma could be made hot enough to do some serious damage; if it gets enough power I would imagine effects similar to an arc welder. Also, it doesn't have to melt or vaporize the target material, it just needs to heat the material enough to make it easier for the wire to cut through.

The hilt could be minimized by moving the power supply to a belt or backpack unit. Power could be sent through some wires which run along the person's arms to a pair of contacts in the gloves which are placed to match a pair of contacts on the hilt (each one would probably take up half of the grip to make things easier). The power pack could also be used to operate other gadgets, such as that fancy electrolaser held in the other hand (same method), and the electrodes in the gloves give the user a deadly handshake. The hilt could contain a capacitor that can run it for a short time, maybe a few seconds to a minute, in case the user wants to switch hands or just show off. Naturally it would be recharged once contact is restored. I'm not sure what exactly it would take between batteries and small chemical generators, but if those don't work there's always the dangerous but fun miniaturized nuclear or antimatter reactors.

The wire itself would have to be made out of some incredibly strong material, granted, but since the material has to be fictional anyway there could be reasons that it couldn't be used in a sword, with the simplest being that it is too expensive to make an entire blade with the stuff, maybe to the point that the wire is the limiting factor for how many of these things can be produced. As for the electromagnets, they are only there to help keep the wire straight; I wouldn't think they would have to be incredibly powerful.

A more traditional sword would probably be more effective (add a few tech bits like a heated blade, taser rig, etc just for fun), but a close approximation of an energy blade is a lot more dramatic. Also, since the wire doesn't have much weight the arc saber would handle like a lightsaber with the center of gravity in the hilt, making it fast but difficult to use without killing yourself. Besides, I can't imagine seeing a traditional sword having much use in a futuristic setting; this would probably be a very exotic weapon that you won't see too many of.

The main reason I want to put at least some semblance of science behind it is to accurately predict some of the effects of the weapon on various targets. A generic energy sword could have some bizarre properties, but without some kind of basis those tend to get inconsistent.

[Covenant]

Yeah, but this science is tenuous at best. You're really better off with something less based in realism. What you're doing is pseudo-realism, which is like what Star Trek does, where you use real terms for a fake concept, and it only works if the people you're talking to aren't smart enough to tell--or you simply don't care what it means.

Plasma, afterall, is not a proper sword material. It's just not. You can pump all the power in the world into it and you're still stuck with a weapon whose main body is less dense than air. How are you going to swing it? It'll leave billowing clouds of plasma behind--and it would be so damn hot just through sinking it into the air that everything you're near would be bursting into flames. Just to use it would require you having something heat resistant enough to survive being close to it, so it begs the question of how it could possibly be a feasible weapon. This wouldn't be a terribly directional weapon the way you intend to use it. Plus, a plasma blade wouldn't look like lightning. It would look like a flourescent light tube. The shit would be held in a magnetic field, afterall.

Secondly, any fictional material so strong that it can survive these stresses would be far too valuable to be used as a sword body. It's simply not useful that way--what are you going to do with it? Chop up tanks? Before or after they riddle your body with bullets? Fight other people? Again, before or after your body gets perforated? You've basically created the ultimate display-only sword, what with all the wires and gloves and backpacks and bullshit. It's not a useful self defense weapon due to all that uncessarry weight and prep and not terribly handy for self offense either since it lacks a useful first-strike capacity that any comes standard with any projectile weapon. Some idiot with a zip gun could kill your fake Jedi.

No matter what you do, no matter what special armor or special training or enhanced reflexes or special powers the sword-user has, none of it makes the sword superior. You'd always be able to take away the sword, give the guy an assault rifle and a knife, and he'd be better off. If you're going to make a melee weapon for sci-fi settings, either make it abundantly clear why you cannot use guns on the target (like in Dune) and make it so, all other things equal, the sword is still advantageous.

[Zixinus]

The problem with this idea, is that you are putting allot of energy for what? A sword? Why not put all that effort into a gun that can kill something off a distance?

I know swords are still used by soldiers (or at least, some soldiers think that there is, I've read a knifemakers site where he shown this, can link), but why waste the energy and resources for this weapon? Why not just give a particularly sharp knife and use it as a bayonet?

As it stands, you need additional gear just to use this thing. With your regular lightsabers, at least the damn thing was just a hilt. Something that could be a small pipe holding tools. Those wielding it (Jedi, Sith or otherwise) also had an incredible ability: deflect back blaster bolts. This is the single thing that made the weapon viable when everyone else was shooting rayguns. Being able to cut trough just about anything was also a plus.

Similarly, there must be a very good reason why this weapon is used.

Is this a show weapon? Used in ceremonial duals? Or is it a battlefield weapon, intended to do something very useful that a traditional troop can't?

In my setting for example, swords and axes came into use during the Legion invasions. Combat consisted of troops trying to hold off attacks at vital areas until the civilian population was evacuated. The legion attacked in large swarms, each of their drones weak individually but powerful in a swarm.

So, it often happened that soldiers ran out of ammo and didn't have time to take out, arm and ready their back-up weapon (or they ran empty on a backup weapons) and their buddies were out of sight. So, melee fight ensured. While not terribly powerful, the drones were large enough that knives were not enough. Bayonets were only a marginal improvement, so everyone tried different weapons.

So elite troops eventually took weapons from old gangwars and adopted improved versions of the impact-swords and impact-axes. Using superior materials and fluids (or in some cased, balls) a strike was able to wedge trough a drone's thick carapece and hit vital organs or chop off claws. With a little training and practise, an augmented soldier had a good chance of taking down a drone and were quicker to get ready then your typical firearm.

When the second war came with humans, these weapons promptly disappeared from the battlefield (with a few exception from vets of the previous war). However, among criminals or merchenaries, or just low-gravvies getting into a higher-g environment, these weapons remained popular to compensate for their lack of strength.

[Lord Revan]

basically any melee weapon is by it's limited range and/or usebility inferior to ranged weapons (which in means guns in scifi).

Before you even start to think how something would function ask yourself this "why must I have a melee weapon here and is it beliveble", even an unrealistic solution can work if it's a beliveble one. also it's possible to make an "energy blade" be predictble, just make up rules on what it can and cannot do and stick to those rules.

also remember that Jedi work because the Force isn't realistic, but rather it's for all intents and purposes magic (sure Force has its limits but magic isn't limitless by defination). basically as cool as "energy blades" are they have no place is a realistic story/universe.

[Lord Revan]

Ghetto edit:in a story I've been working some troops do use melee weapons (I've been thinking of a spear/poleaxe not a sword) but those troops are essentially ceremonial guards not front line troops and said melee weapons aren't effective against anything beond rioters and similar.

I might post what I've made up so far if you'd like

[Oskuro]

Before you even start to think how something would function ask yourself this "why must I have a melee weapon here and is it beliveble".

As an example of this issue, take the Dune universe, where the use of personal shields forces troops to rely on hand-to-hand combat.

[Covenant]

Before you even start to think how something would function ask yourself this "why must I have a melee weapon here and is it beliveble".

As an example of this issue, take the Dune universe, where the use of personal shields forces troops to rely on hand-to-hand combat.

I mentioned that in my post above Revan's. ;D

Dune did a clever thing with the "slow knife through the shield" bit which made it possible to justify the use of low-energy weapons against shielded troopers, especially when they discussed what happens when big energy guns hit shields. While making a contrivance such as that is a little, you know, ridiculousl, there's still a lot of ways for melee weapons to be used. Entrenching tools, in a pinch, can make a very dangerous weapon even today. And if you're out of bullets and someone is within arm's reach, a knife will do the trick so long as you stick it somewhere vital.

But spending all the effort and energy to make a gigantic lightning sword seems like way, way too much work. What you've done is create a horribly over-engineered cattleprod.

Let's all just be honest--the reason you want to make it a 'EM field plasma blade' thing is because you want it to look cool and you think a lightning sword looks cool. Does it have to look cool and be highly efficent? Why not just make it an overpriced, overly fancy toy? You can still kill someone with a crappily designed weapon, people are pretty fragile. If you want this to be a universe where the most expensive, elite, royalty-only weapons are lightning swords then you could make them for sport or for pleasure. Fencing foils, for example, are not the best kind of military weapon, but you certainly could kill someone with one.

[Link the First]

Again, this probably would be an exotic weapon that there aren't too many of; I never really intended to have it mass produced for any kind of large scale military forces (who would probably just stick to guns and knives). It was never intended to be a tactically effective combat weapon; just something that a few people would have for their own reasons, whether for those ceremonial duels or just to show off. Of course, the situation would come eventually where one of those people ends up using it for combat.

Also, I wouldn't expect the other guys to carry the thermal protection needed to reliably defend against something like this since it is an incredibly rare weapon that no military force actually circulates. No one would expect to see it on the battlefield; there would be little need to have countermeasures specifically against it. Alternately, maybe most troops wear some combat armor anyway (anything from Stormtrooper to Spartan) that allows them to shrug off the heat generated by this thing but not enough to withstand direct contact. It could get iconic status, however, if the weapon was in the right place at the right time and was used to kill some tyrant during some rebellion.

For actual military deployment, I was planning to field something along the lines of Starcraft's Ghosts as infiltration specialists; they get a more conventional sword plus a few guns. These swords could be made to withstand an arc saber just to mix things up a bit and allow duels there. Again, the arc saber would be for a dramatic touch, similar to how some modern movies throw in a sword fight even though the military doesn't use them any more.

[Zixinus]

If you want to create a fancy weapon, why your traditional two-handed style sword? Why not try to make a ridiculously-modern version of the rapier or even staff?

Here's an idea: the blade is dull, except for the tip. If anything touches the tip, it will open a circuit that will cause an arc flash. For a second, a small bit of plasma is created that can has a big enough shockwave to knock down anything. If you want, you can put something glowly along the blade.

[Covenant]

Argh, arc saber? Please no--it will not work like an arc welder, which--wait, I'll just make it simple: uses two electrical zappies and some gas to cut shit up. Your thing doesn't do that, it has a big long monofilament cord with some kind of zap thing in it. But don't you see all the issues this is causing?

You have a monofilament whip affixed to an extremely powerful EM projector to make it rigid, some kind of massive electrical system to pump charge down the thing, magnetics arrays to bottle plasma and the gas feeds required to keep the pressure up and prevent leakage, heating mechanisms of some sort somewhere to keep the plasma hot--since passing current through it won't--and all the required blast shielding, spark shielding, heat shielding, batteries, gas packs, cords, wires, attachments, nozzles, regulators, field multimeters and injectors required to keep this thing going.

Your arc saber is goign to be the size of of a buick le saber and weigh twice as much. Your guy is going to be stomping around wearing heat, spark and electrical protection equipment to the point it looks like a welder crossed with bomb squad member, so now you're something like a Big Daddy from BioShock. The weapon will be about 3 feet long and do fuckall against anything, thus making it entirely, pointlessly worthless.

It doesn't matter how rare or how unusual the device is, the standard defensive gear against this this is the presence of an atmosphere and a gun. You can't even use the damn thing like a sword because you can't afford to lock blades with it. As a monofilament, or any kind of very, very thin blade, you're going to quickly degrade the blade by having contact. Even making it erally strong won't matter, because the material can be as dense as anything and if you bang it on stuff it'll eventually get knocked apart, especially if it's really, really hot. The amount of heat required to quickly cut through metal or ceramic armor is so hot that even if it didn't kill the handler, it would certainly melt the rest.

Because you do realize the amount of heat kicked off by most superconducters, right? Maybe your universe has cold-operating superconductors or magnetic monopoles, but if this is the case then I can write you up a great weapon for much lower cost. Honestly, there's just no way to make this weapon efficent. It's a bad idea. Either suck it up and say "Fine, I'll be less realistic" or actually care what the science says and make a weapon that's actually remotely based in reality.

Starcraft, Halo and other games are about as far from realism as you can get. They're as far out there as Warhammer 40k, which has aliens that can wish their vehicles to go faster by painting them red. These arc sabers would be fairly wanky even in those settings though, so this one thing is really going to drag you down, especially if it figures into more than 10 seconds of the plot. I have a feeling you want the hero to be using one though.

[Lord Revan]

well in general it's best not to explain things too much or you'll end up with a rather boring story (I'm assuming this will be for a story), also infiltrators would probably not take any fancy equipment that has a potential to break down and it's not "need" (like the stealth cloaks of the SC ghosts), I'd rather make it show off and/or ceremonial weapon as that would reduce the "WTF?!" moments.

also infiltrators as far as I know wouldn't use melee weapons (beond a combat knife) as the potential to screw up and alert the enemy is way too big with them.

basically when thinking off melee weapons users in Scifi think "royal guard or merc" not "specialists"

[Ghost Rider]

Here's something I'd like to go into before going into the weapon. The reason in Science fiction we get swords, other then a bizarre love of that age...the weilder is what makes it deadly, not the weapon.

Take the beloved Lightsaber. The weapon is cool, but it is the Jedi behind it that makes it. In the SW universe they have the ability of giving regular troops, tank level weaponry in handheld gun form. And you have this yaboo who carries a small hand to hand weapon that scares the piss out of these people. Lucas made it that the person makes the weapon, and the weapon is just a cool status symbol.

If you are making a weapon in a story, make the weilder first, then make whatever crazy monoplasmaticbeam sword. Because as it stands you are needing some uber Space Marine to make your weapon work and if your story doesn't have that? It will pull the reader out because it make them presume far too much in the favor of said character(s).

[Link the First]

All right, all right. Still, is there any way, at all, to make something similar to a lightsaber? The energy blade concept is too cool to pass up entirely, but being me I want to have something behind it based in reality.

Anyway the idea was to bring it up in the middle of the story (which was actually going to be a text-based RPG) and just describe the effects there while some other section explains how it works, which you can read if you want.

[Lord Revan]

ghetto edit(again):as said in anything close to realistic your weapon wouldn't work and the technobabble you suggested is just , listen I'm energy technology engineering student so I kinda have to know a thing or 2 about plasma and physics in general and tbh as said your consept won't work and I won't even go to material physics problems

either way you'll end up with a weapon that feels really out of place and will ruin the story or you'll have to make your story something less realistic. As said Star Wars, Star Trek (dispite what the makers claim), Starcraft, WH40K, Halo and others aren't all that realistic, but as I said before that's not needed but belivebility is. You could have the most realistic story you can think of but if people cannot suspend their disbelief it will fail.

to wrap this up if you really must have an "energy blade" then do not explain how it works beond it cuts things and don't be hyper realistic with the rest of the story either, but if you want to be realistic drop the blade as it won't work in a realistic story and pulls people out of said story.

Ps. Don't take this poor personal we're a bit harsh but we're honest and it's nothing personal.

[Ghost Rider]

All right, all right. Still, is there any way, at all, to make something similar to a lightsaber? The energy blade concept is too cool to pass up entirely, but being me I want to have something behind it based in reality.

Anyway the idea was to bring it up in the middle of the story (which was actually going to be a text-based RPG) and just describe the effects there while some other section explains how it works, which you can read if you want.

In reality? Not without throwing quite a few physics principles or making a suit very specific to weilding said blade. The thermal properties alone make most heads spin, let alone power source and size.

As for when to bring it up, that's your choice and really the province more of an editor. Again, it is who is weilding said weapon and their capabilites. If they are some superhuman badass against anything regular it can work. If it's a world where gun truimphs all? It will pull said person out.

Especially in a game, the player needs to make some connection how this is an advantage.

[Lord Revan]

As said Lightsabers are unrealistic (even before you get to "they're melee weapons in an era of ray guns" part). As I said before there is pretty much no way to make a lightsaber style weapon that's grounded in reality.

so either drop the blade or drop the need for realism since either of them has to go, it's that simple.

[Link the First]

I know those other scifi stories are far from realistic, I was just looking for things that might work here. I may or may not take a few liberties with science, not sure yet (mostly I want to avoid messing with conservation and thermodynamics).

Standard military gear could incorporate a pretty decent power supply, powered exoskeleton, thermal shielding, a light-filtering visor, some armor, and the glove contacts (intended for other things, like that electrolaser or a railgun), all of which would be perfectly useful for a conventional soldier. Someone else could have adapted the arc saber to work with that same suit's power transfer system, while the combat gear offers the power and all of the protection needed. In that case it might not be too much of a stretch to wear the suit to use the weapon if the suit has other functions as well.

The guy behind the weapon would probably be some kind of badass, maybe the unwilling candidate for super soldier experiments who escaped to become a merc or something along those lines.

[Covenant]

No, it's still a stretch. Power transferrance isn't magical, it requires very specific hookups. How many amps are you running through this suit? Unless your answer is "all of them," you're going to be having a problem with a zapsword of this style. Plus, why are the suits hooked up like this? Isn't this incredibly dangerous? You're allowing someone via a hand hookup to pump a ton of power into whatever they want--which could go badly very quickly and start making your guns explode. Are your weapons going to be designed to absorb energy from the hand link? Are your grenades? Doorknobs? What if you need to help your buddy up?

The thing is, there's so many problems with this that it's just crazytalk, but if you're using this in a game, why even bother explaining why? Just call it the Lightsword and make it fan service, people won't mind. A little big of genre awareness wouldn't kill you. Let it be a relic from a lost civilization--a more civilized time overall, not as clumsy and random... well, you get the rest. People will laugh, wink and nod, and nobody will mind.

Just don't even bother explaining it, or explain the fact that it glows to be just an aftereffect of the fact that it's really, really hot. Or that it creates an odd glow due to a bit of ionization of the air, as the thing was meant to be used in space blah blah welding device. Make it someone's own specific homebrew sword. Just take it out of the role of exotic ultrakewl sword.

Or, here, I'll fix it for you. Make it a standard variable sword like from Known Space, but say that the EM fields you use to make the blade rigid also cause a lot of discharge to go off randomly. So your blade is basically a variable sword (seriously just google it) but with the additional side-effect of it sparking up and down the length like a jacob's ladder while in atmosphere. And because of this is tends to ionize the air and make a small little glowy light effect like an aurora around it. Viola. Stupid magiwank technology but it's passably realistic. Make the very obvious arcing and ionization elements to why it was considered a failed product--make those negative side effects, like it uses up a ton of power instead of being self-sustaining and it's noisy like a saber instead of perfectly quiet, and it's hot instead of thermal-neutral.

[Link the First]

Well that works.

Anyway the power transfer system wouldn't just send power into whatever you touch (unless you hit the manual override). There would be something to tell the computer what exactly it is connected to, maybe a computer connection through those contacts or another set that works like a USB port. The only time it actually pumps a lot of power through would be if you pick up a gun that is actually designed to receive power from the suit, which would have another computer port.

[Zixinus]

Why not just make a whip that has electric current passing trough it? It can be made to coil up and extend like . Even if it doesn't electrocute anybody, it can still mess up the equipment enough that the target is going to have a problem. The two whips touching might cause them to retract back into a coil.

Whip duels. I can see it now.

The guy behind the weapon would probably be some kind of badass, maybe the unwilling candidate for super soldier experiments who escaped to become a merc or something along those lines.

If you have a somewhat-successful super soldier experiment, you will not let the experimented get away. You hunt him and if you can't, you set a large bounty on him. There is many reasons for this: first off, you don't want your super soldier experiments going public. If he goes out with his story, it can cause distrust towards the government, which can help anybody opposing that government. An experimented can be data that might be valuable, and dangerous if there is something opposing the organization making the program. Then there is the problem of the experimented being unknown: what if the person is crazy? What if he one day wants to take a starship on a spin, turn the nose towards a mayor city and fire up the engines until there is no fuel left?

Also, here's a writing hint: external toughness does not make good characterization. You can augment someone with super strength and super reflexives and shit, it will still be a cardboard cut-out smuck. A badass isn't badass because he can lift a car or shot someone from several kilometres away. A badass is a badass because he or she can overcome odds he or she shouldn't. A badass knows how to take and control a situation to its own favour. Superman being kidnapped and dosed by a street gang, breaking his bonds and beats the living shit out of them is not impressive. Superman is invincible. An average teenage schoolgirl beating the living shit out them simply by using the element of surprise and by being pissed off enough, is impressive.

[Link the First]

The super soldier would just be a start; that wouldn't be the only reason the guy is a badass, it would just help by allowing him to do some things that ordinary humans couldn't do. These abilities alone don't allow him to do a lot of the things he does; it's also about how he uses those abilities.

They certainly wouldn't want their prized experiment to escape, but what they want and what happens aren't always exactly the same thing. They probably would have tight security, but there could have been other things at work; maybe the guy did something really creative to get past a bunch of guys that should have been able to kill him in a straight fight, maybe some other faction found out about the facility and raided it, giving the guy a chance to escape, maybe a meteor hit the facility, maybe the experiments were not government sanctioned and they had to assemble a ragtag security group themselves that would be far less effective than a proper military team.

As for hunting him later, he probably would have a price on his head. However, remember that this is scifi, which opens up the possibility of running to other planets which are not under that government's control. I know I said I wanted some realism before, but I do make exceptions, including faster than light travel.

[frogcurry]

Why not just make a whip that has electric current passing trough it? It can be made to coil up and extend like . Even if it doesn't electrocute anybody, it can still mess up the equipment enough that the target is going to have a problem. The two whips touching might cause them to retract back into a coil.

Whip duels. I can see it now.

Ehmmm... wouldn't the electric need to make a complete circuit to actually harm anyone? I mean, you're assuming it'll earth to the ground via the target in all of these electric weapons proposed, but if I'm wearing insulated shoes or standing on a car tyre, its not going to do so even if it hits me. I could just catch your whip/sword then punch you on the nose.

What about vibration of a very thin but still physical blade? I've never really been sure if the vibroblade concept actually had any real physics basis to it, but if vibrating a blade improves cutting (personally not sure how it would) then you could use you magnet/ electic current to agitate it.