On Creating Imaginary Weapons: Science Fiction/Fantasy

[Laustin]

No, those others are fine. Just avoid the wonga-tent. Anyone who's had an unfortunate encounter with one of them will know what I'm what talking about. My sacro-iliac hasn't been the same since, and no matter what I do I can't get my swim-bladder to deflate properly...

 

[Piousflea]

I think the most important thing about weaponry is that they make sense within the plotline.

If your heroine spends an entire novel fighting with handguns and grenades, then at the very end her fingernail turns into a micro death ray and kills the Big Bad, your readers will wonder "Why didn't she use that earlier?".

On the other hand, if her fingernail turns into a micro-antimatter bomb and kills everyone including herself it may be a much more satisfying ending. (maybe) At the very least there is an explanation for why she never used the concealed weapon until the end.

A Hard sci-fi author may explain that her fingernail contained exactly 1.8 micrograms of crystalline anti-beryllium contained in orthogonally polarized 50-Tesla fields specially designed to pass undetected through Compton cameras. A soft sci-fi author might just note that all United Mexico Combine Agents have concealed last-ditch bombs. In either case it's a functional sci-fi weapon.

 

[monsterchic]

A) How logical should be the most outrageous weapons?

B) Should the author know about the weapons and give a satisfying explanation to its working? [A laser rail gun, the size of a palm having a recoil that would throw a man away by a considerable feet (think MIB!)]

C) Should the weapons stay in the original side?
[Like the technology that is being used today}

D) For fantasy, you don't go beyond swords and maces. So what is the boudary in creating weapons for Sci-fi and fantasy?

.

A) The weapons, in my opinion, can be outrageous as they want, as long as the writing can make me believe they're real. If not, then maybe stick to more conventional weapons with a twist.

B)Goes kind of along with A. If the description is necessary, use it, but know your stuff. If not, then maybe mention it, but don't make it a big thing.

C) Yeah, should stay pretty original

D) It's your choice

 

[Bowler1]

Utility of weapons is something to consider. As per the AK47, cheap and easy made which is why lots of military use the weapon. So you might have old readily available technology and something extra special for your hero. Stay close to what we all already know maybe!

Recoil in space is not good so hand weapons would be lasers or similiar, or its one shot and off you go spinning. As per Chris, shotguns can sting a bit, and I'm not talking about the pointy end!

Thats even before you get to spaceships and big weapons. Forward pointing railguns, no side on guns as I can see problems for ship control. Missles and lasers, no worries.

Just wondering, on your first attempt with a shotgun Chrispenycate, did you hit anything?

 

[chrispenycate]

Just wondering, on your first attempt with a shotgun Chrispenycate, did you hit anything?

Nothing edible, as I remember. That is, I hit the ground (which I have eaten considerable quantities of in the past, but not by choice), the stock of the shotgun hit my shoulder, against which it had not been firmly pressed as would have been recommendable, both of which impacts being disagreeable and causing bruising and a lack of desire to repeat the experience, and the pellets stripped leaves, twigs and bark off a tree in close proximity, so I suppose the operating principle was adequately demonstrated, but the rabbit at ground level who was the supposed target was well below any ordinance, while those instructing me (who deserved a dose of birdshot for laughing at my discomfort) had arranged themselves well to my rear, outside even my inexpert cone of action.

 

[Kamosis]

If you want some help designing new weapons you could go looking for the ideas from the secrete weapons from WW2, there lots of weird things they were trying, like bat-bombs or tanks in the form of wheels, solar cannons and desintegrator rays.

 

[Bowler1]

A very good description of recoil - if you don't have the stock tucked in right you know all about it, and thats just a shotgun. Lucky rabbit!

 

[James Coote]

I think the most important thing is not the internals of how it works, nor why, so much as what the weapon does

Most people who fire a gun probably only have a fuzzy idea about what is actually happening each time they pull the trigger inside the gun, but they know exactly what happens once that bullet whizzes out the end

________​

d) How far to take a weapon? The boundary is control. If you can't really control a weapon, it won't get used:

Risk
No one is going to volunteer as a rocket launcher if the rocket has a 50% chance of blowing up on the pad when the fire button is pressed

Accuracy
Equally if there is only a 2% chance of hitting the target, you're probably not going to bother. It's not worth the effort to keep firing on the off chance you score a hit

Reliability
If you have a magic laser beam, but every time you fire it, it could do anything from lightly warm the target to instantly vaporize it, you'll probably opt for something that is less devastating, but does 100% damage 100% of the time

________

Since this is in workshop, I'll take a go at imagining a weapon:

JC 27 'Pancake Maker'
An anti-infantry area suppression weapon, capable of disabling ground units over a limited area

Delivery
The primary delivery mechanism takes two phases:

Phase 1:
A launcher fires a spinning discus or 'frisbee' much like a clay-pigeon shooter, but along a more horizontal trajectory

Phase 2:
When over the target area, the discus ejects an aerosol spray of nano-particles along its rim to create a roughly circular blanket

Ammunition
The primary ammunition type is a combustible nano-particle spray. The nano-particles are kept inert by proximity to one another. Once they reach a low enough density, a highly energetic reaction occurs

Depending on the specifics of the particles, this could cause a large amount of heat to be radiated, or alternatively, when in a medium such as air or water, a pressure wave to travel above and below the blanket

In the latter case, the pressure wave will flatten anything between the blanket and a solid object such as the ground, hence its primary use against ground-base infantry

Again, depending on the composition of the particles, the pressure wave could either cause victims to be knocked to their feet or potentially crushed to death

Note: In several incidents, defective ammunition rounds used in crowd control situations have resulted in sub-optimal, and in some circumstances, lethal results

As a result, they are banned for use in a civilian context under a number of treaties

​

 

[DthenB]

I design weapons for my stories based on utility. The military does push innovation, but they're slow implementing it on a large scale. The AR-15, which the M16A4 and M4 are based on, was designed in 1957, while the Abrams, the most advanced battle tank in the world, was designed 40 years ago, more than one third of the time that modern tanks have been on the battlefield. Even if an enemy brings a new technology to battle, the military does not overhaul its entire arsenal to combat it. They make spot changes at first. Adopting a new technology is a grueling and time-eating process.

Don't fix what isn't broken.

Now I'm not saying you can't destroy a tank with a microscopic black hole, but I am saying that I could do it cheaper, easier, more often, and more reliably with a sixty year-old Russian rocket launcher. And what would exist in that world to make your weird weapon viable? Ridiculously efficient and small energy sources, computers too advanced to comprehend today, and materials that are so exotic to even be discovered with our current technology. One weapon advanced signifies innumerable advances in others fields. Take that into consideration. The crazier your weapon is, the less likely the guy is the mud is to use it right, and the more variables you have stacked against it working right at all. No matter how advanced your sci-fi world is, moving parts get stuck, batteries die, fog rolls in, and sand gets in your underwear.

Keep it simple.

Your new weapon needs to fill a role, a niche. No one needs a hand-held minigun. No one needs a nuclear hand grenade. Your weapon should be lighter, quieter, more lethal, longer ranged, carry more ammunition, work better in the field, or just do something new and useful. Remember, you're just as dead with a regular old bullet in you as if you are melted by acid, vaporized by a laser, torn apart by a robot mantis-tiger, or blown into giblets.

Give your weird new weapon a reason to be, a reason that laser is more viable than this musket.

Don't fix what isn't broken, keep it simple, and give it a reason to be new and different. This is the process I go through when creating weapons or any new technology.

 

[TheTomG]

Lazy Gun. Enough said.

Create what weaponry you will

 

[Flugel Meister]

Ah, weapons. They’re something of a speciality for me – both from real life experience and a vast imagination. ‘And, no, I’m not a gangster!’

There are a wide variety of directions that you can approach sci-fi weapons. But for now, I’ll start with two: human and alien.

Usually, us ‘Savage Earthlings’ have to make do with traditional ballistic weapons. But don’t let that fool you. Ballistic weapons, bullets in particular, are extremely effective in real-life application.

Take the humble SA80, or the L85 A1 as it’s more appropriately known as. It was plagued with unreliability. But as rifle’s go, it was extremely accurate. And using the standard 5.56mm ball ammunition it could penetrate a variety of targets and materials. Basically, if the other guy has one of these and you’re in your house, don’t expect the brick wall to stop the round, or a table, or a car door. The new rounds come with steel penetrators, enabling them to go through a great deal and make a mess of what’s on the other side. And I haven’t even mentioned tumbling, or exit wounds.

Then you could increase the calibre. A .50 round will really ruin someone’s day. And there won’t be a lot left over. Hence why a lot of sniper rifles are available in this calibre. I’ve seen a purpose built personal armour plate made from Kevlar and titanium stop a .50 round. But the dent on the other side would have killed the wearer anyway. Kinetic energy is not to be underestimated.

You could take standard ballistic ammunition and add smart rounds – bullets that home in on their targets. I know the U.S. government is currently funding several companies in the development of this. Already you have some advanced but grounded and realistic weapons for use in a novel.

As Crispen has already mentioned, you can also include a rail gun or two. And they can vary in size – anything ranging from a rifle to something mounted on a battleship. The Halo universe uses these quite a lot, as humanity utilises them in a variety of formats, the largest version being the Super MAC (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon), which is mounted on orbital space stations. It can gut a cruiser with a single round – stem to stern.

As for alien weapons, you have the common use of plasma weapons, both personal, vehicle -mounted and those found on space-faring vessels of varying sizes. The effectiveness of these weapons can vary dramatically. But they usually make a mess of anything biological.

Again, Halo has an interesting mix of alien weapons to choose from:

Plasma Pistol

Plasma Rifle

Plasma Repeater

Carbine

Plasma Cannon

In fact, I recommend searching on Google for the weapons mentioned above. There’s way too much information for me to mention here about them all, but they could be a good place to start.

It's probably easier if you just Google Covenant weapons, actually.

 

[DthenB]

I'm a big fan of the weapons in the Mass Effect universe, particularly as used in ME1. It was basically all ballistic weapons that fired minuscule shards of dense metals using gravity manipulation. The size of the shards didn't really matter because the gun worked off the f=m*a principle. The guns fired off these tiny rounds with more than enough acceleration to make up for the lack of mass. Ammo wasn't a problem because one brick of material could be chopped up into thousands of these rounds. The only consideration to take was overheating the acceleration coils. ME2 and 3 used a system with replaceable heat-sinks, in-story because it was more combat efficient to pop in a new thermal clip instead of waiting for your gun to cool down, game-design-wise to place an ammo limit on you and make your shots count. In some ways, futuristic ballistic weapons can be more fun and versatile, and certainly more believable, than some magical death ray.

 

[chrispenycate]

Do these weapons we're talking about have to be hi-tech, long range mass effect devices? In one of my stories ships are barely more than cling film over toothpicks, at least for the living quarters; mass is at a premium, so lighter is better. Everyone wears skin suits all the time, even in the habitats, and helmets with air supplies are totally standard, and everywhere.

A projectile weapon would not only drive the protagonist backwards by recoil (probably the whole ship) but almost certainly start him spinning. Suits are almost immune to lasers, not deliberately so but as a side effect of other things you need protecting against.

But, since you can't use gravity to hold you onto an asteroid (not the smaller ones, anyway) prospectors have a tool; a flexible, rapier-like rod with a monomolecular point and a slight corkscrew twist just behind it. You thrust through your centre of gravity, into a crack if you can see one, or just into a bit of rock that's not solid metal, then twist before the springiness in the system throws you off. Everybody has one (oh, perhaps not the paper pushers) and everybody trains with it in free fall, so duelling is generally a sort of three dimensional cross between ballet and fencing, and it makes a small enough hole in a plastic skin that the ship can reseal.

Not exactly the mass slaughter this thread's been concentrating on, but requires skill and practice, and no ammunition.

 

[silvermoon]

If you want some help designing new weapons you could go looking for the ideas from the secrete weapons from WW2, there lots of weird things they were trying, like bat-bombs or tanks in the form of wheels, solar cannons and desintegrator rays.

617 Squadron (the Dam Busters) were sent (in 1943-4, IIRR) to destroy a nest of guns that were menacing London. There were fifteen guns, in five batches of three each. They were dug into the ground so they were never visible; they were inclined at a 45-degree angle to get maximum range; they were based at Mimiquoies (not sure about the spelling, but it's a big quarry) in France. The gun barrels were 500 feet long; I kid you not. That was the limit of technology (or approaching the limits thereof) in the 1940's. The guns are still there underground, BTW: buried along with the poor slave-labourers who were being forced to build them...the Germans called these weapons V3.

Also, they had V4 rockets that would have been capable of reaching the East Coast of the USA, if WW2 had continued for another year or two.

 

[kshRox]

D) For fantasy, you don't go beyond swords and maces. So what is the boudary in creating weapons for Sci-fi and fantasy?

I beg to differ dear sir.

Think Roger Zelazny and the Guns of Avalon where firearms were used to great advantage within the confines of a fantasy novel.

 

[nubins]

With fantasy you have pretty much the whole raft of medievil weaponry.. and there was a lot of it. If you are a gamer, you might like to try games like Warband and War of the Roses availabe on Steam, as they feature authentic weapons and armour and actually have you fighting with them.

But as the above poster said, no reason you can't have firearms in there as well - look at Warhammer - wheel locks and blunderbusses. They are one shot, unrelliable, expensive.. but I think are full of potential in a fantasy world. Then there is the issue of magic, it could technically do anything, so why not "guns" that shoot magic fireballs etc. If magic is involved, there really isn't a limit.

When it comes to sci-fi, I find technology something of a double edged sword.

In reality, as we get to the level of technology where ships can travel the stars, I suspect actual war will be fought by drones with weapons of such power as to make the whole affair somewhat dull and lacking in heroism. Star Wars would look much more like the Phantom Menace than the Empire Strikes Back (armies of faceless robots which noone will care about). Battles in space, with railguns or beyond.. well the vast distances and speeds of the projectiles means you would rarely, if ever, see two ships get close to each other. Space fighters... at the huge speeds they would be travelling, there would be no dogfights. To my mind it's all lacking in glory and heroism.. robots fighting at great distances with weapons that can obliterate everything in seconds. So in most cases, people dumb down the science for the sake of story. Ships move slowly in battle, guns have their projectile speeds reduced for added drama, the "i win button" guns are toned down.

But even modern day guns have some surprising feats of technology - did you know there is an infantry rifle in use in Afghanistan now that combines a laser designator with a variable timer on an explosive round? The soldier spots a wall with someone hiding behind it, the gun works out the distance to the wall with the laser and sets the timer on the round so that when it is fired at a point just above the wall, it explodes 50 centimeters on the other side. Those hiding are showered with shrapnel. There are shotguns that fire mini-rockets (they are fin stabilised explosives that fit within a traditional shotgun shell sized package). Cool stuff.

Nano-technology is an interesting one. I wonder if there will be weapons that fire self replciating nano-bots that land on something and then proceed to simply eat it, turning it into other nano-bots that continue to eat until there is nothing left except a blob of nano-bots. Then you would need some kind of kill switch in the nano-bots. Which makes me wonder what would happen if that went wrong.. what if one of those weapons was used on a planet and the kill switch failed.. eventually that planet would become a giant ball of nano-bots floating in space. Could be the basis for a story in itself.. what if asteroids hit that planet and fling them into space.. etc etc.

There is also "comedy" to consider. Are you going for realism or at least the semblence of realism? Or are you writing something "light" - a harry potter but in space? In which case you make science your magic and do whatever you like - a bit like films such as Men In Black.

 

[skynes]

This is a subject that I always completely geek out on and become a hyper-active 5 year old who ate too much sugar

Weapons/magic, how they work or interact and the rules they follow tends to be the most developed bit of anything I write, just because I can't help myself thinking on it.

I'll answer these based on myself as a reader and what I prefer to read.

A) How logical should be the most outrageous weapons?

This depends on the type of story you're going for. A spell that turns all enemy swords into jelly is something I'd expect in a fantasy parody world like Pratchett, or if the sorceror in question is a 13 year old sorceror in school who made up the spell cause it's funny.

If I'm reading a more serious fantasy/sci-fi novel I expect more logic to apply. A really powerful plasma cannon that can melt enemies, armour and all, I expect it to be an enormous two handed or vehicle mounted contraption that's extremely rare and very difficult to power with an excessive charge time. (A weapon like this makes an awesome plot point though, they need to rush the wielder before they can fire again)

Fantasy-wise, the same. Powerful spells take more out of the caster and take longer to cast. Or they come with a huge cost, like killing someone and using their life force to cast.

I don't mind outragerous weaponry, so long as it comes with a restriction of some kind.

B) Should the author know about the weapons and give a satisfying explanation to its working? [A laser rail gun, the size of a palm having a recoil that would throw a man away by a considerable feet (think MIB!)]

Again, I think it depends on the style of story. MIB was a parody of sci-fi movies, intended more for comedy than serious science, so no explanation was needed for the Noisy-Cricket. But that weapon would seem much more out of place on Star Trek, which often places more upon scientific explanations.

When reading a book I'm much more interested in internal consistency than I am with it being true in the real world. I don't mind if the weapon wouldn't work with our physics, so long as it makes sense in the story. If the story is based on our world though, then I do expect a bit more realism in it, but without slowing the story down with deep explanations.

C) Should the weapons stay in the original side?
[Like the technology that is being used today}

I think weapons would depend on the weapon itself and its design. I can't see humans using a weapon designed for a four-armed 10 foot tall alien, it'd just be too huge and heavy. But neither can I see them using a weapon that uses a different power source than what they have. Laser rifles don't use bullets. Over time, like years, each side is likely to acquire bits of the other sides technology and make advances

In a fantasy world, general weaponry would be used by whoever. Magical stuff can have restrictions on it. Why yes you can wield that magical sword, but it won't cut anything as you're not the owner.

D) For fantasy, you don't go beyond swords and maces. So what is the boudary in creating weapons for Sci-fi and fantasy?

Depends on the world. You can go beyond swords in fantasy if you wish, add a group of people early into gunpowder weaponry. Steam-powered tanks (like Warhammer's Empire army).

Actually I think magically empowered guns could be pretty cool. Machine guns that shoot magical energy not bullets, and you place a rune upon the weapon to determine what it fires, be it fire or explosive or ice shards.

Boundary on sci-fi... I was going to say when you've destroyed reality, but I vaguely remember a story that's plot point was the destruction of time and every version of reality, effectively destroying every universe. Might've been Spiderman. Yes, it was, Spiderman the cartoon. Spider-carnage was going to destroy everything.

 

[tlrobson1]

Personally, in the context of an actual story I don't think the details are all that important, though it's good to know as much about your universe as possible before you start writing. I hate needless 'infodumping' as the term goes, unless of course it fits the context of the story. That being said, if you invent some crazy weapon that is used early on but never examined, you're going to want to have more detailed information on said weapon filed away somewhere for you to draw on at another time, otherwise you might find yourself making stuff up on the spot and risk creating inconsistencies that will pose a real problem once you come to the editing stage.

I tried not to create anything too outlandish. I have lasers, masers, microwaves, rail cannons, etc. I have an electricity based rifle (the smallest version still being too large for a human to carry) called an 'electron lance', a huge weapon of mass destruction carried by the largest ships called a 'quantum destabilser', as well as old school projectile weapons and nuclear warheads. I'd say that my craziest weapon is when my concept of 'graviton manipulation' is used to create tiny, dense gravity wells that can crush matter or tear things apart. If I ever have to explain the workings of graviton manipulation (which is used EVERYWHERE, weapons, spaceflight, construction etc etc), I know that String/M-Theory is sat there waiting for me to dabble with haha. It's all about covering your ass as you go and making sure the information is there if you need it.

 

[Mirannan]

I don't know what people here think of Orion's Arm in general (I haven't been a member a week yet) but they do have some imaginative weapons - some of the really high tech ones being the sort of thing you want to avoid by being in a different solar system when they go off.

On a slightly less OTT note, one can have fun with relatively low-tech stuff. One of my favorite concepts is the pheromone grenade. Imagine a gas grenade (the sort with a small bursting charge) filled with synthetic versions of various domestic animals' sex attraction pheromones. Watch as the opposition is swamped with various tomcats and randy male dogs. And if someone who has been hit with this gets within smelling range of a bull...

 

[JoanDrake]

Everybody has covered just about everything there is to say about future type weapons, but I do think I can say some things about present day instruments of mayhem that may be applied.

Present day weapons have, as I understand it, three main limitations. The first is barrel length, the second is ammunition capacity and the third is overall weight.

Barrel length remains a major determinant of the weapons overall accuracy and power. Hard as it may be to believe an extra few inches has a major effect on how accurate a bullet will travel and how hard it will hit the target when it gets there, even if the distance is many times longer than the length it will travel. This is because the projectile, while still in the barrel, has the full energy of the expanding gases behind it and it still being given the initial spin by the rifling lands. Once it leaves it loses all of this and smacks dead on into an unmoving and rather resistant atmosphere besides, so starting precipitious losses in both these aspects rather quickly. Some pistols can get around the power limitation with greater size within the relatively short distances of modern combat but few equivalent caliber pistols can match the range of good quality rifle of the same size.

Yet a short weapon is more manueverable, especially on the modern battlefield. This is why the "bullpup" design is becoming so popular, placing the entire firing mechanism and clip behind the trigger, thus enabling the barrel to be effectively the length of the weapon itself

Secondly, you must deal with the problem of ammunition limitations. Contrary to most moviemaking myth most automatic weapons must be fired in short bursts. A short quote from Wiki can explain it far better than I

A soldier armed with an AK-47 can carry 10 additional fully loaded 30 round
steel magazines weighing a total of 9.2 kg (.92 kg per mag)[72] and allow for an
additional 300 rounds of ammo. Newer plastic AK magazines are lighter, weighing
.74 kg loaded,[74] allowing a
soldier to carry 13 additional magazines weighing a total of 9.62 kg and allow
for an additional 390 rounds of ammo. The AK-47 has a full-auto cyclical
rate-of-fire of 600 rpm, a practical rate-of-fire in full-auto of 100 rpm, and a
practical rate-of-fire in semi-auto of 40 rpm.[117]


A soldier armed with an M16 can carry 22 additional fully loaded 30 round
magazines weighing a total of 9.9 kg (.45 kg per mag)[70] and allow for an
additional 660 rounds of ammo. The M16 has a full-auto cyclical rate-of-fire of
700–950 rpm,[13] a practical
rate-of-fire in full-auto of 150 rpm, and a practical rate-of-fire in semi-auto
of 45 rpm.[118] The current
issue M16A4 and M4 carbine have a practical rate-of-fire of 90 rpm in
3-round-burst.[119]

Now, yes, some 600 rounds should be enough by my lights, but present military theory places a positive onus on the old idea that soldiers should conserve ammunition. The Soviet Army says that "the duty of a soldier is to fire at the enemy" to this day, and exacts no penalty for not hitting him. The major consequence of this, however, is that a soldier in a firefight is going to have to change his clip every 4-5 seconds, an operation which takes even the best of them 4/5 seconds itself. No wonder that many of them have much higher capacity drum magazines, (around 80 for the AK-47 and up to 250 for the famous SAW, or that the very high tech P90 has it's clip on top, and so can carry 50 bullets.

And the weight of the bullets brings us to the overall weight of the weapon. The M16 is mostly plastic and was derided as 'a toy' until its breech was chrome plated and it quickly proved itself in Vietnam, but this also gets back to the weight of the bullets. Most military bullets are .556 mm instead of the old 30 calibers which dominated warfare until Vietnam. Even the Russian AK-74, successor to the 47 has a 554 mm. These bullets are claimed to be just as effective as their heavier predecessor and the soldier can carry somewhat more because they carry less.

The whole thing makes you really pine for a good old-fashioned phaser. It weighed, less than an apple, it NEVER need ammo, and could, apparently take out a Klingon at a mile without even aiming. Also, it had a "stun" setting, a reliable one which doesn't kill every third victim seemingly escaping the best gun designers to this day.