Devastating Sci-Fi Weapon Needed

[zmunkz]

I think the key to any huge scale device (weapon or otherwise) is an incredible power source... incidentally discovering ever more powerful and stables sources of power has been a major part of the shifts in world strength here in real life.

If I was a bad guy bent on world destruction, and you had a power source strong enough to run a machine capable of some of the aforementioned things, I wouldn't bother with the down-stream device... I'd go steal the batteries. That would be the most valuble part. Then I could plug them into anything in my evil armada.

If you like lasers and you buy the premise that the key piece of any large-scale instrument is it's power source, then the device in question could be a giant laser-type battery. Some kind of elaborate sphere that you hit with a laser and it splits the beam/amplifies it, and focuses it on a tiny point to create/maintain a mini black hole, or else a stream of antimatter if its hitting certain materials, or else energizing a nuclear fusion-type reaction, etc.

My 2 cents.

 

[StilLearning]

How about a space probe with a dual function: It's designed to divert large asteroids, and to mine the raw material of an asteroid to create copies of itself, which then travel to other asteroids and repeat the process. This way the civilisation that launches the probe can move huge numbers of asteroids rich in metal/water/organic chemicals/whatever they need into easily accessible and mineable orbits, for the relatively small cost of launching the first probe (which will admittedly be a technological marvel and so more expensive than a regular probe, but not impossibly so). They can also quite quickly take control of any and every asteroid that might be a collision risk, safeguarding their planet.

The downside is that if a bad guy got control of the system they could pummel the planet with asteroids until its crust melted and it became a world wide lava ocean.

I genuinely try not to blow my own horn unless it's directly relevant (my ego is of dangerous size already and I've found that overfeeding it gets me into problems I could have otherwise avoided) but I wrote a blog post on the idea, which might have some links and ideas you 'd find interesting if you decided to go that way (link here). Worryingly, studies on this kind of technology are underway as partnerships between NASA and private companies...

 

[Mirannan]

A couple to play with, once of which requires currently unknown physics and the other megascale engineering.

First: System defence laser, using a large array of orbital elements, strong magnetic fields. This uses the power of the local star to induce directed flares in the star itself, which are then induced to lase. This is obviously a weapon to start with, but the target?

Second: Vacuum energy generator using GUT-scale physics to extract the latent energy of the vacuum. This has rather obvious potential for misuse, up to and including the destruction of the entire universe. A sufficiently chiliastic group of lunatics might find this attractive...

Oh, and BTW antimatter is not an energy source any more than hydrogen (for burning, not fusing) is. It's a storage medium, not quite the same thing.

 

[WaylanderToo]

How about a space probe with a dual function: It's designed to divert large asteroids, and to mine the raw material of an asteroid to create copies of itself, which then travel to other asteroids and repeat the process. This way the civilisation that launches the probe can move huge numbers of asteroids rich in metal/water/organic chemicals/whatever they need into easily accessible and mineable orbits, for the relatively small cost of launching the first probe (which will admittedly be a technological marvel and so more expensive than a regular probe, but not impossibly so). They can also quite quickly take control of any and every asteroid that might be a collision risk, safeguarding their planet.

The downside is that if a bad guy got control of the system they could pummel the planet with asteroids until its crust melted and it became a world wide lava ocean.

yup - kinetic weapons baby woot!

Oh, and BTW antimatter is not an energy source any more than hydrogen (for burning, not fusing) is. It's a storage medium, not quite the same thing.

thankz, ah iz knut ay skyentest

 

[Mirannan]

yup - kinetic weapons baby woot!




thankz, ah iz knut ay skyentest

Regarding kinetic weapons, agreed! IMHO, RKKVs are one of the future-tech potential items/processes that any reasonably hard SF story sufficiently far in the future has to explain the absence of; the other one I can think of is the Singularity, but there may be others.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

How about a space probe with a dual function: It's designed to divert large asteroids, and to mine the raw material of an asteroid to create copies of itself, which then travel to other asteroids and repeat the process. This way the civilisation that launches the probe can move huge numbers of asteroids rich in metal/water/organic chemicals/whatever they need into easily accessible and mineable orbits, for the relatively small cost of launching the first probe (which will admittedly be a technological marvel and so more expensive than a regular probe, but not impossibly so). They can also quite quickly take control of any and every asteroid that might be a collision risk, safeguarding their planet.

The downside is that if a bad guy got control of the system they could pummel the planet with asteroids until its crust melted and it became a world wide lava ocean.

I genuinely try not to blow my own horn unless it's directly relevant (my ego is of dangerous size already and I've found that overfeeding it gets me into problems I could have otherwise avoided) but I wrote a blog post on the idea, which might have some links and ideas you 'd find interesting if you decided to go that way (link here). Worryingly, studies on this kind of technology are underway as partnerships between NASA and private companies...

I have a supervillain doing something very similar to this in my upcoming novel.

 

[RX-79G]

Regarding kinetic weapons, agreed! IMHO, RKKVs are one of the future-tech potential items/processes that any reasonably hard SF story sufficiently far in the future has to explain the absence of; the other one I can think of is the Singularity, but there may be others.

Why would RKKVs require much explanation? Any civilization capable of getting something of reasonable mass up to high speeds is going to be capable of detecting and turning that object into plasma.

 

[StilLearning]

dropping a space rock on someone is just a question of slowly diverting it's orbit. Deflecting one on short notice or breaking into harmless pieces is harder - and there are some huge bits of rock out there.

 

[Mirannan]

Why would RKKVs require much explanation? Any civilization capable of getting something of reasonable mass up to high speeds is going to be capable of detecting and turning that object into plasma.

I have a two-part answer to that. First, in the case of a high-relativistic missile you have very little time to do anything about it. As an example, try an object at 99.9% C, and let it be detectable at more or less the distance Voyager is at now - half a light day or so. Do the maths; you get 43 seconds in that case.

Second, let's assume you can convert the object to plasma. Fine. You are unlikely to change its velocity significantly, however; instead of being hit with a couple of tons of solid material you get hit by a couple of tons of relativistic plasma. Not much improvement, methinks.

 

[SilentRoamer]

Regarding kinetic weapons, agreed! IMHO, RKKVs are one of the future-tech potential items/processes that any reasonably hard SF story sufficiently far in the future has to explain the absence of; the other one I can think of is the Singularity, but there may be others.

Ok so the RKKV - this is something I have though about a lot over the years and discussed with friends - we have a bad habit of arguing space battles which normally sounds like this:

Me: "No of course a Shadow Vessel could take down a federation ship"
My friend: "Well you say that but B5 vessels don't have any form of shielding"
Me: "Well no but then they don't have telepaths either do they...?"
My friend: "Well what about the Ocompa and the Caretaker?"
Me: "Oh ok well sorry but they're in the wrong quadrant for this battle!"
My friend: "Ok what about species 8472 then...."

Nnyway back to the point - the big problem with an RKKV is detection and interception, I mean if you can intercept this thing in space then essentially its a moot point and a pretty light show.

For me the only viable solution is a Dyson sphere-esque type of protection grid, if that RKKV hits a spec of dust en route to the planet the spec of dust is going to do to the RKKV what the RKKV was going to do to the planet. An RKKV is likely to travel in a straight line so arguably a spherical orbital intercept system (I would have this as a monitored system comprising of millions of tiny independent units) would already be in place. Detection would not be required and by its nature the intercept system would comprise geometrical patterns that left the smallest possible windows of opportunity for any direct entry into upper orbit.

I have a lot more detail on this Mirannan if you are interested .

 

[Mirannan]

SilentRoamer: Sure, that would work. But see what you've done here. Postulated the building of a Dyson swarm against the possibility of being hit by (probably) small numbers of missiles. Works, but a little like using a tacnuke to kill an ant.

In addition: If you can already build a Dyson swarm, why are you worried about the possibility in the first place? Planetary populations are going to be a microscopic fraction of such a society. And the opposition, knowing that, probably wouldn't bother in the first place.

 

[SilentRoamer]

SilentRoamer: Sure, that would work. But see what you've done here. Postulated the building of a Dyson swarm against the possibility of being hit by (probably) small numbers of missiles. Works, but a little like using a tacnuke to kill an ant.

More like using a load of ants to kill a tacnuke!

In addition: If you can already build a Dyson swarm, why are you worried about the possibility in the first place? Planetary populations are going to be a microscopic fraction of such a society. And the opposition, knowing that, probably wouldn't bother in the first place.

I think Planetary populations are always going to be large even for a space faring civilization, for viable food production and also for planet only resources or delicacies. The swarms are built through automation on any newly colonised planet - technologically they are just a swarm of drones that cover specific patterns to ensure an RKKV doesn't get free entry.

I do see the logic in both points though and I suppose much is dependant on energy factors and technological capabilities. If you are using a billion drone dyson defence system and all you are defending against are RKKV's then you have your opponent outclassed!

 

[RX-79G]

I have a two-part answer to that. First, in the case of a high-relativistic missile you have very little time to do anything about it. As an example, try an object at 99.9% C, and let it be detectable at more or less the distance Voyager is at now - half a light day or so. Do the maths; you get 43 seconds in that case.

Second, let's assume you can convert the object to plasma. Fine. You are unlikely to change its velocity significantly, however; instead of being hit with a couple of tons of solid material you get hit by a couple of tons of relativistic plasma. Not much improvement, methinks.

43 seconds from Earth, but that's assuming that the Earth was able to build a drive that would get an object up to 99.9% C and not also have early detection weapons in wide orbits able to fire both out and into the solar system.

Is there any functional difference between a high speed plasma cloud and cosmic rays? I think the danger of a several ton cloud of plasma at any speed comes down to its density when it hits, which is going to be predicted in part by the inverse square of the distance from Earth when the object is vaporized, and how much the debris can be further slowed with Earth orbit weapons firing out.