Need help Explaining my weapons in a scientific way

Johnnydrama25

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Hey I just joined this awesome site to better help me with my stories. I am currently working on a story in which a group of space knights lead an intergalactic army against this cosmic being. In the story the Knights can wield extremely high tech weapons such as

A black Hole gauntlet: A power fist that allows them to hit you with the mass of a black hole

A Magentar grenade: a grenade that blasts out a magnetic field equal to a magnetar

White hole machine guns- a gun that is linked to a white hole and fires its energies

There is also ships that eat reality and weapons that can drain suns and reverse time. Is it even possible to try to explain how they work or should I just hand wave the technology?
 
Hand wave it all the way.
Your weapons are fantastical. Trying to explain and rationalise them will make them mundane.
And sooner or later there will be someone out there with enough time on their hands to prove exactly how wrong you are and why the weapons could never work. Such is the internet...
 
No clue I’m afraid but I like the ideas - esp a ship eating reality.

Welcome to Chrons; you’re going to love it here but your job/significant other won’t approve.

pH
Glad to be here I was inspired by The Marvel Universe Galatic beings like Galactus and thought what if there was a group who were specifically trained to deal with those type of threats
 
It may be best to go with the wonder route rather than trying to give some basis. You are writing about space knights, so that gives some flexibility. If you go the explanation route, then a couple of challenges I see are:

* black Hole gauntlet: If it has the mass of a black hole, then how would the knight be able to swing it (overcome inertia). The mass may be over kill for hand-to-hand. Maybe keep the name but downsize the mass.

* Magnetar grenade: Keep in mind blast radius. Can it be thrown far enough so the thrower is not killed or wounded by the thrower's own weapon.

* White hole machine guns, eating reality, draining suns, reversing time: I got nothing.

Just go the hand waving route. Remember, Star Wars never justified the Death Star or light sabers, they just were. This sounds like a fun adventure fantasy, so go for the plot and action and skip the science.
 
The first question to ask is: if these weapons are the sort of strength that you suggest. Why is there a universe of normal matter still left?

But then, how realistic is this universe you are writing. If it's a bit of fun OTT fantasy, then go for it, you can always invent any reason for having anything in such worlds. If you want 'explanations' and you really mean what you wrote about the properties of the weapons i.e. a bit harder SF, you may have to scale down the forces and energies.

Ignoring the problems that @Wayne Mack points out with the black hole fist, regarding it's inertial mass (1) how would anyone be able to pick it up (2) if you mean the mass of a natural black hole - i.e. 1.4 times the mass of the sun - everything would warp towards it and wouldn't see it, as all light around it can't escape - (plus the poor hand of the person putting the glove on - he would in a seperate space in the universe cut off from his enemy over the event horizon)

Possibly you mean a micro black hole - say a few dozen tons or maybe a bit more? That might work if you also has a suit of power armour that could help the person lift and wield it. Technically they could possibly exist in real life. But then these micro black holes would also technically have extremely short lifetimes - possibly much less than a second. But then you could invent some sort of 'trap' for it that keeps it 'alive' indefintely. Perhaps even let the user ejected it so that it could evaporate and explode (like a core in Fallout4 - if you get the perk!)

...so if we said it was just a regular gauntlet but somehow, via magic, had the force of a small black hole and not its mass. And it simulated the force that a natural black hole mass could give (i.e. mind-boggingly huge). Then even the slightly tap on any surface would instantly disintegrate the matter (via transfer of momentum), Never mind a punch at an enemy, a user would destroy a planet just getting to the battle. Even just moving this gauntlet in the air would probably create a super hot radioactive blast of plasma that would quickly strip the planet of its atmosphere.

So I'd personally go for the micro black hole option with a power suit :)

Magnetar grende. Do you reall want a grenade with the a magentic field equivalent to a magnetar??? I read recently that the magnetic fields around magnetars are so strong that they elongate all atomic orbitals so drastrically, that all chemistry up to 1000 km away would cease as we know it. Essentially all atomic structures would break down, organic and biological. Set one of these off and all molecules in the ~418 million cubic kilometres around the grenade would seperate into individual atoms. This seems overkill for a 'hand' grenade - unless you can pinpoint and throw at an enemy a few thousand km away. Again Wayne's advice is sage :)

White holes - well, the world is your oyster. Some sort of 'wormhole' connectiing the end of the gun to a star. Why not?

Except white holes are theoretical and have never been observed. In fact we don't really know what one would emit (it's not just matter and light, their space-time would be truly weird, I feel) It feels that should be truly stupendous in energy dissapation, which again suggests it's a bit of huge overkill for merely a machine gun.

Overall, it all depends on the type of story you want to write. If it's gods and superheroes flying about the universe, then these sort of god-tier weapons probably could make sense. If you are doing a gritty WW2 in space with real people, it'll strain the incredulity of the reader! What are you going for?
 
How common are these technologies?

By that I mean if they are buildable you should probably explain them at least a little bit, but if they are 'relics' or created from an incredibly finite resource then you could probably get away with handwaving them.
 
I assume (oh yeah, you and me :p) @Johnnydrama25 doesn't mean 'with the force of,' but works in a similar fashion to the mechanics/physics of...more so...the results.

E.g.:
BHG hits with more force as though from more mass.
MG draws everything affected by a mag.field to it (within say 20')
etc.

So impressive names, not the real deal.

Is that right or wrong JohnnyD?

K2
 
I assume (oh yeah, you and me :p) @Johnnydrama25 doesn't mean 'with the force of,' but works in a similar fashion to the mechanics/physics of...more so...the results.

E.g.:
BHG hits with more force as though from more mass.
MG draws everything affected by a mag.field to it (within say 20')
etc.

So impressive names, not the real deal.

Is that right or wrong JohnnyD?

K2
It’s the real deal but they are shrunken down for example the Magentar bomb really is a star but tiny
 
It’s the real deal but they are shrunken down for example the Magentar bomb really is a star but tiny

Okay, understood. That might be a tough sell in the regard that if this race is capable of generating actual stars as the engines to these weapons, then why use your fists or grenades? It's a cool idea (star within a weapon), hope you can sort it out to your liking ;)

K2
 
The one detail that keeps nagging me, though, is the power of the weapons compared to their implied usage in one on one or small group combat. What would a space knight strike that justifies the power inherent in a black hole gauntlet?
 
The one detail that keeps nagging me, though, is the power of the weapons compared to their implied usage in one on one or small group combat. What would a space knight strike that justifies the power inherent in a black hole gauntlet?

And how would he get close to said target to punch it if a magnetar grenade would make him disintegrate into his/her constituent atoms even a 'mere' 10km away?

Never bring gauntlets to a magnetar fight. As they might say ;)
 
really is a star but tiny

Scientifically, a star is no smaller than around 0.02 solar masses, as that's what is required for nuclear fusion to occur. That's what makes it a star. Something small enough to be fired from a gun is more likely to be a ball of hot plasma.

To avoid getting into trouble with the science, the black hole/magnetar/white hole weapons could simply be slang terms rather than technical descriptions. :)
 
It’s the real deal but they are shrunken down for example the Magentar bomb really is a star but tiny

As far as the black hole gauntlet, "shrinking" doesn't really work (as we puny humans understand gravity right now). If it's the size of a fist, and it's a black hole, then it's in the planet mass range, not a star. Still pretty heavy!
 
Rocket-Propelled-Magnetar :)

Or maybe it's like Dune where you can't really use certain weapons effectively because of counters?
'Atomic' weapons or 'Stoneburners' were weapons you couldn't use in the Dune universe, but only by convention. In a similar way that the MAD convention kept/keeps the superpowers of today from annihilating each other.

But as it turned out they actually were used from time to time.

As far as the black hole gauntlet, "shrinking" doesn't really work (as we puny humans understand gravity right now). If it's the size of a fist, and it's a black hole, then it's in the planet mass range, not a star. Still pretty heavy!

Imagine having the gauntlet in the barracks armoury, say, on a planet surface. Even just 'in the planet mass range' a gauntlet will have the whole planet orbiting around the gauntlet and vice versa. The orbital dyanmics of the planet would be all over the place! ;)
 
I forgot about that. I was thinking more of the lasgun/shield interaction used to justify the melee combat focus in the future.
My only issue with this dynamic (in general it's a nice way of trying to get knife combat into the future) is that it only takes one fanatic with a lasgun, then boom, all of your army with personal shields gets fried.
 
Yea, I think one of the latter Dune novels used that tactic, but the general idea of technology being used to force close range fights is still a good one, especailly if you're talking about star powered weapons and stuff.
 

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