This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: split Energy Weapons: From YKTTW
Cidolfas: I am saddened that this trope is not called Everythings Better With Lasers.
Mark Z: "Superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering" is from the Geneva Conventions, and doesn't apply to law enforcement weapons.
Unknown Troper: Is the research currently being done on fitting real life Frickin' Laser Beams to fighter jets Truth in Television?
Morgan Wick: Frickin' Laser Beam came up on a Random Item search. Any way to fix that?
Unknown Troper: Photons do have momentum, equal to its energy divided by the speed of light, and therefore, a laser weapon would demonstrate some amount of recoil.
Someone should edit the trope description to also talk about Frickin Laser Beams always being visible in the air. Once that's done, this
can be mentioned as a subversion/inversion. —Document N
Air Of Mystery: I'm here to ask about that - I've seen lasers where you can see them as a beam in the air (although obviously they seemed instantaneous as they were travelling at the speed of light). Are they just extra powerful, or do you need particular room conditions (e.g. an atmosphere)?
Eric DVH: Yes, it depends on both. Think of it like a flashlight: You normally can't see a flashlight beam, but if the light is an easily seen color (white, green, etc…) and the air is very foggy (and it's dark enough,) then you can easily make it out. Ideal conditions for seeing a laser beam would be a green laser in a dark, smoky area.
Eric DVH: Removed the following:
Real Life
- It should be noted that, in real life, any energy weapon strong enough to act as a movie laser pistol would, in fact, cause knockback. This is because, in order to create lethally deep wounds, the laser would have to vaporize the flesh it struck, or at least the water in that flesh, pretty much instantaneously. This would then create a jet of (mostly) steam which would race out of the wound towards the shooter, pushing the victim backwards. This actually would cause greater impact than any normal firearm, as ordinary firearms cause little or no knockback.
- However, and this would be TOTALLY weird if you practice with real firearms, they would completely lack recoil.
A 9mm pistol generates about 7lbs of kick, while I rather doubt that a puff of steam would be directional enough to even reach you.
Clarste: You must have misread it. He's talking about the impact on the victim, not the shooter. The steam would theoretically start at the victim (and be created out of his/her own flesh), and might push the body back as it expanded. The fact that the steam goes "towards the shooter" is only relevant insofar as it's unidirectional and therefore push backwards on the victim as it expands. Reaching the shooter is not a concern, although I suppose it could be in certain circumstances (and probably burns would be more of a concern is that case). As the response implies, there'd still be negligible recoil (much less than the "kick" of a pistol) despite the knockback of the victim. Knockback of the victim which real guns generally don't have much of (according the gun tropes on this site anyway).
Icalasari: What about the Beamos from Legend of Zelda? I'm not sure if it would count or not due to these examples featuring technology (of course, the Beamos don't seem to be entirely organic...)
Drive By Editor: Erm ... Can someone explain to me why a lot of examples of things which clearly are not lasers are getting put in this trope? For example, the Fate/Stay Night example. They're using freaking magic blasts, not lasers!
I mean—if this trope is about lasers, shouldn't it stick to examples of things which are either stated by the creator to be lasers, or which obviously are lasers based on their origin and behavior? Not everything that just so happens to look like a beam or bolt of energy is a laser!
T Beholder: because it's the same generic FX which does the same generic damage and the rest is Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp".
