Sci-fi Weapons, Vehicles and Equipment

The problem with biofuels is the energy density: fossil fuels are still higher in octane and (for now) cheaper.

But all it takes is for some breakthough....

Re: Communication systems; Maybe the ability to transmit in a narrow cone rather than in all directions, reducing the chance of interception? The transmitter could also automatically keep facing a relay station, which would then transmit your messages the usual way, so you won't have to know where the recipient is, and there would be a smaller chance of the signal giving away your location.

Or if you go farther into the future, neutrino communication. Neutrinos interact very little with matter they pass through; On the one hand, it means a neutrino signal would pass right through the planet. On the other hand, reading the signal won't be easy. Receivers could be very bulky, not least because of the shielding necessary to prevent interference from other particles, and limited to large vehicles and bases. One world of mine has compact receivers which use a microscopic sphere of far greater density than ordinary matter as an antenna.

edited 1st Jan '14 3:45:25 AM by ManInGray

One Subspace Ansible is to adapt the "hyper drive" to send signals between planets. Perhaps a small field can be used to relay signals? Or burst transmissions could be sent in large packets using the tech that allows FTL travel.

Babylon Five had tachyon signals. Not sure about the precise mechanics tho...

edited 1st Jan '14 12:51:55 PM by TairaMai

Not overly big on bio fuels but the tech has some promise.

There was an article I saw recently that they have become more efficient at converting certain kinds of sea weed directly into raw crude without the use of harsh chemicals.

edited 2nd Jan '14 4:28:57 PM by TuefelHundenIV

I've heard they're making petroleum from algae these days.

Indeed. They have been experimenting with it for a while now. Sadly early means used toxic chemicals to do so and the outputs are of course still low.

May be interesting a full scale test facility and see what it's output is like.

I've created a Science Fantasy world where the tech in the present day is pretty much LIGHT YEARS ahead of even DARP As most secretive projects, but there's no interstellar travel and it's pretty much confined to one planet.

That being said I'm thinking of a Space Based WMD that wiped out the Precursors in said story both as a biological weapon and a conventional "blow shit the fuck up!" way.

Is there something that I can look for or an idea?

These are good ideas. Am I correct in presuming that the relay station would basically act as a signal booster to allow transmissions to be made over much longer distances (as in like how modern mobile phones can transmit to another continent, or perhaps into orbit^note Presumably spaceside transmitters wouldn't have any problems transmitting directly to groundside radios to due to having more power available than the transmitter in a portable radio; this could mean that if relay stations are lost groundside transmitters can receive but not transmit.? Although I don't think that would be the normal method of radio transmission in my setting, it isn't impossible that military signals would "piggyback" off of civilian broadcasting stations or that there might be signals variants of utility vehicles that operate in the manner you describe.

Focused transmitting would be a boon, since it would probably mean that signal quality would be improved (as energy isn't wasted transmitting omnidirectionally). One of the major things in my setting is that micro-missiles set up for anti-personnel work do exist, so signals discipline is very important unless you want a missile popping around to say hi. Think of the battle between anti-radiation missiles and radars. Furthermore, I imagine that radios would attempt to keep their time transmitting as small as possible, particularly on a single frequency (since that would give said micro-missiles more time to ascertain the transmitter's position).

I wonder if it would be possible for the radios to include noise in their transmissions to make it more difficult to track the signal (with said noise being automatically "scrubbed" from the audio)? Or would something else work better to defeat such micro-missiles?

I like the sound of this concept very much.

@Fox:

Are you looking for two seperate WMDs or one that can either/or have the qualities you mentioned? I've got a feeling you're talking about the former, but it pays to make sure!

Well ideally it'd be one as I can refer to it as the "event". But if you got an idea of two then I'm all ears

:D

I'm imagining a missile based delivery system, perhaps mounted to a satellite or an unmanned starship mounting.

It would have two warheads for its compliment of missiles. One half (or more if necessary) contains incredibly virulent and hardy microbes (think the unholy love child of the Black Plague and Spanish Flu) which are designed to target only those belonging to the Precursor species thanks to genetic tomfoolery. Bonus points if the disease progresses rapidly once the incubation period is over. These missiles are targeted at major population centres and the countryside. The system then waits for a "go" signal (such as signs indicating that the infection has performed its job). Once all conditions are satisfied, it launches the rest of its missiles.

These missiles have "salted"/enhanced radiation warheads; the idea is to scour the surface of any life and/or make the land uninhabitable for significant timeframes. This would finish off any survivors and dissuade attempts to reclaim the planet (if the microbes are tough enough, they too will hamper re-colonisation efforts by the Precursors). A scorched earth policy on a interstellar scale.

:O

:O

:O

Mother of god that sounds bloody brilliant!

Any name sticking out to you?!

Thanks! It took a bit of time to figure out a system that would satisfy your conditions and prove highly lethal (not to mention comparatively simple). Perversely, it was rather fun describing how it operated.

Though it's perhaps overdramatic, how about Blackheart? Or Two Horsemen^note The idea being a nod to Pestilence and Death (or Conquest) of the Four Horsemen? Or take two random nouns in the vein of various nuclear strategy/weapon codenames.

Hope that helps!

^ What about Черный всадник (Chonyva Svodniki*

Or not just necessarily salted bombs but Salted Radiation bombs ie Salted Neutron bombs. Shit loads of both radiation and fallout.

Though if you want to be truly dickish you use the city busters first then coat the planet in the bio agent. You break the infrastructure that can potentially blunt or stop the bio weapon so when the bioweapon hits it is all the worse. Add the target populace will be trying awfully hard to survive and in no position to take the means needed to resist an effective and agressive bio agent.

Make said agent similar to Anthrax with spores or contagious agents that resist radiation quite well and remain active for decades.

Yeah, salted neutron bombs were what I was thinking of. Basically "Fuck everything!" the nuclear weapon.

I kind of couldn't decide if the biological payload or the salted enhanced radiation weapons should go first, so I'm perfectly happy to concede what you suggested, Tuefel. Considering how nasty this combo is, though, I'm not 100% sure it matters what order it's in, eh?

I would've figured Antimatter being the nuclear-equivalent of "Fuck Everything!". After all you only need a few grams of the stuff to level Rhode Island.

Hey salted nukes, salted neutron bombs. It all kills the fuck out of everything.

There are any number of frighteningly hardy micro organisms out there that via Genetic Hijinks could be made into a horrifyingly lethal and long lasting bio weapon that can thrive or be safely dormant in an irridiated wasteland.

Imagine if the bacteria that are commonly found in the clouds were to become lethal and spread like that same said bacteria. That would be horrifyingly unpleasant.

edited 3rd Jan '14 8:27:43 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Well the idea was that the Ancient Humans were at war with the Precursor race for decades, and they developed a space based WMD. The Precursors in space fighting to stop the firing of the weapon are obviously doing their best. However, they fail and the Precursors on the ground launch WM Ds at the ancient human's civilization, in the form of MAD.

Should the Earth based WM Ds used be nukes or would that cause suspension of disbelief as to how the audience would accept the Headscratcher of how life on the planet survived after biological, chemical, nuclear, and "BLOW SHIT UP" weapons devastated every corner of the globe?

Well the radiation doesn't last forever and the life on earth has shown itself to be rather hardy.

Though perhaps I would keep the nuking to terrestrial levels.

I remember a popular crank theory that early man and/or some precursor race had a war with nuclear exchanges. It supposedly explains some intresting itnerpretation in the Vedas and a highly radioactive bit of ground in India.

Take the following links with a dump truck full of salt as they are wackadoo malarky by the numbers.

In fact consider them as people imaginations going too far without any reason, proof, or logic applied.

Ancient Nuclear War

Ancient irridiated city found

vimanas/VamansAncient Aircraft

Vaman

Ancient UFO's

edited 4th Jan '14 9:04:41 AM by TuefelHundenIV

I'm now imagining the missiles being used to seed clouds with the bacteria (I was thinking of Anthrax style spores, funnily enough). I think that would be one of the quickest ways to bring about such a scenario.

By the way, is there anything that could be done to deal with anti-personnel micro missiles? They tend to use IR imaging or passively track via electromagnetic emissions (there are radar guided versions, but they tend to be scarce), so if you focus on defeating the seeker those are the details you need to keep in mind.

Though advances in technology would help greatly, I am under the impression that the seeker resolution would be limited for obvious reasons, which could make things easier.

^ Are you talking stuff like guided bullets?

IR can be baffled by small lasers, flares, and Opaque IR obscurant smoke. The Russians make great use of smoke screens made to baffle IR and Laser designaters. The smoke obscures lasers and generates heat giving a large IR signature to the target.

EM trackers you could use more traditional ECM or proper signal discipline to reduce the trackers effectiveness.

Most countermeasures would be done via dumping large amounts of signal noise or feeding false info to the sensors. For passive sensors you need something actively emitting.

Tom: I think he is referring to common concept of small micro munitions that are in fact a form of guided missile. Think like the Switchblade only autonomous.

edited 4th Jan '14 9:17:09 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Thinking a little, guided bullets may actually be A Thing^TM, though performance can vary wildly depending on how saturated the environment is with ECM, ECCM, etc. They're more "nice to have" than "need to have". For obvious reasons, if guidance fails they just go ballistic (or depending on how fancy the electronics are, it might memorise the last known return and continue to guide on that point/predict where the target is).

But no, that's not what I'm talking about specifically. What I'm describing are more akin to very small MANPADS - extremely compact missile systems that can be mounted to almost anything, and either detonate like normal missiles or defeat their targets kinetically (these missiles probably have pointed nose cones, though if you're going fast enough that doesn't matter too much). They generally have an internal booster motor and then either have a smokeless motor or just glide toward the target.

I haven't managed to set a specific size for these micro missiles yet - they're fairly scaleable, so what might be an anti-tank micro missile on an IFV isn't necessarily an anti-tank weapon on a helicopter. That's mostly because I'm rubbish with scales, though, so if I defined their dimensions Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale is almost certain to ensue.

EDIT:

Tuefel's bang on the money - I am indeed talking about that sort of thing!

And all of that's very helpful! As I've said several times before, everyone learns very quickly in basic training to avoid transmitting carelessly; I imagine there's training systems that fire a laser at a sensor on the trainee's chest to indicate a "launch"/"kill" if they've been inattentive.

edited 4th Jan '14 9:15:27 AM by Flanker66

The Israelis make one called the Mini-Spike.

Micro Munitions or reduced size munitions are a big thing right now. There are even very small bombs for use on drones. Check out platforms like the Marine Corps Harvest Hawk for more examples. It uses a lot of smaller light weight munitions with the so called Gun Slinger system.

Now I am sure I have mentioned this before, but there are guided bullets now. They successfully tested laser guided bullets. The bullet is more like a kinetic gun launched missile.

For ones like the switch blade they are supposedly going to be able to be launched from a Hydra Rocket Pod for dronese and would be tied into the crafts data link so they could guide the projectile in. It is harking back to the days of camera guided munitions only in MANPACK/MANPORT packages.

edited 4th Jan '14 9:30:27 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Yeah, the reason miniature missiles (among other explosives) are common in my setting is that I've noticed a trend toward smaller, "cleaner" munitions. So I simply extrapolated from that. I'll take a look at those modern micro munitions, thanks!

As for guided bullets, would I be correct in thinking they'd be fairly common (at least in military applications - I don't think governments would want criminals running around with guided bullets)? And am I right in believing that (as I said in my last post) they would probably be more strongly affected by ECM and other countermeasures due to their small size?

Or hell, would they actually be somewhat uncommon due to their complexity, expense, and the possible impracticality of arming every soldier in an army with them?