Sci-fi Weapons, Vehicles and Equipment

Max: From a scifi series I read they had a heavily shielded water tank that protected the crew and rest of the craft from interstellar particles. It was located at the front part of the craft and the base of the container acted as a shroud. It wasn't perfect and some of the crew still died in hybernation transit but it was a huge improvement.

Later developments in the 9 book series they develop better protection and shielding meaning in transit crew death became rare.

A very high density shielding would also help protect a large number of particles as well.

edited 31st Oct '13 8:30:04 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

For shielding, just hollow out any space rock, or break up asteroids. Water works in that it can stop radiation, but if you're just moving about, the rock is ablative armor.

Warships in my 'verse have slabs carved from asteroids as armor plate. Inside water is used to shield the crew areas and there is cooling using water to keep the engines from roasting the crew. Yes I know, space has no convection. The heat is managed not absorbed. In an emergency, coolant can be dumped to get the heat down but it's a giant flare in space.

Some species are more tolerant of heat than humans. That's why Earth has bio-androids as part of the ships crew: some work in engineering, others in maintenance and damage control.

Babylon Five actually has this as a plot point: different species can take different G-loads. I've taken that and run with it.

edited 3rd Nov '13 7:19:31 AM by TairaMai

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

All this talk of weapons, what about the other sci-fi-y thingies?

In universe:

Out of universe, I needed a good material for the bio-andriod characters to be plausible. Not outright Handwave-y, but grounded in real science. Mae Craft (the ship's android doctor) and her shape shifting siblings are an example of how far this can go. There are others who look like traditional robots until their faces move. And like in the Iron Man films, the MegaCorp that makes the "killer robots" can say "our technology has peaceful uses too."

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

@Taira

Putting a layer of rock atop the hull is more akin to armor than shields. Furthermore, because of the structural strength of ice and rock it wouldn't allow for rapid acceleration without peeling off. Additionally, the ice would be vulnerable to laser weaponry as a single hit would vaporize the ice rapidly. The effect would be similar to a bomb being attached to the hull.

Large reservoirs of water would be poor protection to weapons fire. Energy weapons would cause it to detonate in steam explosions and kinetics would poke sizable holes in the containers. That would lead to the water leaking out. You'd also have hydrostatic shock passing the impact to the bulkheads.

If we needed shields against just radiation we'd just line the hull with boron carbide tiles.

I have ablative armor since there are no actual shields in my 'verse. There is an an "inertialess" drive that can act as a shield at the cost of power. It can also act as "sealth" since it makes a field of warped space. The downside is that when the A-field drops there is a sudden "bloom" of IR and EMF energy appearing in space.

As for water as a radiation shield: in 2061 Aurthr C. Clarke had tanks of water because some metals to have isotopes in them that would react to cosmic rays. Water is a good medium around the life support areas, inside the ship. And there can be algae or other plant life to help generate 02.

You have given me an idea tho...

Commerce raiders, pirates and the like use cargo containers full of either ice or space junk as "slap on" armor, or hide weapons. They don't take on actual warships, they take on merchant ships and the smaller spacefighters / "cutters" used to patrol in a system. They can catch a small craft off guard.

Spacefighters have grown and small destroyers and frigates shrunk to the point that they use speed as armor. Actual fighters are small enough to land on a planet but can't jump on their own. Heavy bombers/destroyers have their own jump drives, are slower and have armor plate on vital areas.

edited 3rd Nov '13 7:26:34 AM by TairaMai

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

The pycrete shroud is entirely for interstellar travel. The ship immediately discards the shroud once it enters a solar system. The liability of the ice is also the reason the ship puts some distance between it and the shroud once the Oort cloud gives way to the Kuiper Belt.

I forgot that Clarke had a ship use an "ice shield" for that reason, easy to make and disposable.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

LED tattoos that can pulse coded signals as a part of a complex biometrics system.

edited 4th Nov '13 3:56:02 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

Lead poisoning?

Oh, I thought that was a misspelling of lead. It said LED. I'm a moron.

edited 3rd Nov '13 9:16:31 PM by MaxwellDaring

Yeah sorry forgot to capitalize the acronym.

For those who may have artificial skin you could have wider variety of options of neat tech you could bury in the skin or lace through it.

Going back to the tazer example. Someone with a cybernetic hand could have the surface of artificial skin laced with contact electrodes with a capacitor or battery unit stored elsewhere and wired up to the hand. Activate it and give someone a pat or grab them and bam you zap them. Or bare cybernetics with metallic surfaces could do the same thing.

Cybernetics open up a variety of interesting options like cameras, communications, detection, etc packed into your own smart platform ie people.

edited 4th Nov '13 5:24:12 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

This is essentially how the Kontakt-S package for Armata cyborgs works, though it covers the entire body. However, since it uses a "net" of capacitors and conductors, it is rather fragile and can be ruined if enough is damaged.

Another handy thing they have is essentially a "chameleon" type cloaking system. Basically, it's a subdermal implant that produces artificial chromatophores. To quote directly from my general worldbuilding thread, with an application of an extremely low current, these chromatophores can change colour to blend in with any environment (the exact pattern is decided intelligently on the fly by a small nanomachine colony). To avoid the obvious issue of what to do with clothing and weapons, a quick spray on coating imbues the selected items with the same active camoflague properties via a slightly different method, though the spray needs to be re-applied every six months to maintain the item's properties (and as it degrades, the performance begins to drop off as well). The implant is powered by sunlight. I think it's simple but elegant.

edited 4th Nov '13 4:10:16 PM by Flanker66

Locking you up on radar since '09

So lets talk medicine and other things.

I already mentioned nano-machines being used in medicine for certain limited functions.

Other things like growing and creating body part replacements like new organs, bones, eyes, most nerves, and even whole limbs. Use of tech to exercise the muscles of a growing limb mitigate the need for extensive physical therapy and ensure it functions properly. Other tech tests nerves and ensures other tissues are functioning correctly.

However this process takes a fair bit of time up to 3 months or more in some cases. While modern medicine in the setting can keep someone sustained via machines and regenerative medicine for up to a decade sometimes it is considered a preferred option to get a cybernetic prosthetic instead. It is both expedient and can provide advantages a person would not normally have with biological limbs.

The only organ they have had trouble with replicating or replacing is the human brain. While it was long theorized they could record the human mind and place it into an artificial matrix or a vat grown brain results have been problematic at best and disasterous at the worst.

Like unintentionally creating one of the most prolific and dangerous serial killers in the history of the world who visited nearly every arcology collecting a toll from each arcologies population as trophies before vanishing.

For emergency medicine ,things like bio foams composed of smart materials and advanced devices can seal a damaged artery forming a bio compatible seal around the artery while keeping the pathway clear. This process works on all organs especially when used additional material injected more locally by a smart probe. The smart probe is a near prehensile highly mobile and flexible probe that is inserted into the body near the injury the probe tells the foam how to form as well as gives the medic a inside view of the wound. When it is retracted it leaves a bio seal trail that keeps the wound clean and minimizes further fluid loss. Probes can navigate around and near arteries, nerves, organs, and other internal parts with minimal input from the user.

The probes can act as endoscopic surgery devices as well as manipulating the foam.

Synthetic blood can be injected by smart auto injection devices to alleviate blood loss.

Other tech and delay brain death through various means, act as a form of suspended animation, or stabalize a otherwise severly injured victim.

With the ability to replace failing organs, rejuvianate or replace worn out cells and more effective control over diseas the average human life span has roughly tripled. The longer living members of society mean population control is a must as is carefully crafted care of the population.

This leads to the Arcology systems after a troubled 50 year history including the loss of 6 of the 8 of the first arcologies to a seqeunce of systematic failures referred to as Arcology Collapse Syndrome.

Most arcologies are precariously balanced in one way or another against collapse thanks to the arcology systems current form. New arcologies though have a high risk of collapse until all measures are placed and the residents of a failed arcology are left to fend for themselves becoming a part of a large wandering migratory refugee groups present on every continent.

edited 5th Nov '13 7:38:20 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

X-posted from the old worldbuilding ecology thread:

edited 8th Nov '13 8:55:12 AM by TairaMai

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

Those are some certainly charming people.

Is there any substance where if you apply an electrical charge it compresses or expands rapidly? Or a particular process?

The reason I am asking is I am writing a short story and they are going to encounter a group of "techno barbarians" who use some form of powered flechette/Kinetic Dart (think an upgrade to the crossbow) launcher. If the electrical charge option doesn't work I was thinking of instead maybe making them a form spigot mortar weapon instead like the PIAT only it fires Tungsten Carbide tipped bolts/arrow/darts/large flechettes.

By technological barbarian I mean a group that uses a sort of schitzo tech and a tribal structure of some sort.

edited 8th Nov '13 5:27:20 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

Among the many stories taking place in the Big Damn Timeline is one taking place in 2036 shortly after the collapse of the British government. The Show Within a Show of the time period is a BBC original called Mystaria. Opinions vary whether it was So Bad, It's Good, or So Bad That It Resulted In The Fall Of The United Kingdom. Much of the technology of the series was pulled from the behinds of the designated protagonists, with Ass Pulls on the same level as Bat-Shark repellent. So what would be some good bad Applied Phlebotinum?

@Tuffel:Via The Other Wiki: Smart Material and Electroactive Polymers.

Matt My darling, just do a wiki walk. The good rule for So Bad, It's Good Applied Phlebotinum it what Cracked.com calls "plot Spackle": it covers the holes in the plot you could drive a semi-truck towing a prade float through.

edited 8th Nov '13 9:40:42 PM by TairaMai

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

taira: I knew about memory/smart materials. I can't recall if any of them have any particulary energetic reactions. I recall most such reactions occuring fairly slowly.

edited 9th Nov '13 9:29:44 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

Try the polymers, since they are under consideration for use as muscle for limbs.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

Muscles tend to not have the kind of energetic force I am looking for though. I will have to shelve that idea for a little bit.

So I saw Elysium. Lots neat scifi tech in the movie. Including fribee drones, remote explosives that burrow into the target both anti-personnel and anti-vehicle, some sort of what looked like a plasma or energy shield, and explosive fragmenting smart rounds. Oh and shoulder fired missiles that can make escape velocity and take out ships in LEO.

Who watches the watchmen?

What about some sort of piezo-electric effect?

Would it impart a fair amount of kinetic force if it is charged or activated?

I am trying to suss out something that isn't gunpowder for an exotic weapon.

edited 13th Nov '13 4:59:28 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

Cyberpunk 2020 had "Electro Thermal Enhancement". Water is turned into plasma to propel a bullet. It could be put into rifles and artillery pieces. However it was a power hog. Ammo is limited to AP, DU and other hard rounds. Hollowpoint, HE and frag are right out.

I'm stealing this one for a Shout-Out.

edited 13th Nov '13 5:09:44 PM by TairaMai

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

Not sure, they use it for some electric motors (both rotational and linear motors), but I'm not sure how good they'd be for weapons. Of course, it would be helpful to know what sort of effect you want to achieve, because designing a gun that doesn't use propellants is easy enough (relatively speaking), but designing a bomb or mine that doesn't is somewhat harder.

edited 13th Nov '13 6:26:26 PM by MattII

Think something more along the lines of a crossbow but it isn't using elastic materials to propel the bolt/dart/kinetic penetrator. Not quite a gun but not quite a crossbow. Which is why Spigot Mortar system is consideration.

Who watches the watchmen?

Crossbow? I'd go with a polymer or an electric motor since a powertool could be re-made into a "crossbow" with some work.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48