Warp-Field Bullets
- Thread starter P. Fingh
- Start date
Aren't you describing micro micro-torpedoes here? I have to wonder how small the tech can feasibly get and still operate safely/effectively, not to mention the engineering time required to manufacture even a single bullet.
And if (as you say) it doesn't need to travel FTL, then what would be the point?
And if (as you say) it doesn't need to travel FTL, then what would be the point?
Plus if your target is an organic, a faster bullet is actually LESS damaging than a slower projectile. Too much penetration and the bullet will leave a nice clean (and more easily healed) hole through the target, as opposed to slowing and fragmenting on the way.
I was thinking bullets because they could be loaded into a hand-firearm. eg machine gun. But I guess they're the same thing as micro-micro torpedo. The further away the target is, the more force they impact with. Some of the armor that opponents wear is pretty formidable so they would have to be armor piercing.
You could sort of reverse the setup and have your gun be a (warp/gravity/whatever) field generator. It would project an accelerating field from its barrel towards the target, and anything dropped in that field (say, tiny and inexpensive glass beads or whatnot) would be accelerated to hypersonic speeds, melt, and hit the target fast enough to create a shotgun-style impact pattern of tiny holes, regardless of what sort of physical armor the victim was wearing.
Enough of those irresistible holes, and the victim dies of being torn apart, despite extremely little energy actually being transferred.
Timo Saloniemi
Enough of those irresistible holes, and the victim dies of being torn apart, despite extremely little energy actually being transferred.
Timo Saloniemi
That was just a regular rifle (more or less), but Asshat Vulcan™ modified it with a mini-transporter so that the bullet could "pass through" solid objects.I don't think it was Warp driven, but, I seem to remember a Rifle shown on a DS9 episode, which was quite effective.
Possibly propelled via Subspace ?
...Which was something only a madman would bother to do, because if he had a compact transporter capable of beaming bullets through walls, he could have left the rifle home and simply beamed the bullets into the hearts of his victims.
Transporters supposedly don't work in subspace, or at least not in particularly deep subspace (there's a special breed of long range, high speed transporters that do, but those are unreliable - see TNG "Bloodlines" or "Firstborn", I always forget which, and also cf. the new movies). But transporters can give objects a fair deal of kinetic energy, too. After all, they routinely beam people from orbiting starships to planetary surfaces, even though the two are in very different states of motion (and no, being "geostationary" won't help there). So the madman could have beamed the bullet into the room and then let the bullet fly through the victim's chest into the heart, again skipping the part where a rifle is needed.
If a madman really wanted to install something in the bullet and not the firing platform, it could be a small warp/subspace field, because those supposedly can manipulate inertial mass (see DS9 "Emissary") and make projectiles less and supposedly also more massive/energetic than they "really" are. Say, there could be a "fluctuating" field there, going from extra-light to extra-heavy (and perhaps even minimizing energy consumption, which might depend on the average only). When the bullet was superlight, the assassin could put it on his palm and blow, and it would start moving at high speed; a second later, it would impact with the force of an anvil at the same speed (assuming that's how conservation of momentum works with subspace fields)...
Timo Saloniemi
Transporters supposedly don't work in subspace, or at least not in particularly deep subspace (there's a special breed of long range, high speed transporters that do, but those are unreliable - see TNG "Bloodlines" or "Firstborn", I always forget which, and also cf. the new movies). But transporters can give objects a fair deal of kinetic energy, too. After all, they routinely beam people from orbiting starships to planetary surfaces, even though the two are in very different states of motion (and no, being "geostationary" won't help there). So the madman could have beamed the bullet into the room and then let the bullet fly through the victim's chest into the heart, again skipping the part where a rifle is needed.
If a madman really wanted to install something in the bullet and not the firing platform, it could be a small warp/subspace field, because those supposedly can manipulate inertial mass (see DS9 "Emissary") and make projectiles less and supposedly also more massive/energetic than they "really" are. Say, there could be a "fluctuating" field there, going from extra-light to extra-heavy (and perhaps even minimizing energy consumption, which might depend on the average only). When the bullet was superlight, the assassin could put it on his palm and blow, and it would start moving at high speed; a second later, it would impact with the force of an anvil at the same speed (assuming that's how conservation of momentum works with subspace fields)...
Timo Saloniemi
A warp speed bullet would likely be impractical verses the phaser in the combat ranges we usually see in Star Trek on planets, and entirely impractical on a spaceship.
While the bullet would travel any visual distance in less than a second at light speed, the impact and kinetic force would either make the bullet continue to go through large sections of whatever is behind the target, or cause a massive release of energy as the mass and velocity is converted to energy when that thing stops. Might be as destructive as an atomic warhead.
And it would be entirely impractical on a ship unless all surfaces have force fields that can contain the impact of the bullets that miss or even thought that pass through the target. Phasers are more practical as they can be set so they won't make a hole in the bulkhead or vaporize the hull plating.
While the bullet would travel any visual distance in less than a second at light speed, the impact and kinetic force would either make the bullet continue to go through large sections of whatever is behind the target, or cause a massive release of energy as the mass and velocity is converted to energy when that thing stops. Might be as destructive as an atomic warhead.
And it would be entirely impractical on a ship unless all surfaces have force fields that can contain the impact of the bullets that miss or even thought that pass through the target. Phasers are more practical as they can be set so they won't make a hole in the bulkhead or vaporize the hull plating.
I wasn't visualizing the bullets as being that powerful, but instead capable of travelling perhaps 10to100x the speed of typical.
The warp coils could burn-out after a short duration, limiting the range and max speed.
There is also limitations on the energy source in the bullet. I was thinking a nano-fission reactor rather than AM.
The bullets could be grown in a fashion similar to semi-conductor chips.
...An exploding bullet would be nice, because it wouldn't have to move particularly fast - meaning it could sneak its way to the target slowly and discreetly, perhaps dodging and weaving en route. It might even stop to lie in ambush for a while.
This is consistent with how phasers vaporize people but not the walls behind them or the floors below them; or with the demonstration Valeris arranges, removing a steel (?) kettle from around an unharmed lump of food. The "phaser effect" by default limits itself to one "phase", that is, one medium, and is loathe to jump to another. It's weird but also believable in its own weird way, and explains how phasers would be very popular weapons for combat aboard spacecraft!
Timo Saloniemi
...In fact, phasers are always set so that they don't create any sort of mark in or on the walls (or even the paintings hanging from the walls!). Oh, sometimes sparks fly, but then they die out and reveal a pristine, undamaged surface. And once or twice a scorch mark appears for a few seconds but is gone in the very next scene.
This is consistent with how phasers vaporize people but not the walls behind them or the floors below them; or with the demonstration Valeris arranges, removing a steel (?) kettle from around an unharmed lump of food. The "phaser effect" by default limits itself to one "phase", that is, one medium, and is loathe to jump to another. It's weird but also believable in its own weird way, and explains how phasers would be very popular weapons for combat aboard spacecraft!
Timo Saloniemi
Sounds pretty nasty. Probably something the Federation Council would ban.
Especially the ones where they explode inside the victims body, or mess with subspace fields. I have the vision of that twisting the victims body from the inside out. Now that sounds like a pretty wicked bad way to go.
Especially the ones where they explode inside the victims body, or mess with subspace fields. I have the vision of that twisting the victims body from the inside out. Now that sounds like a pretty wicked bad way to go.
No, that isn't how bullets work. The faster the projectile is traveling the more damage is generated by hydrostatic shock as it passes through the target's body.
A one percent SOL bullet, even if very light weight, would create incredible damage. Unless they were struck in the hand or foot, any hit to the body would likely be fatal.
Two important things there: One, yes, a high speed hit needs to be in the torso, or else hydrostatic shock is meaningless as a mode of damage generation. And two, 1% c is such a high speed that there probably won't be any sort of hydrostatic shock generated - the energy transfer just plain doesn't have time to happen. The clean hollow tube through the body is generated, and then collapses, creating some sort of a wave - but there isn't an outward-bound element of shockwave because of the extreme impedance difference.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
No, a hit to the thigh would turn the target's brain to goo.
I disagree, a projectile moving at that speed would be generating a substantial shock wave, how could it not?.
A one percent SOL bullet would be moving at 8,500 times the speed of a modern pistol bullet.
A bullet from my gun carries 458 joules of energy, a projectile weighing in at the same 115 grains, moving at 9,820,000 feet per second would carry 33,391,600,000 joules of energy. That's not going to pass through leaving a little hole, it's going to convert the person into spaghetti sauce.
This could only happen if the bullet was slowly pushed through the body.
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