Futuristic Guns

[PaladinX13]

Given that, I'll bet any computer that we can build anytime soon can be spoofed too.

Well "anytime soon" of course, but that's why you have to pick a scifi timeframe. If we're talking advanced AI (and specialized on top of that), it's not a matter of what can fool a human but AIs tricking AIs. A very rough example is Kasparov being challenged by Deep Blue (Blue Jr., X3D Fritz, etc). Heck he's one of the few who can even approach their level of play, whereas most get owned (and this isn't really intelligent AI per se, more brute force). But we'll be talking about AI decisions being made in literal Bullet Time.

I mean, of course, defense and offense go back and forth (small arms are prevelant which is why you see so much reseach towards "defeating" them... and why I see Genius muntions as the counter... AP is too much effort against such a system versus precision) so that's again why you gotta pick a timeframe.

But even if you go far flung into the future certain things won't regress. It's not like we're clamoring to go back to swords or horseback just because armored and naval warefare have found themselves caught in a loop (the defense/offense one you're talking about)... instead we moved on (mostly to precision- air force, cruise missles, smart bombs, etc).

There will always be small arms, but I'm pretty sure the role of the firearm may be eclipsed by something... maybe a phaser.

They're not talking about liquid metal; they're talking about a super-strong shirt that a bullet can't penetrate. Unless the shirt is going to be as stiff as steel, it's going to move WITH the bullet, in much the same fashion that the Mongols used silk shirts were used to aid in removing arrows. There are no nanomachines involved in the type of carbon tubes they're talking about; it's just a conductive material.

Nanotech is more that just nanomachines (and in fact nanomachines are a small part of the field). Anyways, that's what the third article was about. Liquid metal. Nano "machines" would enable them to shape the metal particles to the optimized armor-type (right now the particles are like soccer balls... a warped donut shape would create something that could both flow and solidify into a strong interlocking stack).

Anyways. Here's just one way (I'm sure an engineer could develop it better) the system would work. A "Smart" CNT would have an external layer that is the "smart" part (the fabric computer chip). Then a layer CNT fabric that is simply non-computerized flexible armor. Finally, a layer of liquid metal. The instant the smart layer is broken, it relays a signal to the liquid metal to stiffen over X-area. The end result is active air bag-like trauma plate underneath a material 17 times stronger than Kevlar.

 

[Nightcrawler]

Ahh, the good old Star Trek Phaser. A handheld device with the energy levels necessary to completely vaporize a human being; yet the flash is safe to look at, it doesn't combust the air, and doesn't even so much as leave a burned spot on the floor.

Neat trick, that.

It's fine, though, except for all of those people who seem to think that Star Trek is hard scifi based on real scientific theory.

But the point about how advanced we're talking about is valid. Which is one of the reasons I don't like Star Trek; their technology is so advanced, there's rarely a reason any of the characters actually need to be where they are in the show. So instead of having a boring show about an automated starship, they have characters doing tasks that their machines could easily do for them, for the sole purpose of utopian self-betterment.

Right.

 

[Bog]

Nightcrawler?

Have you read Iain M. Banks's "Culture" Novels?

 

[Nightcrawler]

Nope. Worth picking up off of Amazon?

 

[PaladinX13]

See that's what the thingy means. And for all its flaws it probably more accurately predicts the effects of technology in the 22nd century than Halo does for the 26th. Marathon (the prequels to Halo) sort of had an excuse since humanity did not posses FTL travel so centuries passed in the time it took a ship to arrive at its destination (sometimes getting passed by later generations to the same destination). Yet half a millenia later they're still basically using the same tech as we are today (the exceptions- in Marathon sentient, or "rampant", AI consume entire planetary computing resources... in Halo you can fit a sassy one in the memory card slot of powered armor; and the addition of FTL travel).

Any way you slice it, 500 years is an enormous chunk of time for a technologically capable society that never had a dark age to still be using essentially the same small arms.

A link to a 1993 report about the "Internet" hehe...

 

[Bog]

Nope. Worth picking up off of Amazon?

Yep. Start with "Consider Phlebas", then "Use of Weapons" then you can pretty much take your pick. Finish with "Excession" and "Look to Windward".

 

[Nightcrawler]

I knew you were being sarcastic. So was I. I especially like how in the future handheld weapons evolved to lack any aiming apparatus.
Hee hee.

I wouldn't set a story with Halo-esqe technology 500 years in the future, though. Maybe 200, with a backstory explaining how the technology got there.

Debating whether to have magic artificial gravity. It's cool, but the technology required to produce soemthing like that is way beyond anything we have on the radar now.

 

[PaladinX13]

Culture series references in Halo

Actually this is probably the larger reason why I resent Halo... the Marathon series was extremely thoughtful and hard scifi (just check out Hamish's site). And initially Halo seemed to follow that tradition until it came out as dumbed down popscifi and a straight-forward action FPS (when the original concept was a persistent ring-world RTS/tactical/squad game- they used to claim you could look up in the sky, pick any point on the ring... and actually go/fight there).

 

[Nightcrawler]

I just used Halo as an example because it's one of the few FPS games out there (with a futuristic theme) that have believeable or practical weapons. I have no delusions about it being hard science fiction. I've only played the PC game; I know nothing of any backstory or novels.

 

[Bog]

Actually this is probably the larger reason why I resent Halo...

Oh, for goodness' sake! How can you complain that Halo is ripping off Banks, when the whole concept of a ringworld (sic) was Larry Niven's in the first place? I direct you to the novel, uh, Ringworld by Lawrence Niven. Halo even uses the term "Ring World" in it's voice-over.

*sighs* Besides - who cares? Halo is an Odd Case - the pistol is more accurate than the AR, for one reason only- Game Balance. The weapons are all pretty much equally powerful (barring charged/special modes and the SP4NKer). It's a *GAME* - not a simulation. It's good game, immersive and escapist - but it's a game, and never pretends to be anything else. CounterStrike, anyone?

Anyhow. When it comes to Science Fiction Weaponry, I say let yourself go. Go a little crazy. Make stuff up. Good science fiction is, as Bob Heinlein said, good fiction! - don't try to compete with Bob, or Isaac, or Arthur. They didn't try to compete with anyone - they just wrote from the heart, and did their best to make it beleivable. Nobody who reads Sci Fi cares if your barrel tolerance is out as long as they care about the characters. Nobody wants to know if your propellant nanonic can't possibly do that, to their mind - what the hell do they know? Hell, one of my producers has a frelling *DOCTORATE* in nanotech - and she's making TV just 'cause there's more money in Telly right now.

Cut yourself a little slack. I agree, a solid tech-base is good, but it really isn't the be-all and end-all, and you can always work tech dev in. It happens in any good series. Anyway - I think you're procrastinating, Nightcrawler. Stop wasting time on here, and go bloody write your book!

Oh, yeah - and don't forget me when you need a book jacket

 

[Nightcrawler]

I had a story. Short story, 26000 words or so. More of a love-story than "science fiction", but it took place on a starship. The technology represented was believeable, the characters were well-thought out (at least the few who read it said as much).

Alas! I lost it when my old computer's hard drive MELTED. My old computer's CD burner never worked for snuff so I never backed it up.

I should probably re-write it. I liked that story.

 

[PaladinX13]

Bog, the reason came after that statement not before. I didn't make any "rip-off" claims. Personally, I think ideas are cheap... everyone has them. It's implimentation (and the quality of that implimentation) that matters.

 

[Bog]

Please do - it sounds like good sci-fi.

PM me for my eddress if you'd like an honest opinion

 

[Bog]

Personally, I think ideas are cheap... everyone has them. It's implimentation (and the quality of that implimentation) that matters.

Speaking as someone who's taken since 1993 learning to be a semi-decent 3D animator, I have to agree with you

Fair play - perhaps I failed to read your "fist" right. I apologise if I took or gave offence where obviously none was required or indicated.

 

[iapetus]

Nightcrawler
Ahh, the good old Star Trek Phaser. A handheld device with the energy levels necessary to completely vaporize a human being; yet the flash is safe to look at, it doesn't combust the air, and doesn't even so much as leave a burned spot on the floor.

Neat trick, that.

Anyone see the "classic" episode where they used the Enterprise's phasers to "stun" a riot on a planet's surface? (It was the one where they found a whole planet based on 1920's Chicago Gangsters).

(I think there was only one of those. I know quite a lot of other plots got re-used, particularly "The One Where They Find A Planet Where Everyone Thinks A Computer Is God", "The One Where They Beam Down, Get In Trouble, And Can't Beam Up", "The One Where The Ennterprise Breaks Down", and "The One Where Kirk Pulls An Alien Princess").

(I've yet to see "The One Where The Red-Shirts Go On Strike For Safer Working Conditions").

It's fine, though, except for all of those people who seem to think that Star Trek is hard scifi based on real scientific theory.

But the point about how advanced we're talking about is valid. Which is one of the reasons I don't like Star Trek; their technology is so advanced,
Right.

The thing that annoys me about modern Trek (appart from the silly Utopian philosophy), is that basically the Federation has reached the "God-Like Alien" technology, where they can do anything. (Make any object they like, use the holodeck to accurately simulate a scientific/medical/engineering problem that they have almost no data on, cure any disease within days, etc).

That and the fact that any shield/ self-repare system/ etc can be overcome by "setting phases to a rotating frequency", and any new energy weapon, tractor beam, etc they encounter can be defeated by "remodulating the shields".

If the Enterprize/Voyager/<insert ship here> wasn't always breaking down, they'd hardly ever have anything to do. (And would just spend their time acting out James Bond of Sherlock Holms stories in the Holodeck).

 

[Nightcrawler]

Resurrecting an old thread. A new, minor thought to add:

I like the idea of a man-portable particle beam rifle that has an effective range of...well, as far as the eye can see, basically.

Interesting if such weapons came about. No armor a human could wear would protect you from the effects of a direct hit. The weapons would be capable of very long range, but the engagements would almost certainly be short-ranged. (If you have the technology to make a particle beam rifle, you probably also have the technology to obliterate an enemy tank from orbit, meaning any forces caught in the open would be vulnerable to attack).

Heck...they might not be safe to use at SHORT range, though. Wouldn't it be interesting if you had your soldiers carrying a high powered, long-ranged particle beam rifle as standard, but had standard firearms (pistols, shotguns, submachine guns) for use in close range engagements, room clearing, or in other places where discharging a high-powered energy rifle might not be a good idea (like inside of a small room of a wooden building).

Hmm....

 

[Bog]

Interesting idea, Nightcrawler, but any kind of PBW is going to be an Apples and Oranges problem. Yes, you've suddenly got Gh0d's own boresight - on a clear day. Aerosols, smoke, mist - all these things are suddenly really, really good at ruining your hit-effectiveness. Also, the radiation concern is more insidious than one might initially thing - ionising a centimetre-wide column of air that's two kilometres long gives you many, many litres of airborne radioactive contaminant.

Always worth thinking about that one

The Laser Gun vs Slugthrower debate is probably only going to be settled when people actually try having a war with 'em. Then again - people are still arguing about 5.56mm vs 7.62mm, so maybe not even then!

 

[Nightcrawler]

I can just see it now:

THR v9.0

Member XXX: We need to stick with the tried and true. Energy weapons have been a failure everywhere they'e been tried.

Member YYY: Oh, so that's why our special forces keep using them, right?

Member XXX: That doesn't mean they're superior, necessarily.


On and on and on...

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

I think the next step is "upper intermiediate" rounds of moderate velocity and high sectional density, like the 6.5 grendel. most other advances will be in packaging; better sights, more compact weapons, etc.

I doubt lasers will ever be man portable weapons of choice because of thermal blooming problems and power consumption.

 

[Nightcrawler]

I do have a question about the particle beams, though.

-I had thought that a particle beam overcame the problems that lasers face regarding diffusion by dust, smoke, mist, rain, etc.

-Wouldn't the radiation depend on the type of particles in the beam? A lightning bolt is technically an electron particle beam, yes? Isn't it theoretically possible to make a weapon that fires a lightning bolt, only less random? It would certainly put the hurt on anyone it hit, and all the kevlar in the world wouldn't help 'em.

But I'm not an electrican, either. You wouldn't want a weapon that could be defeated by grounding the target...

 

[Firethorn]

I've always thought that the best thing that they could do in star trek would be to go back in time, and grab some special forces to use in tactical training. Heck, even I'd be able to give them better tactics/weapons.

Given Federation tech, I'd work on modifiying the phasers so that they're at least as useful as an AK-47/M-16. Rapid fire, spread fire, penetrating fire. If somebody was hiding behind a rock, I'd vaporize the rock. I especially love how phasers lost effectivness between the original series and DS-9. Maybe they switched to uniforms that were a form of 'armor'?

The biggest thing for 'future tech' is the question of is something going to happen to upset the balance of defense/offense again? Right now we're tilted pretty heavily in the offensive wins area. What I mean is that if we know what and where a target is, we can kill it. There is no structure that we can't destroy. Bunkers are close/tough, but we can still kill them if we want to. We don't have the equivalent to castles/knights armor right now. That's why we're working more on more accurate weapons, and on defenses.

That and the more advanced you get, the bigger your support base tends to be. You start getting to the point that it's better to cooperate than fight.

 

[Warren]

You might have a future in which personal defensive applications become so powerful that combantants have to go at each other with laser cutting tools or such like in CQB and use the equivalent of full house TOWs during ranged combat.

That is for the best equipped forces.

If we keep progressing as we are I would say that weapons of the sort we use today will be really inexpensive and widely available due to the costs of those cad-cam cnc systems coming way down. Such a device might be a standard household appliance used for making replacement parts for whatever breaks as well as being used to create new items for the family or business.

The design of the 1911 and all other weapons will be available for downloading into your device and then all you need to do is feed it the raw material and press the switch. In a few minutes you have a 1911 receiver and a few minutes after that you have the barrel, hammer etc.


So I would say our mundane weapons will be everywhere and the groups that can tax the most will have the more advanced weaponry.

I could see situations wherein the the best way of beating the force you have targeted is to catch them in the barracks using a lightly equipped highly mobile force of commandos. It might be that sensor arrays would be looking for energy weapons or any sort of large weapon-like a TOW and would miss their 1911s and combat shottys and sub-guns.

I can relate to what we have now having a few in a story engages me more than everyone has future weapons. In the March to the...series the Marines had their bead guns but the prince had a magnum rifle of some sort and that was cool. In Aliens the one fellow had his sawed off shotty for "close encounters" and that was cool. In Firefly everybody has cartidge weapons and that is way way way cool. See, triple the coolness value!

 

[DakotaSig]

Neutral particle beams are not deflected by smoke or haze. They also don't ionize the air. They likely would make a sonic boom though.

 

[Nightcrawler]

What an interesting dilemma. Think about it.

For a sci-fi writer wanting to make believeable weaponry in his story, there is a dilemma.

On one hand, people say that you can't have your characters using regular guns in a futurustic/space setting; people won't buy it.

One the other hand, no one can come up with anything more useful for the purpose, it seems. Lasers? Don't work in fog, don't penetrate. Particle beams? Require too much power, irradiate the air, almost as dangerous to the firer as the firee. Plasma weapons? Again, enormous power requirements, grossly inefficent, zero penetration, heat/blast danger to the firer.

So then if you even try to make future-ly guns, like caseless? I still can't imagine a caseless pistol being any better than a regular one. The advantages seem so small that it might hardly be worth the effort.

Guass weapons have promise, and could be very reliable in their simplicity. However, there's a practical limit, I think. Sure, you could have a rifle that could fire a 500 grain slug at 4000 feet per second, but the recoil would be so brutal that it would literally hurt to fire and would be utterly uncontrollable in rapid fire, unless you had some kind of very complex recoil dampening system (even then, though, Sir Isaac Newton will win out in the end).

Almost enough to want to make you say "screw it", throw in some blaster-guns ala Star Wars, and call it a night...LOL

 

[The_Antibubba]

Plot, then toys

Write the story-at least the basics. Unless the weaponry is a central point in the story. Look at Babylon 5, one of the best written and conceived SF shows ever. FTL is achievable through access to hyperspace, either by a Jumpgate at a certain place in space (extremely expensive, but accessible by any ship) or an onboard Gate generator. Scenarios involving those variables evolve from there. PPGs are variable in power and range, and don't risk hulling a space station. Etc. And their H2H combat scenes put all the ST ones to utter shame!

Hey, I love realistic weaponry as well as the next geek, but until you can flesh out the rest of your universe, it's not really important, and will likely be affected by whatever else dominates the scene. Look at Dune Energy weapons exist, but so does energy shielding. If an energy beam touches a generator field, both are annihalated, killing both. The battlefield is now dominated with slug throwers and explosives. Bullets can't penetrate an energy shield, but a slower moving blade can. So a balletic martial arts develops. Sentient machines are anathema, so "smart" weaponry doesn't exist.

Remember, SF isn't about the "What", it's about the "Why". Establish your world's history and culture, and the gadgets will come.

Good writing!