Personal Weapons
|
|
|
|
Personal Weapons |
Humans and their descendants have been very inventive in respect to weapons. Because on a personal scale such devices are not of the kind that seriously threaten the AIs and interstellar civilisation, there has not been much pressure to limit them from the archai. On the other hand, many lower level AIs have personal crusades to prevent their spread, always running into the mysterious slogan "It is right to arm bears!" from the bionts.
In general, allowed personal weaponry varies greatly from polity to polity, and empire to empire. In almost all angelnetted old core worlds, ownership of personal weapons for anything other than as curiosities, collection-pieces, and for sporting purposes, is usually forbidden. Many non-angelnetted polities also strongly regulate the use and ownership of personal weaponry. But in other polities away from the centers of power, and especially in free zones, things are a lot more lax.
Sentient weapons are of course common and widespread, although most are just simple-minded servants. Very different are demon weapons - guns smarter than their wielders, and with their own agenda. These tend to turn up with alarming regularity in any polity where their use is not forbidden, and can be a dangerous trap for the unwary nearbaseline.
The question may be asked why sapients would want to actually have hand-held weapons at all. Very rarely is the reason military. As far as actual warfare is concerned, this is usually done remotely; either by bombardment of some sort, or by the use of remote drones. To give the level of control needed, bionts require a brain stem implant, whereas vecs, cyborgs and other non-organic life forms would probably have comms attached directly to their 'brain' (processing center). A suite of other enhancements could be included here - direct communications between soldiers, reflex enhancements, some basic automatic enhancements in the drones (strength, aim correction, etc).
Given the choice, most sentients don't really want to be physically involved in actual warfare - one to one combat, or small 'game' like warfare is sufficient for asserting ones strength, authority, skill, etc. Thus, remote and expendable drones would be a preferable method of combat. However, in some cases, the balance of resources might mean that the cost of drones such as these is too much, or their might be cultural or memetic reasons in giving your sentient population (be they baseline humans or whatever) a gun, and sending them off to fight is more worthwhile. It also depends a little on what sort of campaign is involved.
Most often the reason for ownership and use of hand weapons is ceremonial or as a machismo icon; a weapon adds an element of charisma and gives the owner a feeling of power and in some cultures might be of great use. The trouble for a nearbaseline is that there is always a faster gun. For this reason, dedicated AI weapons and protection vecs would be a large commodity. That way one can keep one's eyes, hands, and mind on what's important and let your guardian/enforcer carry the big stick. Some clades may require the use of hand weapons, but more savvy sapients understand the benefits of a little hired help.
Another situation where individuals with hand-held weapons makes sense is self defense. In some less regulated large population centres that are not angelnetted or under hyperturing supervision, it would be quite dangerous - criminal elements, factional warfare, even the authorities might pose enough of a threat that hand-held weapons are necessary for defence. But if the one being defending against has hyper-reflexes and one is only a baseline, then having a bodyguard vec or bot is useful. Sometimes this even involves an attached AI companion that shoots when necessary or just notifies the owner of the ambusher sneaking up from behind. Often there is a combination of weapon and AI, like a smart gun, or an ordinary gun and an argus (AI that watches all around its owner), or a "pet" that looks baseline but is actually a weapons platform.
Of those two cases, the former may involve use of the full array of hand held weapons, from small lasers, to long range area effect weapons of devastation. The latter case generally involves the use of smaller weapons - pocket lasers, slug throwers, melee weapons (monofilament, etc).
In the end, hand weapons might be useful, but if the opponent(s) is faster, more powerful, or cunning, then something beyond baseline is needed to keep the balance of power.
Generally, baseline-usable personal weapons can be divided into kinetic ("slug-throwers"), beam, melee, area, ultratech, and miscellaneous
Because of their ease of manufacture and efficiency in an atmosphere, easily stored ammunition, and devastating effect against unarmored or very lightly armored targets, kinetic weapons are often a staple personal sidearm. Another advantage over most beam weapons is the flexibility to change the payload effect. Slug-throwers come in various forms and calibres; chemical projectile, gauss gun, pneumatic dart, etc. Rifle, carbine, pistol, low velocity, and exotic configurations all exist. Most two-handed firearms are either self aiming or assisted aiming, or may use guided micro-shell ammunition. Common slug thrower payloads include: explosive-tipped guided micro-shell, memo-form tipped micro-shell, spoiling penetrator, flechette, soft-shell, hydrostatic enhanced, hollow point dum-dum, infecter, mandel (fractal), wire trailing, penetrating guide point round, and more. The following is only a very small selection of possible variations
Most pistols are short barrelled, small to large-bore weapons with explosive speciality ammo or guided micro-shells. Being able to be fired one-handedly they are not self-aiming, although many are equipped with a cyber-link and laser range finder to let the user know when it is correctly aimed, as well as providing information like range etc.
Carbines and rifles generally require two hands and are often equipped with self aiming or aim-assist functions. Loading may be manual, mechanical, automatic (gas-blowback), electronic ("metal storm") or even organic.
The grenade launcher is a clumsy weapon, but has the advantage of firing a larger projectile, or a huge number of guided submunitions, but suffers from short range and, with non-guided projectiles, poor accuracy. Some grenade launchers have been tooled to fire small rockets or mortar shells, but this is generally outside the designer's specifications
After slug-throwers, lasers are by far the most common side-arm. Most modern lasers use diode/quantumdot/nanoemitter technology to produce powerful beams in a variety of wavelengths, the most common being microwave (masers), infra-red, visible and ultraviolet. Hand held X-ray lasers and gamma-ray lasers can only be produced by ultratech or clarketech means, and are rare, expensive and highly prized.
A typical handheld laser is described here
An interesting variation is the adaptive laser.
This is a variable frequency weapon that adjusts it's beam strength
(manual override available) depending on the material it is fired at.
(Slogan from Trillicom
Arms): "Why use a gamma laser and waste all those extra photons on
a target that reacts best in the 510-514 nm range? Use an Adaptive
Frequency Laser to get the most excitation for your erg."
The electrolaser uses a laser beam to ionise the air, then sends an electric current across. Basically a hi tech taser, but not very effective in some weather conditions
sonic weapons fire a focused very high pitched (screamers) or very low pitched (rumblers) sonic beam, and can have nasty effects. Obviously only works in an atmosphere
particle beam gun - a rather heavy weapon that fires a relativistic particle stream. Sometimes called a blaster because of the spectacular effect when the beam hits. There is usually a spray of relativistic particles one either side of the target (when the beam interacts with the air); these cause serious radiation damage. A rather brutal weapon, very energy intensive, not as efficient as a laser
ionic gun - uses a laser to ionise the air, then shoots a stream of charged particles at fairly high speed, basically a light particle beam gun, not nearly as destructive.
Optical Phased arrays; a layer of OPA emitters can be added to any object, a vehicle or even a spacesuit, and can emit coherent light as if from a laser with the same aperture as the object. This can be very useful as a weapon if enough power is available.
EMP weapon - fires a directed electromagnetic pulse. Harmless against bionts, bioborgs, and optical circuitry-based vecs, but fries the circuits of any non-hardened silicon tech. Note that Metasoft, Silicon Generation, and other vec societies consider them 'reckless' and 'general public hazard', despite the fact that most vecs are generally shielded against this kind of thing.
Although a flamer can be an energy weapon (e.g. plasma) it is usually much easier to make a chemical one. A flamer can be so hot it could melt through all but the toughest metals. As an area effect weapon it is superb. The psychological effect on defenders is also worth considering. However, this is a clumsy, heavy weapon and limited by very short range. Note: combustion weapons can be dangerous to the user in places with enclosed atmospheres. Also breathing equipment is often needed
These weapons are so dangerous that they are often banned even by hyperturings and powers that would otherwise turn a blind eye to slug-throwers and conventional beam weapons. Some of these weapons are sentient, a few can out-think most sapients.
Neutronium Melter. Using picotech, neutronium and similar ultra-dense substances can be manufactured and kept stored. When released, they produce a powerful blast of decay products that can do terrible damage. A neutronium melter simply releases a stream of relativistic neutrons with a bit of protons and electrons at the target. Very deep penetration, tends to do severe radiation damage and the secondary radiation often fries electronics and nanosystems - this kills bionts and vecs alike.
anti-particle gun - a complex weapon that evacuates a column of air using a power laser beam, then shoots a beam of anti-particles down it. Not only is there a tremendous blast effect but the radiation yielded from the beam hitting its target is intense. Problem with amat weapons: dangerous to use as personal weapons because of the amount of radiation. If used in space you have to sweep the beam path with a cloud of matter later on, to make sure there's no stray amat floating around out there.
Dial-A-Gun: This weapon has different features and capabilities depending on the setting. Heavy and rather impractical, although still used by a few eccentric nearbaseline clades
"Water Pistol" - squirts any kind of fluid, may be a chemical acid, a lysing agent (to reduce any organic matter to slag), or nano-bot destroyers. Short range only
Elemental Weapon: Uses the elements, earth, wind, fire, water to damage the target. Used as a curiously baroque weapon of choice by some very strange clades. This also suggests a whole range of cultural weapons: it is not enough to kill people, it has to be done in the right way. Hence guns with hologram projections, bullets with religious inscriptions or nano-disassemblers performing automated "last rites".
Electro Magnetic "Quadrail" Muskets rugged and flexible ballistic weapon with smooth bore or caged barrel versions
Related Pages:
Melee/Close Combat Weapons - A review of some of the different types of Melee or Close Combat Weapons that may be found throughout the terragen sphere
