Wirehead Studios

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...nergy_weapons_2 (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050710/ap_on_sc/directed_energy_weapons_2)

There's a lot of interesting stuff in the article, but this part about someone developing a sort of lightning gun has a bit of a Slipgate theme to it.

Better than plastic bullets, anyway.

Looks like SOMEONE'S been playing Q1 when developing weapon ideas...

Next up: BFG9000! :rolleyes:

"20 foot tower" sounds like red alert tesla coil to me.

I'm sure a Tesla coil is involved in it, you can't generate high enough voltage without one for an electric discharge.  Typically high voltage is harmless so long as it has no current behind it, and as long as the oscilation frequency is extremely high.  Tesla routinely put over 1 million volts across himself in demonstrations, the key was the frequency was close to 1 MHz.  House current kills you because it's a slow oscillation at 60Hz, and it's low voltage driving high current.  That stops your heart and disrupts the nervous system.

Basically this tower is a high-voltage potential with the same kind of pulse pattern as a Taser.  It wouldn't be hard at all to modify a lightning gun that can stun someone into something that has a lethal setting.  All it has to do is drive a decent enough amount of current at a slow enough pulse rate and it could knock you dead in a second.  The Slipgate Thunderbolt, by comparison, works on a simpler principle but is much more powerful.  It just drives a ton of current at high voltage so it simply vaporizes whatever the discharge touches.

The drawback to any kind of lightning gun is it will have a very short range, and unless you have some way to drive the potential out in a straight line it will try to arc to the nearest ground source.  It would be useless in a metal structure or near bodies of water, and someone in a vehicle would be well protected against it owing to the Faraday cage principle of a metal conductive shell.  You'd need a linear accelerator driving the electrons into a beam almost so that you form your own ionized path through the air instead of relying on the air to form the ionized channel to carry the current wherever it pleases.  That would ensure a closer target zone to where you actually aim the thing, as well as increasing the range.

* reminds himself not the post small little comments because pho will turn them into a 2 paragraph half a page post

 ;)

Hey, not all my posts are huge!

true, but most are

Most are damn informative though.  I always learn a thing or two whenever Phoenix writes up a lengthy response. :)

Oh and to be on-topic, I think it's a pretty good idea that's worth funding actually.  Although to be honest, I'm more comfortable with something travelling at the speed of a bullet than I am with something that travels at the speed of light.  :)~

The downside of these so-called "non-lethal" technologies is they are ten times more likely to be abused than lethal tech.  How many people get hit with tasers that don't need to be?  But because it doesn't leave a hole in you, or a bleeding corpse on the ground, it's tolerated.  Microwaving someone so that their skin feels like it's literally on fire doesn't sound any different from being set on fire as far as what the person goes through neurologically.  Pain sends the body into a shock state.  The brain is wired to respond to pain - especially severe pain - with all sorts of chemical changes in the blood stream, increased heart rate, adrenaline, etc, and then there are the psychological ramifications of that sort of thing.  If the brain thinks you're being killed it will act in response to it whether you really are or not.  Being set on fire is not a pleasant experience, nor would feeling like you've been set on fire be.  Again, if someone uses such a device on, say, a crowd of undesiree protesters, who can prove it?  On the other side of the question is unknown long-term effects of such a technology.  My concern is when does lack of lethality become so desireable that something that amounts to torture if inflicted through any other means is considered a viable alternative?  It's one thing to use dispersal tools on a rioting crowd, but there are much more insidious uses for such technology.  Interrogation comes to mind...

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=...=mg18725095.600 (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725095.600)

Hardly what I'd call a "real-world" test.  Haven't these idiots thought to pulse the beam several times a second instead of just hosing with a continuous beam?  You can maintain the beam on target for a much longer time that way without causing permanent damage, and you can dial the pulse frequency to reduce or escalate the effects as needed, plus a pulsed beam is less drain on the power system.  Sheesh, do I have to think of everything?  Seriously, why is it the "experts" can't seem to see past the ends of their noses anymore?

hmmm non lethal huh?, well i tend not to agree with this one, anybody seen the what the microwave tank from C&C can do and it's pretty much the same premise

I've heard microwaves can sterilize people. That could cause a problem. I mean microwaves are dangerous. Especially to children. Well I guess they know what they're doing. :shifty: