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Prince Charon · 10-09-2013, 04:32 PM

Sorry about the lack of new timeline content. It's coming, but slowly.

Try this, instead:

It occurs to me that I've mentioned disintegration rays a few times, including in the timeline, but I don't recall if I've explained how they work, beyond 'resulting from a failed teleportation experiment'. I think the original concept came to me years ago, before I started reading Schlock Mercenary, but Mr. Taylor's explanation of the teraport reminded me of it: in the teraport, quadrillions of nano-scale wormholes are opened into the object being teraported, the individual atoms (or subatomic particles, I'm not remembering which) are sent through the wormholes, and reassembled into the original object on the other side, probably due to all the wormhole mouths having the same positions relative to each other on both ends.

With the disintegrator, the 'exit' mouths of the wormholes are not all together, but rather are spread apart over a spherical or semi-spherical volume with a radius of up to ten kilometres. Each proton or neutron gets its own wormhole, but electrons are harder to catch, so the disintegrated object tends to leave behind a cloud of blue, negative-ion plasma, shaped like whatever was there, before, that dissipates fairly quickly. The more efficient the disintegrator is at catching electrons, the fainter (and less dangerous) the cloud is. In an Earth-like atmosphere, the disintegrator usually misses enough atoms that a vacuum does not occur, though the pressure is rarely an exact match for the surrounding air pressure. Disintegration of radioactive material outside of prepared locations is NOT recommended.

If the disintegration ray is targeted at an object with a volume and/or mass larger than it is set for, it tends to leave part of the item behind, usually with some electrical burns from the negative ions. When used on a person (or a mannikin stuffed with a man's weight in sand, plastic, & ballistic gel), this is usually one or two smoking boots - the scientists suspect this is a result of the spirits of Drama playing with them. When targeted on an object smaller/lighter than it is set for, it simply uses less power - unless the computer malfunctions, or is badly programmed, in which case nearby items, if any, may be damaged.

Crunch:

A disintegration ray pistol set for human-size targets would be treated in Powers as Corrosion Attack 2d+110 (Increased 1/2D *10, 15%; Teleportation, -10%), possibly with a Follow-Up that does Burning and Surge, a minor Nuisance Effect, or just a quirky side-effect. The 2d instead of 0d is due to the margin of error. Suggestions are welcome, if you think I missed something.

I could do a post on FTL drives, if anyone is interested. Also, I'm working on one for technology levels for Dieselpunk Earth's Sol System.

10-09-2013, 04:32 PM	#80
Prince Charon Join Date: Dec 2012	Re: Five Earths, All in a Row Sorry about the lack of new timeline content. It's coming, but slowly. Try this, instead: It occurs to me that I've mentioned disintegration rays a few times, including in the timeline, but I don't recall if I've explained how they work, beyond 'resulting from a failed teleportation experiment'. I think the original concept came to me years ago, before I started reading Schlock Mercenary, but Mr. Taylor's explanation of the teraport reminded me of it: in the teraport, quadrillions of nano-scale wormholes are opened into the object being teraported, the individual atoms (or subatomic particles, I'm not remembering which) are sent through the wormholes, and reassembled into the original object on the other side, probably due to all the wormhole mouths having the same positions relative to each other on both ends. With the disintegrator, the 'exit' mouths of the wormholes are not all together, but rather are spread apart over a spherical or semi-spherical volume with a radius of up to ten kilometres. Each proton or neutron gets its own wormhole, but electrons are harder to catch, so the disintegrated object tends to leave behind a cloud of blue, negative-ion plasma, shaped like whatever was there, before, that dissipates fairly quickly. The more efficient the disintegrator is at catching electrons, the fainter (and less dangerous) the cloud is. In an Earth-like atmosphere, the disintegrator usually misses enough atoms that a vacuum does not occur, though the pressure is rarely an exact match for the surrounding air pressure. Disintegration of radioactive material outside of prepared locations is NOT recommended. If the disintegration ray is targeted at an object with a volume and/or mass larger than it is set for, it tends to leave part of the item behind, usually with some electrical burns from the negative ions. When used on a person (or a mannikin stuffed with a man's weight in sand, plastic, & ballistic gel), this is usually one or two smoking boots - the scientists suspect this is a result of the spirits of Drama playing with them. When targeted on an object smaller/lighter than it is set for, it simply uses less power - unless the computer malfunctions, or is badly programmed, in which case nearby items, if any, may be damaged. Crunch: A disintegration ray pistol set for human-size targets would be treated in Powers as Corrosion Attack 2d+110 (Increased 1/2D 10, 15%; Teleportation, -10%), possibly with a Follow-Up that does Burning and Surge, a minor Nuisance Effect, or just a quirky side-effect. The 2d instead of 0d is due to the margin of error. Suggestions are welcome, if you think I missed something. I could do a post on FTL drives, if anyone is interested. Also, I'm working on one for technology levels for Dieselpunk Earth's Sol System. __________________ Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life.* "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted.