The Alcubierre Gun

[dragoner]

IMTU, I am always looking for "ultra high tech" stuff beyond Imperial norms as it is the year 1323, 75 years after the events of the TNE2 universe (one can look at my wiki here for a brief overview: http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/homage-to-peladon/wikis/main-page).

As such, I have been thinking of a FTL projectile thrower, which I'm tentatively calling an Alcubierre Gun built off of the principles of the Alcubierre drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive), whereas the stumbling principle of having need for exotic matter with negative mass is solved with gravitics. Coming out of development in TL17-18 as greater gravitics control is seen with the development of the tractor beam; primarily it will be a "rail gun" type spinal weapon at this TL. Shell types will range from a magnetic bottle anti-matter explosive shell, to much simpler slugs of APBC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armor-piercing_shot_and_shell) of bonded super dense ballistic caps. The weapon will allow nearly instantaneous hits at extreme range. Shell design will typically involve a gravitic unit at the base where one would find a primer, then onward the magnetic bottle for am containment or the ballistic cap assembly as seen in the wiki. Next I need to figure damage, 2x or 3x regular rail gun damage for the HG or TCS spinals?

 

[F33D]

IMTU, I am always looking for "ultra high tech" stuff beyond Imperial norms as it is the year 1323, 75 years after the events of the TNE2 universe (one can look at my wiki here for a brief overview: http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/homage-to-peladon/wikis/main-page).

As such, I have been thinking of a FTL projectile thrower, which I'm tentatively calling an Alcubierre Gun built off of the principles of the Alcubierre drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive), whereas the stumbling principle of having need for exotic matter with negative mass is solved with gravitics. Coming out of development in TL17-18 as greater gravitics control is seen with the development of the tractor beam; primarily it will be a "rail gun" type spinal weapon at this TL.

Given that the weapon is throwing a mass, how do you get around Newton's 3rd law?

 

[Chas]

You could add a secondary effect from the FTL peturbances, say a jump strike type result where the ship struck cannot jump for this or the next turn.

 

[dragoner]

You could add a secondary effect from the FTL peturbances, say a jump strike type result where the ship struck cannot jump for this or the next turn.

Nice, I haven't even considered secondary effects, that is very helpful.

 

[dragoner]

Given that the weapon is throwing a mass, how do you get around Newton's 3rd law?

Hmmm, it is a negative mass as well ... maybe its effect will be to either draw the gun forward, or inversely, increase the speed of the projectile.

 

[F33D]

Given that the weapon is throwing a mass, how do you get around Newton's 3rd law?

Hmmm, it is a negative mass as well ... maybe its effect will be to either draw the gun forward, or inversely, increase the speed of the projectile.

If the projectiles aren't regular matter you won't be making an AP type round. Anti-matter would have to be contained in something ultimately made of regular matter... Kinda tough to analyze as it's very theoretical. Interesting idea though.

 

[dragoner]

I thought this up last night, so there is a lot to think about with how it works in theory.

 

[Ishmael]

A paper from the University of Sydney Physics Department discusses the possibility that Alcubierre Warp Drive has a serious and dangerous drawback that may make it into a serious weapon; it may actually destroy the destination location.

"Alcubierre warp-drives (theoretically) allow rocket ships to travel faster than the speed of light, while staying within the rules of Einstein's general theory of relativity. New research (PDF) has shown that as such warp-drives zip through the universe, they gather up particles and radiation, releasing them in a burst as the warp-drive slows down. This is bad news for family and friends waiting for the ship to arrive, as this intense burst will fry them."

http://sydney.edu.au/news/science/397.html?newsstoryid=8790
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1202.5708

They might work nicely as strategic weapons for use in interstellar wars.... a kind of interplanetary ICBM perhaps targeting an enemy world for destruction.
No gun needed.

 

[dragoner]

Hmmm, an alcubierre missile, a weapon with high deterrence factor; there is an adventure plot in there.

 

[locarno24]

"Alcubierre warp-drives (theoretically) allow rocket ships to travel faster than the speed of light, while staying within the rules of Einstein's general theory of relativity. New research (PDF) has shown that as such warp-drives zip through the universe, they gather up particles and radiation, releasing them in a burst as the warp-drive slows down. This is bad news for family and friends waiting for the ship to arrive, as this intense burst will fry them."

Which in practice means that you've got a minimum distance from your destination you have to drop back to sub-light.

Also means that you do get a 'light flare' star trek style when dropping out of warp - which also means that you will see a ship dropping out of warp in a system; you can see a ship pretty much anywhere in a system with current technology if you know where you're looking for it, the only real problem is spotting something's there in the first place. If ships dropping out of warp announce themselves with a high-energy 'Hey, Stupid, Over Here!' on arrival, then even unsophisticated systems will find you pretty quickly.


Also, given the cause listed, the size of the 'pulse' will be propotional to the time spent in FTL - so a ship-to-ship missile may not have built up a sufficiently potent bang by the time it arrives compared to an interstellar jump.

The weapon will allow nearly instantaneous hits at extreme range.

Yes and no. Even if your return 'shot' is FTL, unless you have an FTL sensor to match, you're stuck firing at a target position one light-speed behind the target's actual position.

Given that the weapon is throwing a mass, how do you get around Newton's 3rd law?

God knows.

Your ship gets the inverse momentum of the object thrown, but given that as I understand it, the Alcubierre effect is essentially a big mathematical cheat to avoid breaking the rules on the speed of light by distorting space rather than moving object, I'm not clear on what the perceived momentum of the object thrown actually is for the purposes of the laws of motion.

It obviously can't be the effective speed it's actually travelling at, or else the laws of motion go "haaaaaang on!" and the Eschaton blows your planet up.

For that matter, I'm not sure what sort of gnarly effect an alcubierre field has when passing close to something. As a missile, or a ship, you get clear of launch rail/dock then fire up the drive, but a 'warp railgun' has to create the field inside the barrel and have it move in close proximity to the ship.

What's supposed to happen when an active warp drive tries to fly too close to something?

 

[dragoner]

Even if your return 'shot' is FTL, unless you have an FTL sensor to match, you're stuck firing at a target position one light-speed behind the target's actual position.

You always are firing where you think the target will be, that is SOP for anything moving, but the alcubierre gun cuts that down by being a faster projectile.

 

[alex_greene]

Given that the weapon is throwing a mass, how do you get around Newton's 3rd law?

The same way you have artificial gravity, M-drives and FTL.

 

[F33D]

Given that the weapon is throwing a mass, how do you get around Newton's 3rd law?

The same way you have artificial gravity, M-drives and FTL.

:lol:

 

[dragoner]

Given that the weapon is throwing a mass, how do you get around Newton's 3rd law?

The same way you have artificial gravity, M-drives and FTL.

IMTU, "anti-gravity" is mass-emulation/negative mass emulation, thus repulsion; so satisfying the exotic matter requirement. So it uses what is already there anyways.