"Photonic Disruptor"?

The photonic disruptor is currently deployed in Iraq. Meanwhile, President Bush has stated that we are hot on the heels of the Xindi weapons of planetary destruction.

(And I must say, I rather like that in addition to the money they've spent to make the thing, they also threw in some cash to make it look cooler. Same with their StunStrike lightning gun.)

Meanwhile, the military is also working on directed energy weapons that excite water molecules at the very surface of the skin, producing a sensation of extreme heat. More on these weapons, somewhat inevitably referred to as "Star Trek phaser technology", can be found here.

(As for me, I still wanna know what happened to that guy with the tetanizer beam that everyone was calling a phaser a few years ago. I still think the idea of ionizing the air with lasers so you can thereby create an electrical circuit is hellaciously cool.)


Anonymous said...

I see Trek tech may be closer than we think...

By the way, has anyone seen this?


Utterly pitiful, this. "Horrors like the transporter". HAH!

Anonymous said...

I like the StunStrike, but I'm still waiting for the commercial plasma hand guns. They don't seem that difficult to design or be that expensive to make. You can have a small scroll or centrifugal air compressor on the top or the side. The air gets passed to a small area that has one or more needles inside that have a "high" voltage but limited current (for safety) that is applied to the needle(s). When it reaches the point(s), the electrons will jump off from the pressure of being close together and connect with the air molecules. Inside, there are also small and ringed electric field generators. The first turns on and the ionized air rushes to the positive potential. At this point, the first one shuts off and another starts up, pushing the ions down the line, like in particle accelerators...you just don't need the super speeds they use. The number of fields could determine the speed you want. If you spin the ionized air to make it spin, as it leaves the gun, like bullets in regular guns, I think you'll get a lot of x-ray radiation. I'm not sure. But, if you can get it fast enough, using it as a concussive and nonlethal deterant weapon could work.

The question would be power, so use transformers, like in stun guns and a battery that automatically recharges, like a car battery when the engine turns on. But, it would be better to use a smart recharger and that can be in the handle. The thing would probably be bigger than the larger handguns, at least for the first generation versions. You could even have a plasma rifle/shotgun. These could be harder to trace than normal guns, but I'd imgine the weapons would be built with slight variations for patent holdings and identifying the aftereffects of interacting with the varying plama "bullets" could be a tracker. They'd be regulated, like bullet hand guns, but making one at home doesn't seem too difficult. I came up with this design from looking at a particle accelerator, air ionizer, a battery recharger, an air compressor and a stun gun. You could make the exterior look, like any plasma gun, if you can make the molds. And if you make one, you can vary your components every so often by cannibalizing different regular objects. You'd have to replace parts every so often, so you'd have to get inside and for clean up. So, they'd still be hard to track in general.

Anonymous said...

All this new technology is fine and dandy, but I still think we peaked at the Bow, and have gone down-hill since. But if you want a good stun-gun, i'd go for a low-impact fletchette-shotgun with a specialized high-charge cartridge-current battery, I found a schematic somewhere...

Anonymous said...

There has been some recent drama over HSVT's tetanizer beam. HSVT has the patent on the idea and is working with XADS, who make the StunStrike and Photonic Disruptor, to bring the laser idea to market. Unfortunately, another company started by a guy who feels he has enough money and potential profit to ignore HSVT's patent is trying to pursue the same idea, regardless of the questionable legality of doing so, and has received a $10 million government grant thanks to his high-up connections:


The NY Post had several articles on this, which is part of a bigger scandal; the above-linked article was the first.

RSA said...

There goes the tetanizer, then . . . it'll get locked up in court battles and will never see the light of day until it's cool factor has worn off and other technologies are doing the same things anyway.

Anonymous said...

The idea of Plasma Weapons is idiotic at best and shere lunacy at worst. Plasma by its very nature, is a low energy gas. By that I mean that the total energy of the entire volume of gas is very low. Because of the extream temperatures the density is ultra low and thus the total energy content is also very low. Do not be missled by the multi-million degree temperatures quoted because the entire contents of any one of the various Fusion experimental reactors world wide is a very tiny fraction of a gram of gas. A very ordinary 7.7MM Japanise Explosive bullet from Ww-II has several thousand times the energy of an equivilant volume of plasma, that could be contained, generated or launched from and man portable device. So much for plasma weapons.

There is no possable way to make the plasma pennitrait the air for more than a very few inches! In space, the repulshun of like charged particals will disperse the beam in very short order.

As soon as you add some mechanizm to keep the plasma together that device will have several orders of magnatude more energy in side than the plasma it contains.

All in all just a few of the very many problems faced by plasma weapons.

Anonymous said...

And I recently watched on TV that there were already more than 100 cases where "Tetanizer" actually Killed people despite being set on stun.