An idea for a new weapon (semi-OT]

> Thomas Barclay wrote:

I always kind of liked the Sun Gun in Stellar Conquest. You stimulated a
massive, sustained flare in the direction of where the enemy world was going
to be in however many years it would take the flare to reach it, and sterilize
whole planets!

The URL below has a description of the impacts of Solar Storms and Flares on
our worldwide power grids. Pretty eye opening.

http://www.mpelectric.com/storms/index.htm

This gives me some ideas for a nasty attack in the FT realm. (I think ST has
used Solar Flares for direct attack on shipyards, and Niven
did for shooting down spaceships, but no-one to my knowledge has
thought of this twist yet):

Using some technique (grav, nuclear warhead, special beam battery, who knows,
maybe one of the astronomical types on the list), induce a large solar storm
on a sun just slightly prior to a carefully planned
assault. Then your forces go in. Comms is down, but you have pre-set
orders. You've disrupted the power grid and overloaded transformers and the
like all over. PDCs may be down, as may some fleet elements. (Let's assume
your storm was worse than even normal flareups). You attack confused, damaged
defenses. Sounds nasty to me.

Or even as just a terrorist weapon - don't even attack, just use it,
do a huge economic damage, and continue your war of attrition elsewhere. No
Sun Busters, No Planet busters, just something that
brings on solar storms/flares.

I have to imagine this would be very effective, even in the time of the GZG
game history. Not at all fun.:)

Tom.
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> On Wed, 21 Oct 1998, Thomas Barclay wrote:

solar flares arise due to distortions and loops and things in the sun's
magnetic field. to provoke a solar flare, you will need to generate a magnetic
field of magnitude and expanse comparable to one of these distortions. this
cannot be done (except in manga, of course).

on the other hand, you might be able to slap the sun with something (rock,
nuke, grav bomb) and induce a distortion in a controlled manner. thus, the sun
provides the power and you just have to trigger it.

> Then your forces go in. Comms is down, but you have pre-set

confucius, he say: "no plan survives contact with the enemy". with no comms,
you couldn't react to anything which happened. also, if your radio is down,
your radar is down, and you can't shoot. otoh, optics would still be up, so
laser comms, lidar and telescopes would be fine. just like the good old days.

> You've disrupted the power grid and overloaded transformers

assuming you wait for the storm to subside, ok. otherwise, you get hit too,
and you don't have an atmosphere and a magnetic field to protect you.

> Sounds nasty to me.

i'll drink to that.

Tom

Thomas spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> on the other hand, you might be able to slap the sun with something

What I had in mind.

> > Then your forces go in. Comms is down, but you have pre-set

Yes but if I'm confused 50%, the enemy is confused 100%. I'd consider that
advantage important. And as you said, LOS stuff (when not in the planets
screwed up Magnetic Field) would work well enough. And check me if I'm wrong,
but neutrino or meson communications should work too. And grav sensors and
stuff might still work.

> > You've disrupted the power grid and overloaded transformers

Sure, but the initial pulse (I assume) is the worst. And your military stuff
is shielded enough I assume to survive this. But on the defender side, they've
got a civilian catastrophe to deal with. And you might even wait a few days.
They'll have to worry about you coming, but they'll be real busy dealing with
the aforementioned civilian situaiton, and they'll still have lots of damage
effects when you arrive.

/************************************************

> Thomas Anderson wrote:

....As Used by the (in)famous astronomer Fred Hoyle in his book "Rockets in
Ursa Major". From memory, a few hundred tons of Lithium Hydride added to the
photosphere caused a massive radiation flux, strilising any part of the solar
system not covered by a dense atmosphere.

This was a defensive weapon... many bad effects on the Earth, but basically
all the ships in the system were toast.

Worth a read.