I say weapon because it gets to complicated with all the super powers you can get. Turning invisible, walking through walls, teleporting. So for this I want to limit it to sci fi weapons that at least attempt to have a tech basis. So like not the masters device that turns people into dolls. However we don’t care if we can completely explain how it might be done now. Like lightsabers are fair game. As for me I would go with the star gate zat guns as initially put in. Both lethal and nonlethas and very portable. I want to put an honorable mention for tthe minority report sonic shotgun that seems to run on wind up energy so you should never theoretically run out of ammo. although not so sure as there was no indication you could power up more than one shot at a time.
EDITED: Its a little late at this point as the answers have went way off the rails but in case it gets more replies my intention was a weapon someone might carry around and could use as one person. not a weapons system or vehicle. Also no robots or things that essentially are their own entities. It should be a weapon used in a weapon like manner. aim and fire. also that quote about sufficiently advance technology looks like magic. if it looks like magic to us instead of technology then its to far afield. I hope this makes it more clear what I was looking for. Honestly I would have like to not use weapons as a basis but there are just to many things when you look at all of sci fi.
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The Farsight from Perfect Dark (or the equivalent gun from the last season of Deep Space 9). The scope sees through walls quite a distance away, and when fired the shot teleports to the target.
24th century Type II phaser, specifically the ones introduced around 2373. Very multi-purpose, moreso than the zat from Stargate. ;)
But I i just want to go ridiculous firepower and over the top cool factor, any number of weapons from Ratchet’n’Clank would do.
Veritech Fighter
Maybe closer to OPs restrictions… Cyclone Body armour!
Freaking love gerwalker mode.
I think it’s a stretch of the prompt, but someone else said the deathstar. If that’s allowed I’d take the SDF1 itself. But really it’s for that main reflex canon. In the Robotech TTRPG the stats for the main gun was something like “destroys everything in its 1 mile wide path for 10,000 miles” no defense measures work.
The Tasp from Larry Nivens’ Ringworld universe.
Ok, that’s the most evil one I’ve read so far in the comments…
It’s a long time ago that I read the books, but that was a thing that got stuck. I wonder if that thing was single-target or area-of-effect, but it would actually be a fun weapon to use. Especially on the unsuspecting.
Well, chances are you can’t resist using it on yourself and get addicted to it.
I think there even was some mention of it in the books…
what does it do?
It makes you happy, like heroin does
It takes the target out by inducing an orgasm.
thats only like a few seconds!
You have not read the book, have you?
it was supposed to be a self efacing joke about my sexual inadequacies
Elysiums combination 50bmg/railgun, the tst chemrail
That was so satisfying in the movie. I was sad that he didn’t spend the rest of the movie carrying around a bunch of them to use.
The “Bobbler” from Vernor Vinge’s Peace War series.
It’s a device that can remotely enclose arbitrary volumes within “Bobbles”, which are impenetrable and in which the time stands still.
It is instantly used as a kind of passive weapon, enclosing all known nuclear sites and big military installations in one go to force peace (although in the story this backfires into a strange kind of authoritarianism).
What’s special about it is, that its weaponization is only a kind of secondary use, its later uses propel humanity into a technological golden age.
A Death Star. Hugely powerful weapon, but also spacious living space, and travel solution all in one. Just need to get a grate over that exhaust port and we’re all good.
Good cafeteria as well.
But the trays are all wet.
Death star, without the stupid weakness.
I think blowing up is always a weakness
Unless it’s a bomb, then it’s kind of a job requirement.
The Bowel Disruptor from Transmetropolitan:
Non-lethal, untraceable, and thoroughly unpleasant for any unfortunate sod that has earnt my ire!
It does have a “fatal intestinal maelstrom” setting, if I recall correctly… (and I’m not sure about the survivability of “unspeakable gut horror”…)
An emp that blankets the world, but instead of electromagnetic it’s empathy manipulation such that it either eliminates those lacking empathy or forces them to be empathetic.
Goodbye capitalism, pedophilia, corruption, etc. We’re facing what I believe is a global empathy crisis through the rise of the far right due to global neoliberal capitalism. To secure profits, which we’ve tied to survival, we’re un-learning empathy, which was an evolutionary advantage for us. Capitalism rewards narcissism, a lack of empathy, being willing to exploit others.
I would set that empathy pulse off in an instant. I’m tired of seeing people brutalized around the world because of greedy people in power.
I think such a weapon is achievable once we understand genetics enough. Create a gene modification that makes people a little more cooperative and more interested in everybody else’s welfare - say 20% more - and infuse it into enough of the world’s water supplies to give the mutation to a majority of humans. Wait a few years and I think their behavioral changes would turn our whole world around. No need to design a perfect social system and use politics to implement it. It would quickly evolve on its own. .
Isn’t this the lore of the Reavers in Firefly?
The flashy thing from Men in Black “my report was great and you have me an A+”
Phaser.
- Stun
- Kill
- Vaporize
- Create a source of warmth
- Cook (not shown on screen to my knowledge, but plausible)
- Precisely cut various materials
- Landscape
you know I kinda forgot. it is kinda more utilitarian and they do show them running out but like it seems to take a lot to do so.
Phasers can vaporize people or even big piles of rock within seconds. We’re talking hundreds of millions of Joules of energy.
So it must have at least two batteries, right?
It’s got to be something more exotic than simply dumping energy into the target until it turns to vapor, otherwise there would be horrifying explosions of steam and guts and molten rock, instead of a soft hum and the disappearance of the target.
Unless they operate on different physics than our universe currently does, there’s no way around it. Energy is energy, it’s the currency of the universe.
Unless they operate on different physics than our universe currently does
It’s Star Trek. Of course it does.
In this case, it’s a fictional particle doing the heavy lifting. Explanations of exactly what it’s supposed to do seem to be inconsistent (it’s Star Trek), but at lower energy levels, it does electromagnetic stuff (including stunning living creatures), at medium energy levels, it does thermal stuff, and at high energy levels, it messes with the strong nuclear force.
Disintegrating something by messing with the strong nuclear force would probably have harmful effects on anything nearby, which is not addressed because it’s Star Trek.
I choose to believe the vaporize function is actually a one way transporter beam. It digitizes them into the phaser and just deletes the file instead of sending it somewhere to be rebuilt.
That’s a good theory! The development of one could have led to the other. A beam that remotely disassembles something to its subatomic particles without an explosion would have been a necessary part of transporter development, regardless of which was invented first.
- asplode
Killy’s gravity beam pistol probably. Shit is just stupid.
lol I had the same thought
I could conceivably actually get a P90 and I always wanted to shoot one.
But if Star Trek phasers were real, gimme one of those. Preferably, I’d rather have a tricorder instead of a weapon, tho.
I’m really not a gun guy, actually, I could go on for a while about why guns need to be eliminated from US society… But that’s a rant for another time.
But I am a mechanics and engineering guy, and on a mechanical level, the p90 is very cool! It really manages an impressive number of innovative features for one device. In the field of its competitors, it stands out in a big way. It’s like it tried to be a jack of all trades, and actually came out a master of most.
I think they chose it mostly because it ejects casings upwards, which gave them more freedom for placing the actors closer.
Not a weapon. A medical tricorder.
yeah I disallowed things like this because then you have all kinds of technology like personal transporters or such to contend with. so wanted to limit it to weapons.
The problem with misclassifying transporters as “non-weapons” is largely down to Starfleet and the sum entirety of its personnel being blithering idiots with the tactical prowess of a beached flounder. Even taking into account all the caveats and technicalities of how and when transporters could or couldn’t be used in canon, the combat utility of such a thing is criminally overlooked.
Myriad are the times when it is apparently perfectly feasible to beam onto the enemy ship, or vise-versa, to engage in merry yet largely ineffective laser beam battles in the corridors wherein practically nobody hits anybody because in the 31st century everyone forgot how to put sights on their guns.
Or, you could just use your transporters to set them up the bomb. You have got a bomb, haven’t you? I’m sure your replicators can make you one. Or you could just pull the pin on a torpedo and then park it on their captain’s lap.
Have the Scary Dogmatic Aliens boarded your ship? Beam their punk asses out into space. Preferably sans their clothes, especially if your transporter chief is any good.
Sustained some battle damage but your transporters are still working? Just start nicking spare parts from your enemy’s ship. Warp coils, antimater injectors, computer consoles, any or all of their guns… I’m sure you can think of plenty of things you could do with some extras of. Or, and I’m just spitballing here, precisely however many square meters of their hull can fit on your transporter pad. Like, maybe the bit of it that separates their bridge from the vacuum of space.
Etc., etc. The possibilities really just suggest themselves. With the technology available in the 'Trek universe, space battles should be significantly shorter, much more chaotic, and an awful lot more interesting than they’re ever depicted on screen. Basically once anyone’s shields are down it should be an out and out prank war, one with lethal stakes that are decided by whoever’s engineers are the most creative and/or vindictive, and who can type the fastest.
That’s before even getting into the wrinkle that photon torpedoes are supposed to travel at warp velocities. Faster than light. There’s no need to even bother to put warheads in the damn things, antimatter based or not. The impact energy alone should be able to core a planet, if only anyone on the writing staff could be trusted to do the math.
Long story, but a means of transport is still a means of transport, not a weapon.
Like the pen is not a weapon, even though they say it is mightier than the sword.
It’s kind of like saying a missile is a means of transport, not a weapon. Transporters are arguably more useful as weapons than transport, but it would end half the episodes in 2 minutes.
You could also selectively beam away important parts of a thing, or just dematerialize and never rematerialize.
if only anyone on the writing staff could be trusted to do the math.
I want to uptoot this so hard!
