Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

[tkdguy]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

Also, try to catch the new series on the Discovery Channel, Future Weapons. It's on at 10 pm ET/PT. When I saw the series premier, part of me thought it was really cool. Another part of me got really scared.

[Dr Archeville]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

Too good a thread to let go

[Nyrath]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

I recently added some new material to my SF handgun page:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3l.html

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

In the anime Sol Bianca, there's a sequence where some of the good

guys have been captured and are about to be executed when one of their

friends starts taking out the executioner and guards with really long-

range sniper fire -- long range as in, she's in a spacesuit out on the hull of

their spaceship with this humongous rifle firing down on the planet from high

orbit.

 

I can almost hear the guys in the USMC's Force Recon Scout Snipers now:

 

"We have got to get us one of those!"

 

 

Major Tom

Feuer Frei! (Bang! Bang!)

 

That is probably my favorite scene from Sol Bianca. I have it on VHS, but I want a DVD copy and cant find one. sucks big time.

[Southern Cross]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

If we're including the Glaive from Krull can I include the Kinjakan from Ranma 1/2? An indestructible staff with a razor-sharp hoop,the hoop could be used like the Glaive,or when the hoop was attached to the staff,the Kinjakan could project flame blasts or enable the wielder to fly at high speed.

And let's not forget the rayguns used by the Zero-Zero Cyborgs in the 2001 anime version of Cyborg 009.They could fire lightning bolts,laser beams,and some kind of plasma bursts-the "energy magnum" mode.They also had the traditional "stun" setting and a freezer mode-002 used this to cover the lifting jets of a Black Ghost flying tank with ice,causing it to crash.

[Drhoz]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

The parallax cannon, from "Doctor Who : The Taking Of Planet Five"

 

It's a handheld glass spike that opens a point hole into the nova of an anti-sun. Right-handed neutrinos pour through, and normal matter falls apart. It can consume the atmosphere in three hours, and a planet in nine.

 

The Time Lords use it to slice up an Elder Thing base in Antartica, 12 million years ago, before setting themselves up disguised as Eldar Things and breeding War TARDISes.

[Susano]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

Here have some SF guns in Hero terms.

 

http://surbrook.devermore.net/herosource/firearms.html

 

Edits and corrections welcome. These have not been converted to 5th Edition or sent through Hero Designer.

[Drhoz]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

After that' date=' Heinlein's 30-second bomb from Starship Troopers (the novel). The one that goes, "I'm a thirty-second bomb, twenty-nine, twenty-eight...." and continues the spiel until it detonates.[/quote']

 

or the version in one of the Judge Dredd novels that gets to 5 seconds, screams "Timing Malfunction! Timing Malfunction!" then "Just kidding!" BOOM!

[sinanju]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

Another favorite sci-fi weapon of mine is from the Dean Koontz novel "Dark Rivers of the Heart." Spoilers follow:

 

 

Toward the end of the novel our hero and the heroine are fleeing from the bad guys. The heroine is using a laptop to do...something while our hero drives frantically, trying to stay ahead of the guys who want to kill them.

 

Then a ravening beam of destructive energy lances down out of the sky, narrowly missing them--and, unfortunately, the bad guys too. Yes, our heroine, explains, she is employing the ORBITAL DEATH RAY SATELLITE, nicknamed "Godzilla" for obvious reasons.

 

HOW? our hero wants to know. Simple--she hacked into the Department of Defense computers with a code she stole some time ago. (ZAP! she tries to fry the bad guys again.)

 

The US DoD has an orbital deathray?!?!?!? our hero asks.

 

Actually, no. The US DoD hacked into the FRENCH DEATH RAY SATELLITE in case they ever needed to use it (or block it from being used). She just stole the codes. And she tells him that once she relinquishes control of the satellite she'll never get it back because (of course) the DoD and the French will make sure it never happens again.

 

It was an unforgettable scene....

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

That reminds me of the orbital death rays in Bubblegum Crisis, a series full of technology run amok.

 

An interesting variant, which so far I've only seen in games as opposed to fiction, is the Orbital Mind Control Lasers. They are most infamous in the card game Illuminati. They can theoretically be used to change the minds of entire nations on a massive scale, and to make sure that just about everybody completely forgets a certain incident or the existence of a specific person or thing.

 

Belief that OMCLs are actually operating is a not-that-uncommon symptom of paranoid schizophrenia. But one could theorize that having a severe mental illness makes you immune to the OMCLs, and that one fact that OMCLs want people not to know would be the existence of the OMCLs themselves....

[clsage]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

Well, hopefully these have not been mentioned yet (since I'm at

work and am too lazy.....errr, busy. Yes that's it, too busy to look thru all the previous posts):

 

For handheld weapon: The ZF1 from the film "The 5th Element":

 

 

"Your time for revenge is at hand! Voila! The ZF1! It's Light, Handle's adjustable for easy carrying, Good for righties and lefties, Breaks down into four parts, undetectable by X-Ray, Ideal for quick, discrete interventions." A word on firepower: titanium recharger, 3000 round clip with bursts of three to 300. Zorg then shoots at a mannaquin dressed as a NYPD Police officer. "With the Replay Button, another Zorg invention, it's even easier." One shot.... and Replay sends every following shot to the same location." Zorg then fires more rounds directly at the Mangalores who turn and duck, but all bullets hit the mannquin. "And to finish the job, all Zorg's oldies but goldies: Rocket launcher, Arrow launcher, with exploding or poisonous gas heads ("very practical!"), Our famous netlauncher, The always sufficient flamethrower ("my favorite..."), And for the grand finale...The All-New "Ice Cube System" with which he extinguishes the mannaquin that he set on fire with the flamethrower, which also breaks and collapses in Pieces. The Mangalores then applaud. "Four full crates... delivered right on time!"..."

 

Of course, there is also that little red button on the bottom.....

 

For vehicle mounted:

 

Point Singularity Projectors, as used by the Magog in Gene

Roddenberrys' Andromeda. I mean, how could you not love a

weapon that fires black holes ?

[sinanju]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

An interesting variant, which so far I've only seen in games as opposed to fiction, is the Orbital Mind Control Lasers. They are most infamous in the card game Illuminati. They can theoretically be used to change the minds of entire nations on a massive scale, and to make sure that just about everybody completely forgets a certain incident or the existence of a specific person or thing.

 

The Orbital Mind Control Lasers turned up in a DESTROYER novel. Remo and Chiun had to deal with them. See, the French government launched a satellite containing the lasers. By beaming a particular wavelength of light at an area, they could control the emotions and behavior of the people there.

 

...but then Uncle Sam Beasley (aka Walt Disney, unfrozen and with his head surgically attached to Michael Eisner's body) hijacked the satellite and was using it to try to make EuroBeasley THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH, since the park was failing.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

Android 18 from DBZ, the T-X from T3, Eve from Eve of Destruction, and, if we're considering bioweapons, Sil from Species I and II.

[csyphrett]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

OCMLs are also the reason that the Freedom Fighters lost the war on Earth X way back in the day.

CES

[egaroadkill]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

My vote goes to the slaver weapon from Larry Niven’s Star Trek screenplay that eventually got made into one of those horrible Trek animations.

It was a transformable device able to become many different tools of which my favorite was the matter/energy conversion at a distance power that looked like a thermonuclear blast miles away.

[Susano]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

My vote goes to the slaver weapon from Larry Niven’s Star Trek screenplay that eventually got made into one of those horrible Trek animations.

It was a transformable device able to become many different tools of which my favorite was the matter/energy conversion at a distance power that looked like a thermonuclear blast miles away.

 

a.k.a. "The Soft Weapon."

[Remjin]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

I remember reading a book (can't remember the name) that involved some old jet pilot that was pretty crass, in which he ended up going on some kind of rampage with a really odd rifle that had multiple types of rounds. It was a near future style book, and I can't remember them all, but one setting was "grape" and actually had a picture of geapes when you turned the dial... and it would shoot basically a big shotgun blast of flechettes or nails or something... that was pretty cool at the time. I wish I could remember the book, I never did get to read the whole series, but I remember enjoying it for its dark humor and pretty interesting portrayal of people. The name "Falcon" sticks out in my head as being related to this book. Argh.

[Dholcrist]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

I hate putting this one up, but can't resist it. If you haven't read Snow Crash, spoilers ahead.

 

Reason- a railgun configured in a minigun setup, it fired 3mm depleted uranium rounds. The case it was stored in also cared the ammo, and wieghed about 300 lbs (though became considerably lighter during use), had an onboard targeting computer, and a nuclear isotope energy source that was towed behing it (and preferably submerged in water for cooling).

 

In the readme file that it came with, the last line was "ULTIMA RATIO REGUM" (The Last Argument of Kings). "Yeah, they'll listen to Reason."

 

/end spoilers

[Zeropoint]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

Bwa ha ha! I loved that part of the book!

[Remjin]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

I have to say, on the whole, all of the mega-powerful weapons involving excessive explanations of nonsense bore me to tears and speak more to munchkin reasoning. I'm sure many are probably much better in the context of its literature or the show involved, but they all seem to have very similar rationale.

 

I guess I'm more of a fan of weapons that don't tap into the essential or overwhelming powers of the universe to cause massive destruction where I please.

 

From snowcrash, I believe, I actually enjoyed the description of a knife the young girl owned... forged from a bicycle chain and something or other, but it really hit the nail on the head for the life that was being descriibed.

 

I'll have to include my vote for the Judge Dredd Lawgiver and light sabers, the pulse rifle, and even the Starship Troopers movie rifle, and most of the Aliens stuff in general. I also enjoyed the Predator weapons, and "Reason" was pretty funny, as was the ZF-1, though I can't say I liked the latter overmuch. There were some interesting weapons in Fifth Element as a whole, though.

 

And though this isn't really science fiction, I enjoyed Hellboy's weapons a lot as well... especially his revolver, but the wierd clockwork fellow was amusing as well.

[Susano]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

I'm playing Quake 4 right now, and the Darkmatter Gun is a lot of fun. I'm guessing it fires micro blackholes or something. In any case, one shot is usually enough to suck-up several foes and leave them as a pile of corpses.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

Sol Bianca's 'latest ass-kicker' was top notch in my book, but for my advertising money I'll still go with the lightsaber. A more elegant weapon of a more civilized era.

[Cancer]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters at three paces.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters at three paces.

 

I'm your huckleberry....

[Kaeto]

Re: Favorite Sci-Fi Weapon

 

Now I don't think either of you is a 30 tonne MegaElephant with Bronchial Pnuemonia so just put those drinks down and back away.