Worldbuilding

Questions tagged [weapons]

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For questions about existing weapons or designing new ones.

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209 views

Preindustrial Poison Gas?

Chemical weapons in the form of poisoned arrows have existed since the Stone Age, but gaseous chemical weapons weren’t utilized until WWI. The hideous scourges of Phosgene and Mustard gas required a ...
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2answers
96 views

Feasibility of The Culture's Effector

Currently, there are wave beams / lasers / rays that operate from the X-Ray region to the Radio Wave region. Patents to create Gamma Ray beams / lasers / rays are also underway. However, I have ...
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2answers
68 views

Feasibility of Laundry Files' Scorpion Stare

So, people have been accustomed to mythical beings such as the Basilisk and Medusa, turning people to stone and such. This concept, however, has rarely appeared in sci-fi. Until I came across the ...
5
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4answers
156 views

Bug-sized halberd?

I'm constructing a world where insects battle using medieval and fantasy weapons. I'm trying to think of an object that could be used by a bug as a halberd - that is, part spear, part axe. For example,...
2
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3answers
169 views

Near-future weapons taking designs similar to 17th century weapons

I am doing an alternate-history of Earth going into the science-fiction area. The split came with a portal to a new planet appearing around the 17th century. The portal deposited those brave enough to ...
26
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15answers
8k views

Justification of the trope that mining tools are tougher than military equipments

It seems to be a recurring idea in science fiction that some industrial tools, especially mining tools, are extremely sturdy and reliable to the point that in certain combat situations where ...
5
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1answer
89 views

Feasibility of Flywheel-Powered Artillery

As far as it is known, Flywheels are extremely efficient in energy storage, with the best even able to replace even the strongest batteries. They are accelerated by electricity to extremely high ...
2
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1answer
141 views

Dragons are supposed to be glass cannons, what biologically possible weapon would be the most useful for them?

So, dragons here are smaller (somewhere at around the size of a shire horse), and more agile creatures, relying on their wits, speed and insane firepower. They are tougher than giant pterosaurs, and ...
1
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1answer
71 views

Feasible Sci-fi 200-300 years away weapons? [closed]

I am writing a book about an Oceanic planet about 1/4 the size of Earth, under the assumption that there was a wormhole at the beginning of the 1600s on Earth, leading to two island-nations above the ...
3
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1answer
128 views

Feasibility of Actuator-Boosted Ammunition [closed]

I was searching for better forms of ammunition across the net, which could replace the current standard types of ammunition, and I came across an interesting one on Deviantart, called Jackhammer ...
9
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4answers
402 views

Can korean bolt throwing cannons not be a dead end?

Alright, this will take some time to explain. There is historical context to my question. Over the course of the period of time from 16th century to the first half of 19th century, the European ...
3
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2answers
97 views

Bionic hand with clawed fingers. What shape would the claws have?

This bionic hand was designed for melee combat, with the purpose of inflicting deep cutting wounds by a powerful clawing attack. The fingertips end with large steel claws with a cutting edge, that are ...
1
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6answers
287 views

Would it makes sense for medieval warriors to carry giant bladed weapon on weak gravity?

Imagine Earth has been a tenth as massive as it is now, does it makes sense for warriors in the medieval period to carry bladed weapon bigger than themselves? for this purpose we have to assume no ...
1
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1answer
127 views

Effect of Width on Plasma Beam Weapons

As an example of a plasma beam: in the Star Wars franchise, lightsabers are used as the multipurpose weapons of Jedi. The Jedi lightsabers have beams which seem to have be around 1 to 2 inches in ...
0
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1answer
127 views

Scientifically plausible Hokuto Shinken?

So, Hokuto Shinken is a brutal and insanely overpowered martial art that could probably resurrect the dead, deflect Palpatine's bass-boosted lightning and make a new shirt for you, but that's not ...
15
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10answers
3k views

Justifications for Axe Bayonets

A rather simple question in my opinion compared to my typical: Why would a nation with Napoleonic age technology and weapons use axe bayonets over the more standard 'spear-like' bayonets? They were ...
1
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2answers
121 views

How to keep a creature capable of matter/energy conversion from eating planets

So I've got this superpowered mutant superweapon created by some metallic race. It was meant to devour life on worlds in order to clear out areas for colonization, but stuff went wrong and it escaped ...
4
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3answers
1k views

How could a medieval melee weapon slice through ankylosaurus?

Set in the early 14th century A. D. the sudden appearance of dinosaurs wrecked havoc on the world, no one know why but everybody raced to come up with powerful theories except for a particular group ...
1
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2answers
121 views

Feasibility of Anti-Mass Weapons

I continued on searching for sci fi weapons that work under exotic physics which is not handwavium, and at least unobtainium, and I saw this comment: “Anti-Mass spheres. Bubbles of pure nothingness, ...
-1
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1answer
87 views

Would nations invest in the cannon if ranged weaponry were not cost effective?

This world employs advanced magitech as a staple of life. Ironically however, warfare hasn't advanced beyond the medieval period. Weapons are imbued with runes, which infuse the object with Mana. This ...
4
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4answers
176 views

Optimizing a relativistic anti-personnel weapon

Let's say you have a technology that lets you build a gun that can accelerate a mass up to 145 grams to a speed of 0.90 C. (Don't worry about the plausibility of this technology) The projectile can ...
20
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15answers
9k views

How would sword design change if the aim was to cause as much immediate bleeding as possible?

Supposedly there is a school of magic that allows telekinetic manipulation of blood (and only blood). Your telekinetic powers can not penetrate solids and other liquids (including human skin) so you ...
5
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2answers
290 views

A sword that's made up of tiny sharp crystals and held together by a magnetic field. Is it possible?

So, I was thinking about a way to recreate the spell "Bound Sword" from Skyrim and so created this. A bound weapon consists of: 1. A hilt that generates a strong magnetic field. The hilt doesn't ...
7
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5answers
1k views

How to scientifically explain bane weapons?

One common trope of RPGs are the "bane weapons". Say, there's this axe that deals more damage to elves, or an arrow that's better at killing dragons. I won't go into detail why in a world, where one ...
5
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3answers
265 views

Making a Plasma Gun that works

I have seen in this site that there has been constant attempts to make a working Plasma Gun, only to be constantly met up with failure, as shown with my post regarding Warhammer's Plasma Cannons. ...
8
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4answers
278 views

What's it Like to Fire a Sci-Fi Laser Rifle

Inspired by this question, I have a feeling that my presumptions about laser weapons are all wrong. Let's assume the following sci-fi laser weapon: Form Factor : Rifle Energy Delivered to Target : ...
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3answers
225 views

Feasibility of Warhammer 40k's Plasma Cannon

In the world of Warhammer 40k, come multiple weapons with variable levels of feasibility, most namely the Bolter and the Chainsword, which are the simplest. On the other hand, there are other weapons ...
2
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2answers
148 views

Can a liquid mercury pistol flamethrower exist?

The Cold War just got a whole lot hotter. Ordinary 20th century flamethrowers are, let's admit it, huge. Covert operations, especially in urban settings, would not stay covert for long, if our custom-...
3
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4answers
212 views

Designing plasma weapons that cannot pierce armour

I need some help designing a type of plasma-based weapon that cannot burn through armor but can damage soft-targets(i.e. people). I want it to be based somewhat in science, but all I can think of is a ...
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2answers
172 views

Recreating dragon fire

In Anne McCaffrey’s series 'The Dragonriders of Pern', she describes her dragons chewing on rocks containing phosphine — a chemical made of one phosphorus atom and three hydrogen atoms. In gas form, ...
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4answers
160 views

Can Particle Decoupling Weapons exist?

So, it seems that I will always be asking about the feasibility of semi-scifi weapons to the real world, now, as a trend. I have looked for weapons that operate under "exotic physics", shown here: ...
2
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3answers
119 views

Feasibility of Molecular Disassemblers

When I come across weapons associated with Nanotechnology, the first that often shows up are Molecular Disassemblers, or what others would like to call Grey Goo. Molecular Disassemblers utilise ...
5
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3answers
178 views

How would someone with electric superpowers make a railgun?

So, in my story, there's a guy that can produce electricity, and functions as pretty much an endless power supply of electrical energy. With that, I was wondering, what would be required to make it so ...
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2answers
113 views

Feasibility of Psycho Pass' Dominator

So, in the world of Psycho Pass, the main weapon of enforcement is the Dominator. There is not much information on how the weapon works, other than it utilises electromagnetic waves, and has an ID ...
4
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3answers
196 views

How would Roadhog’s Scrapgun work?

this is my first question here. I’ve wondered about this for a while, and the original idea wasn’t on Roadhog’s gun but I thought it similar enough for this question. https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/...
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2answers
94 views

Would constructing an “semi-realistic/semi-super” mecha be plausible? [closed]

For two years, I've been interested(obsessed) with mecha, aka: giant robots, especially "super robots". Would it be possible for somebody to create a humanoid, but reasonably sized mecha that ...
7
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3answers
283 views

Sword that is limp when in sheath, and hard when drawn?

I want to create a sword that when sheathed remains limp/flexible or soft but upon being unsheathed it become hard like common steel. So, something like the sword going soft when not exposed to ...
7
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6answers
493 views

How long can the invention of guns be put off?

Fantasy writers tend to prefer forms of combat that predate guns, because they are more showy, and they involve close and long-duration combat with an identified adversary instead of shooting at ...
8
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3answers
143 views

How good could magically hardened bones get for weaponcraft

I haven't used tag "magic" because while the process is magical, I am interested in resulting material, which is itself completely unmagical and follows physical laws of our world. So, I have a ...
8
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8answers
275 views

Ice Construct Weapons

The Ice Mages of a world I'm crafting can create constructs made from ice. Now, a master Ice Mage might be able to do fun things with his construct like project them in showers of ice shards, but ...
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20answers
10k views

How can you weaponize a thermos?

Anything can be used as a weapon if need be: A person in my story uses a big steel thermos in a fight. How could she beef up the thermos to keep using it as a weapon.
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22answers
9k views

How can medieval knights protect themselves against modern guns?

How do a you make a knight with armour and a sword formidable against a modern-day soldier with gear and a gun? And how can you make a medieval army formidable enough to face a modern day army?
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5answers
157 views

In a more advanced society that experiences incursions by monsters, do you think weapons such as guns would cost more or less the same as our society?

I'm in the middle of creating my own role-play game set in a fantasy/sci-fi setting where the society is attacked fairly regular by monsters and the like; Due to this I'm having trouble with the ...
2
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4answers
200 views

What is the difference between a pulsed particle weapon and a beam particle weapon?

I'm considering adding a particle based weapon within my setting. It would be used in atmosphere and utilise [electrons] (http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmenergy.php#id--...
1
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2answers
344 views

why do people commonly think scythes are good weapon? [closed]

I'm asking this because I commonly see scythes in fiction. and people in fiction use them to cut people into bacon bits, but in reality, it is utterly useless. I've already been exposed to how bad of ...
3
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3answers
217 views

Is the Hammer's Slammers Powergun feasible?

I have seen many people discuss in this community on how a plasma gun ought to be made. But only a few mention the Powergun from the Hammerverse. I ask if this design will work. Can the bullets be ...
3
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3answers
286 views

How to build a Nuclear Pistol?

I came across the design of a nuclear pistol from a deviantart artist, shown here: I want to know if this can actually be built. My additions: The “egg” needs not be uranium, which has a huge ...
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16answers
7k views

Ideal Firearms for time travel or low tech universe exploration

I am a world-hopping warlock who regularly goes on adventures in various worlds with differing levels of technological knowledge. Being a crafty warlock, I have a number of tricks, weapons, and ...
1
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4answers
198 views

Age of Sail warships with magic flamethrowers

So, you are a powerful empire, where most of the army consists of magically self-enhanced warriors, who can for a limited but not short amount of time double(regular soldiers) to triple(elite soldiers)...
1
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2answers
115 views

On Siren Head's sonic attacks

At this point, roughly 98% of D&D SRD monsters are on the good side in my setting, I mean, they're too cool. So, I decided to throw something less cool, scary, intimidating and evil that's ...

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