Raygun: Difference between revisions
Trekphiler (talk | contribs) →Types: tweak, & when '''will''' you learn "acronym" & "abbreviation" are not synonymous? |
|||
Line 18: | Line 18: | ||
* [[Plasma (physics)|plasma]]: see also [[plasma rifle]] |
* [[Plasma (physics)|plasma]]: see also [[plasma rifle]] |
||
* Defined by a word not known in real-world science, e.g. "[[disruptor]]". |
* Defined by a word not known in real-world science, e.g. "[[disruptor]]". |
||
* Undefined. |
|||
* Concussion Beam: A generic term often applied to energy beams when the nature of the weapon is unknown. They are often non-lethal and only temporarily disable an opponent by knocking them down. They are often seen in television cartoons where realistic conventional weaponry is usually disallowed due to restrictions on violence. They are also seen in many superhero [[comic books]] where they are part of a characters superpowers. |
* Concussion Beam: A generic term often applied to energy beams when the nature of the weapon is unknown. They are often non-lethal and only temporarily disable an opponent by knocking them down. They are often seen in television cartoons where realistic conventional weaponry is usually disallowed due to restrictions on violence. They are also seen in many superhero [[comic books]] where they are part of a characters superpowers. |
||
Revision as of 20:03, 11 October 2008
- This article is about fictional weapons. For other meanings, see Raygun (disambiguation). See Directed-energy weapon for various real weapons which are similar to rayguns.
Rayguns are a type of directed-energy weapon. They are a classic and widespread feature of science fiction. Types of raygun have various names: ray gun, death ray, beam gun, blaster, laser gun, etc. They supply the general role of guns in the scenarios of many stories.
History
A very early example is the Heat-Ray featured in H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, which was published in 1898. Science fiction as far back as the 1920s emphasized death rays as the weapons of choice. Early science fiction often showed raygun beams making bright light and loud noise like lightning or large electric arcs. When the laser, invented in 1960, became an industrial reality the generic fictional death rays were often renamed "lasers" (see Science fiction weapon). By the late 1960s and 1970s however, the laser's limits as a weapon were evident, and less specific terms such as "phaser" (see Star Trek) or "blaster" (see Star Wars) were used.
Types
The ray fired is usually stated to be one of:
- Laser
- Particle beam:
- A real type of particle, e.g. protons and/or neutrons from the Ghostbusters' proton packs
- A fictional type of particle, e.g. a type of "Minovsky particles" in the Gundam scenario, where Minovsky Physics always operate.
- Unspecified
- plasma: see also plasma rifle
- Defined by a word not known in real-world science, e.g. "disruptor".
- Concussion Beam: A generic term often applied to energy beams when the nature of the weapon is unknown. They are often non-lethal and only temporarily disable an opponent by knocking them down. They are often seen in television cartoons where realistic conventional weaponry is usually disallowed due to restrictions on violence. They are also seen in many superhero comic books where they are part of a characters superpowers.
The well-known Star Trek phaser fires a particle beam of a fictional subatomic particle called nadions.
Blaster is an unreal technology attempt at describing how a type of raygun works.
Sometimes in science fiction stories, rayguns are used for metal cutting like blowtorches.
In some science fiction, some rayguns have a firing mode that can stun its target instead of killing.
Rayguns under their various names come in various sizes and forms: pistol; two-handed (often called a rifle); mounted on a vehicle; artillery-sized mounted on a spaceship or space base or asteroid or planet. The pistol form is seen most often.
A "beam gun" in anime is an energy weapon which fires a colored beam of light.
"FX-Ray laser" in American science fiction and animation is a humorous name for a raygun that fires a visible beam: FX is the show biz term for special effects.
Rayguns are a great variety of shapes and sizes, according to the imagination of the story writers and movie prop makers. Most pistol rayguns have a conventional grip and trigger, but some (e.g. Next Generation phasers) do not.
Many rayguns do not behave like classical lasers:
- Often the beam travels at much less than the speed of light. The phasers of the Star Trek television series can be seen to be traveling much slower than a conventional bullet. Star Wars lasers are depicted as brightly colored streaks of light resembling tracer ammunition.
- The beam can be seen from off its axis, which would not happen in space where there is nothing to be illuminated by the beam.
- Sometimes, visible barrel recoil. This would only happen if the momentum of the beam is comparable to that of a bullet fired from a gun.
- Sometimes, the power of the beam completely evaporates a man (equipment and all) who is hit by the beam.
However, some of the above properties are consistent with particle beam weapons.
Real-life limitations
- In many science fiction scenarios, the laws of physics and nature of matter and energy are different from in the real world (i.e.: the fictional Minovsky Physics, which operate in the Gundam universe.)
- With current technology, the amount of power that they would need is beyond the capacity of any handheld device[citation needed]. Actual energy weapons are large and cumbersome and portable versions are barely powerful enough to be considered weapons.
- Many of them need non-existent materials.
- For laser guns, see directed-energy weapon.
- Many fictional ray guns fire a beam which (unlike lasers) is visible in vacuum and sometimes also travels much slower than light.
- For plasma rifles and similar, see the possibility of plasma rifles existing in the real world
Some types in fiction
- Alien film series: "PIG" plasma cannon: run off a backpack powerpack. Uses an electrolaser to create a magnetic containment bottle.
- "Particle Beam Phalanx": cannon-sized.
- Babylon 5: Phased plasma gun
- Blake's 7: paragun: Federation standard issue. Image here. More Federation kit images here.
- a pistol: Federation issue, image here.
- Blood and Blood II: Tesla Cannon: shoots electrical discharges
- Captain Proton: blaster: lethal white electric ray
- Command & Conquer: Renegade: Black Widow (Volt auto-rifle): electrical beam (electrolaser)?
- Firefly: laser rifle
- Tarantula: laser chaingun
- Merlin: personal ion cannon: instant visible bolt of ions
- Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars (novel): T7: Tiberium fueled laser pulse.
- EW1: Laser beam
- Scrin cannon: beam of tiberium particles.
- Crash Bandicoot: raygun: plasma of charged particles
- Darwin's World: role-playing game: laser rifle: Nd:YAG laser
- David Weber's novel Apocalypse Troll: blaster: pulse of plasma
- Doctor Grordbort's Infallible Aether Oscillators: Rayguns utilising infra-wave undulation and Phlogiston over-charging amongst other pseudo-scientific concepts.
- Descent series: laser pistols, fusion cannon, omega cannon
- FreeSpace 2: photon beam cannons
- Doctor Who: Daleks' guns: "ruby rays", Time Lord's "Stasers"
- Doom: Plasma rifle
- BFG 9000: undefined (stated as plasma in Doom 3), unreal physics
- Dune: Continuous-wave laser projectors called lasguns runs on nuclear power, but are considered old-fashioned due to the use of the personal Holtzman shields, which would cause a small nuclear detonation, which would kill both the wielder and the wearer, and break the rules of engagement, as the use of nuclear weapons are strictly prohibited. They are also known to be heavy, cumbersome and very fragile. For those reason, lasguns are mostly mounted on aircraft.
- Fallout: Sun scorcher (runs on solar power), Alien Blaster, Various installments of laser weapons, gauss weapons, plasma weapons, pulse weapons. (rifles, handguns, gatling, grenades.)
- Farscape: various weapons
- F.E.A.R.: Armacham Type-7 Particle Weapon: plasma
- Forbidden Planet: hand blasters & larger blasters
- The Foundation Series (The Trilogy): blaster: high-power nuclear particles, shattered target.
- The Foundation Series (The prequels): blaster: weaker
- The Foundation Series (The Sequels): microwave gun
- Ghostbusters: proton pack: particle beam
- Gridlinked: pulse-gun: various types of fire mode
- Gundam: mega beam cannons: "Minovsky particles". (Minovsky Physics operate throughout series.)
- Halo (series): various plasma weapons
- The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin (1927 novel): "hyperboloid"
- Hammer's Slammers: Powergun: plasma pulse
- The Hyperion Cantos: Death Wand: A laser-like beam weapon
- Independence Day: city-destroyer ray
- James Bond: Moonraker (film): "Moonraker laser": laser beam. Images: [1] [2] [3] [4]. It also appears in some videogames.
- James Bond 007: Nightfire (a video game): Phoenix International Experimental Laser Rifle
- Kingdom Hearts II (a video game): Gun Arrow: bullet-like laser beams
- Kingdom of Loathing MMORPG: Toy Ray Gun: laser beam
- Lucky Starr series: blasters: small slugs which on impact turned a fraction of their mass into energy
- Mars Attacks: Both the cards and movie feature alien weapons used by the Martians capable of disintegrating human/animal flesh, and on some occasions, terrestrial weapons and devices.
- Metroid (series) (a video game): various, see Items in the Metroid series
- Quake: BFG10K: plasma
- Resident Evil 3: Nemesis: Paracelsus's Sword: massively offensive energy beam
- Resistance: Fall of Man: Auger: similar to the Hl2 OSIPIR
- Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tesla Gun: Multi-target electric shock gun.
- Robotech: Reflex Cannon (artillery-sized)
- Stargate: staff weapon: yellow plasma-bolt
- intar: red ball of energy
- Kull disruptor: a blue blast
- zat: blue electrical discharge
- Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse": raygun: red/blue bullet of energy
- laser shotgun: a steady blue beam of energy
- laser RPG: a swirling mass of red and white energy
- Super Smash Bros. series: Ray Gun: plasma
- Star Trek: See Weapons of Star Trek
- Star Wars: blaster: see blaster (Star Wars),. which describes it in detail, but with unreal physics.
- lightsaber
- various weapons: see List of Star Wars ranged weapons
- 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon: Traditional laser guns, carried by Bebop and Rocksteady
- Total Annihilation: may be a traditional laser, or may use coherent meson or pseudo-boson beams instead
- Plasma Cannon: Bumble
- Transformers (film): Plasma cannon, Bumblebee's secondary weapon
- Unreal Tournament 2004: Lightning Gun: electrolaser
- V: shock rifle and pistol: unknown
- Warhammer 40,000: lasgun: laser beam
- Lascannon: massive energy blast
- War of the Worlds (1898): Heat-Ray
- Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898 sequel to ditto): disintegrator ray
- (various): plasma rifle
Real-world development
- CBS in their show 60 minutes showed a real weapon described as a raygun. This video of it shows that it is most likely the Active Denial System.
- Recent developments in the real world in laser guns have produced artillery-sized weapons which might be described as rayguns, but usually are not.
- See electrolaser for an electric current sent down a laser beam.
- See directed-energy weapon for various real weapons which are more or less like rayguns.
- See Directed-energy weapon#Mythology for energy weapons in ancient mythologies.
- See Directed-energy weapon#Tesla for reports that Tesla made a real raygun or similar.
- The "RayTek laser heat gun" (at [5] call search for heat gun) is a non-contact infrared thermometer, not a gun.
See also
- Death ray
- Weapons of Star Wars
- Weapons of Star Trek
- The film The Librarian: Quest for The Spear (2004) refers to Tesla's "Legendary Death Ray", whose prototype in the film is housed in the massive library of artifacts and books, which also includes such artifacts (fabled, or otherwise) as The Ark of the Covenant and Excalibur.
- Shrink ray
- Category:Rayguns
- Pulse rifle
Gallery
-
A typical imaginary raygun
-
Imaginary raygun, 2 views, with parts labelled
-
Small artillery sized version of same, in use
References
External links
- The Wave Weapons of Dr. Grordbort : Showcasing the advanced Raygun technology of inventor and philanthropist extraordinaire, Dr. Grordbort.
- Atomic Rocket: descriptions and technology and many images of handguns and rifle-sized guns used in space including rayguns.
- The Virtual Ray Gun Exhibition: Computer-generated ray gun art by various artists.