The Gyro-jet is probably best suited for zero-gee use; the lack of recoil is a big plus there.
Don’t forget the needler–basically a flechette pistol loaded with needles coated in various poisons and/or drugs. I always thought that idea had more potential than the authors ever really used–you could load some really interesting mixes of drugs on those things.
Another item in the flexibility arsenal would be a burr-gun, using compressed air to fire a small projectile (or projectiles) that stick to the target and have various functions–the projectiles could explode on a radio trigger, be used in tracking, provide audio relays…consider the possibilities.
How about an EMR gun (Electo-magnetic radiation)? Can fire EM radiation in varying strengths form one end of the spectrum to the other, so it can be a torch, a laser, a microwave, a thermal weapon… I’m thinking two dials you twist to set the effects, but it might be a bit bulky and complicated for a pistol. As a sniper rifle maybe you could set a program of changing settings for your shot to get the best effects. One way of countering adaptable armour.
The handgun of choice in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation was a microwave blaster. It fired an intense beam of microwave radiation that instantly boiled the bodily fluids of a target, resulting in a messy explosion.
Heinlein had a 4mm needler that fired an explosive projectile. It entered the body and exploded. Chest shots invariably fatal.
Then there’s the plasma pistol/rifle, that contains a packet of hydrogen in a magnetic bottle and uses microlasers to heat it to fusion temeratures. Nasty.
Larry Niven has pretty well defined this one in his “Ringworld” universe. He calls it a “TASP”, and it can be used to “make someone’s day”, as well as an addictive menace to society, called “wire-heading”. Potentially more psychologically addictive than Crack, Crank, and heroin all at once.
A sophisticate would be deathly afraid of a “pleasure gun”, for fear of the addiction it might bring…
More weapons:
Needle gun: Fires needles that gives off ULF EM radiation once they strike the victim, causing convulsions and vomiting.
Screamer: Tightly-focused high-intensity sound, causing intense pain, minor injury, and maybe hearing loss.
Cloud guns: Fires streams of aerosols that block vision, difract lasers, and coat surfaces with oily slick residue (you’ll don’t run off now, hear?). Alternative could be corrosive aerosols (if you’re felling nasty), or narcotic clouds (If you’d just rather everyone “chill”).
As I recall, wire-heading is what ended up solving the drug problem in the Niven. Potential addicts only required a trickle of electrical current to supply their needs, instead of feeding a costly addiction of crack/heroin theu crime. Wire heads were only a menace to themselves, and the worst they would do is starve to death and rot in their place of living.
it is similar to a rail gun, but slightly different in mechanics.
the gauss cannon raises a magnetic field in whatever it shoots out, using current and rotation to create a strong magnetic field. then, a field opposite to the objects field is raised in a coil along the barrel. zoom!
or, how’s about the ‘dusty streamer’? it releases a small explosive shell filled with microtransmitters, each one tuned to a certain signal independently related to the gun’s computer.
you launch the shotgun-ammo-sized shell out of the gun, and it explodes at a signal from the gun; this releases a mist of transmitters.
a force generator in the gun can act independently on each transmitter, allowing you to tear apart whatever is coated in transmitters, or incapacitate them, or smash them into nearby objects until all you have left is a bloody pulp.
A fletchette-bombard explosive launcher (a Hand Cannon) would be fun too…
I know it might sound boring but why not just stick with conventional firearms for general use in the future? It strikes me as more realistic then many of the suggestions I’ve seen here. And there are all sorts of futuristic designs for firearms that you can look up right now.
Marc
PS: Not that I’m dumping on anyone elses suggestions.
That’s what I tried at first, but the Guy in Charge (hereafter known as GiC) wasn’t happy with it. I elected to keep GiC happy by giving in partially on the weapons, as long as I got to keep his leather outfit. (Apparently GiC is under the impression that leather is going to be obsolete and replaced by yet-to-be-invented synthetics in the next hundred years. Don’t ask me why I didn’t pull out of a SF game that is run by someone who apparently doesn’t read SF.)
Thanks. I may finish it yet one day, but I was really discouraged when I read ‘Snow Crash’ and noticed that it had several elements in common with my story and how I had it planned - enough that if someone read both they would have assumed I had read the prior work first and then lifted a few ideas from it. I did lift one element from a work of Stephensons, but it was ‘The Diamond Age’, where I learned about rod-logic and it’s potential uses.
I realized that the version I have on my webpage is an older draft, I had revised it slightly a couple of months ago. If you have membership at the somethingawful.com forums it’s in (or was in) the Creative Writing section. If anyone has access to those forums I’d appreciate it if you emailed the version I have posted to deke_weasleteats@hotmail.com. Otherwise, I’ll have to re-edit it.
That’s what I do. In the story I’m writing, I have a whole mix of guns… the standard energy weapons, railguns, and the chemically-powered proj-launchers. Hey, some of these “It’ll make your target explode!” ideas may sound neat, but realistically, it just means that you’ll be paying a high dry-cleaning bill.
How’s this for a nice pistol: Take your average, everyday gauss pistol, add a minature inertial dampener (to minimize the recoil), and have it fire bullets that contain a tyn power cell and heat shield generator. The idea is that the heat shield prevents atmospheric friction from heating up against the bullet, so that there’s no “tracer” to the original firing position, AND it helps keep the bullet from slowing down too much, or just outright disintegrating due to atmospheric friction.
A mass driver that throws the projectile so fast that friction with the atmosphere would cause it to become incandescent in the short time it takes to reach it’s target would have a lot of practical problems. For one thing, there’s that high dry-cleaning bill as the hydrostatic shock from that fast of a projectile is going to make a fleshy target splatter violently (if not for your ‘intertial dampener’ I’d also mention the problems with the huge amount of recoil), but more important I think is the problems with where that projectile travelling many thousands of miles an hour ends up after it obliterates it’s target.
If I ever get around to writing the story currently floating around in my head, I’m going to have to research some retro firearms, since late 19th Century firearms will be integral to the plot.
The basic plot is that a race of magically powerful elf-like beings have found in a forgotten tome that they are not native to their world, that they came through a magical portal from another world many thousands of years before after it’s inhabitants were punished by the gods by having it isolated from the flow of energy that powers magic throughout the universe. These beings know a way to re-open the portal and quickly formulate a plan to invade and conquer their old homeworld - the legends say that the magical ore mithril was very common there and it should be an easy conquest, as it’s common knowledge that those who do not have access to magic quickly revert to savagery.
They amass an army of a thousand mage-warriors, equipped with the finest enchanted swords and bows, clad in mithril-laced armor. They pass through the portal and for the first few days things go easily as planned - they encounter a few small villages of nomadic barbarians, who scatter into the wilderness when they realize their arrows are being deflected by the invaders’ armor. They are establishing a military outpost near the portal when they are approached by some savages that appear somewhat more organized - their group is larger in number, and though none appear to have armor they all wear a blue uniform. After the bowmen fire the first volley into their ranks, they return fire with firearms. The invaders know of such weapons, but they are rarely used in warfare as such small projectiles are easily deflected by any decent magic armor. The invaders are extremely surprised when their soldiers start to fall in great numbers. Panic sets in when they realize that the bullets punch right through their armor, and healing spells fail to work on those who have been hit - in fact, NO magic seems to work anywhere near anyone who was hit by a bullet. Few survive long enough to retreat through the portal.
Many of the defeated still have bullets in them, and the strange metal they are made from is examined by mages and scholars. It is soft, heavy, and melts at a relatively low temperature like inactive mithril, but has no inherent magical vibrations, is in fact so dead magically that it absorbs all magic energy in it’s vicinity. The ‘dead mithril’ is called ‘lead’ by the savages. They have a lot of it, and are remarkably advanced considering they have almost no knowledge of magic.
Things get even worse when the savages (who call themselves ‘Americans’) decide to mount a counterinvasion.
That’s why it’s a very very small projectile. Hence the ultra-short life span of the power cell.
I may be making this thing a bit too advanced for Kat’s purposes. Also, a weapon like that would work best as an ultra-long-range sniper rifle, rather than a pistole. Which would necessitate a repulsor stablization system to reduce shaking of the barrel…
Anyway, my favorite guns are still concussion rifles. Well, mine, anyway. They’re big. And big. And big. And that’s about it.
That was the menace I was referring to: Productive citizens essentially commiting suiced by pleasure. Not that it was a huge issue, but one to consider…