Plasma Weapons in Science Fiction (And Why They Don't Work)

Spacedock delves into the science of sci-fi plasma weapons.

THE SOJOURN - AN ORIGINAL SCI-FI AUDIO DRAMA:

BECOME A CHANNEL MEMBER:

SUPPORT SPACEDOCK:

MERCHANDISE:

Do not contact regarding network proposals.

Battlezone II Music by Carey Chico

Spacedock does not hold ownership of the copyrighted materiel (Footage, Stills etc) taken from the various works of fiction covered in this series, and uses them within the boundaries of Fair Use for the purpose of Analysis, Discussion and Review.

[Spacedock]

Get "Designing the Perfect Space Fighter - A Spacedock Reference Book" here!

[getnohappy]

"sounds reasonably high tech without stepping into the realm of magic" is a phrase I will save for deployment at a suitable future time

[vonneely]

Bonus Trivia: Almost every "laser" in the Star Wars franchise is, in fact, a pseudo-plasma weapon. The rest are particle beams. Actual lasers have never been used even once in the entire franchise.

[isntyournamebacon]

My dad worked at Hughes Aircraft in the 80's and early 90's. Watching me play Doom when it came out on the PS1 he said "that supposed to be a plasma weapon?" He came home from work the next day saying he talked to some of the engineers during lunch about it. He said that the engineers said firing a ball of plasma is not so much "shooting" as more like using magnets to "squirt" the plasma out. Also they said that with current tech, the plasma just "splatters" when it comes in contact with air outside of the magnetic containment field. He said that it could be done but you would only get one shot as it would splatter everywhere an set everything on fire. Including the gun and whoever pulled the trigger. This was the 90's though so the only thing im sure of is the engineers used the words splatter and squirt for some reason.

[alexandercross]

I like the idea of a warhead that creates a plasma halo around the front end, protecting itself from some anti-missile defenses, and also giving it better armor penetrating qualities

[TheAshran]

They did classify MARAUDERs further research once it started giving viable results which is an interesting tidbit.

[Indyofthedead]

Containing plasma in an electromagnetic field is exactly how the Covenant do it in Halo. In the book, Halo: First Strike, upon discovering this while aboard a hijacked Covenant ship, Cortana quickly realized just how inefficient the Covenant utilize this technology by firing it as plasmoids. So, she alters the trajectories of the magntic fields to create a beam instead of plasmoids projectiles.

[evilotakuneko]

Right, realistic or not is less important than consistency. Make the rules and follow them!

[SultanOfAwesomeness]

Yeah, a game called “nebulous fleet command” which was featured in the footage towards the end of the video handled this quite well iirc. It’s basically contained in a bottle, then propelled and contained by an EM field once it’s launched. It takes the form of a (relatively) slower moving (but still fast) long projectile with a trail that almost functions like a Molotov cocktail on impact with other vessels—eating away armor so follow up shots from missiles and kinetic projectiles can do damage to the ship’s interiors.

[GreyWuff]

I like the depiction of plasma weapons in Nebulous Fleet Command, where they're basically Molotov cocktails of plasma used by the outer systems protectorate, a rebel faction of miners and haulers. The plasma is shot out with mass drivers in magnetic containers which smash against the side of Navy ships and basically melt their armour away so they can get in with high explosive and do some real damage.

[Drave_Jr.]

Interesting. Firaxis' XCOM originally had blobs in EU/EW, but in 2 plasma weapons became Beams instead. An interesting thing to think about

[GiRR]

When it comes to the containment problem i always understood it as the plasma generating its own magnetic field to contain itself.

[LordOceanus]

I was trying to come up with a plausibly realistic mechanism to have ship to ship plasma bolt weapons in my writing but when your plans require non baryonic matter, magnetic fields strong enough to make a star blush, and or handwavium alongside abusing Hafnium-178m2 then you know you've reached your limit.

[glenmcinnes]

In Atmo there is also the "Plazer", Plasma will follow the path of least resistance and or a charged stream, so fire a laser to bore a hole in the air ahead of your plasma bolt and the plasma will charge down the tunnel of less dense air to it's target.

[FWildcat]

Plasma cutter in Dead space is one of those "iconic" weapons in videogame history. Just finished the last achievement. Impossible difficulty & plasma cutter solo run.

[BazztheBazz]

I'd be interested to know the feasibility of plasma weapons as they're presented in the Battletech/Mechwarrior universe. In that setting, they're more of a long-range incendiary device or high-end napalm launcher, using internal lasers to superheat plastic-foam cartridges to a plasma state before firing it at the enemy. Not particularly damaging against armored targets, but great for causing enemy units to overheat and extremely nasty against infantry and other soft targets.

[three]

I just want to add there's definitely more than 4 states of matter. We added plasma first and said there were "4 fundamental" states but by really any definition of what separates different states of matter there's a ton more. Some lists I've seen say 22 some say 40. There's stuff like super critical fluids, Bose Einstein condensates, degenerate matter, time crystals, string net liquids, super solids, super fluids, and tons more.

The idea that there's 4 is really just an over simplification that only works in common earth temperatures, and pressures.

[matthewconnor]

One thing that didn't get mentioned is that when charged particles slow down they release their energy with radiation. Hitting a target like a ship with a particle beam could result with the crew being bathed in x-rays without actually putting a hole in the hull. Boarding crews could then go in without any resistance.

[Anly_Space]

Deep rock galactic in a Spacedock video? Amazing.

Rock And Stone!

[davidteel]

One aspect of plasma that--given your enjoyment of radiators--I am surprised you overlooked was that it can transfer a lot of energy. Very useful in a boarding action, where you could use plasma weapons to dump a lot of heat into the opposing vessel and cook the crew. If you get close enough, into relative knife range, using plasma weapons to dump heat into the other vessel is a good way to make heat management an actually interesting part of the story.