NationStates Jolt Archive

As the last fuel rod was inserted, the engineers were suddenly faced with an impenetrable wall and a robot flung several thousand kilometres away. They attempted to get close to see what had happened, but no amount of force exerted by them was able to get through the wall. When they fired a bullet, it too, was unable to penetrate the "wall". -details from anomalyn 2010AD

The nation of Hakurabi's best and brightest have managed to discern the nature of this "wall" - an anti-gravity field. With recent experimenting, it has been possible to artificially generate this anti-gravity field, though attempts to apply it in the usual implications have failed miserably. When fitted below a tank, the tank simply slid off. When fitted within the tank... well... let's just say that there's 6,000 bits of armour littered in a 500km radius from the site.

The reason for this is simple - to get to the generator, you must exert enough force to escape the full force of Earth's gravity. Think of a cliff - 40,320 km high. Perfectly smooth. With full gravitational pull downwards all the way.

Knowing this, the most obvious use is in a missile, but the current maximum size is too small, at the moment.

OOC: It's actually better to work on an engine with enough power to escape Earth's atmosphere. Several exist already.

OOC: I was talking about use as a terrestrial weapon, among other things. As in - If a tank goes boom with an anti-g field around it... why not make someone else's tank go boom. Not to mention that the field would be a whole lot more efficient than a rocket as a reusable launch platform - On! *Foomph* *off*. It theoretically has the potential to accelerate an object to extremely high speeds in a very short amount of time. If you fell to Earth from the abolute maximum distance that could fallen from, that energy would be massive. Now invert and compress that energy. You fall the equivalent of several light years in about 1 metre. So, anything caught inside it would be forced out at extremely high speeds, whether for productive or destructive purposes. This device would be significantly less effective on the Moon, for example, but also be moreso effective on Jupiter. The main point of this is to allow for a device that will allow craft to launch from any body that exerts a gravitational pull. So the effect on both the Moon and Jupiter would be the same - you would be flung at escape velocity in whatever direction you are facing.

OOC: Thanks for the idea. I may have a new weapon in the future. I'm one who uses gravity quite heavily, in the form of gravitons, in my tech. The kind of weapon you're talking about is definitely FT, as you need to invert the polarity of the gravitons to do it. It's the same principle behind how antimatter is made, except the polarity is different.

OOC: No problem. Just remember that the power of the weapon is directly relative to the strength of gravity at the location. Of course, you could always fire it into the ground under them and blow them into space, of course.

IC:
The first test had been a failure - The shuttle that was sent up came up alright - but it was by then a squashed mess. Stronger hulls would be needed. And they had no stronger hulls to speak of.

On the other hand, the missiles had a different problem altogether - The micro-fusion reactor was blown away by the initial activation. Eventually, someone remembered that the first anomaly was created with a generator, and the device's power supply was integrated. Now the only problem was getting the rocket fast enough so as not to be gunned down by the (now standardised) anti-projectile lasers.

However, the integration process has yielded one or two weapons, though completely by accident. One of our engineers put a timer on one of the G-nullifiers and superglued it to one of the experimental remote tanks being tested in the same area. About 2 days later it was found by one of our patrols near Mars, missing it's treads.

OOC: Ahh... Any objections? criticism? Should I wrap it up?

~~FAST FORWARD TO DATE OF PRACTICAL COMPLETION~~

The Space Station was looking very strange indeed, propped up on a large concrete platform with hundreds of small glistening shapes below it. As the the fields were turned on, nothing seemed to happen for around three seconds... And the launch occured so abruptly that even those involved in the development were shocked by it. As the station soared up, with all hands on board, it glowed, and slowly dissappeared into space.

The station itself began firing retroboosters as it approached the outer atmosphere, compensating with boosters when required. The Station had reached geostationary orbit, whilst expending minimal fuel. Cruisers had been launched by a similar system, and had jumped into hyperspace without problems. This is the most useful of the technologies, as it allows ships to be launched from ANY planet at a low cost (relative to expending fuel to propel it to those speeds, like used in modern space shuttles), and can be used in emergencies to thrust ships into space.

With the more militaristic developments, there have been four important weaponry developments - An Armour-Piercing G-nullifier shell, which would cause tanks to explode or at a minimum, cause large dents in the armour. A G-nullifier grenade, derived from the prank performed by a certain engineer early in the experimentation (These have been nicknamed "Sauniers" in honour of the prankster). G-nullifier mines, derived from the same prank, and finally, Ground Based G-nullifier Slug launchers - Using hardened construction and firm anchoring, a mass driver capable of firing rounds at escape velocity, whether it is AP, HE, Fragmentation, or even G-Nullifier.