o Ventus wrote...
Well, I never said it's impossible, it's just pants-on-head retarded and an obvious attempt to appear smarter than one really is. It's Star Trek levels of technobabble.
The Reaper weapon nicknamed "Blackstar" is so advanced that Alliance scientists can only offer speculation about how it works. The gun appears to exploit an element zero core and mass effect fields to fire gravitational singularities - micro black holes - that revert to their natural lethality when they impact a solid object. Researchers theorize that the blast tears apart the strong nuclear forces that hold the target's atoms together, resulting in a localized fusion reaction in light atoms and a fission reaction in heavy atoms. If that hypothesis is correct, the weapon alters nuclei, thus changing the chemical composition of the target. It destroys organic tissue, corrodes surviving armor, and leaves a visible trail of light-emitting particles.
Strong nuclear forces are indeed what holds atoms together, but when they're disrupted (usually in a particle accelerator like the LHC) there's a release of light and thermal energy but no fusion or fission reaction. So the Blackstar would pretty much cause targets within it's area of effect to disintigrate into a cloud of subatomic particles.
o Ventus wrote...
First off, the Reaper Blackstar initiates a fusion reaction in light atoms and a fission reaction in heavy atoms. What is the threshold between a light and heavy atom? So it would bond hydrogen but, at the same time, destroys platinum atoms? What kind of energy is capable of doing both of these at the same time?
It destroys a target by changing the chemical composition of objects. Well, cooking food can change the chemical composition in objects, but the hotpocket I put into my microwave doesn't come out a chocolate cake.
Light atoms have a low atomic mass. Elements like Oxygen, Hydrogen, Helium, etc are considered to be light atoms. Heavy atoms would be elements like Uranium, Gold, Platinum, etc.
The threshold defining what a heavy atom is and what a light atom is is called the Iron Peak. Any atom that comes before iron on the periodic table will release energy when it undergoes nuclear fusion. Any atom that comes after iron on the periodic table will consume energy when it undergoes nuclear fusion. For these "heavy" atoms the only way to release their nuclear energy is by a fission reaction.
As for changing the chemical composition of objects caught in the Blackstar's area of effect that part's not entirely wrong. Fission reactions work off of the concept of radioactive decay certain isotopes of elements such as Uranium are structually unstable and over time start to fall apart. When these elements decay they throw off subatomic particles like protons and neutrons. When an atom starts to lose protons it changes into a different element, this process is called nuclear transmutation and it most commonly occurs in fission reactions. While changing the elements in a compound would cause the chemical composion of an object it can take anywhere from a few hours to a few centuries for an atom to transmute into another element. So the Blackstar suddenly causing the chemical composition of an object to change is pure fiction.
Pretty much the Blackstar codex entry is trying to use too much hard science to explain how a black hole gun works. Anyway, back to Miranda:
Modifié par Dr. Doctor, 16 septembre 2012 - 05:36 .
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