 EMP's in Shadowrun, *fzzt* |
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 Jan 28 2004, 09:53 PM
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#1
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 302 Joined: 20-October 03 Member No.: 5,740  |
What sort of EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse, for the seriously acronym challenged) generators are available in Shadowrun?
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Jan 28 2004, 09:55 PM
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#2
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Man In The Machine Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,264 Joined: 26-February 02 From: I-495 S Member No.: 1,105 |
none presently. And seeing as most things are opticly powered (hey, lets break from realism here, even optical has normal chips behind it) it wont do jack.
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Jan 28 2004, 09:56 PM
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#3
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
You can probably build yourself some interesting toys from plans off the Matrix. The generalities of non-nuclear EMP bombs are available on the internet today. However, they won't do much. Shadowrun makes the point in the main book that chips are most optical and immune to EMP. |
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Jan 28 2004, 10:04 PM
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#4
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,751 Joined: 8-August 03 From: Neighbor of the Beast Member No.: 5,375 |
Make sure to say "hi" to the nice folks at Homeland Security! :D |
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Jan 28 2004, 10:05 PM
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#5
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 302 Joined: 20-October 03 Member No.: 5,740 |
Yeah. They've been after me ever since I started carrying around my Almanac. |
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Jan 28 2004, 10:07 PM
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#6
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Deus Absconditus Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,742 Joined: 1-September 03 From: Downtown Seattle, UCAS Member No.: 5,566 |
Y'all forgot one. 'Zapper' rockets, from Rigger 3.
That's actually a canon EMP wave weapon. |
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Jan 28 2004, 10:08 PM
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#7
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 184 Joined: 1-January 04 Member No.: 5,948 |
Hi homeland security
Except cyberware, that stuff can be damaged with an electrical surge. So should it not also be susceptible to EMP? |
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Jan 28 2004, 10:10 PM
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#8
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,751 Joined: 8-August 03 From: Neighbor of the Beast Member No.: 5,375 |
And rightly so. :P |
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Jan 28 2004, 10:14 PM
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#9
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,756 Joined: 11-December 02 From: France Member No.: 3,723 |
Optical chips themselves would be immune to EMP. Their electric alimentation wouldn't. As for generating the EMP, the alternative to nuclear explosion is, to stay simple, a highly-charged radar antenna (which unlike the nuclear weapon, is directional). I don't know the detail, but I guess if they can pack a lightly destructive laser in a pistol, EMP should be feasible. If SR was coherent :grinbig:
EDIT: Just remembered, there's the ANDREWS in Rigger 3, requiring a nuclear power plant. |
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Jan 28 2004, 10:15 PM
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#10
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Target Group: Members Posts: 15 Joined: 25-January 04 From: Puyallup, WA Member No.: 6,016 |
Some sort of future-tech EMP-style weapon would make a great prototype heist, tho. Would sonics work against optical chips? Even if not, a good resonate frequency could do some *nasty* stuff to all that metal in a guys body... I can only imagine the headache that would happen if your headware started vibrating really, really hard...
If all else fails, Quantam mechanics, general relativeity theory, string theroy, Enigmatic Misunderstood Future Alien Technology or Because I Said So are all good GM explinations for science. I really should read those issues of Discover I get more :P I did hear that Homeland Security's next target are Trekkies trying to modify their garage door openers into working phasers. The Prime Directive is concidered terrorist doctorine by the current administration, yaknow. :D |
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Jan 28 2004, 10:20 PM
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#11
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 302 Joined: 20-October 03 Member No.: 5,740 |
I'm trying to get ideas for something, but I don't want to say too much because I don't trust my players not to read it.
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Jan 28 2004, 10:52 PM
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#12
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,028 Joined: 9-November 02 From: The Republic of Vermont Member No.: 3,581 |
ANDREWS isn't an EMP device. It's a particle-beam weapon, fires a stream of high-energy charged particles. They have 'em in Battletech, too, but there they're called "PPCs". |
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Jan 28 2004, 10:56 PM
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#13
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,049 Joined: 24-March 03 Member No.: 4,323 |
I would imagine that few people bother with EMP weapons because it is so very easy to shield electronics against it (a simple Faraday cage will do the trick, and there are, of course, other means as well).
As for all electronics being "optically based"... WTF does that even mean? How could that possibly work? I can see how all data storage might be optical... but you can't provide power to something with a beam of light.... thats just silly. |
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Jan 28 2004, 11:13 PM
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#14
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,756 Joined: 11-December 02 From: France Member No.: 3,723 |
AFAIK, if the said charged particle are electrons, when the beam will hit a solid target, there will be EMP. If they are protons, I don't know, but I wouldn't surprised if it messed up as well with electronic systems.
The use of rhodopsine in electronic is explained in Shadowtech. To sum up, it's a molecule that change it's state when hit by a laser powerful enough, act as a filter if the laser is not powerful enough, and is stable enough to store information. Such laser-based technology are more precise than magnetic fields used in nowadays storage. |
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Jan 28 2004, 11:28 PM
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#15
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,049 Joined: 24-March 03 Member No.: 4,323 |
Right... and I did say that optical data storage makes sense to me... we use optical data storage even now in the form of cd-rws and dvd+/-rws It even makes sense as a means of controling data flow. What does NOT make sense is this:
I've seen similar statements in other threads... The bottom line is that you can't "power" something via optics. You can't make a motor run no matter how many lasers and rhodopsin switches you have available to you unless you also provide electrical power to that motor. Even the lasers themselves would require electrical input. |
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Jan 28 2004, 11:46 PM
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#16
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 675 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 2,034 |
Its like in Neal Stephensons book "Cryptonomicon". At one point some people set off an emp frying a certain computer and everything around them, including automobile computers. The owner of one computer extracts the hard drive, goes somewhere else and installs it into a new computer where it functions normally.
This is total baloney though. A hard disk drive has several microchips inside it all of which would be considerably more delicate than an automotive embedded processor and all of which are essential for the drive to function. If you took that drive to one of those data recovery places I imagine that they could remove the platters and read them, but you could not just plug it into a new computer and expect it to function. In order for hardware to be immune to EMP's it would have to use absolutely no susceptible components. That the cpu, or even the majority of components are immune is not enough: they must all be immune. |
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Jan 29 2004, 12:15 AM
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#17
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,756 Joined: 11-December 02 From: France Member No.: 3,723 |
A hard disk drive like yours and mine is completely vulnerable to EMP (or to a magnet passed on it, probably). It's also a physically fragile system which require hard casing. Removing the disk to put another one, or insert the disk in another reader is a very complicated operation. So when you extract it, you take a block including the disks themselves and the reading system, you never separate them. The equivalent would be to extract your CD drive with the CD inside as a single unit. EMP would fry the laser (the reading system) and let the drive useless, but you can open it and remove the CD. EMP would let the CD itself intact. Like a Rhodopsine chip, it's a very simple, physical system with its own "casing" (lacquer). The data are then retrievable with another computer with a CD drive.
Otherwise, yes, I said it above, there are no "optically-powered" computer. Well, you could still create an insanely large set of mirrors to power a laser in a optical computer, but that's another topic. Having optical data storage and processing systems 'd made me say this "photo-electronic" system is "optically-based". The optical systems are the core of this system. |
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Jan 29 2004, 05:23 AM
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#18
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,028 Joined: 9-November 02 From: The Republic of Vermont Member No.: 3,581 |
Tell that to your microwave.
Yeah, but it's not the primary damaging effect... that'd be the kinetic and thermal energy dumped into the target. Calling ANDREWS an EMP weapon is kind of like saying that DU rounds kill you by heavy metal poisoning. |
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Jan 29 2004, 07:56 AM
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#19
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,756 Joined: 11-December 02 From: France Member No.: 3,723 |
It is precicely said in the weapon's description that it either detonate missiles or fries their components, so that side-effect must be often playing a part in the weapon effectiveness. And ships and other potential targets are much more resilient to thermal and kinetic attacks than missiles are. |
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Jan 29 2004, 05:16 PM
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#20
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,049 Joined: 24-March 03 Member No.: 4,323 |
Cute... but the last time I checked, microwaves did not reside in the visible spectrum -- they are a form of radio wave. And I dont think youll get a lot of people to agree with you if you think that a radio is an excellent example of optical engineering. Anyway, call me up when you manage to get your microwave to power your toaster. |
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Jan 29 2004, 05:26 PM
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#21
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Traumatizing players since 1992 Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,282 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Las Vegas, NV Member No.: 220 |
You are all forgetting that there may hev been some advace in energy transmission and use in SR that works on a concept that has not yet been discovered. It's 60 years in the future. It doesn't HAVE to makes ense based on what we know now.
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Jan 29 2004, 05:53 PM
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#22
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,049 Joined: 24-March 03 Member No.: 4,323 |
Perhaps. First, though, I would like someone to provide a canon reference to the fact that electronic devices not directly involved in data storage are now optically powered. Second, I would like to point out that the rules for cybersystem damage from an electrical attack in M&M seem to indicate that if the SR developers ever made the assertion that things like cyberlimbs are optically powered, they have abandoned or ignored this assertion. |
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Jan 29 2004, 06:00 PM
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#23
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 293 Joined: 27-January 03 From: Kentucky, USA Member No.: 3,958 |
Not to mention that the microwave is powered from your wall jack. Nothing optical about that. :)
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Jan 30 2004, 12:04 AM
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#24
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,028 Joined: 9-November 02 From: The Republic of Vermont Member No.: 3,581 |
"Microwave" is just a term used to describe a certain color of light, higher frequency than radio, but lower frequency than infrared. Calling microwave "a form of radio wave" is both inaccurate, because they're not radio frequency, and irrelevant, because radio waves (and microwaves) are just as much light as any other portion of the spectrum. Microwave ovens operate by transmitting power into the object to be heated via a beam of light. That your eyes aren't equipped to see that light doesn't make it any less a beam of light.
I didn't say it was. Your basic transistor radio is an electronic device. So is a microwave oven. However, they both do exactly what you're claiming is "just silly"... transmit power via a beam of light. So do laser weapons - possibly even in the visible portion of the spectrum. There's been talk of using lasers to launch spaceships... there's no reason that the same principles couldn't be used to spin a turbine, if you insist on light-driven motors. (Though "electric" and "electronic" are not synonymous, so it's entirely possible to have a standard electric motor without any electronics.)
I would, but it wouldn't really be newsworthy. The tech is decades old. Try reading up on microwave power transmission. |
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Jan 30 2004, 02:25 AM
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#25
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Target Group: Members Posts: 8 Joined: 22-January 04 From: Okinawa, Japan Member No.: 6,009 |
Fiber optics transmit using light. Light itself is defined as having both electric properties and magnetic properties i.e. the nature of light is electromagnetic and can act as a wave or particle. That being said, why wouldn't an emp device not affect said cyberware? Just curious. Campbell hit the nail on the head with the microwaves - someone knows their physics :)
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