Stealth Grapple Shank, Is it possible? Options

[The Grifter]

I was just wondering something. As we all know, stealth grapple line works like normal rope until it is touched by a catalyst stick, at which point it crumbles into dust. I am assuming that the rope must be made of some sort of nylon/plastic composition, due to the fact it can hold weight like normal rope.

Could that same compound be used to craft some sort of dagger/knife/shank/throwing spike? Then, after you've eliminated your target, you touch your catalyst stick to the weapon and PRESTO! The murder weapon disappears.

I was thinking of this because I know some firearms companies use nylon polymer compounds in production of their weapons (i.e. Glock).

[Tarantula]

Uhh, no. A whip maybe, but not anything that isn't flexible/made of fibers.

[The Grifter]

But it could be composed of fibers, especially in a shank-like form. And it could be flexible. Basically, I'm thinking of a pointy spike type of thing.

[Tarantula]

Ropes are made out of woven fiber. Can you make a pointy shank-like spike from what a normal rope is made out of? No. Good. Same with the special disintigrate rope.

[The Grifter]

Yes. Since nylon is a type of plastic, and plastic is made of fibers, you could. They wouldn't have to be woven, just placed in a very tight bundle and hardened. Do you think a plastic mechanical pencil is a gift from the gods? No, it's made of plastic. And it has a point on it.

[Arethusa]

My answer would be no, but that's because I find the stealth lines stupid to begin with.

[Tarantula]

Hows this. It obviously isn't made of similar rope materials, as it weights 1.5 times as much. Thusly, it isn't made out of anything similar to nylon, or any other material that exists today. Its made of some futuristic material, which can support 1,000kg easily, and when touched with a catlysing agent, disintegrates. Its also flexible. Thats all canon. You could make a whip out of it, thats it.

[Arethusa]

Right. Because, clearly, you have enough information to make such a certain and unequivocal decision.

[TheBovrilMonkey]

[Arethusa]

Like, say, pouring thermite on the blade? Or just ditching it 10 miles away in the barrens? This is, indeed, unnecessary complexity.

[hyzmarca]

Make your knife out of plasteel-7. Plasteel-7 catalyst has an availability of 10/48Hrs and costs 500 nuyen bu it would work fairly well. It would leave a big gooy lump of plasteel that is potentialy tracable but there would be no way to know that it was once a knife.

[Sandoval Smith]

Actually, you'd still have to wad up the knife yourself, and then stick it to the underside of a chair or something.

[Edward]

Some rope materials can be used to make hard objects. What happens if you melt nylon rope and form it into a solid shape, it is actually quite hard.

The blade doesn’t need to be made out of fibres, it needs to be made out of a material like the one the fibres in the rope are.
To come at it another way, nylon is a substance that can come in many shapes, as a fibre it is flexible and can be woven into ropes, as a solid lump it is hard and brittle.

The destructible blade would probably be a slightly different chemical composition to the destructible rope but it could conceivably be done, the problem would be that you may have great difficulty making a blade that is effective in a fight, nylon for example is overly brittle and doesn’t hold an edge well.

Combining its lack of efficiency and the fact that it would usually be just as easy to hide the murder weapon until you can destroy it my more conventional means (requires less planing than getting a destructible blade) I doubt the market could ever be developed commercially.

Eth use of plaz steal 7 would be the closest I would allow.

Edward

[Tarantula]

[fistandantilus4....]

Honestly, I think the R&D teams just had better things to do than come up with a 'stealth' shiv.

Stealth survival knife? Those things are HUGE!

Other than that, what would you make stealthy?

Cougar find blade? defeats the purpose..

Sneaky little boot knife? Boot knife does S#$t for damage. Punch 'em.

If you really need it, make the plasteel -7 . When you're done, toss the catalyst stick, make the damn thing into a goose.

[The Grifter]

Well, thanks all for your input, but my question wasn't about the weapons usefulness, or how you could more easily dispose of a murder weapon. I just wanted theories on if the construction of the weapon was plausible.

[fistandantilus4....]

oh! umm....no?


a little more technically..

I think that part of it is that it has to be of loose construction. As I understand it, it's something like the nylon intermixed with magnesium. If it was a tightly condensed material like a blade, it wouldn't be able to get the catalyst flare throughout the item. where with the rope, the strength doesn't come from it's density, but from being interwoven.


Hopefully that's a little more helpful and at least sounds believable.

[The Grifter]

Yeah, it does help more. I can see what you're getting at now.

[fistandantilus4....]

Cool. I work graves and my nights almost over, so I was worried the fuzzy-headedness would muck it up. Glad I could get my idea across at least.

I think I'll do the murder wapon-to-goose thing some time though. Just for a keep sake. ;)

[The Grifter]

I work graves too, man. Just got off bout an hour ago, so I know how you feel.

[fistandantilus4....]

I love it when other people start waking up/geting off work.

I've usually got my name on the last 5 or 6 posts. Just begging for someone to come relieve my boredom.

There's usually a bit of a slide in the coherency of my posts as the night goes on..


:wobble:

[Edward]

In the realm of the theoretical it is just achievable as stealth grapple line.

The fact that it didn’t get into the books dose not mean nobody in SR did it. That would be like saying that nobody in SR bothered to build a 10,000 candle power hand held spotlight because its not in the book. Get a copy of the catalogue for your local camping store (mine runs to 20 pages) expect there to be that much cool but not particularly relevant to the game stuff available in eth camping store down the rode from your character. In order to make the books a size where you can pick them up with one hand they simplified the list of equipment.

Another group of things they didn’t include where the really cool ideas that worked in R&D but marketing decided was not worth producing. I expect that a hole range of stealth products fall into this category.

Just because its not in the books doesn’t mean nobody did it yet.

Edward

[Smiley]

Just take the knife out and huck it into the sound.

[The Grifter]

Sigh.... Once again,

[Foreigner]

Grifter:

Try a plastic or ceramic knife with a small vial of acid embedded inside it.

Use the knife, bend it in the middle until the vial goes "crack", and drop it in a trash can or down a storm drain.

Even if it's found, it's unlikely to be recognizable as a weapon.

Another possibility would be to use the acid, but impregnate the plastic with a small amount of magnesium--that's how the so-called "magnesium pencil" incendiary devices (used for sabotage during World War II) worked.

The two compounds mixed, and the result was a fire that burned so hot that the only thing that would extinguish it was smothering it with dirt.

As an added bonus, a composite knife made along those lines would be likely be so badly melted and deformed by the heat that (I believe) ritual samples would be difficult, if not impossible, to recover.

{Of course, with a ceramic blade, you could just smash it with a hammer--those ceramic-bladed chef's knives cut better than steel (almost painlessly; essentially, you don't realize you're cut until you start bleeding), but they're brittle--very easy to break if you have a hammer, a brick, or something similar handy.) }

--Foreigner