I know it involves dropping something on someone from a great height, but can anyone be more specific?

It involves launching a long tungsten rod from a satellite. I'm sure someone can be even more specific.

Thor shot at the Sixth World Wiki. "Space junk welded together" doesn't seem like an optimal projectile, though.

"They wasted a THOR shot on a guy?"

"No, they wasted one guy with a THOR shot."

Ah, System Failure. I love that book.

i would guess that melted together would be a more usefull projectile then welded together.

Space junk is more efficient. The problem with launching giant tungston rods into orbit is that you have to launch them into orbit. You can only get enough energy out of them as you expend in the form of fuel. It takes quite a bit of fuel to launch something heavy enough to cause substantial damage. This fuel can be used for better things. Using materials that are already up there but useless alows one to retrive the original fuel investment and convert it into destructive power.

And the problem is that the projectile will most likely disintegrate well before it reaches the surface, leading to very limited damage to any form of hardened structure -- the most likely target of such an attack.

Unless they only use the toughest and heat-resistant "junk" they come across out there, and manage to press it together tough enough to survive entry at insane velocities.

Right, right. The point is, welded together creates (at least in my mind) the image of a whole bunch of sattelites, wrenches, shopping carts, and random crap stuck together in a misshapen pile. Melted together makes me think of using already present metal to make a streamlined rod.

I thought I'd seen Cray74 discussing Thors before...

Here's the Wikipedia entry for Kinetic Bombardment which is pretty much the same thing. The short version are that they're large solid metal poles with re-entry engines and a guidance system that allows them to be dropped out of orbit and on to some poor unsuspecting bastard below.

Cray74 seems to be off a little in the dimensions, but maybe the quote is out of context .

For nearly everything except hardened underground structures, space junk will suffice, as long as it doesn't break up on the way down.

Right. If you just smack crap together into a ball, you'll need a hell of a lot of it for it not to disintegrate up on entry.

Tungsten rods, falling bovines...

actually smelting the junk down and forging it into rods sounds at least as energy ineffecient as launching tungsten rods into orbit. though... hm, maybe if you had a permanent solar-powered station in place. there's still the energy expenditure involved in going out and bringing the space junk to the smelting/forging station, and then steering the resulting projectiles into place.

ion engines? not the most powerfull of engines but are more or less solar powered. and with drone tech, you could probably fully automate the prosess. just select the kind of junk and send out a couple of small tug drones to get it within reach of the "solar" smelters arms.

In Target Wastelands it was suggested that several Megas had orbital factories (which is a whole order of magnitude more energy costly I imagine) in operation. Unfortunately it never says just what they produce, and why that product requires zero gravity for production and is worth producing in such an expensive facility.

Good plot hooks.

Woo, that gives me a FABULOUS idea...

The first RPG reference to a "Thor Shot" I am aware of is from FASA's Renegade Legion Centurion. It was a orbital support weapon that could destroy nearly any grav tank in one hit.

I am not surprised there was a real research program for dropping heavy things on people from space, but I didn't know the real program was named Thor also.

Because of the scale of the Space Operations in Shadowrun, the normal factors that would limit this type of operation are somewhat relaxed.

The most likely approach (imo here) for a corp like Ares or SK with large lunar resources would be to exploit those. Thus a projectile of very hard lunar concrete (manufactured in solar powered molds-the leading contender material wise as far as lunar construction is concerned) surrounded by a casing of Titanium (also found in abundance on the moon) would be the way to go. A guidance and maneuver package could then be boosted into orbit and mated with the mass package (similar to, but more advanced than, the JDAM guidance packages that turn Iron (dumb) bombs into satellite guided Smart Bombs). The advantage here also being that the guidance/maneuver package could accommodate a wide verity of sized weapons.

...ahhh then there's the Brimstone focused solar cannon. No physical projectiles needed.

In a world with regular suborbital and orbital flights the price to bring a few (earth-made) thor shots into earth orbit doesn't really matter.

In a world where Plot drives Action, nothing really matters.

You know, I just can't read a sentence that begins with the phase "In a world..." without hearing Don LaFontaine's voice. I watch too many movie trailers.

I maybe misremembering but didnt the megas build or were trying to build a giant railgun to launch material into space on the summit of Mount Kilimajero?

The HARP cannon could get things into space at a fraction of the cost of shuttles. So why couldnt you launch materials into space on the tip of a bullet? Have your space debris collecting drones waiting to collect your pay load, then take it to the orbiting factories and make what you want?

Isnt there a canon referrence to Japan having really huge solar power collectors in space already?

I seem to remember reading an article saying the moon has large amounts of Oxygen trapped in the stone that makes the bulk of the moon. They were saying they could harvest hydrogen in space (I forget where they said it came from) grind up the stone on the moon, capture the Oxygen. Use solar power to make water then mix the water and moon stone to make moon concrete to build large lunar structures.

I suppose with that stuff in space you could do a lot of thing most people wouldnt know could be done.

The Oxygen and Hydrogen in space could also then be used to make rocket fuel. That could power Thor shots, more likely would be used to fly out to the asteroid belt and mine the asteroids for metals like Iron. I mean if the NEAR-shoemaker satellite can do it why not 70 years later with purpose built vehicles.

What I would do is build a orbital railgun aimed at the asteroid belt and have another out there aimed back at the moon. Shooting "cargo" ships to the belt where an orbital mining station would be mining and storing materials, possibly smelting the resources, using raw electricity. Then loading the material back into the railgun and shoot it back at the moon. All using solar power. The speed at which the guns fire cargo ships back and forth doesnt have to be railgun speeds used to penetrate main battle tanks. Just enough to get the materials back and forth in a timely manner, the benfits to using the rail gun would by no major fuel or engines needed to propel the vehicles. Just some retro rockets and inertial guidance rockets to keep it on course and not running into the moon or earth ladened with tons of raw iron ore. Estimations using low thrust orbiting vehicles it could take about 200 days to reach the asteroid belt, but with a raigun fired shuttle it shouldnt take that long. But even at 200 days, a space miners could make a fare bit of cash doing it. You wouldnt need many any way with riggers controling fleets of orbital mining drones.

Yep, a guided Thor shot is definitely called for.

However, gravity and aerodynamics can do the job pretty well. Some fins and air brakes on the Thor Shot can plant it on target - works for MIRVs.

Of course, a booster would be nice to keep impact velocity up.

A two-stage booster might be best. One to separate the shot from the satellite, so it begins its fall.

A second booster near the end stage, too, to push the rocket past terminal velocity. There's no point wasting fuel when you're fighting against terminal velocity unless you can keep the energy when you hit.

Though middle stage boosters could be used to confound trackers, so that the defenders could not predict (easily) where the missle will hit.

I think the falling period is much to short for any countermeasures to be taken. That's why anti-ICBM-missiles can't work.

With ICBMs the time is more crucial since it's usually not enough to intercept the missile/warhead(s) once they're already coming down. With kinetic orbital bombardment, I guess it might be enough to disrupt the projectile as little as some kilometers before it hits to make sure most of the mass misses the primary target. What it would take to disrupt a tungsten telephone pole at several km/s, though, I have no idea.

Speed works against Thor shots. Throw some tungsten BBs in its path and they'll swiss cheese it. Depending on when you nail it, the shot may land kilometers off course or break up.

Actually you don't have 15 to 45 minutes to deal with a modern ICBM, because you don't know the reentry path of the MIRVs until a very short time before they reenter atmosphere. Besides Anti-ICBM missiles aren't doing well. But this thread is not about ICBMs...

Okay. We just talked about different things. I based my comments on the parts of the missile defense that are in service now. You talked about 2070.

The reason modern missiles don't work well against ICBM's won't be solved by 2064. Even with riggers, satellite weaponry, magic, dragons, etc. the best way to shoot down an ICBM is still going to be sending up fighters. Why? Because the same improvements in propulsion and computers are also going to be built into ICBM's. Even if they're not, you still have the issue of the only way that can potentially work when multiple missiles are involved is trying to target what amounts to an ant travelling as fast as a bullet using a pea shooter. An orbital weapons platform that doesn't have to care if it devastates whatever's beneath the missile would do the job, but anything short of that is pretty much an instant failure. You can shoot down one missile, may get lucky and shoot down two, but you sure as hell won't shoot down three.

With that said, I'll wait until the next tech book is out before I judge, but so far it's looking as though you're just as likely in 2070 as in 2064.

Now, before any of you try to shoot this down, keep in mind that missiles in 2064 SR still work the same as missiles in 2006 RL.

if your to take out icbms, you have to do so before they start going downwards. at that point its going to do you no good as its allready over its target and falling.

for thor shots the added problem is that they have no upwards travel. by the time they are launched they are allready above the target.

The best way to defeat a thor shot is to hit the sattelite carrying it with a major anti-sattelite payload before it even gets launched. Failing that, using a rigger to take control and launch all six (or however many the sattelite in question) shots directly into an ocean, or preferably the headquarters of it's owners. Or, you know, right on top of Lofwry. Whichever.


Or you can use a spirit of some sort which can mess with the shot. Like a spirit using it's Movement power to move the Thor shot over the ocean, or something. I dunno, magic's not my strong suit, but spirit mojo tends to trump technology.

It seems that in the age of Shadowrun 4, with sattelites galore, information is the new ammunition. ^_^



And if anyone can tell me where I got that, you win a cookie.