"Divine Comedy" State-Issue Ayame

Well, you'd have better luck with a simple mirror, although I'm not sure reflective materials exist that will survive the beam.

I would think a regular crystal can only be cut in such a way that it will focus energy input into a beam only when placed in one specific position though. Rotate it, and the beam will scatter, or worse, get bounced back into the source.

Why would it scatter, precisely? As long as the beam remained at the center of the prism face (on whichever side is being fed the beam), and there are no major imperfections in the prism to reflect/refract light in the wrong direction, it should be fine...right? Not unlike how a parascope can function 360 degrees without distorting the images.

Unless I'm mistaken, so long as the prism, the beam itself, and beam's entry position isn't asymmetrical, rotating a reflective prism should be an issue. Even firing at a depression or higher angle shouldn't be an issue so long as the prism has a symmetrical surface (keep in mind "prism" isn't merely limited to triangular. There are half-circle prisms, Amici roof prisms, pentaprims, etc).

As to how it would survive: Reinforcing a very small point of a vessel, such as a prism, would be I imagine a trivial task. By standard engineering practices, small amounts of armor can be reinforced by a significant factor in laboratories settings by using support systems that are usually to troublesome, bulky, or expensive to mass produce. i.e., giant shock absorbers on tank armor, prohibitively expensive materials that can't be used in mass production, etc.

To make a single object withstand a high intensity beam should be relatively simple matter, as the prism's integrity can be increased theoretically with the appropriate additions; quality materials, high-efficiency thermal sinks to draw heat quickly from the prism, multiple active cooling systems, forcefield assisted protective, and so on.

Um, no. From my reading of the design, you're rotating the prism/crystal while holding the source of the beam fixed. Each face of the crystal is essentially a reflective/absorbing mirror-like flat surface. If the beam is hitting the same face on the crystal while its rotating, then you are changing the angle of entry of the beam. Change the angle of entry of the beam, and you change the angle of exit. Drastically change the angle of exit, and the beam ends up hitting the wrong surface on its way out of the crystal, or hits the edge between two surfaces. The result is that either the beam goes off in some direction other than the one you were aiming at, or you end up scattering the beam. It's not possible to keep the beam always focused while freely rotating the crystal.

And your analogy of the periscope doesn't hold, or maybe I misunderstood the capabilities of your weapon. A periscope has only freedom of movement over a 2D plane. It can't look "up". Your weapon can rotate and aim freely in 3D space, right?

A better design would be to use a fiber-optic cable of some sort, IMHO.

Yangfan, I believe the problem is that you have an idea of what a prisim looks like, and it is not the same shape that SL has in mind.

Okay, what if you have a prism like this, with a beam entry point like this (ignore the periods, just look at the straight and lines and dashes):

prism /---------->
.........| beam
.........[] emitter

Basically, the beam emitter is always at the bottom facing up, and it always enters through a flat surface no matter which horizontal orientation the prism has (meaning that the prism could turn full 360 degrees on a horizontal axis without changing the symetry or angle of the beam entry)

Okay, so we have the horizontal plane covered. Now, mount this whole thing on a hemispherical framework that can be swiveled in various angles.

......../--------------->
|........|.......|
.\......[]...../
.....-------
Bingo! You have a full 360-degree horizontal and at least 270-degree virtical field of fire (leaving a 90-degree sliver for restrictions on hemisphere maneuverability). That, of course, is for the pylon-mounted ones. Vertical field of fire will of course be limited more by mounting it directly on the hull.

Edit...Does anyone know how to make ascii pictures here? The spacing showed up right in edit mode, but when I tried posting it shows up all smooshed. Right now I'm substituting periods for spaces.

When I get home tonight I'll try sketching diagrams to replace the ascii drawings, so if you don't understand them, give me about nine hours : )

Strangelove said:

The fact that one only has to move a reflective prism tip as opposed to the entire weapons systems means they can, from an engineering stand point, track and aim far faster than traditional turrets; a crystal can usually turn faster because it has less mass than a turret with cannon barrels, ammunition reserves, autoloader mechanisms, etc.

Click to expand...

Err, that description is different from what SL said. From her description, I understood that everything besides the prism was stationary.

I'm confused.

Your design will work just fine, though, Nick.

Yangfan said:

Strangelove said:

The fact that one only has to move a reflective prism tip as opposed to the entire weapons systems means they can, from an engineering stand point, track and aim far faster than traditional turrets; a crystal can usually turn faster because it has less mass than a turret with cannon barrels, ammunition reserves, autoloader mechanisms, etc.

Click to expand...

Err, that description is different from what SL said. From her description, I understood that everything besides the prism was stationary.

I'm confused.

Your design will work just fine, though, Nick.

Click to expand...

Actually...I'm halfway there.

She did write that the prism only has to move. This would include the framework that the prism is mounted on. And I think that, even if you have to move the emitter mechanism (note that the emitter feed -- cables, conduits, etc. -- can still be stationary relative to the ship but the emitter just has to be stationary in relation to the face of the prism which is the moving part), it _still_ moves and tracks quicker than moving an entire barrel-launcher-loader-munitions setup, as she mentioned in that quoted piece. So I'd say my version of the setup is a compromise between what she may have had in mind and what she was trying to steer clear of (barrel/launcher-based mechanisms).

So, while it's not _quite_ as fast as a pure p-movement-only arrangement, it's still very effective. And, if the frame I described is magnetically aligned and moved, then it can track very quickly and smoothly.

Also, I got home earlier than I thought so I'm going to start working on the diagram. I'll try to post it within an hour or so.

Ah, I should have worded my response better. Free electron lasers, as their name states, uses electrons contained in a magnetic field as a laser gain medium as opposed to a gas, liquid, crystal, etc. So, the laser pump itself would be very low mass in comparison to traditional weapon systems, since they key components of the pump and aiming systems are merely a magnetic field, electrons, and the reflective prism itself. That's what I meant when the only thing of significant mass that needs to be moved is the prism (rather than that one needs to move the prism only). Of course, that's assuming magnetics technology is advanced enough to shift a field without physically moving the projector itself. Which I hope it is, given the forcefield tech on SARP.

Submission approved.

You worked hard on this one.