What sort of materials would make for a sword in a space Opera setting?
>>46516126
Well you've got your three staple Sci-Fi weapon types. Laser, plasma, and Gauss/mass accelerator.
So you've got a laser sword, a plasma sword, and some kind of magnet sword.
>>46516126
The idea of a wedge of metal designed to shove into primate flesh being useful (even as a status symbol) in an interplanetary or interstellar civilization is laughable and kind've sad.
>>46516126
Traditional/ornamental - Steel sword
Futuristic - Vibro sword
Silly - Laser sword (lightsaber)
Meaningless - Nano sword (???)
Then you've got your cultural variants
Vibro Khopesh
Laser Nodachi
Nano Shamshir
etc
>>46516649
Fractal Excalibur
>>46516126
>no one has mentioned mono-filament blades
For shame, /tg/
If you're going for something that's viable in a setting full of guns it would have to be some kind of crazy shielding sword.
Like directional magnetic crazyness that just turns projectiles, plasma etc away.
It would have to be rare as fuck though.
>>46516256
As a status symbol it could work. Take a hardish sci-fi setting, one where every kg you take on a journey increases the fuel use, thus the cost of the journey.
So a sword would work as a status symbol because it shows that someone is rich enough to carry around extra mass that is both useless and expensive.
>ctrl+f "pure energy"
Come on, /tg/.
>>46516861
literally every non-imaginary sword is "pure energy"
>>46516126
Sword that is just a hilt-shaped force field generator that projects a blade.
>>46516256
Not in close combat. There is an observed range where guns become less effective than melee.
>>46516928
If you're talking about the 21-foot rule, that refers to the gap required for someone (generally a police officer) to recognize a threat, draw a holstered weapon, and deliver two rounds to center mass.
In out-and-out combat, a carbine or handgun will do you just fine in close quarters.
Monomolecular edge.
>>46517000
A sword would be pretty well relegated to status symbols, but "a wedge of metal designed to shove into primate flesh" covers more than just swords, and knives have been infinitely useful for both utility and last-ditch combat in every part of history.Knife! Almost as useful as rope!
>>46516126
Alien orphan hearts
>>46516126
Unobtainium, Laserswordium, Plasmabladeium, Handwavium, Plotholeium or an alloy of multiple of the above.
>>46517097
I like Unplotwavium, myself.
>>46516126
Nanites.
>>46516126
mionic materials.
Instead of electrnos you use mions. Interatomic distance is reduced increasing tesnile strnaght and density. You can make an extremely narrow heavy blade that hold the edge very well.
>>46517367
Sorry I meant muons and muonic materials.
partciles same as electrons but 200 times as heavy.
>All these posts
Whatever happened to just wanting to make a sword out of the iron core of a dead star?
>>46517373
Um, if you're trying for hard sci-fi by building off of real physics, how do you fix the issue that muons decay in two microseconds? Do you just add plotwavium, etc. on top of 'muonic materials'?
>>46517760
When coupled with a nucleus muon lifetime extends. Not too unreasonable.
Or you insert in th ehandle a projector of magical W field that decrease spontaneus decays.
>>46517864
Fair enough, if that works for your group. I'm a particle physicist who usually plays with other particle physicists, and they would call BS on that explanation. (yes, binding a muon in an atom slightly increases the lifetime, but not enough to make a difference.) I might be able to distract them with the "magical W-prime field" idea.
>>46516126
Well one of my favorite ideas for a special science fiction weapon is a blade that uses a spacial warping ability to expand space within it faster than the speed of light. I call it Horizon's Edge. Though to make such a thing you are still talking about putting a warp engine of some sort in a sword, not to mention all of the practical issues of having an event horizon anywhere near you, and what the hell you are doing with the matter it sucks up.
>>46517929
>(yes, binding a muon in an atom slightly increases the lifetime, but not enough to make a difference.)
They actualy were able to bind it to an atom and make measurements?
How would you make work muonic weapons and armor? Line it up with micro black holes that slows time around them? At that point you make a blade out of black holes that literaly devoures anything you hit. "Feel the gravity of my blade!"
Last time I played with a particle physicist student he tried to produce dangerous pathogens to kill people in a vampire game. We material phyisicist are much more sane.
Are you from Italy or CERN?
obviously a sword made of solid neutrons. As in the material from a neutron star.
1 tablespoon full weighs about as much as every automobile on the planet, so a whole sword of it must be pretty fucking HEAVY METAL.
>>46516256
Tell that to the guy shoving a wedge metal into your face.
T-1000 living liquid metal sword.
It can change it's shape into other utility items, such as a crowbar or wrench, w/e. Can alter the shape of the blade to suit the users preference. whenever the blade gets nicked it just reforms. Can be used to absorb the impact of bullets via elastic deflection.
>>46518066
Oh, I meant theoretically. I'm not aware of any precision measurements of muon lifetime in atoms, but I'm pretty sure the lower-energy configuration means the lifetime goes up by an infinitisimal amount. Look up muonic hydrogen; it's been created and used to measure the proton charge radius.
I was at CERN for a while, but now I'm working on MICE. (an experiment that only exists because of the too-short muon lifetime we're talking about)
>>46518127
just picked up. Shit should get remake.
>>46516126
>materials
If you want to make a good sword, you need a good metal alloy. You'd want something equivalent of modern damascus steel for swords, barring any exotic materials.
Whats the sharpest possible type of edge you can create? is it just monomolecular?
>>46517425
Because the iron core of a dead star is still just shitty iron.
If you have the magical nanomachines that are common in many settings, you could put little opening in your blade to deposit them super fast.
So all you would have to do is nick some fucker and suddenly you have nanomachines inside him which can, I don't know eat his insides or something.
>>46519585
You never know It may be a stable configuration where iron atoms are near each other increasing their bonds.
You can't reach it unless big pressure are present.
>>46519593
Or you can shit over your blade. You shit will cause infections which is basicaly the same thing.
>>46519370
>You'd want something equivalent of modern damascus steel for swords, barring any exotic materials.
Damascus steel is not good steel, "folded" steel was only folded to shore up inadequacies within the metal (more specifically, it was done to make the steel homogeneous) and can very often lead to a worse blade than modern steel.
>>46519612
Iron is by it's nature a shitty metal that requires the presence of carbon and alloying elements to make it halfway useful. What you're talking about will result in a sword with a lot of *compressive* strength, but the moment you try to strike someone with it there's the risk of the entire thing shearing off. This is something you see in modern wrought iron already, and cast iron (that is, iron with more than 2% carbon) is even better at compressive strength than pure iron.
The ideal blade would be something with a high carbon content and multiple alloys that strengthen the metal, harden the metal, and keep the material ductile (lacking ductility makes a brittle blade.) Currently, the ideal carbon steel for swords is 1065 (the 10 means carbon is the primary element, the 65 means .65% steel.) Adding carbon increases the HARDNESS of the blade, while lowering carbon increases the TOUGHNESS.
This isn't even going into the topic of tempering and quenching, which adds a fuckload of qualities to the steel as well.
>>46519657
The vietkong were real bastards.
>>46519657
>>46519556
Yes. Unless you're talking about some sort of nanotech disintegration blade that tears shit apart at an atomic level, monomolecular blades (meaning the edge is a single molecule thick) is the sharpest and best for cutting you can do. It will cut literally anything.
>>46519689Meant to say .65% carbon, sorry.
>>46519770
>It will cut literally anything.
As in current materials? Or just materials in general, Is it literally impossible to make something that would not get instantly cut?
>>46519689
What? Damascus steel was the BEST steel. You're thinking of Japanese katanas. Damascus steel was a type of steel that was made in some weird (possibly magic) way that created natural carbon nanotubes in the steel. It was nearly unnaturally strong and could hold an obscene edge.
>>46519802
>(possibly magic)
>It was nearly unnaturally strong and could hold an obscene edge.
>>46519796
A monomolecular blade would cut by basically slipping between molecules and severing the bonds. It is, in theory, possible to make a material that the bonds between molecules is simply too strong and tight for the blade to slip through. But we are a long, long way from being able to manage that.
>>46519802
There is literally nothing Damascus steel can do that modern steel can't do better.
*Especially* modern steel that is produced in a vacuum, which will be possible in a space opera setting and would result in the smelter having 100% control over the metal's properties (currently we're limited due to atmosphere and gravity.)
What is the best possible sci-fi melee weapon and why is it deployable helmet-mounted monowire launchers to shred any dumb-shit sword user who charges you.
>>46519770
>>46519816
Dude ok, this is kind of breaking my brain. So the blade is a single molecule thick? Does this mean if you turn the blade sideways, it's too thin to see?
>>46519932
No, the edge is.
>>46519959
But what about a millimeter away from the edge? Is that monomolecular?
What happens when you're cutting through something and the part of the blade that isn't monomolecular collides into the matter the monomolecular edge cut?
>>46518165
>underrated post
Having a tool which could change shape to suit your situation would be the only connect where carrying a sword is suitable.
>>46520008
The basis of a blade is that it's a wedge. The foremost edge, the veeeery edge is monomolecular. From there it starts building up. 1, 2, 3 molecules thick as you go along. (This is, of course, an oversimplification, but it works.)
As it goes along, the single molecule edge parts the molecular bonds, then the molecules on either side are pushed apart as the rest of the blade passes through. Kinda like in an old cartoon, where a character would show how sharp an axe or knife is by plucking a hair and then splitting it down the middle, and the two halves curl up.
In fading Suns there is a crystal that due to superior harmonic capabilities slamming it into something causes the crystal to resonate and thus act as a vibroblade
Also to anyone who says swords and mellee in space are auto bad and so dumb don't realise that realistic space ships shooting ANY form of projectile weapon will destroy the hull and cause a rupture. Spurglords like, don't you even wanna have fun?
>>46516126
assuming you mean solid materials, you might start with a carbon-nanotube composite for most of the blades volume, with iridium(or some other dense material) placed as tuned weights throughout its length. and a mono-molecular line of mono-crystaline tungsten down its edge bonded at the atomic level to the bulk of the blade and tapered to a monatomic line down the cutting edge.
the end result would be as heavy as you choose for it to be, any color you want, less likely to trigger a lower tech magnetic anomaly detector, reasonably tough, very sharp, and depending on the availability of atomic-scale assembly units, easy and cheap to produce.
swapping out clusters of the Carbon nano-tubes with semi-conductor means that you can electrify the blade. building larger channels in the blade means that you can build it to hold poisons.
making that practical is your problem though...
>>46516742
I have now...
>>46516817
perhaps a steel sword is a status symbol, and a sword like mine painted to look like one can be what people use as frauds to fake their status?
>>46516899
while literally true this is unhelpful...
>>46517054
>spoilers
why not carry BOTH?
or even better, tie one to the other and see what happens?
>>46517425
because thats more symbolic, I'd basically assumed that if you wanted the sword to be made of Iron or Steel OP wouldn't be asking about materials, but I get your point.
>>46518018
reminds me of a character named "Jack-Slash" in a superpowered web serial I read...I like it
>>46518165
reminds me of the multi-tools in the book "March Upcountry" though they were a programmable plastic with metallic sub-components. still pretty cool, cause you could add you preferred configurations like "parasol" or "pig pocking pag"
>>46518127
sauce?
>>46520791
>sauce?
Legend of galactic heroes, now take that name off you fucking faggot.
>>46519816
your science is badly off, and you're forgetting a core concept of cutting stuff.
first, while it makes things easier to cut, it does NOT cut EVERYthing well, there are materials that would not cut. additionally, mono-MOLECULAR doesn't mean shit either, there are LOTS of molecules that can get pretty damn big comparatively speaking. the color layer of your cars(or your mothers car) paint-job(assuming a factory standard color produced after 1980) tends to be mono-molecular the material is bonded in the final stage production into a solid layer a couple of thousandths of an inch thick, which is itself a single molecule, or a couple of dozen molecules...
second, you're forgetting FRICTION
unless your sword can separate the edges of the cut material, they'll still clamp down on whatever's cutting them and limit the cut in that way, monatomic or monomolecular edges be damned.
>>46520901
Monoatomic is where all the shit is at.
>>46520860
NEVER
also, thank you for sauce.
here, have a short-sword that is both practical in shape, and impractical in design.
>>46520972
Seriously though, why would you have a name? It just outs you as shit person who should never be listened to.
>>46520997
it's a habit I got into a long time ago, it has some utility for me that outweighs(in my opinion) what other people think of the practice.
Handheld Acubierre Drive blade.
Shortens the space to connect to targets at range, while increasing your distance from enemies making you harder to hit.
Doesn't use ammo, only requires power source, matter with negative mass, and monofilament blade.
Serves as both offensive and defensive weapon. Just protect your arm because it will be the only viable target
>>46520997
>derailing the thread to sperg out like it's /b/
Anon, stop it.
If you don't like it, ignore the poster, don't shit up the thread with your 4chan etiquette autism.
>>46520901
Vibroblades, son!
>>46521207
>Vibroblades
would encourage the separation of soft materials, but they wouldn't really help against anything harder than plain wood.
where a vibro-blade shines is with softer materials where the reciprocation of the blade causes the tiny serrations at the cutting edge to saw through things. really, a vibro-blade is not much more than a genteel chain-sword
>>46521272
>chain-sword
>we 40k now
Sold.
>40k chainswords were originally created to be used against orks, a tough creature, albeit ultimately organic, that usually wore little armor
IT DOES MAKE SENSE.
>>46521272
>>46521207
granted, after a moments consideration, they would be FANTASTIC against say, the cloth or mylar of a space-suit. it yields enough to get the blades teeth into and maximizes active cutting edge-length over a shorter length of engaged blade length.
>>46521294
perhaps it does. if your sources are accurate.
>>46521325
>if your sources are accurate
>old codices
>Index Astartes
>Horus Heresy Book 1
Yea, I'd say they are pretty accurate.
>>46521537
though, if you were to disregard problems like power-source or gyroscopic over-stabilization a chain-weapon would work far better on harder surfaces, though that brings us to Chip Extraction and the weaponizing garden tools.
