Shardgun

[Calderis]

3 minutes ago, Nathrangking said:

The eventual creation of these weapons will blur science and magic irrevocably. I am curious to see how far they will go in the books before blurring the lines.

Fabrial-Tech is already doing this in the books. Alarm systems, medical tech, pumps. It's already happening. 

[Nathrangking]

True though the lines are not yet blurred it still appears more magic than science for the most part.

[Calderis]

24 minutes ago, Nathrangking said:

True though the lines are not yet blurred it still appears more magic than science for the most part.

Their "science" is the essences and surges. The only thing that they use that is traditionally scientific is math and medical knowledge that started with the Heralds and has been passed down. 

Everything we see is based off fabrials. Primarily soulcasters. It's why gemstones are so valued. Not rarity, but their usefulness. 

Their tech and science are at medieval levels for the most part, and the places that they are ahead of that are all fabrials. Their science is rudimentary, except in places where the lines are blurred, because to them they aren't blurred. The surges aren't magic, they are the fundamental forces of their world. Their sciences are magic. Math applies to realmatics. Engineering incorporates fabrials. 

For Roshar there is no difference. 

[Nathrangking]

Indeed. My point was not in the fundamental reality. Rather my contention was how it would ultimately appear both in world and to readers.

[Herald of Speculation]

Now, if we observe how shardblades treat normal friction, i.e. they dont, they slip through solid rock as if it was air, how do they treat air. They would have almost no air resistance and therefore would not slow down until they hit the ground. In fact, why stop there. Normally, the hilt stops a shardblade from falling through the ground to the centre of the earth, but what stops a bullet. If the back of the bullet doesn't sink into the ground, then will it pass through people.

Finally, Bullet Syl. That's her name now.

[Oversleep]

On 11.04.2018 at 1:30 PM, Herald of Speculation said:

Now, if we observe how shardblades treat normal friction, i.e. they dont, they slip through solid rock as if it was air

That's false.

People have even been capable of stopping a Shardblade just by using their hands (famous Last Clap).

[Xtafa]

On 4/14/2018 at 8:19 AM, Oversleep said:

That's false.

People have even been capable of stopping a Shardblade just by using their hands (famous Last Clap).

That doesn't involve the cutting edge though. I feel once engaged and cutting, as long as there is intent, it will keep cutting. 

[MoS03]

Postin due to play it title, have not read thread. (Rarely do this, but...)

 

Saw the Shard-weapon should be 1 piece, and thought...

 

Why not a rail-gun? Jasnah can create bullets, or even the magnets themselves for it, and fire like crazy.

 

Possible question to ask Brandon... Can a soulcaster create magnets?

[Xtafa]

That is far far over simplifying what a rail gun is and how it works. I imagine they could make a fabrial version quite easily with enough planning, but a spren version would be refundant and just the frame to hold other stuff. 

[Gasper]

I think that what would be more useful right now than a personal shard gun would be a fabrial cannon that can take down things the size of chasmfiends. Surge powered artillery that could take out large amounts of enemies or single large enemies. That would prove very useful. 

[Xtafa]

I imagine a far more effective shardgun would be energy based if you could get the Spren to shoot pure investiture or an ability it provides to its radiant. 

 

But then again, if you can shoot a beam, you may as well see if you can do an energy wave with your shardblade

[Weltall]

10 hours ago, Xtafa said:

I imagine a far more effective shardgun would be energy based if you could get the Spren to shoot pure investiture or an ability it provides to its radiant.

'Pure Investiture' doesn't seem like it would make for an effective weapon, except in such enormous quantities that it causes the body to sublimate (ie, Ascension) and if you had that much Investiture at your fingertips there's way better things you could do with it. We've seen people hanging out in highstorms (loaded with Investiture) and the only danger comes from the storm itself, not the Investiture within it. Okay, there is the Dor which Brandon has described as a sort of plasma storm that will kill you if you're caught up in it, but that's in the Cognitive Realm rather than the Physical and it's an aberation.

Rather than a 'Shardgun' per se, I think the most obvious way to use the Surges like a gun would be a fabrial making use of Gravitation. Instant railgun. A Windrunner or Skybreaker could theoretically do this with their spren but they wouldn't need to since they could just accelerate the projectile on their own, kind of like how Wax in Mistborn Era 2 doesn't need his guns and can 'shoot' the bullets directly when circumstances require it, because of how his power works.

Quote

But then again, if you can shoot a beam, you may as well see if you can do an energy wave with your shardblade

Well, Brandon did say that Shardblades were in part inspired by RPGs and fantasy art where you have these huge and impractical swords and he wanted to make them practical, so maybe? That would be pretty epic. Actually, I can imagine how a Surgebinder might use their blade as a focus for power so maybe a Dustbringer could pull off a stunt like that. Or Kaladin with a lot of practice, since we know that Adhesion manipulates atmospheric pressure and can be done to create things like a bubble of air. So some sort of pressure wave that functions kind of like a fantasy 'sword beam' might be possible.

[MountainKing]

A shard arrow would be very effective because living shard weapons can immediately return to their knight it would be like infinite arrows.

[Weltall]

There are a couple of potential issues with the Shardarrow idea.

- We're not sure how far away a spren can get from their Radiant partner while maintaining their fully Physical form

- A Shardarrow will only seriously hurt you if you happen to bisect a limb and only kill you if you bisect the spine. A shardarrow to the eye or heart for example will not kill you. Contrast this to regular arrows where hitting you elsewhere can kill you or at least severely inconvenience you.

- Part of what arrows do is they stick in you and either cause secondary wounds as you pull them out (Kaladin mentally remarks on this at one point in WoR) or at the very least hamper your movement. A Shardarrow can't stick in you without depriving the Radiant of their spren, which obiviates most of the supposed benefits of having them in arrow form.

- We know from Edgedancer that some Radiants were archers... and they turned their spren into bows, not arrows. The obvious implication is that they found this far more useful than the alternative.

[Yata]

A shardarrow is also a bad idea because except for an oversized One. The actually phasing part (the head) will be' stopped by the not phasing rest.

 

To say if you hit frontally someone, the Arrow Will not reach the spine (except for the throat probably).

Similarry It Will make really hard for a projectile like that to overcome armors or coverages

[Hempknight]

I know it's not a gun but I thought a good way to use a shardblade would be to have it in the form of a spear or pitchfork hold it level and then just make it instantly grow to about 15 foot straight threw your opponents face and then retract it bk again. More of a shard bolt gun of sorts. 

Edited May 19, 2018 by Hempknight

[Weltall]

@Hempknight Brandon has said that there's an upper limit to how big a spren can become. You can make an oversized weapon like a typical Shardblade but that's about as big as they can get.

[Xtafa]

On 5/20/2018 at 0:41 PM, Weltall said:

@Hempknight Brandon has said that there's an upper limit to how big a spren can become. You can make an oversized weapon like a typical Shardblade but that's about as big as they can get.

Depends if by human size, he means the mass of a human or the relative size/height of a human. The former can be manipulated to a large degree

[Weltall]

Given that the questioner and Brandon both refer explicitly to size rather than mass, given that Brandon is perfectly aware of the distinction and mentions mass when he means it such as in what Wax does with F-Iron, given that Brandon talks about Syl's shape and given that the 'default' form of all Shardblades fits the 'human-sized' idea while their mass is far lower, the natural assumption is that Brandon meant exactly what he said and the upper limit of a spren-as-Shardblade is human-sized, not human-weight.

[Bigmikey357]

Count me as one who likes Shard-as-Railgun. Accelerated projectiles to ridiculous rates, incredible rate of fire and if one runs out of ammunition they still will not be disarmed. If they can project surges then one can have guns with different effects.

[Juanaton]

On 6/20/2017 at 4:22 PM, Calderis said:

A small arms bullet is almost always subsonic

This is not accurate. The average 9mm bullet travels at about 2500 fps, sound at 1125 fps. Granted, as the distance from the gun increases the bullet slows down as a result of air friction, but sound is less than half as fast as the bullet started out, so its going to take quite a while for the bullet to start traveling at subsonic speeds.

[Calderis]

17 minutes ago, Juanaton said:

This is not accurate. The average 9mm bullet travels at about 2500 fps, sound at 1125 fps. Granted, as the distance from the gun increases the bullet slows down as a result of air friction, but sound is less than half as fast as the bullet started out, so its going to take quite a while for the bullet to start traveling at subsonic speeds.

Where are you getting those numbers? Average is just under the sound by every source I can find, and I'm only able to find a single 9mm ammunition with a muzzle velocity of 2000fps. Everything else I've found is significantly lower. 

[Juanaton]

6 hours ago, Calderis said:

Where are you getting those numbers? Average is just under the sound by every source I can find, and I'm only able to find a single 9mm ammunition with a muzzle velocity of 2000fps. Everything else I've found is significantly lower. 

Unfortunately for me, that came from a simple google search and was in the "pull quote" from google. Your message made me go search more carefully. According to a 9mm Ballistics chart at http://www.ballistics101.com, while there are MANY 9mm bullets with supersonic muzzle velocity, there are many with subsonic as well (and as you pointed out, only 1 type hit 2000fps). Most .45 rounds are subsonic, most .357 rounds are supersonic, and there are a TON more calibers that I didn't read. That led me to wonder where the initial average google reported came from, so I checked the info on rifle rounds. Those tend to have muzzle velocities in the 2800+ fps, so I now postulate that what google did was look at both handgun and rifle rounds to come up with the average they stated.

[Calderis]

@Juanaton yeah, your initial response definitely made me investigate further, and I was definitely overstating the point with my "almost always."

I still think that handguns, in most instances aren't going to have the effects I was talking about in the post in which a near miss still causes significant damage.