Demonic Gopher Weapons

From Egs Mayhem

Fantasy Weapons

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"Conventional" Weapons

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Science Fiction Weapons

In general, Demonic Gopher weapons can be divided into six basic power levels. An ultra-heavy gun is one capable of doing significant damage to a planetary biosphere – a weapon too powerful to be used in the vicinity of life-bearing planets without the utmost caution. Heavy guns are too weak to destroy anything larger than a major city, but powerful enough to destroy the average battleship in one shot, once its shielding is down. Light guns are for use against smaller vessels, such as cruisers and destroyers, while point defenses are usually reserved for missiles and small fighters. Infantry weapons are of an appropriate size to be carried by a human, and range in power from point defense level down to anti-personnel weapons. Finally, the smallest Demgori weapons can be carried and used by ordinary-sized gophers.

• DEAT Cannons

These ultra-heavy mass drivers extend most of the length of each Demgori dreadnought. Used at full power, they can fire a shot that will smash through any but the strongest planetary shield, and retain enough kinetic energy to wipe the planet below clean of life. At lower power settings, they just wreak devastation on a large chunk of the target continent. Intended to remove nations from existence, they are quite rarely used.

• Levin Guns

These unusual weapons are the Demgori weapon of choice for space combat at range greater than one light minute, although they will still be used at shorter distances. Although they take some time to charge, and the aiming process can be difficult, their bolts travel much faster than the speed of light once fired – roughly 5,000 c. Additionally, they are aimed by selecting a target point, potentially several light hours away, rather than by determining the angle at which the bolts are fired. This gives them excellent accuracy at incredible ranges. Their name comes from the rather lightning-like appearance of the energy bolts they fire.

• Shield Piercers

Quite simply, these direct energy weapons are designed for maximum efficiency against shields. They actually fire several shots simultaneously, each attacking the weakness of a particular variety of energy shielding. They have little effect on solid materials.

• Disintegration Beams

These weapons strike at the subatomic bonds of any matter in their path, converting it into scattered protons, neutrons, and electrons. The protons and electrons tend to recombine swiftly, forming hydrogen gas with a trace of helium. For obvious reasons, this is a dangerous weapon to fire in an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Using disintegration beams on a dense substance tends to cause a powerful explosion, as large quantities of gas are formed almost instantaneously.

• Inferno Guns

These fire beams of pure heat, capable of melting or vaporizing most substances when fired at high power. It also can cause fires, making it popular among the Demonic Gophers.

• Mass Drivers

The name pretty much says it all. These weapons fire rods, spikes, spheres, or bullets of dense metal at high speed. The Demgori generally prefer to launch relatively light weapons at extremely high speed, but high momentum mass drivers are also used.

• Tech Disruptors

Although not entirely reliable, these bolts of chaotic energy can generally interfere with the operation of technological devices (and order-intensive magic, for that matter) in the area of their impact. However, they occasionally fail for no obvious reason, and some precise technological systems are more resistant to their effects than most. Some Demgori technicians theorize that the weapon is sufficiently close to magic in its function and design that cultures with an immunity to magic are also safe from its effects. The simple influx of energy can be damaging to shielding.

• Torpedoes/Missiles

Demonic Gophers use a wide variety of torpedoes and missiles, largely because of their longstanding fascination with explosives. Although they do use some missiles for close range combat, the primary purpose of Demgori torpedoes is to increase their firepower at distances that make most energy weapons too inaccurate to be effective. These torpedoes tend to be large, with sophisticated control systems, shielding, and in rare cases point defenses. Many of them separate into small swarms of missiles upon approaching the target, or detonate at a distance and spread clouds of shrapnel to take out small ships like fighters.

• Nanite Torpedoes

These would more properly be called micrite torpedoes; the robots they contain, while very small, are clearly visible with a decent optical microscope. The microbots are self-replicating, programmed to ‘eat’ any material except cobalt (which is used to contain them when activated). They are powered by heat absorption and by mass annihilation, and use the available materials to construct identical duplicates. Any micro or nano robots not recognized as matching the base pattern will be destroyed and used for building materials. They respond to only three signals: a predetermined activation signal, a deactivation signal, and a predetermined signal that allows the deactivation signal to be changed. All of these are closely guarded secrets. They are vulnerable to EMP weapons, and to any sufficiently high energy density. Demonic Gophers use them more because they were the closest thing to a poison they could think of that would work on inorganic space ships than because they are especially effective. The torpedo carriers are heavily shielded, and also equipped with technology designed to let them slip through most energy shields. They are also sometimes delivered in thin cobalt shells, fired from mass drivers.

• Talon Torpedoes

Talons are not a direct weapon, although they travel at high speed and could do some damage in a collision. Their primary purpose is to prevent the escape of a defeated enemy. They possess a powerful FTL drive, out of proportion with their size, and carry an FTLi device that is activated by a timer or proximity trigger.

• Tractor Beams

These are used to control the movement of other objects, especially smaller ships. They can be used to prevent an enemy from fleeing, to maneuver a target into the forward sights of the DEAT cannon, to pull a ship into a landing pay in a controlled manner, or for many other purposes.