World, Writing, Wealth discussion

Boomerang, curare arrows, garrote, curved barrel guns demonstrate how inventive humankind can be, especially in the field of deadly weapons.
What are the most exotic/unusual weapons you know? Have you read books with heroes using them?

Two women - an Indonesian and a Vietnamese - were charged with murder over the killing in Malaysia of the estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader. The women smeared VX nerve agent on Kim Jong Nam's face in the Malaysian capital's airport.

Scout wrote: "Two women - an Indonesian and a Vietnamese - were charged with murder over the killing in Malaysia of the estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader. The women smeared VX nerve agent on Kim Jon..."

A sad incident, but the weapon is indeed exotic..
Polonium used to kill Litvinenko in London, comes to mind..

Exotic weapons, anyone? Hairpin maybe, or books with poison spread on their pages? https://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...

Nik wrote: "Exotic weapons, anyone? Hairpin maybe, or books with poison spread on their pages? https://www.independent.co.uk/life-st..."

Nik, are you trying to give us a small scare? :-) After reading your link, I think I am better off using my kindle to read. :)

Do the sword lasers count from the Star Wars movies? I don't know if they would be considered exotic, but they are cool looking. :)

Another weapon is the sword "Sting" that Frodo carries in Lord of The Rings. The sword glows blue when Orcs are near.

Nik wrote: "Exotic weapons, anyone? Hairpin maybe, or books with poison spread on their pages? https://www.independent.co.uk/life-st..."

The poisoned book was the weapon in medieval murder mystery, The Name of the Rose.

If they go to ground you could hit them with a Rod from God, which is a hardened kinetic impacter that is de-orbited onto the target. The terminal ballistics on these things is scary.

If you are a K2 with a desire to genocide an alien race, there are Nicoll Dyson Beams. A Nicoll Dyson Beam is a laser that uses the entire energy output of a star. These things could sterilize planets halfway across the galaxy. If you can focus the beam onto a small enough point, they can achieve Planck energy.

Of course, if you want the most ridiculously cost effective weapon in history, you could buy Lenin a train ticket.

Marie wrote: "Nik, are you trying to give us a small scare? :-) After reading your link, I think I am better off using my kindle to read. :)..."

Hope they won't invent e-poison -:)

I guess we indeed go towards exotic as well as mass-destructive

I ran across a short film about one possible scenario involving the creation and marketing of small autonomous kill drones. Graeme used something very similar in his recent book The Day Guard.

https://youtu.be/9fa9lVwHHqg

Rocket Propelled Chainsaw - for the discriminating zombie hunter.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ro...

"I never go out at night without one or two of these puppies in the back of my pick up truck." - Hank Choppem.

J. wrote: "I ran across a short film about one possible scenario involving the creation and marketing of small autonomous kill drones. Graeme used something very similar in his recent book [book:The Day Guard..."

Hi J. very similar....

Speaking about flying chainsaw. The US just disclosed the ninja bomb: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.expr...

Was the boomerang actually used as a weapon?

It was primarily a hunting weapon.

https://australianmuseum.net.au/learn...

I was entertaining myself by clicking around the DARPA website, when I found ACK.

https://www.darpa.mil/program/adaptin...

This is another combat system that seems very similar to one in one of Graeme's books...

Graeme, if you write about vampires adding memetic kill agents to Angry Birds or chess apps, I am going full ludite, and moving to an off-grid cabin in an undisclosed location.

Hi J, this seems to be an aspect of network centric warfare where multiple diverse platforms, i.e. A tactical headset, a drone, a high-flying fighter bomber, and an offshore naval destroyer are linked together to enable a distributed team to

Detect, Identify, Engage and Destroy (DIED) a target.

Graeme,

(view spoiler)[Like Wesson sitting in HQ monitoring the operation and issuing a few verbal orders, while the Panopticon IDs, evaluates, and tracks targets; assigns individual targeting to infantrymen; monitors status and combat effectiveness of both infantrymen and targets; and coordinates fire between separate units based on target data. All of it is useful, but if you dump it all in front of a CO (s)he would overload and ignore it. So the AI is making most of the decisions, and just letting the CO feel like (s)he is in control. Add a servo between their rifles' actions and trigger packs and the infantrymen become little more than transportation, ammo loaders, and safeties for the AI. If you drill them to always follow the AI's targeting, then the infantrymen cease to be safeties. (I'm guessing that might come up at some point in your books.) (hide spoiler)]

Hi J, very intriguing thoughts.

The Day Guard rifles were inspired by this sort of tech.

https://www.janes.com/article/83675/a...

There is a US equivalent.

https://www.tracking-point.com/weapon...

Pistol swords. They are awesome looking and didn't work hence the reason they don't make them anymore but cool to read about. In my novel Opium Warfare I actually have characters use them a lot. I think they are unique underrated exotic weapons.

Forgotten Weapons is a firearms history channel on YouTube. They do interesting examinations of historical and/or unique firearms, and they often get to shoot them. (I admit to some jealousy.)

https://m.youtube.com/user/ForgottenW...

Recently, Ian "Gun Jesus" McCollum went to Milkor and looked at a double action grenade launcher that has become familiar to readers of Graeme's work.

https://youtu.be/BRb2iFkwDC4

Indeed.

They get featured quite often.

How Quantum Radar Could Completely Change Warfare

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mili...

J. wrote: "How Quantum Radar Could Completely Change Warfare. https://www.popularmechanics.com/mili..."

Interesting.

Interesting stuff indeed, although I should check more how this quantum entanglement works to understand the physics' concept behind it

I guess we might not see dragoons with sabers until the modern civilization disintegrates? :)

I do not believe that quantum entanglement can conceivably lead to an improved radar. First, you cannot send messages through entanglement - the no-communication theorem. Second, there is no reason to believe the microwave power would be any less than conventional to gt a picture - a photon is a photon, and you still need the same number to get a picture. I guess the idea is you don't need the power to collect enough on the return - as soon as they are absorbed, they "determine the state of the entangled partner" following the Copenhagen interpretation. But first, you have to know which photon collected was the partner to which tother photon and how do you do that? And even if you do, all you get is a polarised photon. You know the polarisation of the partner, but so what - you will detect all the second stream, whether they hit a plane or not. The article is nonsense. Of course that may be because who wrote it does not understand what something that is being developed actually does. It may also be some stupid idea to goad someone else to waste a lot of money on an impossible research project.

Ian,

The linked source material from MIT Technology Review

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/61...

J.,

Maybe, but the rules of quantum mechanics remain. The article may have had the mechanism wrong, but if they think quantum entanglement is going to solve this problem, either they have discovered completely new physics, or they are wrong. Quantum entanglement is fairly well understood, and the technique, amongst other things, is to know which photon is entangled with which, which is usually done by comparing arrival times (very precisely) and knowing the intervening distances. But if one is scattered or absorbed, how do you know what did it, and more specifically, when?

YEET Cannon

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2...

Fair Warning: If you have no sense of humor, and/or get triggered by American gun culture skip this one.

-:) An exotic name, quite ordinary gadget

10 Guage 1855 Colt

https://youtu.be/YziAAEG5sf8

This is a gun that is begging to be part of some western/horror genre mash-up. Wild Bill hunting Sasquatch?

Hi Great, that's a massive cannon with great visuals.

VIERLING – A FOUR-BARRELLED RIFLE-SHOTGUN

https://fanzoj.com/collection/gunmaki...

What’s the X-37 Doing Up There?

https://www.airspacemag.com/space/spa...

Do you think that this one is closer to Aurora or Valkyrie?

Anyone watch Forged in Fire? They have to make exotic weapons. I watch it every now and then.

Presented as real, but who knows: https://www.correctionsone.com/contra...

This is what happens when people have too much time on their hands.

Memetic Hazard

A memetic hazard is a socially contagious packet of information (aka meme) which is capable of causing harm to groups and/or individuals. Classic examples of this include propoganda and advertising. After reading work by Nick Bostrom https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Infor... andThe Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, I am considering the possibility of creating a memetic kill agent. A memetic kill agent would be a meme capable of causing casualties by inducing a suicidal and/or psychotic mental state, or by causing a neurological failure.

That's doable.

You can create a state of such terror or despondency that the target's immune system collapses from stress and they die from out of control resident infections.

J. wrote: "Memetic Hazard

A memetic hazard is a socially contagious packet of information (aka meme) which is capable of causing harm to groups and/or individuals. Classic examples of this include propoganda..."

Should we seriously reconsider opening your posts???

Graeme wrote: "That's doable.

You can create a state of such terror or despondency that the target's immune system collapses from stress and they die from out of control resident infections."

I'm wondering about something a bit quicker. We know that a video can induce seizures, so I imagine that a gif could do likewise. Would it be possible to cause a severe hypertensive episode?

Ian wrote: "Should we seriously reconsider opening your posts???"

(view spoiler)[ BOO!!! (hide spoiler)]

Yeek!

I've been watching a lot of walk through videos from Shot Show 2020. I recommend checking them out if you are writing firearms heavy tales, or just a gun nut.

One of the videos included a Heckler & Koch product of which I was unaware. Leave it to the Germans to create a full-auto belt fed grenade launcher.

H&K GMG

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckl...

A Russian satellite seems to be tailing a US spy satellite in Earth orbit

https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21...

There is a mystery gun of which I had not previously known.

https://youtu.be/FEKZ9DaPT6A

J. wrote: "I've been watching a lot of walk through videos from Shot Show 2020. I recommend checking them out if you are writing firearms heavy tales, or just a gun nut.

One of the videos included a Heckler ..."

I use those in ASA (attack of the RIB on the dock in the last chapter) and in TDD with the attack of the Helicopter gunships on the town.

Fill a similar role to a .50,