Long time lurker that is bursting with questions!

[Cherub]

Hello!

I found this website a few years ago and have been obsessing over it on and off.  That and using it as a guide and source of inspiration for my own worldbuilding projects (thanks a lot)!

Recently, I decided to bite the bullet and see if I could pick a few brains here regarding some of the scientific basis of this setting and if I can ask some questions that pertain to some of my own projects (which judging from the worldbuilders page shouldn't be a problem!)

Glad to be finally be here and ready to ask...
 *checks the mountain of notes behind me*
...a few questions .

See you!

P.S.  Where can I ask in-depth question on the thought process and possible mechanics of the Dusters.

[stevebowers]

Welcome to OA!

We don't have much information about Dusters, and Michael Boncher (who wrote the article) is not currently active. But I'm sure we can come up with some details, mechanisms and specifications, and maybe an image or two. The big restriction on particulate weapons of this kind would be wind resistance, I think; probably work much better in a vacuum.

[Cherub]

Sorry for the late reply, IRL.

That was also the general impression I got when looked into the concept. Which to me sounds like a form macron gun, which is meant vacuum warfare.

So a few question's I have regarding Dusters are:

- What is the efficiency of a Duster? In terms of power usage.

- How can individual Dust particles be accelerated with EM fields? If we are assuming induction coil guns, wouldn't the Dust be vaporised by the heat?

- How they able to be of any use? While there range is pitiful compared to other ranged weapons (with 75m being a metric I remember) I would expect that they would still not be useful to beyond point blank as the velocity for the individual dust particles to be effective would be high enough that they get vaporised from the KE alone.

- Could something like the matryoshka effect be used in place of a laser? With individual grains of dust being sacrificed to blow a tunnel for the next one to achieve high velocities in atmosphere?

Sorry for the amount of disjointed questions that have little community. Seeing as the original creator of the post isn't around I understand if it not everything I ask is answerable.

[Worldtree]

https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a3131d4a9f44

So these seem essentially like sandblasters , which is a tool used in manufacturing to strip paint and polish surfaces. There might be crowd control or weapons applications for these more exotic sandblasting/duster materials , but yeah , at least going off my knowledge of sandblasters and those toy guns that shoot salt to kill flies
some of the possibilities seem limited compared to anything resembling a gun? But then I might be missing something.
Using these in an atmosphere seems like an odd choice unless you want everyone to breath dust, and require respirators for the operator...
I’m wondering if it has more use as an improvised weapon than an intentional one, like miners blasting moondust and hylonano bots at a facility..

[Worldtree]

You can probably look up handheld sandblasters and airless sandblasters to see what specifications and capabilities these tools have now.

Also this article falls into a common problem, as I see it , of exploring all sorts of ways to weaponize the exotic technology even when a more likely common use might be manufacturing or construction or some other everyday purpose (which isn’t explored here)

[Drashner1]

Firstly - Hi Cherub, Welcome to OA!

Second - I'm going to suggest that Dusters (and probably Squirts as well) should get a bit of a re-think/re-imagining. As currently written, I'm going to suggest that they are too focused on using exotic/'futuristic' technology to essentially replace bullets for no obvious reason (honestly they sound like they have several disadvantages over bullets or lasers). There is some mention of being non-lethal but then also talk of their ability to cut and scrape, which seems a bit contradictory. Probably some other issues as well. So how might we address this? Some thoughts (in no particular order):

a) Provide a historical framework/background - I would suggest moving the heyday of these weapons to the later Information and/or earlier part of the Interplanetary Age, when habitats were smaller and more delicate and weapons that could readily punch holes through bulkheads or delicate equipment would be rather frowned upon.

b) Take advantage of OA 'smart' technology - Have the 'dust' they fire be used as a marker/tracker for other smart, mobile, and fast robotic weapons such as synsects or bird size flying robots. The 'dust' could act something like the ink packs used to foil bank robberies but also combine in something like acting as a low power distributed radio antenna that broadcasts a tracking signal for the robots to follow. So once you're shot with it, it's extremely hard to get off - and you're marked as a presumed criminal - and tiny but fast flying weapons are going to home in on you (even around corners/behind obstacles/over time and distance if you run and try to hide) and sting you with paralytics or tranquilizers (or maybe something deadly in a pinch). Local cameras and/or other tracking systems in the infrastructure might also be able to track or ping the 'dust' as well, maybe even after it runs out of power or in a way that makes 'onboard' power unnecessary.

c) Looping the Squirts article into this - perhaps Squirts are single target personal use weapons, while Dusters are 'crowd control' weapons because their core unit can fire multiple 'dust' packets at multiple targets, possibly in a 'smart' way such that a user just has to point a Duster in the general direction and then pick targets on a screen or via DNI after which it can independently aim each dust packet. Think something similar to the shoulder mounted multi-gun things in the first Iron Man movie, but firing dust and able to re-target and re-fire at moderately high speed.

d) Perhaps instead of packets of freeflying dust, it would make more sense for Dust and Squirt guns to fire something like a paintball packet with the smart dust inside. Might increase range and accuracy and let us move out of 'futuristic' EM acceleration to compressed air or the like, with the futuristic element being the function of the dust and the synsect/robotic weapons element.

Ok, I think that covers my ideas for now.

Thoughts?

Todd