Particle Accelerator

Device for accelerating protons, electrons, neutrons, or atoms to speeds approaching the speed of light, creating a measurable increase in its mass.

While some use gravitic acceleration mechanisms, most use powerful electrical and/or magnetic fields to accelerate ions or charged subatomic particles.

The particle accelerator has been made into a very effective weapon.

The same fields that accelerate the particles are used to focus them into concentrated beams, able to attack distant targets.

History

The earliest particle accelerators were research devices rather than weapons. Particle accelerators, as research devices, existed for many decades before the technology was weaponized.

Representative Classes

The generic term for any kind of weaponized particle accelerator is a particle accelerator weapon (PAWs). Hits from these particle accelerator weapons (PAWs) produce surface and radiation damage.

There are three braad classifications of particle accelerators, two that are weapons and one kind used for research.

C-PAWs

Charged particle accelerator weapons (C-PAWs) fire charged particles. These propagate well through atmosphere (behaving like an electrical current flowing in one direction), but scatter in vacuum, due to electromagnetic repulsion.

C-PAWs are the ground weapons.

N-PAWs

Neutral particle accelerator weapons (N-PAWs) fire charged particles through a device (foil screen, gas filter, or high-power laser) which strips off an electron or adds a proton. The resultant beam is neutrally charged. These beams break up rapidly in atmosphere, but perform flawlessly in space.

N-PAWs are the space weapons.

R-PADs

Research particle accelerator devices (R-PADs) are generally curved, while military PAWs are generally straight.

This allows military designs to be less-complicated and more able to withstand battle damage.

References and Contributors

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Gareth Hanrahan, Dom Mooney. High Guard (Mongoose Publishing, 2008), .Marc Miller, Frank Chadwick, John Harshman. High Guard (Game Designers Workshop, 1980), .Matthew Sprange. High Guard (Mongoose Publishing, 2016), .
• John Harshman, Marc Miller, Loren Wiseman. Library Data (N-Z) (Game Designers Workshop, 1982), .
• Frank Chadwick, Dave Nilsen. Fire, Fusion, & Steel (Game Designers Workshop, 1994), .
• Periodical: Imperium Staple 05
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science