Commune R&D - Project Argus

[Mushy]

Terminus Research & Development Laboratories

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Entry ID: Ciro Tumicelli

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Category: Study

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Case: Commune Weaponry Development - Project “Argus”

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Encryption: Shaz'ir #NR-87-01 (P7)

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Scientific Report – Log 2

First, I’d like to thank Alexander Sato for delivering all the factory-new guns I requested for the experiments. As for the artifacts, because nobody was able to deliver them for some time, I’ve done some scouring around and managed to find at least some samples that I could use. It’s not perfect, but it seems everything was just fine. Either way, someone will need to restock the lab. The guns have already been tinkered on and heavily modified with all the unusual mechanisms the prototype has.

I am pleased to report that I have come to a small conclusion: While the prototype may not be your typical ordnance that can be categorized by its output, its mechanisms worked best on the plasma cannon, and thus, I can safely say that whatever the prototype does, its output is definitely similar to plasma bursts. Following is my comprehensive deduction, backed with graphical evidence.

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Here's the graphical comparison of all guns from the testing. You can see both the energy consumption per round and the hypothetical volatility of the projectile. By that, I mean the strength of the blast.

I started off with standard Maltese weaponry. Upon firing the modified tachyon cannon, the discharge broke through the thin silicate layer and the projectile has somewhat overheated the chamber, which, due to the extreme amount of energy flowing into the weapon from an outside generator, could not fire again until long moments later.

As for particles, the test went very much fine, but the modification didn’t have that much of an effect. The silicate contained the volatility of the subatomic particles. However, the coils were completely useless. Purely cosmetic that is.

Lasers did not quite work, as they have been split or retracted while passing the cluster. Were it not tested in a controlled environment, we’d have a serious accident in the labs. This was the first failure, and it was obvious to me afterwards that the prototype probably won’t shoot laser-like projectiles.

For the neutron cannon, I can say that was a waste of time, because the neutron projectiles passed without any sort of change, and the coils weren’t of any help, just like with particles.

Photon cannon was the second big failure. The projectile broke the silicate and deformed the entire weapon, resulting in the obvious loss of one piece of weaponry and a few standardized units of silicate. Stay away from the photons, that’s my mental note.

The plasma cannon, needless to say, gave the best results. The silicate layer somehow made the projectile’s outburst coalesce, emitting a projectile of much less unpredictable nature. The rings? With the correct wiring, these rings work just like electromagnetic coils, potentially providing some power back into the chamber.

There’s more to it though, since the modified plasma gun drains way too much power, even with the savings that the coils bring. Therefore, the gun is not being quite useful, as a fully loaded Sabre with this gun and modification would probably exhaust the reactor of all power after firing one full salvo. There’s three common ways to fix this: Larger reactor on the ship (unacceptable in this case); regulating the power draw (unacceptable either, because that would make the gun have suboptimal firepower, you’d be effectively making a powerful cannon into a toy replica); or finding alternative source of power.

Now obviously, the third option is the most plausible, and I suspect the prototype somehow gathers the required power on its own as well. This is certainly the most puzzling element of the entire prototype, as I haven’t been able to deduce how a gun would be able to do such without being too complex. It does gather small amounts of energy through the coils, but that alone is simply not enough. How can a weapon with such power drain such little, after all?

Best thing I can probably do alone is to perform an experiment, which is to combine the two of our own guns with the plasma technology. It sounds like a travesty, but it may actually reduce the power usage as well, somehow, by making the plasma projectile less energy-expensive, and more efficient like tachyon and neutron blasters. This is pure speculation however, and if that fails, I do believe we will need more brainpower assigned to this project.

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