Disintegrator

A rudimentary form of field weapon which fires shadowy beams that excise matter with virtually no waste heat produced.

Utility

A disintegrator is a line-of-sight energy weapon which fires a beam that, at first glance, appears to be nothing more than an exotic, light-absorbent laser. This is not the case. Disintegrators leverage the mechanics involved in the creation of black holes to create a thin cylindrical (or spherical) field that rips apart and crushes matter. When the field is inevitably turned off, the tiny artificial singularity almost instantly evaporates in a brief, bright flash of Hawking radiation. As a simple field weapon, the beam only comes into existence upon the first particles unfortunate enough to be in its line of fire, dissipating quickly afterwards as more mass is consumed.
Disintegrators are thus a powerful but short-ranged anti-armor weapon in atmospheric conditions. They can be much more effective in a vacuum environment, where the beam of a carefully tuned disintegrator can "skip" across thousands of kilometers of relatively empty space and only trigger upon the shields or hull of an enemy craft. Since the beam does not exist in the gap between the emitter and the target, disintegrators qualify as a crude form of field weapon.

Access & Availability

Adequate mastery of black holes and field technology are critical for the deployment of disintegrators. The Triumphant, NS Network, and Federation widely employed such weapons. However, most civilizations, such as the Sagittari Union prefer simpler/more versatile armaments.