Oblivion Assault Gun
The primary Photon Cannon of the Hyperion Federation. The Oblivion Assault Gun is an old design, but even by todays standards it is still powerful. Reliable, energy efficient and long-ranged, it still forms the backbone of all Hyperion military forces. Smaller versions have been built and used on planetary engagements.
Photon Cannons work by annihilating electron-positron pairs within a chamber and directing the resulting radiation, which consists mainly but not entirely of photons, into a very tight beam. In fact, it is often powerful enough to cut entire lower-tech starships in half with single cuts.
They are known as photon cannons rather than lasers because they do not emit light by stimulation of atoms. Technically, the term is a misnomer because particles other than photons are also created in the antimatter annihilation process, though the beam would consist primarily of photons.
Due to the sheer amount of matter it is capable of annihilating, it can form extremely dense and powerful beams often powerful enough to cut some lower tech starships in half almost instantly. As some designs are capable of converting 1 kg/s into energy, these can emit a 8.98×1016 W beam, which is far more powerful than regular lasers, which can sometimes emit a several MW beam at relatively high power.
Due to the sheer power of the weapon, diffusion due to space dust could be almost entirely ignored. Due to this, the weapon has a very large maximum effective range, and it is extremely accurate as it accounts for the speed of light and gravitational effects. This allows it to be accurate to within 1 centimetre at about 100 km range.
If the Photon Cannon itself is hit, it will immediately teleport all antimatter back to the antimatter tank. As soon as the TGX Composite of the weapon detects a hit, it sends a QEC message to the teleporter within the weapon which teleports the antimatter away instantly. This mechanism reacts so fast that it can prevent enemy lasers from triggering annihilation, as well as some lower power superluminal weapons. To improve speed of transmission, millions of microscopic QEC devices are placed within the armour and weapon itself, if anything is compromised these will receive a message at a speed of light delay.
The annihilation chamber relies on an extremely powerful use case of Graviton Wave Refraction. The gravitational field within the annihilation chamber is extremly powerful, and not even light can escape it. All of the particles created in annihilation are successfully directed down the barrel, or the 3 focal rings. As no radiation is lost (most of the time), the OAG is surprisingly safe to operate as it emits no dangerous radiation. There is, however, interference with space dust after the radiation has left the barrel. This radiation will cause the dust to heat up to immense temperatures well in excess of the temperature of any star and emit radiation that can be harmful, though not powerful enough to damage the focal rings. This excess radiation is naturally captured by the radiation shielding built into the ships inner hull itself.
As the weapon relies primarily on photons for its effect, there are ways for an enemy to reduce the incomming energy. One obvious defence against Photon Cannons are constructing the ship out of a highly reflective material. Under an OAG, it will cause the target to be launched backwards due to the law of conservation of momentum (photons have momentum) but take less damage. An OAG is powerful enough to burn through this most of the time through sheer brute force (as well as non-photon particles), but it allows the ship to survive for longer under OAG fire. Another way is to direct the radiation around the ship, which is often less viable than the first option.
Parent Technologies
Access & Availability
Photon Canons are very widely available to the military. They are illegal for civilians to own because its a weapon.
Discovery
The Oblivion Assault Gun was first invented by a team of Suon engineers led by Particle14, who is a Yunkad.
At its introduction, several scientists and even officers raised concerns relating to ethics. Although the HF acknowledged these issues, it kept using them, saying the HF needs to defend itself from external threats. This was and remains largely true, though its use now is accepted by the population because they have been used as a primary weapon for so long and have proven to be effective a large number of times.
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