Praetorian Phase Cannon
Developed by the Hyperion Federation - specifically, a Vanadian - Suon - Yunkad team.
This weapon has many quirks, but this gives it an incredible damage potential even for a Hyperion weapon. Its full name is 'Quantum-Looped Quark-Gluon Plasma Phaser Praetorian' The first part of that name refers to how some of the beam reflects back to the weapon, creating a sort of feedback loop that gets more damaging over time as the beam stays on target. If it loses target for even a second, all this energy is lost. The 2nd part refers to the plasma it fires - quark-gluon plasma. This kind of plasma has an incredibly high energy density. It is similar to consistently creating miniature big bangs next to the enemy armour.
The weapon also has a relatively slow turn rate and short range compared to other Hyperion weapons - but not extremely short. It has a lot of capacitors that must be fully charged before firing. They take about 50 seconds to charge. It can fire consistently for 30 seconds, no more, no less. Once it fires, it cant stop firing until energy is fully drained. This also gives the feedback loop a hard limit.
The weapon is also known for how it reacts to 1 material in particular - Hardlight. The beam will react heavily to this high energy material, degrading it but also causing a massive amount of energy to refract or perhaps explode if hit for long enough. Should such a reaction occur near an enemy ship or fleet, apocalyptic destruction will follow.
The Praetorian has an immense damage potential but is very hard to use. It has a number of doctrines despite this, including one where they are used alongside long range ships with XR-27 Hardlight Bolter Cannons which fire bolts of Hardlight at long range. These ships 'paint' targets for the Praetorian to fire at, most likely destroying a target or even a group of targets very quickly. Due to their short range, they are sometimes used on Subspatial Starships which are able to surface in mass simultaneously and bring a massive amount of firepower to bear. They are sometimes mounted to sturdy ships such as the Decimator - Class Cruiser and boosted towards enemy lines using Newtons. Regardless of its use case, the Praretorian are almost exclusively used by extremly agressive and bold admirals. Due to its explosive properties on contact with hardlight, it can effortlessly drain a target's hardlight shield which would make it vulnerable to antimatter based ammunition.
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