[stuart133]

The way I see it, there are 3 distinct types in use by the GTVA.  My decidedly non-canon interpretation:

Green: Terran beam weapons which work by bleeding off plasma from the ship's reactor.  These have the advantages of being relativley small, allowing a given vessel to carry more of them, and they can be 'overcharged' by forcing greater amounts of plamsa through the emitters.  This comes with the cost of increased thermal load on the cannons, and can also damage the reactors themselves if too much plasma is drained.

Yellow: Vasudan beam weapons which utilise directed photon beams.  These are more powerful than the green Terran beams, but require a dedicated reactor to power them.  As a result of this increased bulk, the weapons are typcially mounted in smaller numbers, and not at all on cruisers.  We've not seen if these can be 'overcharged'.

Blue: Ion beams shared by both races.  These are very energy efficient and have a low thermal load on the emitters, allowing for rapid refiring and continual operation, but do very little damage.  Because they can draw power from the carrying vessel's standard energy grid, practically any vessel of cruiser tonnage or above can mount worrying numbers of these weapons.

As for the Shivans, I like to think of their beams as being some kind of graser, if only due to rule of cool.

I like this one best, except for the graser thing. That would be highly invisible, not red.

I would have said that the red beams are the equivalent of your explanation of the Terran "Green Beams". I would think that the reason the Shivan ones are more powerful in many cases is that the Shivans have better heat sinks and reactors. They have had beams for a lot longer than we have. Especially with the "Trapped Fleet theory".

[headdie]

The way I see it, there are 3 distinct types in use by the GTVA.  My decidedly non-canon interpretation:

Green: Terran beam weapons which work by bleeding off plasma from the ship's reactor.  These have the advantages of being relativley small, allowing a given vessel to carry more of them, and they can be 'overcharged' by forcing greater amounts of plamsa through the emitters.  This comes with the cost of increased thermal load on the cannons, and can also damage the reactors themselves if too much plasma is drained.

Yellow: Vasudan beam weapons which utilise directed photon beams.  These are more powerful than the green Terran beams, but require a dedicated reactor to power them.  As a result of this increased bulk, the weapons are typcially mounted in smaller numbers, and not at all on cruisers.  We've not seen if these can be 'overcharged'.

Blue: Ion beams shared by both races.  These are very energy efficient and have a low thermal load on the emitters, allowing for rapid refiring and continual operation, but do very little damage.  Because they can draw power from the carrying vessel's standard energy grid, practically any vessel of cruiser tonnage or above can mount worrying numbers of these weapons.

As for the Shivans, I like to think of their beams as being some kind of graser, if only due to rule of cool.

I like this one best, except for the graser thing. That would be highly invisible, not red.

I would have said that the red beams are the equivalent of your explanation of the Terran "Green Beams". I would think that the reason the Shivan ones are more powerful in many cases is that the Shivans have better heat sinks and reactors. They have had beams for a lot longer than we have. Especially with the "Trapped Fleet theory".

i like the theory with stuart133s alteration, the different colouring could easily be accounted for by different reactor materials or beam handling method or possibly some kind of enrichment process

[Qent]

And their devastating power could be because the beam's wave function collapses and its particles release ZPE microbursts.

[Kosh]

You know, there is a reason why it is called science fiction.

Science fiction has a way of becoming science FACT. I see no one has answered the question though......

[Kolgena]

Think about how lightsabers work. The principle is the same, so it should be pretty straight forward



...if lightsabers had even a snippet of physics behind their mechanism of operation.

[Stormkeeper]

Yes, they do.

[General Battuta]

That doesn't really qualify as physics so much as technobabble.

We've got plasma cutters in real life, after all.

[Kosh]

Yeah but they don't project continuously moving magnetic pockets away from the ship.

[Stormkeeper]

Yeah. I think I prefer Hellgate London's explanation for the Molten Edge, e.g fusion reaction contained in a magnetic field.

.... Wait, that sounds like lightsabers!

[Aardwolf]

Yeah. I think I prefer Hellgate London's explanation for the Molten Edge, e.g fusion reaction contained in a magnetic field.

.... Wait, that sounds like lightsabers!

Plasma does not imply fusion! Anyway, the contained plasma thing is awfully similar to the idea of a plasma shield, at least as I interpreted it.

[TrashMan]

I prefer anit-magic field generators myself...How does one make one?
WITH SCIENCE!!!!!

[NGTM-1R]

I prefer anit-magic field generators myself...How does one make one?
WITH SCIENCE!!!!!

Jail Scaligetti, is that you?

[stuart133]

Hmmm, I sense Final Fantasy is crawling into this thread.

Back on topic - Surely a lightsaber is just plasma, no fusion needed. That would be stupid as it would run out of fuel quite quickly that way.

[Spoon]

I prefer anit-magic field generators myself...How does one make one?
WITH SCIENCE!!!!!

Jail Scaligetti, is that you?

Bah, nothing a good old starlight breaker cannot befriend fix

[ChronoReverse]

And if that's not enough to make friends peace, five at once will certainly ease diplomatic relationships.

[Liberator]

Hmmm, I sense Final Fantasy is crawling into this thread.

Back on topic - Surely a lightsaber is just plasma, no fusion needed. That would be stupid as it would run out of fuel quite quickly that way.

Lightsabers are exactly that.  High energy plasma passed through a circular magnetic circuit so that the energy is returned to the power cell with near perfect efficiency.  The only time the power cell is drained is when the saber is used to cut through a substance or the flow is interupted some how.

[General Battuta]

Trying to make sense of lightsabers is a really bad idea. Plasma fields don't really work in atmosphere.

[Liberator]

I'm all but quoting the star wars wiki on the subject, which I kinda stumbled into the other day.  I don't read it on a regular basis.

[Droid803]

Well, even it it behaved as described it would still continually lose power to air particles hitting it and whatnot, if it were in an atmospheric environment.

[Mongoose]

"Handwavium = uber-cool laser sword" seems like a far more satisfying explanation to me.