Disruptors in Star Wars... a new twist?

[ILikeDeathNote]

It was a passage relevant to the phase shifter discussion, as it actually describes its affects, I thought it might be useful.

I know, I was just being a snarky smartass :p

[Praeothmin]

I was just being a snarky smartass

Compared to when?



;)

[Mr. Oragahn]

Here is a passage that I thought you guys might find interesting:



GALACTIC WARSHIP OCEAN, OFF FONDOR



Chimaera cut a swath through the battlefield and headed straight for the Anakin Solo, firing turbolasers.

"They always say that Daala tore up the strategy books." Niathal was still assessing the strength and fire-power of the eclectic fleet that had just fallen into her lap. Her immediate guess was that she now had 30 percent more hulls than the Moff-Jacen fleet, as she now thought of it. "She looks as if she's going to ram him."

"I'd get out of her way, "Makin said.

Several other commanders in Jacen's fleet must have had the same idea. They broke off attacks and headed for the Anakin Solo. There were now a six warships converging on the Chimaera, and Niathal tried to guess Daala's strategy. One advantage of having a completely unexpected and di-verse fleet suddenly emerge in theater was that it plunged everything into chaos, and each commander had to pause and take stock-but that included Daala's allies. It was crowded space. Niathal had an impression of an ancient maritime battle on Naboo, when ships had been packed too close together to move or fire safely.

"Yes, she's going to turn as late as she can, "said Niathal.

"Even so, I wouldn't be the frigate on that bearing there."

"Did she say Maw Irregular Fleet?"

"She did."

One destroyer bearing down on Chimaera's port beam appeared to be targeting her bridge, and a cruiser was on an intercept course from starboard. Chimaera opened fire on both simultaneously, with apparently little effect, and held her course.

"What was that, Vio?" Niathal asked. "Turbolaser?"

"Unknown, ma'am."

"This isn't the time to admire what she's had done in refit, but I haven't seen anything like that. Sensors? Tell me what Chimaera's got by way of armaments. I just hope this isn't some massive bluff and she's just scrambled every-thing from the breakers' yard, because Jacen will sense that very fast."

Niathal, still monitoring the developing collision, moved to watch one of the holocam feeds from the remotes near-est the Anakin Solo. Chimaera was letting smaller vessels take pot shots at her, which her shields shrugged off, and then she simply targeted the same two vessels that she'd returned fire upon moments earlier.

Niathal waited for signs of impact. What she saw instead was the hull of one ship deforming and then simply burst-ing apart like a bag of grainmeal, with no accompanying explosion. The aft section was intact, but there was a large enough hole in the hull to span five decks, maybe more, and expose compartments to vacuum.

It was an oddly silent, unfit end for the cruiser. It rang a bell with Niathal.

"Oh, I think Daala's brought some of her toys with her, "Makin said. He'd been watching in silence.

"Yes, I do believe she has some novel weapons." Niathal commed the Maw flagship. "Ocean to Chimaera thank you for your assistance. Are you armed with unconventional weapons?"

"Ocean, confirm that, we have metal-crystal phase shifters.... among other things."

There is your Metal Crystal Phase Shifter in action. Comments?

It seems the weapon was used at the last moment or something? Is it me or the book says the weapon ignored shields and just disintegrated the bow section of the ship set on a ramming course?
We clearly have an effect where the pressure of the atmosphere inside is what pushed the "vapourized" superstructure's matter outwards.
It does not clear up what the weapon's mechanism really is about though.

[Airlocke_Jedi_Knight]

Here is more:


MCPS weapons altered crystalline structures. An area of the unfortunate destroyer's hull had simply fractured under the stresses and started to break up. It was as good as a laser strike but penetrated shields.


Does this help clear up your confusion t all, Mr. Oragahn?

[Mr. Oragahn]

Here is more:


MCPS weapons altered crystalline structures. An area of the unfortunate destroyer's hull had simply fractured under the stresses and started to break up. It was as good as a laser strike but penetrated shields.


Does this help clear up your confusion t all, Mr. Oragahn?

There is no confusion, only clarity.

...

Err... weah, I'm not sure I was confused on that bit; the text you gave describes how the ship's hull bursts with a lack of what would be a big boom.

[Mr. Oragahn]

More stuff about disruptors (disintegrators) in Star Wars:

• • 

Sources:

• Arms & Equipment, WOTC, D20.
• Galadinium's Fantastic Technology, WEG, D6.

Model MSD-32 disruptor pistol, Wookieepedia.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Now, about the MCPS:

Next, Doxin slurped his hot beverage and gave a report of a new weapon his scientists had been testing. "It's a metal-crystal phase shifter," Doxin said. "MCPS for short."
"Hmmmm," Tol Sivron said, tapping his chin with a long claw. "We'll have to think of a catchier name before we present it to the Imperials."
"It's just a working acronym," Doxin said, embarrassed. "We've constructed a functioning model, though our results have been inconsistent. The tests have given us reason to hope for a successful larger-scale implementation."
"And what exactly does it do?" Tol Sivron asked. Doxin scowled at him. "Director, I've filed several reports over the past seven weeks. Haven't you read them?" Sivron flinched his head-tails instinctively. "I'm a busy man, and I can't recall everything I read," he said.
"Especially about a project with such an uninspired name. Refresh my memory, please."
Doxin grew animated as he spoke. "The MCPS field alters the crystalline structure of metals-e.g., those in starship hulls. The MCPS can penetrate conventional shielding and turn hull plates into powder. The actual physics is more complicated, of course; this is just an executive summary."
"Yes, yes," Tol Sivron said. "That sounds very good. What were these problems you encountered?"
"Well, the MCPS worked effectively over only about one percent of the surface area on our test plate."
"So it might not be terribly useful?" Tol Sivron said.
Doxin rubbed his fingers across the polished table surface, making a squeaking sound. "Not exactly true, Director. The one percent effectiveness was distributed over a wide area, leaving pinhole failures over the entire surface. Such a loss of integrity would be enough to destroy any ship."
Sivron grinned. "Ah, very good! Continue your studies and continue filing those excellent reports."

Wedge Antilles, general at this time, approaches the Maw Installation with at least four Corellian corvettes and one escort Frigate, the Yavaris.
The corvettes proceed further into the Maw, until their crews spot the structure of the Death Star prototype.
Wedge snaps orders for all shields up, ASAP.
But nothing happens, the station is certainly not operational.
Suddenly, the corvettes' shields start taking fire, but it's not a threat at all. Wedge has gunners taking pot shots at the underdefended construction yard's weapon batteries. The "surgical strikes" were pulverizing the asteroids, with the structures built on them.
The task is way too easy, until the scientists of the installation use of the MCPS against one of the two corvettes:

"This is too easy," Wedge said. A desperate signal came from one of the corvette captains. His image flickered as he beamed a transmission on the emergency channel. "Something's happening to our hull! Shields aren't effective. Some new kind of weapon. Hull walls are weakening. Can't pinpoint where was-
The transmission cut off as the corvette became a ball of fire and shrapnel.
"Back off!" Wedge shouted into the open channel, but the second corvette plunged forward, choosing instead to use his full complement of dual turbolaser cannons as well as a pair of proton torpedoes that had been specially installed for the occupation mission.
"Captain Ortola! Back off!"
The captain of the second corvette blasted the nearest planetoid. Proton torpedoes sizzled with uncontained energy. Turbolaser blasts ignited volatile gases and flammables, reducing the small planetoid to incandescent dust. "That won't be a problem anymore, sir," Captain Ortola said. "You may deploy the strike forces at your leisure."

We see this event from the Imperial perspective:

Hanging above Maw Installation, the Rebel ships looked like nightmarish constructions, brushing aside the Installation's defensive lasers as if they were mere insect bites.
Doxin sat by an interlaboratory communication station and cheered as he saw one of the Rebel corvettes crumble, disintegrating into a cloud of pulverized metal plate and escaping fuel and coolant gases.
"It worked!" Doxin said. "The MCPS worked!" He tapped the receiving jack in his ear, listened, and frowned with his enormous lips. When Doxin wrinkled the brow on his bald head, the ridges rippled all the way up to his crown like rugged-terrain treads.
"Unfortunately, we won't get a second shot, Director. The MCPS seems to have malfunctioned," Doxin said. "But I do believe the original success against an actual target has proved the system worthy of additional development."
"Indeed," Tol Sivron agreed, looking admiringly at the expanding cloud of debris from the corvette. "We must have a follow-up meeting."
"The system is presently off-line," Doxin said.
The second Rebel corvette came in with all weapons blazing, and the asteroid housing the offices and labs of the high-energy concepts incinerated under the barrage.
"It appears to be unquestionably out of commission," Sivron said.
Doxin was deeply disappointed. "Now we'll never conduct a post-shot analysis," he said with a sigh. "It's going to be hard to compile a full report without actual data."

For the notice, many of the planetoids/asteroids were hollowed. The MCPS was found in Lab Module A. The MCPS used a large dish lens, initially meant for superlaser testing, to focus the MCPS field (although described a weak field since the dish was not initially meant for that device).
The field itself couldn't be blocked by shields, and since it wasn't focused like a beam would be, the field was 300 meters wide (Jedi Academy Sourcebook, WEG).

The entire installation was powered by two power plants located in Lab Module D, if you want to have an idea about the size of the power generators backing up the station's systems, including the MCPS. Remember that at that time, other weapons were firing as well.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I'm returning to an old post:

which will be nigh on impossible to prove unless nadions show up anywhere in the guide

Actually, here's what MA says about phasers:

Phasers fire nadion particle beams.

[...]

The phaser beam can stun, heat, kill or disintegrate living creatures. Phasers can damage shields or other systems or even cut through a hull. Phasers can also be used to cut through walls and burrow through rock. The beam can be focused to a single spot or widened to impact a large area.

Plasma is passed to a phaser emitter resulting in a discharge of nadion particles. Residual particles can be found in places where a battle has recently taken place. The disruptive effects of nadion discharges are moderated to produce varying effects (discussed below), ranging from benign to extremely destructive. (VOY: "Phage", "Memorial", "Endgame")

The Starfleet-issue personal phasers come in three types: The phaser type-1 (hand phaser) is small and can be concealed easily. The type 2 phaser is larger and hand-held. It has a longer hand grip or a pistol grip, depending on the model. The phaser type-3 is also known as the phaser rifle. It has a longer barrel, a stock, and some models have a second grip. This weapon can fire beams or bolts. Over centuries of use, there have been several models of the lightweight and effective phaser rifle.

We know that they have an effect that spreads over a given surface or volume, capable of disintegrating an entire person in one shot.
UFP phasers and Klingon disruptors are capable of those effects.
The visual effect was totally copied for the disruptor weapon in Jedi Knight: Outcast.

Now let's summarize the fundamentals of a disruptor weapon in Star Wars:

• The New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology
  
  "The powerful beam affects an object on the molecular level, breaking it down until it's reduced to a pile of ash."
  The weapon's beam system is deemed to be special for its ability to work on the molecular level as its true purpose.
  It strongly suggests a NDF effect similar to the beam of a phaser.
  Note that contrary to phasers, those disruptors don't make matter disappear. They appear to be more akin to some kind of weird alchemy.
  There's no mention of the release of gas whatsoever, only stuff which, at best, could be resumed as slag.
  This would make Trek weapons superior... in their weirdness.
  
  "Even a glancing blast can cause injury and disfigurement."
  Phasers-like weapons can heat matter and injure and disfigure people.
  
  "Disruptors are made even more effective by the fact that they can penetrate forcefields, nearly all forms of armor, and even thick armor plating."
  Somehow, it is implied that this bizarre ability also comes with the additional capacity to poke forcefields and damage any form of armor known, even in important quantities.
  
  "A disruptor's oversize XCiter and actuating module is capable of processing a huge volume of blaster gas... resulting in a much more powerful energy beam than a blaster."
  Although originally using a system similar to a blaster at first, it's also processing much more tibanna gas. In general, it's understood as heating up gas which in turns creates a plasma.
  
  The weapon uses "galven cylinders" which "tightly focus that high-energy particle beam into a destructive force that can disintegrate durasteel plates."
  The galven reference is echoed in ROTS novelization, when turbolasers are mentionned.
  Turbolasers use galven coils, while blasters come with galven circuitry.
  It's also a high-energy particle beam. Phasers happen to be high-energy particle beams, although they can be dialed down.
• Arms and Equipment
  
  "A disruptor wave ... is a series of non-harmonic vibrations that excite the molecules of the target, causing them to lose cohesion and come apart."
  It points to a weapon that is different that a blaster's concussive destruction as it strikes molecules of the hit target, generally the entirety of the target if we remember the effects in-game.
  The non-harmonic nature of the damaging process would suggest varying frequencies and amplitudes.
  Phasers can be set to achieve randomized frequencies.
  Note that in this case, the weapon is said to fire [a disruptive bolt of] vibrations. Obviously it's more elaborate and exotic than a mere input of thermal energy (microscopic kinetic energy wherein each more or less free particle transmits its own KE). After all, heating is about exciting molecules. There should be a definitive trace of a thermal phenomenon, but all the text largely alludes to an effect where the main effect of such a high input of energy is not an explosion, as you'd expect with a mundane raise of thermal energy, but a breaking of bonds and most particularly water, as you'll see below. it is some kind of heat ray gun, a concept which has become quite popular in contemporary science fiction movie hits. It is also very similar to the Romulan device used in Nemesis.
  
  "Basically, disruptors are disintegrators."
  Cue Vader's remark to Fett in TESB.
  
  "They are effective against solid targets, vaporizing starship hulls and armor with equal ease."
  Those are the typical effects noticed on objects which can't cope with the disintegrating NDF abilities of phasers.
  Note that disintegrated targets are said to be vaporized.
  
  "Individual hit by disruptor bolts are often completely reduced to ash by a single hit."
  Notice that the weapon fires a bolt. The effects, while able to affect the whole target in one hit, are originally opposed to the properties of an explosion, in the NEGtW&T.
  Again, this could be a typical description of a phaser or Klingon disruptor, as once again, despite the supposedly high levels of energy involved, even freed atoms should still clearly produce blast and radiation effects one could not miss. But such events do not seem to occur, suggesting that somehow, most of the energy is either flushed into "somewhere" (subspace?) or trapped into very stable molecules or particles (neutrinos?). Somehow, yes, those weapons could be advanced neutrino converters.
  Perhaps they could also be based on the idea of shooting a wave that separates molecules after first having "harmonized" them (which would still require large amounts of energy for mots forms of matter) in order to make the process efficient.
  
  The Merr-Sonn pistol has a better range, as it relies on a "phased array of energy pulses (as opposed to an overwhelming blast) that works against the natural harmonics in the molecules of the target."
  Once again, the molecules are directly affected as a whole.
  More interesting here is the presence of a phased system. Well, just because it's almost like phaser. :p
• Galadinium's Fantastic Technology
  
  "The Merr-Sonn disruptors works by interrupting molecular bonding", "overcoming" it.
  The exotic effect attacks the energetic bonding. A series of pulses is even more effect than using a single massive delivery of energy to achieve the same effects, pointing out that the effects spread just as well with a succession of energy shipments.
  Once again, this highlights the bizarre nature of the weapon, since when hitting a single spot on a target, you'd think that the more massive the energy input, the greater the distance the effect could cover from the point of impact because of reduction of intensity over the distance.
  But here it is not the case, it goes against physics and says the effect works with the same efficiency by firing pulses, and requires less power from the weapon.
  Basically, the closer to a continuous beam the weapon gets, the more efficient it is. Basically, the more phaser-like, the better.
  And this does not negate at all the ability to get through shields and take a piece of any armor.

The observations are about the same for the MCPS, which appears to be a fancier disruptor on steroids, meant for greater targets and specifically designed to mess up with the crystalline structure of metals.
It is a weapon, however, that does not make matter "go away", only leaving molecules drifting, with only energy somehow not seen. But it's certainly one weapon that affects molecular bonding.
Daala, at the time she was at the helm of the Chimaera, used a MCPS against enemy ships.
While the NEGtW&T says it emits a field, we could understand that particles were fired here.
Would it be invisible? No. See:

Chimaera opened fire on both simultaneously, with apparently little effect, and held her course.
"What was that, Vio?" Niathal asked. "Turbolaser?"

A moment of uncertainty made crewmen wonder if what they saw was a turbolaser bolt or not. So they clearly saw something that would be like a turbolaser bolt, but the effects were most surprising and unknown.
The JAS's info on the prototype said that it was firing a field, but a proper array would have allowed a beam system to be used instead.
Which is confirmed above, and with the following evidence:

Niathal waited for signs of impact. What she saw instead was the hull of one ship deforming and then simply burst-ing apart like a bag of grainmeal, with no accompanying explosion. The aft section was intact, but there was a large enough hole in the hull to span five decks, maybe more, and expose compartments to vacuum.

Five decks high, that's certainly nowhere like the 300 meters wide field of the prototype, and much more similar to the effect of a focused weapon.
This weapons that turned hull to powder completely bypassed the warships' shields.

What we see is that Wars shields are capable sustaining fire from weapons which are mainstream and routinely both described as plasma based and mixed to light.
But when it comes to waves and particles that disrupt molecular bonding, shields are purely useless.

Albeit daring I suppose, a conclusion could be that if the UFP's phasers and Klingon's disruptors may not get through typical Star Wars' battle shields during hostile first contact, the differences between all these weapons appear to be so slim -with phasers looking far more advanced- that a group of Trek scientists may technically, and in a relative short time, bring modifications to their weapons that would make them capable of piercing shields with little effort.

[Roondar]

All the more amusing here is that this means that the very weakness certain pro-wars debaters have argued against UFP/etc shields affects the SW side just as much (meaning that they are not too useful against threats not normally encountered).

Not to mention the irony of hearing that SW defenses can't handle NDF style weapons ;)

[watchdog]

Wow, I disappear for a couple of months and you guys come up with better info than I ever could.
I dont expect our warsie friends will pay the above any mind, not so long as they can continue to claim the ICS as being the only proof they need, despite the fact that there is nothing in anything else named Star Wars that confirms the information in the ICS.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Wow, I disappear for a couple of months and you guys come up with better info than I ever could.
I dont expect our warsie friends will pay the above any mind, not so long as they can continue to claim the ICS as being the only proof they need, despite the fact that there is nothing in anything else named Star Wars that confirms the information in the ICS.

Well, it's rather clear that they have made their choice: a very few discussions, say near-zero, and any that may crop up is confined to the reality of Wong-Saxton's dogma.
That's quite a pity considering that the SW franchise is still growing even wider.
They probably burned themselves by following misleading priorities and being overtly aggressive.

All the more amusing here is that this means that the very weakness certain pro-wars debaters have argued against UFP/etc shields affects the SW side just as much (meaning that they are not too useful against threats not normally encountered).

What are those weaknesses?

[Roondar]

According to pro-wars debaters, UFP shields are overoptimised to deal only with phasers and photon torpedoes (and the like) and will fail far quicker - or just not work at all - against just about any threat that is not regularly encountered.

I'm not convinced this is generally true myself, we do have an entire series in which a UFP starship faces weapons which it, by virtue of background story, can not ever have encountered before. And this does not result in Voyagers shields being useless against every alien species they encounter. Far from it, they work just fine.

Thus, I find it funny that disruptors (a weapons not in general use) bypass shields. Because that can be explained with the exact same weakness (meaning that SW shields don't function very well when they encounter exotic weapons).

[Picard]

Actually, I can remember a grand total of two tactical-scale weapons that initially ignore UFP shields - Dominion polaron beam and Breen energy dampening weapon. Everything else, including exotic weapons, is stopped by shields. Althought I'd like confirmation on this; this is only what I can remember at this particular moment.

[KSW]

More ammo against the Cult of Wong! Joy! :D

You mean Captain Ad Hoc.
Good luck.