Chrome drones? Kool kustom UAVs.
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It has definitely been going on for awhile. I got my MS in Aerospace Engineering in 1993. My research involved hypersonic flowfields of reentry vehicles, but I presented a paper at the Plasma Dynamics and Lasers Conference, and research into weapons of this sort had a strong presence at that conference. And that was the 24th annual such conference.
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And that was completely sane compared to…
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The energy that the weapons are subjected to is spread out over a much larger area compared to the target. They could destroy themselves if they could target themselves.
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… so it’s not so much a “beam,” as a Cone of Death
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I loved Spectrum’s cool tech… but the sitting-backwards-while-driving-and-watching-road-on-a-monitor now seems so… Muskian.
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Jonny Pew-Pew. 
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I was about to say I have a new entry for my Gaslands campaign…
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Correct.
Various police departments in the U.S. have had this LRAD one for a while now, it’s horrible:
Directed energy weapons (microwaves) used against soft-bodied targets (people not things):
https://jnlwp.defense.gov/About/Frequently-Asked-Questions/Active-Denial-System-FAQs/
Ye gods I hate this timeline.
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the cool part is at the end when they turn the professor’s house into a giant popcorn popper.
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Regarding the LASER destroying itself:
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The LASER aperture is made of a material that is transparent to the LASER wavelength (there is some attentuation or internal reflection)
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A LASER beam moving through the atmosphere becomes greatly distorted. What may start out as a circular/gaussian beam profile warps into a crescent beam profile. Same for a rectangular beam. This causes a higher concentration of energy at the target than at the aperture. Alternatively, pre-distorting the beam profile at the aperture can effect a more useful beam profile at the target.
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Science fiction-style beam weapons that can destroy targets with directed lasers or microwaves…
Hold this guy’s beer:
"…one mustachioed petty officer was in charge of a tripod-mounted antimatter gun that would dispose of armored vehicles, or, indeed, anything at all.‘’
– Dread Empire’s Fall: The Praxis, by Walter Jon Williams, 2002, pg. 331
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Mirrors (@anon48584343) would reflect the energy. In addition to being relefctive, Mylar or other similar laminations may make a good sacrificial skin. Smoke from the leading edge would absorb energy and carry it away. If it rotated (easier for ICBMs, harder for aircraft or vehicles) the energy could be spread over a greater area and given more time to dissipate. If the enemy played dirty (i.e., attacked on a cloudy day) then we’re just S.O.L.
TL;DR: How do I get a piece of this $1 billion boondoggle?
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battery
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A mirror won’t stop a 300 kW laser. Even if you were using a mirror designed to reflect 99.999% of the laser’s wavelength, if there is any microscopic defects, debris or gaps in the surface, the laser will burn right through it.
There is no way any drone flying in the atmosphere is going to maintain a debris-free surface. People in labs with sealed systems have trouble keeping high powered lasers from burning through mirrors.
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Which isn’t saying much if drones now include plastic quad-copters and sterofoam delta-wings.
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well, if you believe jon ronson, there are direct connections from mk ultra, remote viewing, and attempting to kill goats with mind rays to american soldiers torturing people in iraq
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I’ll take Four Things That Don’t Work for $200 Alex!
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