Let's talk about Vera
POSTED BY: Zicsoft
UPDATED: Thursday, October 10, 2002 22:15
VIEWED: 10747
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It's been over a day since "Our Miss Reynolds" aired, and Jeff Timm still hasn't posted his usual firearm summary. Jeff, you're falling down on the job!
What I don't get is why Jayne doesn't own a gun that will shoot in a vacuum. Shouldn't be that hard to design. The loads would have to have a built in oxidizer of course, since gunpowder needs oxygen to burn. But how hard is that? They do it with solid-fuel rockets.
JOSS, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!
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I don't know much about guns (I'm an archer), but wouldn't it be possible to use an airsoft gun with an explosive tipped bullet or something?
Take a look at these:
http://www.airsoftpro.net/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code
=AP
I have a friend who is really into this stuff as a hobby. And some of the guns he has looks and feels like the real thing.
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Well, no, it isn't hard to design; Hayne even said that there are cases that this kind of gun can be accessorized with that would take care of this, and he just doesn't have one.
As for why he wouldn't have one... there's probably very little use for it, and it could be expensive. Things in space tend to be very far apart and moving very fast relative to each other, which makes aiming many times harder even when in range at all, which is seldom, which makes shooting bullets (instead of missiles that can steer themselves) impractical most of the time. Also, what would the targets in space be? A ship, which is very big and almost certainly designed with little planetoids/asteroids (which move multiple times faster than a bullet) in mind? Or are we talking about investing a lot of money just on the offchance that you and someone you want to shoot will happen to end up in spacesuits in space within range while you happen to have the gun with you? It turned out to be useful here, but we can presume the giant electrocutor's exposed circuit breakers are not a common feature on space ships because most of them don't need to generate such giant electrical forces, especially not outside themselves.
Also, it's possible that he's got some little antipersonnel (as opposed to antiship) guns that will fire in a vaccuum, but they didn't have the power (or maybe ammo that goes boom) of Vera.
Personally, I'm far more concerned about the electrical bolts in a vaccuum, flickering and jagged like lightning bolts that get that way by taking the momentary path of least resistance through the atmosphere.
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Besides, if Vera was able to fire in a vaccuum, then Jayne wouldn't have gotten that spiffy line to the effect of: "See, Vera? You dress up nice, you get to go to nice places."
________________
"You still don't get it. It's not about right, not about wrong... It's about Power." —Morph-O-Monster, "Lessons"
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Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
It's been over a day since "Our Miss Reynolds" aired, and Jeff Timm still hasn't posted his usual firearm summary. Jeff, you're falling down on the job!
Ok, OK! My wife insisted we order the stuff for her new com, get the shlepson his own burner, get her birthday present two months early...and then I had to reimage my computer to get rid of all the feldercarb my shlepson left on it.
Quote:
What I don't get is why Jayne doesn't own a gun that will shoot in a vacuum.
Jayne may own a weapon that shoots in vacuum, but Vera (I don't name my weapons but nobodies perfect) appears to be Jaynes heaviest weapon. I assume it had to be kept in pressure because of lubricants and perhaps leaky cartridges. I suspect because of the design it's firing very large (they looked like 15-20mm rounds) and powerful projectiles. I assume it's not easy to knock out components of a massive vaccuum array.
Let's face facts folks. If Jayne can shoot like that under the worst of circumstances, I'm on HIS side, whichever or whatever it is!
Jeff
Who needs more practice, but my wife spent all my range money today.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Haken:
I don't know much about guns (I'm an archer), but wouldn't it be possible to use an airsoft gun with an explosive tipped bullet or something?
Actually we have a weapon that would be at home in vacuum. The Gyrojet pistol and carbine. The just didn't work so well in atmosphere. An ordinary revolver would work in vaccuum, but the extreams of temperature and pressure changes would quickly render it unusable, by distorting the parts, and damaging the ammunition, which was packaged under 15 PSI. I am impressed that the writers know this. I'd like to meet their tech team!
Jeff
Who notes several underwater weapons might be effective in vaccuum.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Delvo:
Personally, I'm far more concerned about the electrical bolts in a vaccuum, flickering and jagged like lightning bolts that get that way by taking the momentary path of least resistance through the atmosphere.
When they were talking about a net, I assumed some kind of plasma held in place by some advanced means. We can't handle plasma well enough to build a fusion reactor. But, we can use electrical discharge for machining metal with very precise control.
Jeff
Who suspects the FFU has fusion or better.
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I did get the name of the gun he was using, a "Callahan." I'm thinking that's a reference to the "Dirty Harry" series; that or Joss thought it was a good name for a weapons company.
Now all we need is for Jayne to own a Smith & Wesson Model 29.
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"How will this end?"
"In fire."
--Babylon 5, 'The Coming of Shadows'
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My husband, Eric, being quite the gun-nut, is in love with Jayne. In a guy sort of way, you know? Hell, I thought Eric was going to cry when they first showed a six-shooter (he's recently become interested in cowboy shooting) and I don't think I've ever seen anyone happier about the lack of RayGuns on a TV show.
Of course, we've both been very impressed with the silent explosions, etc, but the rifle not firing in space thing was inspired. We actually talked about that for quite sometime. Might there enough oxygen inside the ammo to still let it fire? Can you vacuum pack rounds or otherwise seal them with enough oxygen to fire? Heh, it was fun and an all new topic to discuss! (Woohoo! New things to talk about! How cool is that?)
~bugdog
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