Raygun

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This article is about the fictional weapons. For various real weapons which are similar to rayguns, see Directed-energy weapon. For other uses, see Raygun (disambiguation).

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"Blaster (weapon)" redirects here. For the flamethrower, see Blaster (flamethrower).

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Toy raygun

A raygun is a type of fictional device that fires a beam of (usually) destructive energy[1] used in science fiction; a form of directed-energy weapon. They have various alternate names: ray gun, death ray, beam gun, blaster, laser gun, phaser, zap gun etc. They are a well-known feature of science fiction; for such stories they typically have the general function of guns. In most stories, when activated, a raygun emits a ray, typically visible, usually lethal if it hits a human target, often destructive if it hits mechanical objects, with properties and other effects unspecified or varying.

Real-life analogues are particle-beam weapons or electrolasers, electroshock weapons which send current along an electrically conductive laser-induced plasma channel.[citation needed]

History

A very early example of a raygun is the Heat-Ray featured in H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds (1898).[2] Science fiction during the 1920s described death rays. Early science fiction often described or depicted raygun beams making bright light and loud noise like lightning or large electric arcs.

According to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction,[3] the word "ray gun" was first used by Victor Rousseau in 1917, in a passage from The Messiah of the Cylinder:[4]

All is not going well, Arnold: the ray-rods are emptying fast, and our attack upon the lower level of the wing has failed. Sanson has placed a ray-gun there. All depends on the air-scouts, and we must hold our positions until the battle-planes arrive.

The variant "ray projector" was used by John W. Campbell in The Black Star Passes in 1930.[1] Related terms "disintegrator ray" dates to 1898 in Garrett P. Serviss' Edison's Conquest of Mars; "blaster" dates to 1925 in Nictzin Dyalhis' story "When the Green Star Waned;" and "needle ray" and "needler" date to 1934 in E.E. Smith's The Skylark of Valeron.[5]

File:Looney Tunes 'Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century' - screenshot.jpg
"Disintegrator pistol" in Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (1952), a parody of rayguns used in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century comic strip and film serial

The term "ray gun" had already become cliché by the 1940s,[6] in part due to association with the comic strips (and later film serials) Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Soon after the invention of lasers during 1960, such devices became briefly fashionable as a directed-energy weapon for science fiction stories. For instance, characters of the Lost in Space TV series (1965–1968) and of the Star Trek pilot episode "The Cage" (1964) carried handheld laser weapons.[7]

By the late 1960s and 1970s, as the laser's limits as a weapon became evident, rayguns were dubbed "phasers" (for Star Trek), "blasters" (Star Wars), "pulse rifles", "plasma rifles" and so forth.

In his book Physics of the Impossible Michio Kaku used gamma ray bursts as an evidence to illustrate that extremely powerful rayguns like the one used to destroy a planet on Death Star in the Star Wars franchise do not violate known physical laws and theories. He further analyses the problem of rayguns' power sources.

Function

Ray guns as described by science fiction do not have the disadvantages that have, so far, made directed-energy weapons largely impractical as weapons in real life, needing a suspension of disbelief by a technologically educated audience:

  • Ray guns draw seemingly limitless power from often unspecified sources. In contrast to their real-world counterparts, the batteries or power packs of even handheld weapons are minute, durable, and do not seem to need frequent recharging.
  • Ray guns in movies are often shown as shooting discrete pulses of energy visible from off-axis, traveling slowly enough for people to see them emerge, or even for the target to evade them,[2] although real-life laser light is invisible from off-axis and travels at the speed of light. This effect could sometimes be attributed to the beam heating atmosphere that it was passing through.[citation needed] A possible evasion tactic is dodging the firing axis of the gun, theorized in the early story of Mobile Suit Gundam by the character Char Aznable when he first encountered the series protagonist's machine's beam rifle and seemingly dodging it without any difficulty.

Some of the effects are what would be expected from a powerful directed-energy beam, if it could be generated in reality:

  • Ray guns are often shown as transmitting heat, as with Wells' heat rays.[2]
  • Ray guns may be used to cut through hard materials like a blowtorch.[2]

But sometimes not:

  • In movies, rays are often depicted as having effect instantaneously, with a touch of the beam sufficing for the intended purpose.[2] Raygun victims are generally killed instantaneously, often – as in the Star Wars films – without showing visible wounds or even holes in their clothing.[2]
  • Some rayguns cause their targets to disappear ("de-materialize", disintegrate, vaporize or evaporate) entirely, personal equipment and all.
  • Visible barrel recoil.[citation needed] This would only happen if the momentum of the beam were comparable to that of a bullet shot from a gun.
  • A wide range of non-lethal functions as determined by the requirements of the story: for instance, they may stun, paralyze or knock down a target, much like modern electroshock weapons.[2] Occasionally the rays may have other effects, such as the "freeze rays" in the TV series Batman (1966–1968) and Underdog (1964–1970).[2] Many of the more implausible functions are almost farcical and include rayguns that age or de-age people (various cartoons); shrink rays (Fantastic Voyage, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids), and a "dehydration ray" (Megamind).

Ultimately, rayguns have whatever properties are required for their dramatic purpose. They bear little resemblance to real-world directed-energy weapons, even if they are given the names of existing technologies such as lasers, masers, or particle beams.[2] This can be compared with real-type firearms as commonly depicted by action movies, as tending infallibly to hit whatever they are aimed at (when wielded by the heroes) and seldom depleting their ammunition.[8]

Rayguns by their various names have various sizes and forms: pistol-like; two-handed (often called a rifle); mounted on a vehicle; artillery-sized mounted on a spaceship or space base or asteroid or planet.

Rayguns have a great variety of shapes and sizes, according to the imagination of the story writers or movie prop makers. Most pistol rayguns have a conventional grip and trigger,[citation needed] but some (e.g. Star Trek: The Next Generation phasers) do not. The shapes of some rayguns are influenced by an opinion that they look most effective and weapon-like if they look somewhat like real guns; others, such as this, are not:

  • V-Gun from the Macross scenario: industrial look.

  • "Plasma blaster": nuclear laboratory equipment look

(The V-Gun is treated as a Gatling gunpod in Macross, but as a laser when copied as Jetfire's gun in Transformers.)

Sometimes the end of the barrel expands into a shield, as if to protect the user from back-flash from the emitted beam.

Types

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Types of Ray Guns

The ray is usually stated to be one of the following:

Rayguns are often one-handed, sometimes two-handed, and often artillery-sized fastened to a spaceship.

Rayguns powered by a backpack powerpack are described from time to time in science fiction.

Notable Ray Guns

The following is a partial list of types of rayguns mentioned in various science fiction scenarios:

List of rayguns

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Written Science Fiction

ray gun in E. E. Smith's Lensman novels

(*for series, year listed is the year of the first entry in the series.)

File:Perry Rhodan issue1.jpg
Perry Rhodan issue #1 (1961)
  • Perry Rhodan (1961): the first installment shows a rifle-shaped raygun.
  • Dune series (1963): Continuous-wave laser projectors called lasguns exist but are rendered obsolete by the use of personal Holtzman shields. The interaction of a lasgun blast and this force field results in a nuclear explosion which typically kills both the gunner and the target, to say nothing of collateral damage. Subsequently, lasguns are mostly mounted on aircraft.
  • Hammer's Slammers (1979): "Powergun": a plasma pulse
  • The Hyperion Cantos (1989): "Death Wand": a laser-like beam weapon

Film and Television

Games

Gallery

  • A typical imaginary raygun

  • Imaginary raygun, 2 views, with parts labelled

  • Small artillery sized version of same, being used.

  • Raygun with particle accelerator drum

Real-world development

  • Radar is the result of attempts to develop rayguns before WWII
  • CBS in their show 60 Minutes showed a real weapon described as a raygun. This video of it shows that it is most likely the Active Denial System.
  • Recent real developments of laser guns have produced artillery-sized weapons which might be described as rayguns, but usually are not.
  • See electrolaser for an electric current sent through a laser beam.
  • See Directed-energy weapon for various real weapons which are more or less like rayguns.
  • See Directed-energy weapon#Tesla for reports that Tesla made a real directed-energy weapon.

Distinguish from

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Jeff Prucher, Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, Oxford University Press, 2007, page 162
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Van Riper, op.cit., p. 46.
  3. ↑ Peter Nicholls, John Clute, and David Langford, "Ray Gun," The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 3rd edition, Jan 15, 2016
  4. ↑ Victor Rousseau , "The Messiah of the Cylinder", serialized in Everybody's Magazine, June-September 1917 ( ISFDB link).
  5. ↑ Winchell Chung, "Introduction to Sidearms", Project Rho: Atomic Rockets (accessed 3 March 2016)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Ray Gun", TV Tropes (accessed 3 March 2016)
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Van Riper, op.cit., p. 47.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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