Star Wars Ion Weapons

[stitch626]

Ions are just charged partticles. So is this another example of stupid miss-science?

[Sonic Glitch]

Ions are just charged partticles. So is this another example of stupid miss-science?

I always assumed that the ion cannons were used to knock out/disable the electrical systesm on the ships, I figure sending a mass of charged particles at a different charged surface would mess with things. They seem to be more like EMP weapons than actual explosive damage weapons.

[Sionnach Glic]

I think the idea is that the charged particles overload electrical systems. No idea if it's plausable, it's probably just yet another case of a weapon in SW being named for something completely unrelated.

[Mikey]

From everything I've read, that IS the idea - that a mess of charged particles would screw with electrical systems; e.g., the Jawa rifle used to deactivate R2 in ANH. SW has a long history of conveniently ignoring the bits of science that inconveniently mess with the coolness of an idea. In this case, that would be a) the fact that the particles would simply disperse once fired; and, b) something as technologically awesome as a droid or a FTL-capable starship not being completely shielded from such things as a matter of course.

[Captain Seafort]

b) something as technologically awesome as a droid or a FTL-capable starship not being completely shielded from such things as a matter of course.

No such thing as completely shielded - it's simply a matter of hitting the target hard enough.

[Mikey]

Poor choice of words on my part - I should have said, "Technologically immune to something as mundane as a stream of ions."

[Captain Seafort]

Same thing - technology is is only relevent insofar as it allows greater force to be applied, or more efficiently. Throw enough of anything at any vehicle and you will destroy it.

[Mikey]

Understood - what I'm saying is that these things, to my mind, should be at the point where destruction would come before being able to disable the internal electrical systems by hitting them with an arc.

[Aaron]

Ions are just charged partticles. So is this another example of stupid miss-science?

I'm going with a similiar explanation as for the turbolasers; hold over term from a time when they actually did use lasers or a magic-ion shooter.

[Mikey]

I thought the "laser" in "turbolaser" referred to the method of charging the tibanna gas?

[Sionnach Glic]

To be honest, we really don't know where the laser bit came from. I like the explaination that they used to use laser-based weapons, and just kept the name as they moved on. We do the same in real-life all the time.
The only thing we really know about them is that they (or at least the damaging portion of them) clearly aren't actual lasers.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Ion cannons are basically focused EMPs, it seemed. Stun for capital ships.

[Aaron]

I thought the "laser" in "turbolaser" referred to the method of charging the tibanna gas?

As Rochey says, we don't actually know much about there workings. I think Dr. Saxton has an explanation or two up on his site but it's been a while since I read it.

[Monroe]

Well Ion weapons were invented 4000 BBY to fight the droids in their great uprising. And we know it uses charged ions to short circuit things. And we know that in high amounts it can kill people by screwing up the nervous system. So maybe its just an ion of a substance that technology doesn't cope well against.

[m52nickerson]

Has anyone seen the ion cannon that was on the new Animated series?