Gravimetric Weapons

More of a theory than anything known to exist currently, gravimetric weaponry relies on varying gravitational forces in a localized area to do damage. While published research into this is still in the very early stages, it is believed by many that development is much further ahead than corporations they are admitting to. The reasoning behind this is that gravimetric scanners used to detect cloaked starships have been in use for nearly 200 years and weaponization of the technology would be very possible given some changes.

The gravitational scanners already in existence work by way of the generation subatomic sized singularities (black holes) that have a natural lifetime of only a few seconds and are not capable of interacting with matter directly. The scanners then look to see if the path of these singularities are reflected via a 180 degree turn which can only be caused by a close pass through the nucleus of an atom. With a large enough ship, more of these singularities will return to the detectors and the rough location of a cloaked ship can be identified.

The theorized design of a gravity-based weapon in its simplest form would be an increase of power of a scanning beam to the point that it destabilized the gravitational field along its path. The problem with this is that as the power of the design increases, so does the risk of the generator collapsing on itself during operation. A field inhibitor installed in the design of every current gravimetric device makes sure that if such a collapse occurs that it will not generate a singularity large enough to interact with the matter around it and "feed" to point of catastrophic destruction of everything in the area.

It still remains uncertain if a single device is capable of producing a field strong enough and with a duration to make it effective as a weapon but it appears to be quite possible as several recent incidents point to signs that a weapon has been used with results eerily similar to what would be expected.

Other possible designs skip the use of a beam altogether. The recent loss of an entire wing of a space station along the edge of Terran space where fringe research groups often operate showed signs of a much more powerful gravimetric weapon design. Upon inspection, Federation analysts suspected that the damage could be caused only by the sudden generation of a much more massive singularity than has ever been though possible to be created by man. Before the singularity was capable of fully maturing and stabilizing itself a field inhibitor would detonate itself upon reaching the event horizon and in the process would remove any and all evidence that the weapon ever existed in the first place. This issue is of grave concern should it fall into the wrong hands as no one would be able to be blamed in the aftermath due to the lack of forensic material.

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