Why isn't there any anti-matter weapons?

[Jarnin]

No I agree with that, that it does "cost" several things to generate antimatter, on another planet, currency would not be one of them. I am sure that the asgard or someone have a more effiecient way of generating antimatter, even if they don't use it.

Owen Macri

Time = Money. It doesn't matter what planet you're on, or if you use currency or not, when a person invests time into a project, they're investing something that has value.

Like Mr. Prophet said, you still have to design, build, and maintain a means to produce the antimatter in the first place, which takes time. It's cost prohibitive to produce antimatter for us, as I pointed out. Sure, aliens might be able to produce antimatter in a cheaper manner, but it's still going to cost them time, which is valuable.

[_Owen_]

I understand that, however it is possible that there is a way of producing antimatter that does not require one to sacrifice said time.

Also if the need was great enough I think people, at least people involved in whatever event is, has, or will cause the need for the antimatter, will sacrifice thier time, if it will help in the event that is, has, or will cause the need.

Owen Macri

[Jarnin]

I understand that, however it is possible that there is a way of producing antimatter that does not require one to sacrifice said time.

Also if the need was great enough I think people, at least people involved in whatever event is, has, or will cause the need for the antimatter, will sacrifice thier time, if it will help in the event that is, has, or will cause the need.

Owen Macri

You're totally missing the point: You cannot generate antimatter without spending time and energy. You might be able to lessen the time and energy with better technology, but the fact is, you still have to spend time and energy.

I suggest you do some reading on the subject before dismissing what is being said here.

[Mr Prophet]

I understand that, however it is possible that there is a way of producing antimatter that does not require one to sacrifice said time.

Also if the need was great enough I think people, at least people involved in whatever event is, has, or will cause the need for the antimatter, will sacrifice thier time, if it will help in the event that is, has, or will cause the need.

The real question would be, if you can create the energy to do that so easily, why piddle about with unstable antimatter as a middleman? Just build broadcast-energy death rays, accelerated particle cannons or the like. Antimatter isn't magical and every conversion loses energy.

Actually, that last isn't necessarily true, since there are transfers in Stargate with efficiencies of above 100%.

[aAnubiSs]

Why use positrons? Much better to use Anti-Protons. Personally I'd pref. not use Anti-Matter as a power source due to it's unstable nature, however as weaponary it's a totally different thing.

Containment and energy is the biggest problem with Anti-matter in real life. However in SG1-verse we've got anti-gravity tech and combined with magnetic currents containment would be easy. With sofisticated energy fields(mostly anti-gravity) there wouldn't be a problem accelerating the particles(or plasma if you want plasma based weapons). The energy part is probably mostly due to our primitive conversion methods (proton beam into argon gas I believe).

If alien races also have problems converting M->AM then a missile based weapon system would be the best since they could store the AM for a long time and they wouldn't risk a force field collapse.

Personally I'd prefer an AM-based unmanned weapon system, a sattelite or something, both offensive and defensive. They would stay in orbit(defensive) and fly around and target stuff(offensive) and slowly converting M->AM and after a fire fight collect the debris and start converting back to full storage capacity if AM.

My guess as to why they don't use AM in SG1 is because it's too powerful compared to everything else we've seen.

[Macilnar]

You're totally missing the point: You cannot generate antimatter without spending time and energy. You might be able to lessen the time and energy with better technology, but the fact is, you still have to spend time and energy.

I suggest you do some reading on the subject before dismissing what is being said here.

I think you miss your own point. EVERY thing requires one to spend time and energy; just typing a post requires time and energy, so to us that as an argument against the practibility of producing antimatter is pointless and obscured. As for the "cost" of making antimatter; I recommend that you do a little more reading. One does not need to make antimatter because it occurs naturally; this is called “Zero Point Fluctuations”. The only problem is that when the antimatter "pops" into existence it does so with its counterpart and they annihilate each other, so all one has to do is find a way to isolate the antimatter before it has time to annihilate its self along with its counterpart.

I am sorry if I seam like a jack *** here but I cannot stand it when people are telling some one off when it seams as though they them self’s don’t take their own advice first. I don’t clam to know every thing about this, or anything for that matter, but I do not go tell people off when I have not done my research first. And I am not saying that you don’t know what your talking about, for all I know you’re a Quantum Physicists (although I doubt it), but you should check and see if the person you are telling off might be right.

[_Owen_]

You're totally missing the point: You cannot generate antimatter without spending time and energy. You might be able to lessen the time and energy with better technology, but the fact is, you still have to spend time and energy.

I suggest you do some reading on the subject before dismissing what is being said here.

I am aware that it will take time and energy, and Macilnar took the words right out of my mouth, everything takes time and energy. Normally it would be difficult to make anti-matter, with our methods, and yes it would take a lot of time and energy, however if you were in the middle of a war and faced with two options, a little extra work, or complete and total anhilation. Now I admit, the complete and total anhilation would be cool because it would probably be gory, or include some special effects, but personaly I would take the little extra work option.

As for me reading up on the subject before I dismiss what is being said, I would not dismiss anything without having the proper facts, or unless I overlooked something and did not notice. I might only be in grade 8 but I still know what is needed to argue a point in this subject and many, many others.

To conclude, I accpet the fact that it takes time and energy, but who is to say that time and energy aren't worth it in the end.

Owen Macri

[Mr Prophet]

I wonder if there isn't a more relevant question on this topic:

Why should there be antimatter weapons?

[_Owen_]

Yes I believe that would be a more relevant discussion than the one sided argument we are curently fighting.

Owen Macri

[6thMonolith]

--

Why should there be antimatter weapons?

KAAAAAAAA-BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!

[_Owen_]

Lmao, That pretty much explains it!!!

[Macilnar]

I wonder if there isn't a more relevant question on this topic:

Why should there be antimatter weapons?

There shouldn't be an antimatter weapon.

[_Owen_]

Please elaborate, I am already interested, lol.

Owen Macri

[Mr Prophet]

--

As opposed to the perfectly good kabooming weapons they've had so far.

Stargate just isn't hard enough SF for it to matter if they have or haven't got antimatter weapons. They have big space guns that go boom; isn't that enough? If they wanted a bigger space gun that went extra boom with fries, they'd just have a bigger spacegun; no antimatter need apply.

So the question of whether they could extract enough antimatter or not is redundant. As Owen says, maybe the aliens can, and that's the size of the debate. It's fiction. If they wanted it so, the aliens could make enough antimatter and they'd have antimatter guns. Therefore, the question is not 'why no antimatter howitzers?' since the answer to that is just 'because'. The question is, 'is there any compelling reason to have antimatter weapons as opposed to ill-defined boomy space guns that make a noise in vacuum?'

[_Owen_]

I personnaly think it would be cool to have antimatter weapons, however when you think about it, they are not practical in many situations. For example most ships have shields, the antimatter won't be effected by the shield and it will just float in space, it wouldn't even blow up. If the ship didn't have shields they could just use normal weapons.

If they were making a large scale attack on people who didn't have shields, perhaps they were on a planet, they wouldn't need antimatter because there weapons are just as powerful. The antimatter explosion probably won't effect our new enemy (see seaon 9).

There would be a time and a place where antimatter would be extremly useful, and would come in handy, however, in stargate, at present there is no need for it.

While I maintain my original point, that antimatter weapons would be cool to have, I also agree with Mr. Prophet, in saying that there is no need for them. However, the need could arise.

Owen Macri