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Janes Odd Weaponry: The Invisible Planet in Joreal Files:
The Walri Cannon:
The Walri Cannon represents a revolutionary conceptual leap in interstellar warfare. Combining already existing components with a supremely imaginitve leap of conception, the design team at The Invisible Planet in Joreal have created a weapon that can fire inter-system, a two-generation advance over current, strictly intra-sector, weaponry.
We have interviewed the lead engineer of the project, and this is what he had to say:
Q: What, exactly, IS the Walri Cannon?
A: The Walri Cannon is a strictly intership weapon, and is essentially a subspace jump-drive and drone combination, with the slight modification that the drone is actually a space-suited Walrus.
Q: How does it work, exactly?
A: Well, in the gun itself, a modified subspace jumpdrive creates an instant 'portal' to the sector you wish to fire upon, or, if the sector is extra-system, the first jump node required to go there. The Walri then jump through this portal.
Now, if the target sector is intra-system, the Walri will immediately arrive there and begin rending the drones with their tusks, which will have been pre-sharpened for this occasion. The tusks protrude through the spacesuit via the means of a small gasket.
The spacesuits are equipped with modified Kitaran maneouverability packages, enabling the Walri to dodge any drone attack; furthermore, the spacesuit is made out of poly-hardened laminated Zallun battlearmour, with an AI equivalent of 40. Essentially, this means that no drone is likely to hit the Walri, and such that do will do only minimal damage.
If the target is extra-system, the Walri will follow the navigational route initially fed into them, using their SSJDs to pass from system to system until the target sector has been reached.
Q: Those spacesuits must be rather large.
A: Actually, we are lucky enough to have several Taenarians, who, most emphatically, do not wished to be named, on the Walri Cannon team. With their expertise, and that of our other designers, we were able to shrink it to almost skin-tight. The specifics of that must remain classified, I'm afraid. There is one feature of the suit, however, that will revolutionize ship-to-ship combat when we introduce it on our new line of Mosquito-class patrol boats.
Q: I couldn't ask what that feature is?
A: No. No you may not.
Q: Fine. Getting back to the Walri Cannon, how in the world did you get life-support systems for the Walri into a suit that small?
A: Energy-to-matter converters, powered by a minaturized fusion reactors. I know it is generally believed, even by those who should know better, that SSJDs and fusion reactors are impossible to fit on anything smaller than a frigate.
They're wrong. Mad Taenarians are very useful.
Q: You can really do that?
A: Yes. Yes we can.
Q: Cool. How much damage will a typical volley do?
A: Well, each blast from a typical Walri Cannon generally launches five to ten Walri, depending on how many the commander of the ship wishes to use. The number of Walri used affects only how quickly the drones are destroyed, not the number. One Walrus is perfectly capable of destroying well over 3000 drones... In testing, we reached a high of 3141 drones before the Walrus died of exhaustion. In essence, therefore, the Walri Cannon has unlimited drone damage.
Q: This is all quite incredible. May I see a demonstration?
A: Certainly not. Only people who buy the Walri Cannon are authorized to see it in action; anyone else is either the target of the Cannon and/or on The Invisible Planet in Joreal's hit-list.
Neither is a good place to be.
Q: How do we know your claims are true, then?
A: Those who need to know, know. The Invisible Planet in Joreal caters only to the most discerning clientele. We are known to never not deliver what we promise. You yourself must know of this, or this interview would not be taking place.
Q: Erm, okay. What would the cost of the Walri Cannon be, then?
A: It depends on the size of the Walri Holding Area that the customer wishes for purchase. Typically, Walri Cannons go for between 310-410 million credits, Walri included. Our portraiding model sells for 1billion.
However, credits alone will not let you purchase this Cannon. Such power cannot be entrusted to just anyone. A rigourous series of tests must be passed, beginning with landing upon our planet. Of course, in order to do THAT, you must first find it.
Q: Do you have any closing comments?
A: CRUSH DRONES!
The Rocket Propelled Goose
Once again, the Invisible Planet in Joreal has come up with a weapon sure to revolutionize modern combat. Building off of such previous bioweaponry successes as the Walri Cannon and the Dipping-Bird, IPIJ's topnotch weapons labs have just successfully field tested the new Rocket-Propelled Goose.
We turn now to the being behind many of these designs, Chief Kl-plo`k Froth.
Q: Forgive our curiousity, but what exactly does your title mean?
A: Literally translated into Galach, it means 'Chief Drunken-late-night-idea guy'.
Q: ... Okay. What is the basic purpose behind the RPG design, and what uses to you foresee for it?
A: Well, recently there has been a large shift in how weapons work versus ships; in particular, accuracy became a key consideration. While our Walri Cannon design is spectatularly accurate and very damaging against drones, our weapon lineup needed a high-accuracy, high-damage anti-ship item that would be somewhat more affordable and smaller than some of our previous designs.
We think the RPG is the answer, and we expect to see it used in large numbers on some of the smaller ships or by pilots who chose not, for one reason or another, to use our highend concepts.
Q: So, how does it work?
A: Basically, you take a goose and give it rockets. The actual details must remain classified, I'm afraid -we have a patent pending.
Q: What effects does it have?
A: An RPG does a rather astonishing amount of damage to shields and armour; it does more than a quad-crit max-damage Doomsday Fusion. It is almost completely ineffective against drones; one impact will destroy the drone, but it will also stop the goose. It is, however, highly accurate; in our field test, we managed to consistently hit pilots out to a level differential of around fifty.
Q: What was the inspiration for the RPG?
A: It happened late one night, after I'd been doing some reading about ancient, pre-spaceflight aerial combat; one thing that was mentioned a number of times was the devastating effect hitting a large bird had on the 'aircraft' of the era. I'd also just finished watching an amusing video on the merits of large quantities of single-sided grey adhesives, wherein the main characters manage to succeed in a quest by making this giant, adhesive goose fly through a combustion reaction [OOC: Duct Tape Forever, based on the Red-Green Show on CBC]. The two things pretty much just merged, and then I went and got dead drunk.
Q: Hence your title, I suppose?
A: Nah, the title is honourary. I picked it up after I consumed five kilos of sugar in fifteen minutes and said that I could fly.
Q: And could you?
A: Well, I certainly was higher than a kite.
Q: You evaded the question.
A: So I did.
Q: ... How much would a typical RPG go for?
A: A fixed price of around 50million, plus ammo.
Q: And you say this is a lower-end weapon?
A: Of course not! IPIJ doesn't make 'lower-end weapons'. It is, however, lower in price, relatively speaking.
Q: You could buy ships for that amount!
A: Your point? Stick ten of these babies in your secondary hardpoints, and you could kill anything you wanted to.
Q: Is that a boast?
A: It's a promise.
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