She shot him with her finger

cthia wrote:Originally I wondered how accurate Honor's finger could be without a barrel of some length to help stabilize the bullet. I used to think the entire finger should house the barrel, until I realized the bends (joints) of the fingers would be dangerous to Honor, by possibly exploding.

Pulsar, nothing to explode. I suspect it runs the whole finger and maybe even more--that just requires straightening the finger before firing. That could be under the control of the gun, she doesn't have to hold it perfectly straight.

Jonathan_S wrote:(Hmm, I wonder if you could use clever grav generators to hold a pulser's barrel at near vacuum so you didn't get a shock wave or significant pressure build-up within the barrel itself)

Hmmm....I wonder if you could make a breaching weapon based on a grav generator. I'm thinking of the battle on the space station to rescue the freighter crews. Grav launcher boosts the missile to supersonic, just before it hits a very powerful grav generator ejects a mass of water at the target. Newton's third law--it's balanced so as to cause the missile to come to a complete stop a tiny bit before it hits, the water continues on at hypersonic speed--it would work basically like shaped charges do now. However, in the end you pick up the spent missile, refill it's water tank, recharge and it's ready to go again.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

cthia wrote:Originally I wondered how accurate Honor's finger could be without a barrel of some length to help stabilize the bullet. I used to think the entire finger should house the barrel, until I realized the bends (joints) of the fingers would be dangerous to Honor, by possibly exploding.

Pulsar, nothing to explode. I suspect it runs the whole finger and maybe even more--that just requires straightening the finger before firing. That could be under the control of the gun, she doesn't have to hold it perfectly straight.

Thanks, the other guys straightened out the holes in my espionage. I guess I missed the details in text; and I assumed the finger used an old fashioned gun because Honor prefers them. Dunno what I was thinking. It makes sense that I simply misread the one shot capability. As Jonathan corrected me, it is a "one use" capability. Then the tip needs replacing. I totally misread that.

Her other fingers could probably launch small grenades and deploy military grade tasers. The tips of her other fingers could deploy P-38s as sharp as Nimitz' claws. Wolverine... er, Wolverina.

Or, better yet, vibro blades.

cthia wrote: Dunno what I was thinking. It makes sense that I simply misread the one shot capability. As Jonathan corrected me, it is a "one use" capability. Then the tip needs replacing. I totally misread that.

And it's the concealing fingertip that's "one use"; the pulser itself shouldn't care whether or not the figertip has been rebuilt.

If for some reason Honor had to use it but then wasn't able to get it rebuilt for, say, a month or two I'm sure the pulser would remain perfectly usable. It shouldn't care about its muzzle being exposed any more than a regular small pulser would. (In either case don't get anything down the barrel). I'm sure it'd be a little annoying to go that long with a hole in the end of her finger; and it'd certainly look a bit weird. (Also I wouldn't think she'd be able to conceal her handgun from close inspection until the tip was rebuilt)

But as a self-defense weapon, or even going to the range a few times for target practice, in that interval before the tip was rebuilt -- that I'm sure wouldn't be a problem.

cthia wrote:The tips of her other fingers could deploy P-38s as sharp as Nimitz' claws. Wolverine... er, Wolverina.

Oh... right... the can opener.
For a moment I had bizarre visions of P-38 Lightning interceptors -- deploying some kind of miniature ones of those from a finger would be quite a trick

cthia wrote:Thanks, the other guys straightened out the holes in my espionage. I guess I missed the details in text; and I assumed the finger used an old fashioned gun because Honor prefers them.

Just because someone has collectible items doesn't mean they use obsolete weapons on duty.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Thanks, the other guys straightened out the holes in my espionage. I guess I missed the details in text; and I assumed the finger used an old fashioned gun because Honor prefers them.

Just because someone has collectible items doesn't mean they use obsolete weapons on duty.

Even though that is exactly what she did against Warnicke.

At any rate, I thought she preferred them because she was more deadly with them at close range. Where I imagine most of her gunfights will occur. If outside that range, something very bad has gone wrong.

I almost forgot. Another reason I thought she had a conventional weapon is because of stealth. I imagine that the HV has an easy time detecting a pulsar. Even a miniature version. But might not detect a conventional weapon hidden inside the mechanics of her arm and hand.

cthia wrote:At any rate, I thought she preferred them because she was more deadly with them at close range. Where I imagine most of her gunfights will occur. If outside that range, something very bad has gone wrong.

I almost forgot. Another reason I thought she had a conventional weapon is because of stealth. I imagine that the HV has an easy time detecting a pulsar. Even a miniature version. But might not detect a conventional weapon hidden inside the mechanics of her arm and hand.

Normally I would agree--but the pulsar is buried in the all the equipment of her artificial arm. I doubt it could be detected above that until it's powered up.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

cthia wrote:At any rate, I thought she preferred them because she was more deadly with them at close range. Where I imagine most of her gunfights will occur. If outside that range, something very bad has gone wrong.

I almost forgot. Another reason I thought she had a conventional weapon is because of stealth. I imagine that the HV has an easy time detecting a pulsar. Even a miniature version. But might not detect a conventional weapon hidden inside the mechanics of her arm and hand.

Normally I would agree--but the pulsar is buried in the all the equipment of her artificial arm. I doubt it could be detected above that until it's powered up.

That's certainly what we're told in WoH

War of Honor - Ch. 51 wrote:She doubted very much that even Imperial Andermani security agents would have been able to spot the weapon built into her arm. She'd certainly paid enough to be certain no one could, at any rate! And she'd had Palace Security test it for her back on Manticore. So she'd just demonstrated that she could have brought a weapon into Rabenstrange's presence if she'd really wanted to . . . and that she took her solemn promise not to do any such thing seriously. And that she wanted Rabenstrange to know she'd done both of those things.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

cthia wrote:At any rate, I thought she preferred them because she was more deadly with them at close range. Where I imagine most of her gunfights will occur. If outside that range, something very bad has gone wrong.

I almost forgot. Another reason I thought she had a conventional weapon is because of stealth. I imagine that the HV has an easy time detecting a pulsar. Even a miniature version. But might not detect a conventional weapon hidden inside the mechanics of her arm and hand.

Normally I would agree--but the pulsar is buried in the all the equipment of her artificial arm. I doubt it could be detected above that until it's powered up.

Jonathan_S wrote:That's certainly what we're told in WoH

War of Honor - Ch. 51 wrote:She doubted very much that even Imperial Andermani security agents would have been able to spot the weapon built into her arm. She'd certainly paid enough to be certain no one could, at any rate! And she'd had Palace Security test it for her back on Manticore. So she'd just demonstrated that she could have brought a weapon into Rabenstrange's presence if she'd really wanted to . . . and that she took her solemn promise not to do any such thing seriously. And that she wanted Rabenstrange to know she'd done both of those things.

I always digested that as if the security agents are giving no more than a rudimentary examination. There are no high tech scanners used. Not even a hand wand.

I always assumed that pulsars should be easily detectable in the HV, even before power up. We can detect guns now with X-Ray gear. There must be a high-tech detection system for weapons in the HV. Or entities like the MA could have a field day. The MA can actually hide weapons inside an agent's body for retrieval by another agent. The smuggler is expendable. If there really is no way to detect a pulsar other than visual inspection and patting down, the Emperor should be doomed.

Heck, in the HV, technology should even be able to detect suicide bombers, even if the bombs are hidden inside the body.

cthia wrote:I always assumed that pulsars should be easily detectable in the HV, even before power up. We can detect guns now with X-Ray gear. There must be a high-tech detection system for weapons in the HV. Or entities like the MA could have a field day. The MA can actually hide weapons inside an agent's body for retrieval by another agent. The smuggler is expendable. If there really is no way to detect a pulsar other than visual inspection and patting down, the Emperor should be doomed.

Heck, in the HV, technology should even be able to detect suicide bombers, even if the bombs are hidden inside the body.

You've got a point there: there must be some detection technology to find weapons. I expect the Totenkopf detail that was guarding Habenstrage was good at their jobs, but Honor's weapon was hiding in plain sight. She was known to them to have a prosthetic arm, so when they scanned her and found a prosthetic arm, they accepted it at face value. They weren't trained on inspecting the result of their scan to note the presence of a built-in weapon. So they fell for confirmation bias: they saw what they wanted to see.

I'm pretty sure they corrected that mistake immediately thereafter, though.

But if it were anyone else, they wouldn't have left someone with unknown prosthetics in the presence of the Herzog. When they captured Honor, the StateSec goons proceeded to deactivate all her prosthetics. Ostensibly and officially, it was for security reasons, though we of course know it was also a form of humiliation to break her will.