| Spectrum Technology | |
| File:MirageAttack.jpg | |
| Mirage tanks using their Spectrum cannons on Soviet Hammer tanks | |
| Faction |  Allied Nations
|
| Function | Destruction of enemy armoured vehicles |
| Brief | Light focused through prisms to create intense high temperature rainbow coloured beams. |
"Magnifiers activated."
- - Mirage tank crew during fire sequence
History[]
A Light in the Darkness[]
During the darkest days of the Second World War, when the Allied Nations were at their most desperate and the Soviets seemed virtually unstoppable, many research projects were commissioned. Scientists all around the world were directed to work on finding ways to develop new technologies to use against the Soviets, or to find potential military uses of existing technologies.
Many successful weapons and technologies resulted from this massive surge in scientific research during the Second World War, from GAP technology and the Chronosphere, to the early attempts at weaponising particle accelerators that would later lead to Proton Collider weaponry. Other lines of research were less successful, such as the ill-fated attempt to develop a bomb that literally split atoms.
One of the greatest successes arising from this research was the development of Spectrum technology, pioneered by a group of physicists working at Bell Labs. The group, having been ordered to work on the development of a "death ray" to counter the Soviet Union's Tesla technology, made a breakthrough, when in 1953 they created a microwave amplifier, a device that could produce a coherent beam of microwave radiation. Work continued, now branching into into the visible spectrum, leading to the creation of a coherent optical oscillator capable of producing a monochromatic beam of light. The technology now existed, but it was far too weak to be weaponised.
Tesla's Competitor[]
Spectrum technology in the form that most people are familiar with today would have to wait for 1958, when a French physicist by the name of Nicolette Truchon created an optical oscillator that could produce a beam of light powerful enough to be weaponised. One of the side effects of the oscillator was that the beam produced had a rather colourful nature, which would lead to some person dubbing it a "spectrum ray". The name became stuck in the public consciousness, quickly eclipsing other terms such as L.O.S.E.R. (even for beams of light that weren't multicoloured), despite the best efforts of scientists.
Allied scientists were now focused on improving upon Truchon's "spectrum" beam generator (though research would continue into the other, less powerful versions), finally leading to the creation of a greatly improved spectrum beam generator in 1963, which, in addition to being powerful enough to melt through armour-grade steel, also had the additional property of refracting when it struck a target, causing it to strike additional targets. With tensions with the Soviet Union flaring up and war looking like an increasingly likely prospect, the decision was made to arm the then-prototype Mirage tank with the new spectrum weapon, as well as to work on the creation of handheld and stationary base defence variants. Spectrum technology would claim its first victims soon enough...
Other Uses[]
In addition to the use of spectrum technology in military weapons, there are other uses of spectrum technology. At lower intensities, spectrum beams can be used to designate a certain target, as seen by the "Spyglass" target designator on the Guardian Tank.
Spectrum technology can also be used a sensor, as shown by the Vindicator, in which a spectrum sensor is used to allow the Vindicator to achieve levels of accuracy that would not be possible otherwise. Spectrum rangefinders, which are used to gauge the distance to a target, are standard on Allied Guardian Tanks and many other vehicles. Spectrum sensors have many civilian applications as well, such as in the fields of archaelogy, geology and atmospheric physics, but to name a few.
Spectrum pointers, which shine a low intensity spectrum beam, are now widespread on the commercial market and have to some extent replaced traditional pointers. However, after several incidents where people were permanently blinded when the spectrum beam of a spectrum pointer was shined in their eyes, the Allies made a crime to possess a "blinding spectrum weapon" and immediately confiscated and banned the sale of pointers that fell into the category. Of course, the definition doesn't apply to spectrum weapons that are powerful enough to kill as well as blind.
One of the newer and more interesting applications of spectrum technology is that of Spectrum Cooling, which uses spectrum beams to lower the temperature of an atom to near absolute zero temperatures. Spectrum cooling works by applying two specific wavelength spectrum beams from opposite directions, which results in the atom absorbing and emitting photons. The end result of this process is that through the emission and scattering of photons, the average velocity of the atom, and thus kinetic energy, is reduced, thus resulting in a corresponding drop in temperature.
The technology has a number of applications, from creating Bose Einstein Condensates for use in Gravametrics to using the technology to cool and trap atoms in atomic clocks. Experiments in quantum technology are known to make use of spectrum cooling, in order to allow Allied scientists to observe the unique quantum effects that only occur at temperatures close to absolute zero. Spectrum cooling has also seen some applications in the field of Cryotechnology, where it is sometimes use to cool down substances to extremely low temperatures, although traditional methods of cooling still prevail in the production of liquid helium.
Application[]
FutureTech first utilized Spectrum technology in the Mirage tank, and it's still only incorporated with the more high-tech weaponry in the Allied arsenal it is utilized by:
