Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide a sonic munition in LPD's catalogue
- Image Source: here
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source:
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Personal Defense
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi Concord, Lucerne Personal Defense Customers
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: LPD-65 Soundblaster Sonic Grenade
- Modularity: No
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Durasteel shell, micrel power supply, Instant Adhesive bottom, typical sonic grenade components
- Classification: Sonic Grenade
- Size: Average
- Weight: Average
- Explosive Type: Sound Generator
- Delivery Method: Hand Thrown / fired out of launcher
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Standard Mode Shaped Mode Subsonic Mode Effective Range: Average Personal Average Area Of Effect: Average Personal Large Damage Output: Average Very High Low
- Sonic Munition: Soundblaster uses a sextet of sound generators to produce intense, high frequency sounds over the course of seconds that can damage or outright destroy targets. At close ranges, Soundblasters can shatter glass and crystals, crack most building materials, or even crumple up metals. Against organics, these sound waves can similarly outright destroy parts of the body, but they are especially effective against ears, especially for species like Bith and Sullustans who are known for their sensitive hearing.
- Variable Fire Modes: Soundblaster has a dial on the top of its body that lets it select the intensity of sound as well as the firing arcs of the individual sound generators inside the sonic grenade. On its standard setting, the Soundblaster omnidirectionally produces a very high intensity sound waves in a short, destructive burst over a few seconds - effectively acting like a standard sonic grenade. In its shaped mode, turning the dial causes all of the sound generators to turn and focus downwards on the grenades bottom. This results in a very powerful, but highly focused attack that mimics the effects of a shaped charge, making it ideal for penetrating or disintegrating thick defenses as a placed demolition. Lastly, the Soundblaster can change the frequency and the power of the sound waves to produce a buffeting, knockdown blasts that persist for up to a half minute, largely mimicking a subsonic grenade. The damage in this mode is typically fairly light and usually nonlethal, but its area of effect also tends to be in dozens of meters and most users caught in the blast radius find their sense of balance thrown off for several minutes afterwards.
- Adhesive Bottom: The bottom cap of the LPD-65 can be screwed off to reveal a pad covered in instant adhesive, which allows the grenade to be solidly attached to a variety of objects, whether it's to a wall as part of a boobytrap or directly onto an opponent's armor.
- Versatile: The easily programmable nature of the sound generators makes it to change the weapon's effects, from a relatively indiscriminate nonlethal weapon to a precise, placed shaped demolition charge.
- Environmentally Useful (Water): Sounds oftentimes travel further in water as a medium, making it especially useful in aquatic battles.
- Electronic Based: Unlike most grenades, the programmable nature of the weapon does mean that it can be affected by large scale blast ion or EMP weapons, potentially making it useless before it is every deployed.
- Environmentally Useless (Space): There typically isn't enough molecules to vibrate sound in space, making it useless in this environment.
DESCRIPTION
While uncommon, sonic grenades and demolitions have existed for thousands of years in the galaxy. Lucerne Personal Defense had little interest in the devices until they looked into equipping their aquatic security force and discovered a lack of effective grenade-type weapon in such environments. A quick crash study of existing sonic demolitions combined with clever programming and the use of the existing chassis of the company's standard LPD-24 Fireblast Dual-Purpose Grenade created the Soundblaster.
While it largely appears to be a common grenade from the outside, the internals are vastly different, with most of the space being occupied by six sound generators and a reasonably powerful but disposable power supply. These sound generators can be modulated via a dial interface to produce different frequencies, intensity of sound, and even orientation of the sound in order to get different effects. In this way, the Soundblaster can act as a sonic grenade, subsonic grenade, or sonic shaped charge - making it surprisingly versatile.
Like most military grade weaponry, Lucerne Labs has so far restricted their sales of this weapon to established governments with similar political views to those of the company's leadership. Most Soundblasters are thus commonly found in the armories of the Silver Jedi Concord, the Directorate, and other trusted allies. Within such groups, it is most commonly issued to soldiers on aquatic worlds or to security forces for riot control.
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