Prime Bombs

By Anders Sandberg

These are to Prime what nuclear weapons are to Matter and Forces. Technically, they contain Technomantic devices capable of disrupting the Grand Unified Field (also known as Prime to the lesser enlightened mages). They release a intense burst of Prime, disrupting any nearby patterns and releasing their Prime too. This process effectively destroys an area completely, and could in theory destroy the whole of reality. Fortunately, the pattern-converting effect does spread far in most normal areas.

From the central destruction, a wave of Quintessence radiate outwards, disrupting patterns, Living beings suddenly overload with Prime, Quintessence suddenly manifest as destructive patterns (like explosions, sudden material failures, dangerous forces, dreams coming true, dimensions shifting and spirits manifesting). The most destructive effect of the Prime Bomb is however its effects on nodes and ley lines. As they overload, they may shift or even suffer catastrophic effects as their Prime also begins to manifest. These effects may spread as a chain reaction far away from the original blast site.

The technocracy does never use these nasties anywhere on Earth without very good reasons, and not even then they dare use them nearby any sleepers. They know that these bombs could easily destroy their reality if somebody saw their effects. And if they fell in the wrong hands... So far, they have only been tested once on Earth, in Tunguska, Siberia 1912. Even that little trial detonation was enough to convince the Technocracy to keep the Prime Bombs under lock and key. They are more protected than the nuclear arsenals of any normal nation. Probably only the leaders of the Technocracy have the authority to order one of these weapons to be used.

A more devious weapon is the Prime Overload. Using their vast resources of prime, the technocracy can direct it at a certain point, temporarily creating a "super-node". By swiftly oscilliating the amount of prime, they create a kind of resonance. This "super-node" will disrupt normal Prime-fields locally, especially nodes. The effect is often quite invisible to anybody without Prime except to those inside the super-node, who will feel a strange tingling sensation. This area can be quite small, and Iteration X has designed man-portable primal projectors, which can disrupt pattern magick.