Weapons of the Future: Reality and Solar Echoes (part 4)

The military has developed a weapon known as the Active Denial System, which is a gun that shoots painful millimeter waves. If the gun is focused on a target, it takes only a few seconds before the target will feel extreme heat. This weapon can be used for crowd control at riots, but a carefully censored report from the Air Force in 2007 reveals that an airman was burned by the beam as well. He was playing the role of an enemy scout during an exercise intended to evaluate the weapon, and was blasted at full power for four seconds. In Solar Echoes, there is a similar weapon called the Tormenter. Each round after the initial hit, the attacker may continue to damage the target as long as he keeps the beam focused on the target. The damage done will increase by 1 point per round, and it ignores physical armor. In the Solar Echoes universe, the Tormentor has become a media target because of its use against mobs of protestors, many of which have received life-threatening burns on their bodies due to intentional beam-focusing by riot suppression forces.