"Nukes are barbaric and we have sworn never to use such weapons of mass destruction... Now check out our orbital Death Ray!"

"Ion Cannon ready!"

Funny thing is we're technically touching the technology for accelerated particles but not weaponized (yet) satellites due to a 1980s treaty (which was due to Rod of God/Canes of God kinetic energy weapons platforms).

Edited for clarity. You're mostly right. While it is true that particle beams are kinetic weapons, they're actually similar to sand blasters. Yes, the individual grains of sand or particles erode the target physically, but they also heat up the target by means of lots of friction. In the end, much of the kinetic damage is turned to thermal damage at the impact site. So, while both lasers and particle guns operate under different principals, both damage their target similarly. In effect, the target itself is heated to the point where the surface melts or boils away. In the case of beams that cause explosions, you're actually heating the target so fast that the surface turns from solid to gas skipping the liquid phase. The amount of energy you need to do this is, predictably, very high, but the end result is that the impact site itself vaporizes. This means 2 things: 1, the material shot is weakened by the fact that there's less solid stuff. 2, the sudden transition of material from solid to gas means that the gas has a lot of energy and wants to expand outward. A sudden change in pressure causes a shockwave. The end effect is that the target's surface becomes a small explosive. This is why, despite lasers and particle guns having very little recoil and their..."projectiles" having very low mass, you can still result in impacts similar to if the target was shot with a conventional gun.

15:32 "Formidable cyborgs" -Gets taken out by turrets I know they are pretty good but the timing he said it xd

There's so much lore that I never knew or it was to dense for me to read, thank you for your work making this great stuff available to all

So glad there are still people who talk about Command and Conquer lore.

came for C&C lore, got a free physix lesson in the bundle. love these videos. :)

Looking at the design of the TW3 Ion Cannon satellites, it may be that the eight secondary beams are used, as was said in the video, to ionize the air in the target area to create a larger explosion while the Main beam does not require them to cause damage, as it was able to do so before in TW1 and 2

Came for the amazing lore as usual, learned that Particle canons/beams are not lazers lol

It's amazing how you explain the science behind the weapons. I have so many memories of playing this game as a kid and watching these videos is so enjoyable and nostalgic. Keep up the great work.

I fixed my old laptop today and the first thing I'm installing is the whole CnC games

First, le me say welcome back Jethild. Good to see you back. This is another impressive work. For me, I like the Tiberium Wars Ion Cannon more as it is more powerful the way I see it.

A possible explanation for the shoulder mounted Ion cannon is battery burnout. I'd imagine that even if it recharges, the battery only has so much structural tenacity to it if you're pumping that much juice through such a small thing in rapid succession. The ammo count could be the battery running out of life rather than power.

When I was really young, I thought that the Ion cannon threw a bunch of smurfs at the speed of light and thats why the beam was blue. lol

The true definition of " Death from above !! "

Thank you sir, love the lore

I gotta be honest. I actually did forgot about ya until you've popped up on my recommend feed again. I'm pretty damn happy on seeing ya again and uploading another c&c lore video. well anyways I know this comment will be drown and gone from the sea of comment section but I do hope for the best for you and I truly hope you continued on finding these tiny too large detail's of c&c universe until you've move on to the next game.

Everybody gangsta until you hear thunder and see the hair on your arms start to stand up.

I always wondered what the actual difference was, because they go of roughly the same principle of acceleration. Makes sense! 😁👌

I believe that the things that are spinning, during the recharge cycle of the portable ion weapon, might be heat sinks or something simmilar.

Ok, we all know that the Tiberium Twilight is non-existant and all, but real question, how in the hell did GDI turn their ion cannon into a EMP + Ion combo? And, the ion control center even fired a beam up, as if they replaced the entire ion cannon defense network and turned it into a reflector network, similar to how the venoms could reflect lasers from beam cannons.

My god your vids are great espacilly now that im playing GDI campign for the first time in my life in tib sun i am new but your vids make the game better with hard diffcilty i enjoey soooo much thank you next vid should be about nukes

"We don't use nukes." "In other news, we are happy to announce our new and inavative weapon of mass destruction! The Ion Cannon!"

I appreciate the efforts put into these videos, however, I am quite firmly of the opinion that gameplay quirks (Like weather changes in Renegade, or their extreme lacklustre power in especially Tiberian Dawn) are to be ignored as simple gameplay decisions. Same with it's inconsistency in C&C3 as you noted it fires differently in game compared to the cutscenes, yes both the Temple Prime and Scrin arrival cutscenes.

Good!

I believe the Merlin's "twirl around" might be the weapon venting heat. It is a shoulder-mounted particle accelerator, after all, and, now thinking about it, maybe radiation was a large part of why it was decommissioned. All in all, a greatly interesting video, as always.

i love these videos thanks for making them

Another awesome video.

These are very well made and edited, not to mention the information and details. Good work!

Once again another perfect video! Been waiting for a new one!

Can you please do a video on Nod Stealth and Cloaking technology.

finaly a new jethild video. and of very high quality as always. great work again :)

I love your content. Well displayed and explained.

You are amazing, I love these videos, please keep going.

Dude I'm so glad you make these videos, I've been looking for good command and conquer lore for years.

Love your channels content buddy

You put more love for the CnC saga into one video than ea put into every game since Tiberian Sun.

Not only do I love the thought, lore, and science that went into this video, but your visual effects are top notch! You just earned yourself a sub. Keep up the amazing work!

Like with the LASER video, I very much appreciate how you go the extra mile to provide the real-world science behind these concepts and actually explain them in an easy to understand manner. 10/10!

Excellent

2021 starts very nicely

Short but great. I love it

4:17 - Best ending credits.

Oh how I wish they'd remaster these games. Been waiting for more videos. Brilliant

Honestly, I love the idea of orbital ion cannons. Really good video too

Thanks man very EPIC

After having played through a few times, I still find there's plenty I do not know, and thank you for your videos.

Let me start of with nice video! Concerning the Merlin, I've got some theories on my own. Shots being limited by energy consumption maybe. Those charged particles need to be charged somehow. Also I always thought the spinning was a cooling mechanism. Love that you came up with some other theories (or if you didn't come up with them, found them). Anyway, keep up the great work!

Finally, lore time

0 dislikes and if someone ruins it he is not a human

I love these vids

to think that this guy doesn't even have 10k subs is surprising

This Channel is gold

In Tib Wars when Nod first uses particle beam weapons they appear to have a technological edge with GDI never having brought handheld versions to mass production. Since its significantly harder to create a very small particle beam weapon like we see in KW one can assume that the technological capability to build an ion canon type weapon is merely a matter of ressources for Nod.

I do love me some C&C lore. Anyone else here play RenegadeX? Lol

You should do rail weapon for your next videos.

Please do more lore videos on other C&C weapons!

Hungry for more

The destruction of the GDSS Philadelphia is kind of hilarious to me. You'd think they'd have anti-missile and anti-meteorite point defenses or something onboard.

Nice ion canon you have there GDI be a shame if someone could hack it...

You are great man; im so thankful that this *dead* community has such a talented and passionate personality.

Whats next? I think maybe you can make a video that the black hand confessor cabal squads weapon that shoots the “Charged Particle Beam” that u can get by an upgrade Maybe the Charged Particle Beam doesn’t need an entire video since it looks like the GDI Beam And I remember you explaining me how it works on the Nod laser technology video I don’t know if you remember... anyway, awesome video as always 👍 I’m one of your first 200 subscribers And I really try to support u as hard as i can and I can’t support you anymore than subscribing and liking and sharing... keep it up❤️

1:55 Thanks for showing off the sick looking pipe lol

Thank you, I love the ion cannon, most fun superweapon ever. (Although not a big roster, fun idea: superweapons in video games)

The Ion Cannon keeps getting more powerful. In the first game, it was strong indeed, but lacked the area of effect while Nod had the nukes. This is compensated by airstrikes, combination of these and the Ion Cannon is deadly. Now the Ion Cannon is a massive threat. But I admit that even in Tiberian Sun GDI doesn't have an advantage over Nod, as they have their own missiles, even two kinds of them, and just as devastating. Chemical one possibly even more if targeted right. (and they steal Ion Cannon anyway if you play Nod) Ion Cannon was stronger in this game than before, but still not as strong as in third. that one is almost on par with a nuke when it comes ot area of effect, but recharges faster.

You forgot to mention, that scrin also used particle beams in their weaponry. Most obvious - Annihilatior tripod, disintegrators and devourer tank. Their beams look like, that they're ion based. Also weapons with short waves of particles - gun walker, stormrider, unupgraded shock troopers, planetary assault carrier.

Coming back to this in 2024 and let me just say the Generals Evolution mod has gorgeous Particle Cannon effects.

that Ion Cannon explosion at the end was so satisfying XD i love to use it especially since it's so brutal

6 dislikes are from fanatics of Brotherhood

Love your lore videos! They are really informative and give a good perspective of the c&c world. I have a question: after the collapse of the Soviet Union at the start of the tiberium dawn what are your perspective on the world stage regards to nation states in europe and the rest of the world. Love to hear a input! /Mod Developer for C&C mod for Hearts of Iron 4

hot damn, i'm trying to study but here i am learning about particle beam weapons from a game💀 these videos are too damn interesting

As soon as I saw I clicked 🤩

I'm... surprised by the actually accurate description of particle beams (and, for that matter, lasers) and how they inflict damage. That's far rarer than it should be in science fiction, particle beams especially. Only error of sorts would be beam neutralisation, which while being a real thing, isn't something an ion cannon would do (hence the name; charged particles). And which is, remarkably enough, accurate - while a neutral particle beam is optimal in a vacuum to prevent the particles from repelling each other, a charged particle beam is ideal in an atmosphere, as the charged particles repel atmospheric molecules and thus actually maintain greater beam cohesion by avoiding direct collisions. Requires a minimum of air density to work (altitude below 200 km) but the lowest orbiting satellite on record did it at 180 km, so it's just barely manageable. (Nielsen, Effects of Directed Energy Weapons, 1994, just a year before the original C&C's release. Hmm...)

The Alien Scrin's rift generator is an even more deadly and highly advanced super weapon, it can temporarily create a massive black hole with an extremely intense vortex moving around it, tearing nearby units and structures apart and soaking almost everything into it. As top GDI engineers on the ion cannon project had described their own superweapon as the product in the ancient world when it's compared to the Alien's.

4:41 "which saw gdi and nod forces, engaged in Mortal Kombat" ROUND 1 FIGHT!!!

I wouldnt say particle weapons do only kinetic damage. As particles travel through the air the friction will result in decent heat buildup, thats why they light up and why you can see burns after Ion Cannon hit.

Seeing the Ion Cannon for the first time in C&C 3 was freaking awesome. It turned it from a meh, it's okay I guess. To a real super weapon and something that's just a lot of fun to use. When I played verses AI skirmishes with my 2 other friends. We would do simultaneous triple Ion Cannon shots on one of the enemy AI's base. With luck we could wipe them out or cripple beyond repair in an instant. Which was always so good. One moment they're a fully operational Hard AI in the middle of launching an attack on one of us and in one giant flash of blue light nothing. Oh wait no look it's their harvester returning from the fields.

Down With GDI!

in fact the hadron collider in Cern is rebuilt already as a defence weapon. ready to be used. and now they are planning to install the same prototype on the moon.

First! Love the vids!

9:32 These 8 beams may actually be lasers. Basically, their function might be to just ionize the air to create a tunnel made up of plasma. So when the actual particle beam is shot down, the tunnel ends up conducting the beam like a wire, and preventing it from spreading. This is essentially the same logic behind an electrolaser, another weapon that uses lasers to ionize air. Except an electrolaser shoots electricity instead of subatomic particles.

when i play tiberian sun, i always like to use the ini files to modify the mammoth mark 2 to fire lasers instead of railguns (railguns have so much terrain issues), i then make the lasers light blue and pretent they are ion cannons

I think a reason that the firing sequence is faster against the scrin ships could be that the slower firing causes damage over a much larger area, and that’s not really needed against the scrin transports. GDI command is trying to destroy them quickly, assuming that a single powerful blast will do the job. They’d be right too, if the scrin ships weren’t to some degree designed to counter that strategy directly

That was badass to destroy the philly station like that..😯

Huh, I assumed that the Ion Cannon actually would be using some sort of laser technology; you heat up the air with a laser so the ion beam can be channeled at the target. You can probably skip that step when firing at enemy spaceships or you don't need as much energy put into the laser channel? Maybe the Portable Ion Cannon's "ammunition" is the battery life and after firing each shot you vent the heat.

So, basically, the Partical Cannon is a Particle Shotgun

This is making me want to play Renegade.

Even if the initial impact did not work out as intended, I suspect the Scrin were more than a bit surprised when closing in on a world they thought cleared of life had satellites that started to fire particle beam weapons at them and then would continue to do so on the ground.

I remember some lore saying that Tiberium, and I think specifically blue Tiberium was instrumental in the development of Ion and other charged particle weaponry. Not sure if it was something to do with it providing enough energy to make it practical or if the weapons actually use Tiberium particles as "ammunition"

*RA3 Proton Collider is the same, with chain reaction, built on Earth, and with slower particles instead*

Honestly we need a Commando variant carrying the Merlin and Godsend, maybe a Subfaction focused on Ion Technology Advancement.

the only way i can think of why the shoulder mounted particle cannon has a some sort of ammo is because it may have a limited amount of Charge in it and requires a constant exchange of energy sources like changing a battery

I love Tiberium Sun and Firestorm.

Wouldn't charged particle guns also generate crazy heat? Also zoids use them, they take in air from the atmosphere and then fire the particles like a fire hose.

Kontent about GDI tiberium dawn rocket technology please ? Mammoth tanks, advanced guard tower, orcas.

4:45 I hate that I can't stop thinking about that.

1:27, technically it can electrocute as well due to the particles being charged

ironic how every tiberium war was ended by an ion cannon to the same temple.....

strange thing is although Nod can fit their soldiers, well, the elite ones at least, with personal Particle Beam weapon, and base defense weapon and at least an airborne version, they didn't develop Vehicle version...