Analyzing the Self-Destruct Device

#1

So I was thinking about the self-destruct device. Obviously it changes in different movies, comics, and games, but in general it’s depicted as a small nuclear device.

Based on what a human can survive at the distance the FT needs to get away from the Pred in this game (ignoring death from burns on exposed skin or radiation poisoning), the yield of the nuclear device on the pred’s self-destruct is around 0.33 kilotons. This puts it on a scale of the smallest human-designed nuclear devices, such as the W54 nuclear explosive, a nuclear device that could be fired by a RPG-like device. The main difference, with the Pred’s self-destruct device is the size. The W54 was cylindrical, 27.6 cm in diameter, 39.9 cm in length (23,872cm^3), using 1.6 kg plutonium, and 2.4kg of uranium, 23kg total weight with nuclear material and bomb. That’s bigger than the Pred’s wrist device. From what I could find googling, with updated designs, it’s generally assumed that could be about halved in volume (11,936cm^3).

Pred’s wrist device, to me, looks to be something around 35 cm in length, 10cm in width, and 6cm in depth (2100 cm^3)

So the Pred obviously has miniaturized that nuke well past what humans have thus-far done, but the miniaturization is to such a degree that it has to be doing more than just engineering. Predators have to be using produced fissible materials. The only fissible material known that could produce a nuclear explosion of such a size with such a small volume is Californium-252, which is 5 times more radioactive than weapons-grade uranium, so that is most likely the fissible material in the Predator’s wrist device.

The only problem with Californium-252 is that it has a half-life of 2.6 years. Predators typically show up to Earth every 7 years, which would imply something around a 3-3.5 year travel time, so that would mean that Predators couldn’t be simply making the wrist devices at home and sending hunters off with them, instead, the Californium-252 would have to be made with a particle accelerator on-board their ship and the fissible materials inserted just prior to the hunt starting. The Pred ship looks long enough for a linear particle accelerator to fit, though.

So if you wondered what that thing contains, that’s my best guess.

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#2

Nice text. But Pred’s tech is not even in the periodic table.

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#3

Wow that’s a lot of research. Impressive.

So a couple of things

First. Wrist computers are also computers for everything they have.

So the actual explosive is even smaller.

Another thing is the bomb also typically results in the Pred dying so they’re probably not replaced often.

As to how it explodes, it causes electricity to shoot out which isn’t something I’d expect from a nuke. So the entire process is probably different.

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#4

I don’t personally think that the electricity shooting out is something to do with the actual explosion so much as the wrist computer itself. The explosion does create a mushroom cloud, an EMP, and radiation sickness. I think that the wrist computer uses a radioisotope thermal generator (sometimes called a nuclear battery) for power. Furthermore, the electricity that shoots out, depending on the movie, sometimes looks like induced-electric fields such as would happen by heavy current in a superconductor. Superconductors have no electrical resistance so all power fed into them circulates freely. A superconducting circuit could create a massive electric magnet and thereby induce huge electrical currents nearby.

Superconductors make the most efficient quantum computers we know of currently. Maybe instead of conventional explosives to achieve massive energy density from the fissible material, they instead use two tiny rail guns within the wrist computer using a superconductor to slam the fissible material together.

Humans don’t currently have any theory for high-temperature superconductors (though some have been discovered, none anywhere near the temps the wrist computer operates) but predators are far more advanced, so a room temp superconductor would feasibly be in their tech range.

#5

Also, I know the most obvious answer is “it’s fiction, it’s magic” but I just thought it’d be interesting to try to think of how it might possibly work with real physics. Predators canonically being extremely radiation-resistant allows for some cool exotic nuclear materials to make it work within volume limits and other advanced technology allows for ways to come up with ideas about how other things about it might work.

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#6

Uncool niece

#7

FT needs an auto hack device to defuse the bomb

#8

Are you guys sure the bomb is in the wrist device? It could be anywhere else and the device just acting like a trigger.

#9

In predator 2 Keyes said the blast radius was 300 city blocks. Which is pretty dam massive. That’s 30 miles in diameter and 15 in radius. But in avp it was much bigger at the end or so they say. Alot of people basically state that the bomb radius or diameter can be manipulated by the Predator on his wrist computer. Meaning he can press certain keys that increase the blast or make it smaller to fit whatever size blast is required to do the job. In my personal opinion I definitely will say that the wrist computer is the primary source to arm the bomb. And it is the bomb. As in avp you see scar throw it in the nest after arming it and then runs away. Later you see it explode.

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#10

Yeah, even in AVP 2010 Dark arms his fallen clan members wrist computers for seemingly the smallest explosions.

I think the timer and the blast radius are connected, at least for the wrist computers. So the bombs are actually charging up for the explosion.

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