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[Itnetlolor]

Where are my Kaijyuu Physics?

This thread is disappoint.

All the jokes about me and large sizes would be NSFW.

They would also, going on from some of the posts in this thread, be unrealistic 

Even if they include nuclear power?

Considering power is the main topic here, I think it's already gone balls out. Let's redirect the energy somewhere useful.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

To get this thing to work, we need two things:

1: A power source that does need to have things brought to it.
2: Some efficient way to store that energy.

For 1, I'd say solar power, in the form of photosynthesis, is the way to go, although photosynthesis does use up water, providing loose hydrogen and oxygen atoms (which is one of the reasons I suggested using liquid hydrogen earlier). To work around this, we'd need a system to turn that back into water without net energy loss.

For 2, I have no idea what to do, but it's definitely necessary, as no matter what power source we use, it won't be capable of providing the energy at the same rate as it's being used.

[andrea]

have you considered storing energy as hydrogen and oxygen? Since you need to have a good stock of them for photosynthesis water, may as well gather more and fill 2 big sacs of them, to burn when more power is required. Although that would require some kind of fuell cell like reaction. but we are in full science fiction already. Power density may be poor however.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

Seeing as that's a side product of photosynthesis, that makes quite a bit of sense, but while one of my duties as a Bay12 member is to condone all explosions, that seems quite unsafe. Then again, nothing makes for quite as good a story as having a giant spider daikaiju explode.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

Ladies, gentlemen, hive minds and assorted eldritch abominations, calculations show that, due to the excessive use of hydrogen gas and liquid helium, the average density of this spider varies from 0.800 kg/m³ to 1.400 kg/m³, depending on the thickness of the exoskeleton. The density of water at room temperature is 0.999, and that of air is somewhere around 1.2.

To put that into perspective, that means we've created an unholy hybrid of spider, plant, the metric system and Graf Zeppelin's work. I'm goddamn proud of you guys, for all of your help so far.

The next question and challenge I have for you guys is: is it possible to make an organic laser weapon?

I think some sort of bioluminescence, even with a series of focusing lenses in front of the surface, would provide far too weak a beam. Then again, that's not even an actual laser, as a laser uses photons to strike other particles, which provide another photon of precisely the same wavelength, and so on and so on. What we'd need is a completely new organelle.

[GiglameshDespair]

You can use organic semiconductors and organic dyes as the gain medium. Creatures can already produce electric currents. Probably it'll require some machinery, and no matter what it's made from, a creature is unlikely to be able to produce enough power to make a functioning weapon, considering we can barely make a laser weapon ourselves. It could also never elvove naturally as no doubt it'd require a lot of specialised evolutions that wouldn't benefit the creature for a long time.

So my best guess is no, not completely.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

a creature is unlikely to be able to produce enough power to make a functioning weapon, considering we can barely make a laser weapon ourselves. It could also never evolve naturally as no doubt it'd require a lot of specialized evolution that wouldn't benefit the creature for a long time.

Considering the backstory of this creature, and it's "species" in general, as a type of self-modifying hive mind, the idea of "natural" is not really applicable here, so that's one constraint lifted. And these lasers are, relative to the creature itself, very, very small. They're going to be contained in the spider's hairs, so it will only end up using a very small amount of energy compared to the creature's total energy output.

You can use organic semiconductors and organic dyes as the gain medium.

Sounds like the best and most reasonable option. A ring of electrocytes generates a current, while some other cells produce large amounts of a highly conductive protein or use proteins to create large amounts of the appropriate compound, which end up filling the area between the electrocytes. Meanwhile, yet another group of cells, separated from electrified area by a filter that removes most wavelengths from the light passing through it to the gain medium, produce a substance akin to luciferase. The only parts I can't figure out is how to a: make the mirroring around the gain medium and b: how to stop the gain medium's fluids from falling out of the laser.