Gauss

This page is needs images. Help plz.

The last name of Carl Friedrick Gauss, one of the greatest mathematicians in history. His work in calculus was (and is) invaluable to the study of electromagnetism, so he got a unit of magnetic field strength named after him.

It is universally agreed that "Gauss" is a cool name, and so you can bet dollars to donuts that any sci-fi gizmo with any sort of vaguely electromagnetic theme will have the word "gauss" in it.

By the way, if an electromagnetic weapon doesn't have "gauss" in its name, it's a fair bet that it has the word "tesla" in it, after another unit of magnetic field strength, itself named for Nikola Tesla, a famed inventor and scientist who did cool stuff with electromagnetism.

/v/idiots may be more familiar with the term used in Quake: a rail-gun. In sci-fi this term is rarely used for personal weaponry, instead you can expect a 'rail-gun' to be an artillery piece, probably the size of actual train rails with correspondingly huge ammunition.

Traveller

Gauss weapons are slugthrowers that use 3-5.5mm (.11 to .21 calibre) slugs or flechette needles. They're the preferred rifle and sidearm for TL12 armies (Tech Level 10 in GURPS Traveller); at this tech level, the preferred heavy weapons will be laser or plasma. Until these non-chemical sidearms are in use, ship boarding parties in space prefer using sabres and melee for combat. The exception is zero-G environments, where recoil on any slugthrowers (gauss or not) are as much a hazard for the wielder as the target.

Warhammer 40,000

Necrons have the word "gauss" in most of their weapons, since they all shoot some kind of super-lightning, and under their rules, gauss weapons auto-wound and auto-glance on a to-hit roll of 6. Under Third Edition rules, this was devastatingly powerful, as it meant that Necrons could chew through vehicles like no tomorrow; this was rather reduced in effectiveness in Fifth Edition, as most vehicles could no longer be destroyed through glancing hits alone.

Sure enough, several new Necron units have the option to take "tesla" weapons...