/sci/ - Science & Math

Hello /sci/,

Writefag here, working on a hard science fiction story and would like some input.

The main plot in my story is that space terrorists steal a bunch of uranium and are trying to casaba howitzers and EMP devices to force Earth's shady one world government to negotiate. Democratically seceding is impossible, and even if they did the Earth could just embargo nitrogen and phosphates. In-universe, there are O'Neil cylinders at the Earth-Moon Lagrange points, with a single outpost bunch orbiting around Mars. Asteroids are towed into orbit for mining, and for the most part, technology has barely advanced and in some cases regressed since the 21st century. Anyway,

1) If fusion reactors are a mature technology, does that mean pure fusion warheads would be a thing? Sounds like it makes sense, but I'm not a nuclear physicist. Any big differences between the two in terms of X-ray vs gamma ray vs neutron output? Goes to follow that pure fusion casaba howitzers would be a thing too, right? What about EMP effects?

2) O'Neil cylinder mass production in a world with minimal automation. I'm thinking something along the lines of a giant pipe making machine grafted onto 16 Psyche, constantly extruding pipes or even smaller (kek) sections, which are then cut to size or welded together. Something tells me that the square-cube law would get in the way of that.

If anyone has criticism or suggestions or thinks that I'm a retard, I'd be happy to hear it.