Severus Snape wrote:See, that's the thing I don't get about the power. It works on all forms of electrical and mechanical things EXCEPT robotics and cybernetics. huh???? "Ok, you send out an electro-magnetic pulse, and the computer on the other side of the room shuts down and is no longer functioning. But the robot army standing in front of it is completely unaffected." Bogus.
Hmm, I would think that it would most definitely affect robots and cybernetics that aren't shielded from the effects of an EMP blast. If they're shielded properly, there should be a saving throw against EMP(the shielding isn't usually completely proof against EMP, it just lessens the effects considerably, due to absorbing most of the energy).
For me, the gripe is the mechanical things that have no electronics in them, the way I see EMP is that if there is nothing electronic in the device, then it cannot be affected by EMP. Could you totally destroy a pair of scissors with an EMP? No, because they are a purely mechanical device, containing no electronics of any kind. An EMP blast could be powerful enough to heat the metal enough to melt the plastic handles and perhaps produce some sparking to nearby metal objects, but that's about it, the function of the scissors wouldn't be compromised, you'd just need to replace the handles and they'd work again.
Sure, an EMP can be conducted through a metallic mechanical object, or basically anything metallic, but it won't destroy these completely. There might be some after effects such as scorching and sparking due to the residual energy left from the EMP passing through, and some non-metallic parts in the object might be destroyed(plastic handles, dial caps and knobs, plastic button caps), but the basic function of the device would still be more or less okay. You can burn a mechanical typewriter, but it's still basically functional after replacing some parts that were destroyed in the fire.
~ Temporalmage
