On Fri, May 02, 2014 at 10:34:23PM -0400, Kurt Feltenberger wrote:
> What would they use if not uranium or plutonium?

Some modification of whatever technology goes into any fusion reactor
or fusion weapons in Traveller.  In the real world, the fission
trigger for an H-bomb is mainly there to get enough temperature and
pressure to ignite fusion.  The neutron flux from fission doesn't hurt
either (converting nuclei into more easily fusible ones), but it's
mainly the temperature.

Any technology that can create an FGMP can almost certainly trigger a
nuclear blast of arbitrarily larger size with an arrangement of enough
suitable light isotopes around the initial fusion center.  Likewise
having compact technology to ignite controlled fusion reactions
generally implies the technological ability to ignite uncontrolled
ones.

The actual modes of operation of fusion in Traveller technologies
aren't explicitly stated.  There are at least a dozen candidates, some
of which are plausible in the real world, while others fit within the
range of published Traveller technology.

- Tim