1. very thin
2. very strong for its thickness
3. very sharp (see pt 1)

My best guess is...

Its a BUCKYTUBE!

buckminsterfullerene is a football like sphere of 60 carbon atoms C 70 has a ring of 10 carbons between the two hemispheres, making it like a rugby ball. This can be extended by adding more rings of carbon atoms between the hemispheres into a filament.

The Japanese have already made nanofibres like this, but only fractions of a mm long.

But if a Fullerene tube several meters long could be made, it would be

1. approx 7nm across (very thin)
2. as strong as diamond (approx) as it has a hexagonal graphite= structure. also, it would be flexible and shiny like graphite when it catches the light.

For non-Chemists: Imagine a sheet of hexagons five hexes wide rolled into a tube so the edges match up. Cap the ends with half footballs. If that was made if carbon molecules, thats a Monofilament.

The MonoWhip uses a lenght of Monowire as a flexible blade.

As the fibre is so fine it weights virtually nothing. The cutting force is provided by the weighted tip which is swung past the target. The weighted tip is either a glowing ball or a fingertip if the whip is implanted. The weight is small and heavy to control the line.

The moving tip's kinetic energy is focused onto the monoline. As the line is very thin, this gives even a slow swing enough cutting force to sever plastics and flesh. Swing hard, with the full strenght of your arm and a long lenght of line, the weight can get up to very high speeds. And when the line hits it'll cut body armour, metal pipes and plates, sever limbs, cut flesh, cartilage and bone.

The user must take great care when using the 'whip, as the monoline is moving in a circle connected to there hand. Fumbled rolls, loss of concentration or panic can cause the user to misjudge a swing and cut themselves.

In combat, the whip is deadly. the wounds it causes are finer than any cut, and you only feel them seconds after, as the synapses in your nerves misfire.

The wire itself is so fine that special care must be taken in storage and handling. The wire is stored on a reel of high density ceramic ('one of the new ono-sendai diamond analogs' to quote Gibson) and is capped with a bead of the same ceramic.

Monowire is very light.

Monowire is very thin.

Monowire is very strong.

Uses of monowire

Invisable replacement for barbed wire

Stringing across doors/corridors

Bullet with several lenghts of wire fixed to it (with little weights on the other end)

Two spring loaded monowire reels, one on each end of a monoline.

Reinforced Armour.

• the wearer stops / is tripped over
• the monoline pulls free and can whiplash freely. Luckily the only weight on the line it the holder bead in the end...

Uses of monowire in CP literature and other soure material

• The Yak Hitmans implanted monowhip in 'Johnnie Mneumonic' is THE reference for monowhip users
• Turner strings it up in the trees in 'Count Zero'
• Beuvoir uses it and a ceramic reel to make a slideline onto the top of the projects in 'Count Zero'
• the 'Offiser Suisse' monowhip in 'voice of the Whirlwind'
• The Predator's net in Predator II
• Dreams of flesh and sand. Monowire stilleto's, with static charged monolines used as blades
• Games Workshop's 'dark future'. in one of the sidebars, a terrorist puts halluc in the airducts and crosses monowire across the emergency stairs. Panicking people fall down the stairs in chunks

Links to Fullerene pages

• This is THE place for Nanotubes. Especially interesting is the section on Single Wall nanotubes, and theoretically growing them to centimetre lengths.
• http://cnst.rice.edu/Modular.html

• Fullerene gallery
• http://shachi.cochem2.tutkie.tut.ac.jp/Fuller/Fuller.html

• The encyclopedia entry for fullerenes
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/04810.html

• Prof. H. Kroto Biography
• http://www.susx.ac.uk/Users/kroto/harry1.html

  Monowire and Monowhips in CyberPunk

  Monowhip Melee +2 - - 3D6* - -VR 2m
  The pocket weapon is a handgrip unit with a thumb control on the wire (like a tape measure) to spool the wire out or retract it and a glowing red ball on the wires end so you can see where the wire is. The implanted version is usually concealed in a prosthetic thumb with the nail or thumb tip as the ball, weighted with high density ceramics
  Both use a Ceramic reel to hold a coil of monowire, with the reel sprung to retract and coil the wire against the swinging force of the tip. This makes the wire slide out as you strike and recoil as the swing slows down Gives a very sharp, near invisible cutting blade up to several metres long.
  Can be used with the Melee skill, but any fumbles automatically do normal Whip damage to the user. (3D6)
  Its such an unusual and difficult weapon that it has its own specialised skill 'Monowhip', which is Ref based and used in place of melee if using a 'whip. If fighting using the monowhip skill then fumbles are treated normally (making it much less likely that you cut your own hand or head off)
  WA is +2 due to the speed and reach of the weapon
  Damage 3d6 + d6 per two levels of Monowhip skill.
  (Maximum damage is 8d6. Beware of the skill 10 techno-ninjas)
  Armour is one third

  Monowire Trailer Bullets

  These bullets have a series of short lengths of monowire fixed to the base using diamondoid ceramic beads. The other length of the 12" monoline has a similar bead on it .
  They unravel in flight, trailing due to the drag of the end beads. They have no effect on the penetration of the round, but the trailing lines have their effect as the bullet is either stopping on the armour or passing through the victim.
  If it stops on armour, the lines whip round, tangling the victims limbs. Victim rolls Luck, difficulty 15. Pass and the round pulls free. Fail and it catches on another random location (D10). Every action taken while tangled pulls the wire deeper in. Roll D6 each action, and once the total is over the SP it starts cutting up the target for D6 damage per action.
  If it passes into the victim, the dragging wires slash out a wider wound channel, adding D10 to the weapons damage. If the round can't pass out of the victim, the wires stay in the wound, waiting to slash the fingers of a waiting medtech (luck 20 - fail and take 2D6 damage to your hands - wound is +10 harder to treat if you don't want to risk this roll)
  Cost x 10