[This came to traveller-request by mistake, so I forwarded it and edited
the subject line to be more meaningful -- James]
As with most subatomic particles the Meson decay rates are governed
statistically. With clever physics one can get the decay curve to be
very steep but there are undoubtedly a few particles that decay early
and a few that decay late. For smaller weapons this might not matter
but for a main ships gun emitting 10**N somethings a fallover of
10**(N-10) might still be mode energy that a shipsuit can shield
against, especially if it appears inside you soft tissue.
Furthermore one of the things mesons interact with is mesons. Point
defense technology against an energy beam weaopon may not be reasonable
but shooting through another beam as it leaves its apperture sounds
likely to stress the componenets of the system in question and possible
generate unintened aim perterbations to the smaller beam large enough to
be, undesirable. ("Activate meson beam 13", Pzzzap, "What happened to
Lt. Awkins?", "Probably those jokers in bay 5 shooting through us
again.")
Obvious more (pseudo)science can be applied to worsen or minimize the
effects but if meson weapons do have even minor side effects like these
I would expect a significant morale factor involved in a ship design
that shot through the crew a lot.
[A ships fusor is also likely to contain enough high energy particles to
generate an interaction with the meson beam whioch would probably pump
some energy back into the fusor which has a small but unpleasant chance
of an induced loss of containment event as the reports no doubt would
refer to it.]