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"People are choosing to allow television and Electronic Arts to do all their imagining for them."
- Peter Watts
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| Blue Ray of Death | ||
| A ray that reduces an organic being to ash instantly. |
The weapon itself is described as "a long metal tube" which is pointed at the victim.
| "All was ready, yet before emerging onto the upper Eartth, they decided to have a sure, deadly weapon against the races of man, who might molest them in their work. So they developed a deadly ray, a ray that crumbles a human body into a puff of white powder instantly..." |
| Technovelgy from Across Space,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Weird Tales in 1926 Additional resources -
|
Here is a description of the ray in use:
Fans of Star Trek TOS may recall the episode By Any Other Name; an alien ray reduced crew members to polyhedra of crumbling salts. The good news was that the person could be reconstituted - the bad news was once a block was crumbled, that person was gone.
...As a number of them [Martians] began to climb up the pillar, the blue ray of death flashed out from inside the box and cut a wide swath through their numbers, reducing those it touched to white powder in an instant!"
(Star Trek crew reduced to crumbling blocks in By Any Other Name)
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'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
