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"Another reason why privacy could be just a passing fad, terrorism is going to get too good. [1997]"
- Larry Niven
 |
| Protolectric Gun | ||
| Fires twin beams of protons and electrons. |
You know you're in good hands with Campbell:
They just don't write them like that anymore.
Two streams of nearly invisible fire reached out in lines as straight as a linear equation toward the two Patrol cruisers.
| "...their ships have a weapon we have not been able to duplicate — the protolectric gun,” replied the officer, turning smartly and walking away. Markham chuckled. The Lane Patrolman had retired in poor order.
The E. R. C. [Eugenics Research Colony] was a sore spot on the Lane Patrol’s otherwise spotless record. Thanks to a mechanism capable of projecting twin beams of highly dangerous electrons and protons from a “gun”, their ships had beaten off patrol cruisers time and again. |
| Technovelgy from Electronic Siege,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Wonder Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
|
Here's the effect that they have:
Two enormous brilliant pipes of blue-green fire leaped out and spattered against the ship. Instantly it was wreathed with an aura of shooting flame from the waste energy of the beams. The four-foot armour of the ship was glowing white-hot in a fraction of a second. In a second it was bellying out in gusts of flaming gas; in five seconds a great hole was gaping in the ship’s wall...
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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...'
