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"In 1977, it took about eight months for a slightly faster more refined mechanism to put punk in the window of Holt Renfrew. It's gotten faster ever since."
- William Gibson
 |
| Stiletto Beam | ||
| A beam of molten metal, projected electromagnetically. |
Several ships are attacking a stationary installation on the Moon. The ships have the benefit of mobility in attacking a fixed target; what advantage could the defenders of the installation have that could turn the tide of battle?
Note: this is a different version of the weapon from that used in Clarke's original version of the story. See the article describing the polaron beam from Clarke's original 1951 novella Earthlight, published in Wonder Stories.
| Wheeler never knew why the fortress waited so long before it used its main weapon. Perhaps Stephanson, or whoever was in charge, was waiting for the attack to slacken so that he could risk lowering the defenses of the dome for the millisecond that he needed to launch his stiletto.
Wheeler saw it strike upward, a solid bar of light stabbing at the stars. He remembered the rumors that had gone around the Observatory. So this was what had been seen, flashing above the mountains. He did not have time to reflect on the staggering violation of the laws of optics which this phenomenon implied, for he was staring at the ruined ship above his head. The beam had gone through Lethe as if she did not exist; the fortress had speared her as an entomologist pierces a butterfly with a pin. |
| From Earthlight,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Del Rey in 1955 Additional resources -
|
I love this story, and I avoided putting this item on the site for a long time. However, now that DARPA is working on it, I'll put it up. **SPOILER ALERT**
Clarke puts the problem this way:
The answer, of course, is that it only looked like a beam of light.
The answer is provided to the reader:
Here's an early Earthlight cover detail.
"...It looked like a beam of some kind, but of course that's impossible. No beam can be visible in a vacuum."
He could well appreciate why a jet of molten metal, hurled through space at several hundred kilometers a second by the most powerful electromagnets ever built, might have looked like a beam of light flashing on for an instant.
(Earthlight cover)
Compare to the daisy projector from The Derelicts of Ganymede (1932) by John W. Campbell.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Earthlight
More Ideas
and Technology by Arthur C. Clarke
Tech news articles related to Earthlight
Tech news articles related to works by Arthur C. Clarke
Stiletto Beam-related
news articles:
- MAHEM Metal Jets Like Clarke's Stiletto Beam
| LANIUS Loitering Drone Munition Scouts And Maps |
| Israel Deploys Sharp Shooter AI-powered Robot Guns |
| Drone Loiter Munitions Now Available |
| Anduril Lattice Anvil Counter Drone System |
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'LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE.'
'...a rolled-up sheet of a thin, dark metal strange to them.'
'... his contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory complex.'
'Space-weather men had been placed at their disposal...'
With each successive print, our model needed to incorporate more structural ingredients to minimize print failures.
'... Wendis stared thoughtfully at the brilliant lines on the spectroscope screen.'
'A special spot-wavex scrambler also caused his televised image, in the area immediately about his lips, to mouth the vowels and consonants beautifully.'
'... it was as if the upper part had been removed, like a cut deck of cards.'
Sumomo will get those office workers into good shape!
