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"Bureaucracies hide their mistakes, because people's careers are tied to those mistakes. Therefore, bureaucracies are a perfect mechanism for perpetuating mistakes."
- Frank Herbert
 |
| Needler | ||
| Small palm-sized weapon firing thin bolts of energy. |
| The pirate’s shield had failed, and under the cataclysmic force of that horrible detonation the entire nose section of the enemy vessel had flashed into incandescent vapor and had added itself to the rapidly expanding cloud of fire... She was still fighting ; but ineffectually, now that all her heavy forward batteries were gone.
“Needlers, fire at will!” barked Kinnison, and even that feeble resistance was ended. Keen-eyed needle-ray men, working at spy-ray visiplates, .bored hole after hole into the captive, seeking out and destroying the control-panels of the remaining beams and screens. “Pull ’er up!” came the next order. The two ships of space flashed together — the yawning, blasted-open fore end of the once cigar-shaped raider solidly against the Brittania’s armored side. A great port opened. |
| Technovelgy from Galactic Patrol,
by E.E. 'Doc' Smith. Published by Street and Smith in 1937 Additional resources -
|
See also the needle gun from Slacker's Paradise, a 1941 short story by Malcom Jameson, and the more detailed description of the needle pipe from Ray Cummings 1928 classic Beyond the Stars.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Galactic Patrol
More Ideas
and Technology by E.E. 'Doc' Smith
Tech news articles related to Galactic Patrol
Tech news articles related to works by E.E. 'Doc' Smith
Needler-related
news articles:
- Palm Pistol Defensive Firearm
| Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade |
| Moscow Attacked By Hundreds Of Drones |
| China's Handheld Electromagnetic Gun |
| Is The Seattle Ultrasonics C-200 A Heinlein Vibroblade? |
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'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
