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"Cyberspace is a metaphor that allows us to grasp this place where since about the time of the second world war we've increasingly done so many of the things that we think of as civilization."
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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.
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.
![]() (Earthlight cover) Compare to the daisy projector from The Derelicts of Ganymede (1932) by John W. Campbell and the Cyclotronic Ore-Hurler from Exit From Asteroid 60 (1940) by D.L. James. Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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