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"I can't tell whether or not there's going to be a Singularity. I don't really believe the rapture of the nerds stereotype..."
- Charles Stross
 |
| 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..." |
| 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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'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'
