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"...being predictive, being right about the future, is not the point of any given story or novel. The point is about exploring as wide a range of possibilities as possible."
- Peter Watts
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| Emergency Repulsion (Repulsive Ray) | ||
| A beam of force that repels one object from another. |
This is the opposite of the tractor beam idea (from 'Doc' Smith's 1931 novel Space Hounds of IPC).
| Blake quite evidently was trying emergency repulsion. A faint beam of radiance streamed downward, swayed drunkenly from the tumbling movement of the falling vessel... From the side bull's-eye of the room, Georg saw the direct, actual glow of the beam as it momentarily swung downward and struck the Moon surface. |
| Technovelgy from Blood of the Moon,
by Ray Cummings. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1936 Additional resources -
|
Compare to this very similar idea, the repulsor from Frederic Brown's 1949 story What Mad Universe and the pressor beam from 'Doc' Smith's 1931 novel Space Hounds of IPC.
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
