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"This is a predictive tool I've used: There are goals we've sought for ten thousand years, and we'll go on seeking them. Instant transport and travel, immortality (or at least longevity and miracle cures.), instant learning …"
- Larry Niven

Etheric Typhoon  
  The idea that space itself can have disturbances.  

“The dope’s coming through now — have a look at your telescribe.”

“ — series of etheric disturbances of great intensity following trough through asteroid belt, bearing eight four, absolute. Maximum ‘low’ located in third quadrant, not far from Mars, moving outward. It is described as an elongated ellipsoid of about five million miles along major axis and the gravitic equivalent at center is estimated to be of the order of several thousand megabars. Correspondingly strong ‘highs’ have been detected both above and below it as well as in front of and behind it, so that extraecliptic travel lanes are as impassable as the usual ones. Gravitic gradients throughout Mars - Jupiter sector at new record and zeta emanation abundant. Triple storm warnings authorized throughout this area.

“Communications with asteroids in that vicinity now completely disrupted. Fragmentary report from Juno at 0456 today, Systemic Standard Time, expressed fears for safety of residents on Juno and Pallas. Lighthouse tender Cyclops believed to have been dashed ashore on one of the posterior Trojans, where severe storm conditions also prevail —

From A Question of Salvage, by Malcolm Jameson.
Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1939
Additional resources -

Compare to space weather map from The Storm (1943) by AE van Vogt.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from A Question of Salvage
  More Ideas and Technology by Malcolm Jameson
  Tech news articles related to A Question of Salvage
  Tech news articles related to works by Malcolm Jameson

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