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"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today -- but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Langston Field | ||
| A protective energy shield. |
A great defensive weapon. It felt very cold if you encountered it with some part of your body, since the very motion of the molecules would be slowed.
| The Langston Field absorbed energy; that was its basic function. It absorbed even the kinetic energy of expanding gas or radiation particles, with an efficiency proportional to the cube of the incoming velocities. In battle, the hellish fury of hydrogen torpedoes, and the concentrated photon energies of lasers, would strike the Field and be dispersed, absorbed, contained. As the energy levels increased, the Field would begin to glow, its absolute black becoming red, orange, yellow, climbing up the spectrum toward the violet. |
| From The Mote in God's Eye,
by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle). Published by Simon & Schuster in 1974 Additional resources -
|
Since the energy field tended to form in a circle around the generator, cities that protected themselves with Langston Fields were circular.
The Langston field is based on energy fields in E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series from the 1940's.
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'You can hook a Thorsen tube into a control circuit... and the tube will "remember" what was done and can direct the operation...'
Nature is a master of fabricating structured materials consisting of living and non-living components.
'The tiny devices chirped their impulse codes at one another...'
Then some unknown race had chanced upon the dreamers and decided to "help them out."
