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"Science Fiction is speculative fiction in which the author takes as his first postulate the real world as we know it, including all established facts and natural laws."
- Robert Heinlein
 |
| Light-Sword | ||
| A laser tuned for use as a cutting tool. |
Conflict arises on the Ringworld, and Louis Wu has need for training received earlier in his 200 year long life.
| Light-swords, laser weapons, had een used on all the worlds. Louis's training was a century old, and the war he had trained for hadn't happened after all. But the rules were too simple to forget.
The slower the swing, the deeper the cut. |
| From Ringworld,
by Larry Niven. Published by Ballantine in 1970 Additional resources -
|
More rules for fighting with a light-sword may be found in the book.
This is a similar concept to the lightsaber of Star Wars fame; the earliest reference to something like this that I can find is the force-field penknife by Isaac Asimov.
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'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.'
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.'
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
