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"Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Impact Suit | ||
| A body suit that is flexible, but upon a hard impact becomes rigid and impenetrable. |
How could a man fall from the sky and not be killed?
| "It was my impact suit," Purple said. He took a step forward and thumped himself hard in the belly with this fist. His belly was big and soft, so the blow should have made him wince. It did not. I thought for a moment that Purple had become rigid as stone.
"My impact suit," he repeated. "Normally it flows like cloth, but under a sharp blow it becomes a single rigid unit. Lant, you remember that a boy threw a spear at me in your village." "I remember. You were not hurt." "The suit is skin tight. With the hood up it covers all of me but my eyes and mouth, and of course it holds my shape. It saved my life." |
| Technovelgy from The Flying Sorcerers,
by David Gerrold (w/L, Niven). Published by Ballantine in 1971 Additional resources -
|
Here's another description of how the impact suit works:
Here's another quote from Larry Niven's Ringworld Engineers:
Louis landed flat on his face, in an impact suit gone rigid as steel. The form-fitting coffin supported him, but he ess still stunned...
Although Gerrold and Niven share authorship of the book, the impact suit is Niven's idea; see Flexible Armor Suit from The Soft Weapon, a short story published in 1967.
"When I realized I was falling, I pulled my hood up and curled into a ball. My impact suit saved me by holding my shape - much as water in a vase does not change shape when you set it down hard."
...Louis ran along the fence toward the walkway. The soldiers were close... The roar was disconcerting, even terrifying. A slug slammmed into Louis's ankle; the suit went rigid, and he rolled like a tumbled statue, picked himself up, and ran again. As two soldiers threw themselves at him, he swung over the fence and dropped...
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Flying Sorcerers
More Ideas
and Technology by David Gerrold (w/L, Niven)
Tech news articles related to The Flying Sorcerers
Tech news articles related to works by David Gerrold (w/L, Niven)
Impact Suit-related
news articles:
- d3o-based RibCap: Flexible-Rigid Beanie-Helmet For Snowsports
- Skiers Get d3o-Based 'Impact Suits'
- Spyder Olympic GS Suit With d3o
| Liquid Body Armor For TALOS Exoskeleton |
| DIY Taser-Proof Clothing |
| Look Great In Your Garrison Bespoke Bulletproof Suit |
| Bionic Body Armor Makes You Dodge Bullets |
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'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
