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"We were essentially being shell-shocked by rapid change. That was one of the things you needed science-fiction writers for back in the Sixties, because we could cope with the future."
- Peter Watts
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| Vortex Gun | ||
| A device that projects whirling fields of atomic instability. |
| The pursuing fleet crept up behind, in spite of Giles Habibula’s frantic appeals to the Commander. The first shot from the vortex gun came after the Phantom Atom: a vast expanding field of atomic instability that burned strange with deadly radiations and sucked at the fugitive ship with a ruthless attraction.
“Let me tune your geodynes!” gasped Giles Habibula, as the tiny vessel fought that consuming maelstrom. “I’ve been an engine man for fifty precious years, and I can coax the generators to more than they can do.” And, indeed, when his deft hands had retuned her geodynes, the tiny vessel began to draw ahead again. The second whirling field of atomic disruption groped after them with weaker fingers; the third flamed and died far behind. And the Phantom Atom was many hours ahead of the fleet, when they came to the geofractor. |
| Technovelgy from One Against The Legion,
by Jack Williamson. Published by Astounding in 1939 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the Disruptor Tube (Disruptor Ray) from The Emperor of the Stars (1931) by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat), the de-atomizing ray from Crashing Suns (1928) by Edmond Hamilton, the Bethé blasters from Cities in Flight (1957) by James Blish and the annihilator beam from Conquest of Gola (1931) by L.F. Stone.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from One Against The Legion
More Ideas
and Technology by Jack Williamson
Tech news articles related to One Against The Legion
Tech news articles related to works by Jack Williamson
Vortex Gun-related
news articles:
- Giant Air Vortex Gun
| Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade |
| Moscow Attacked By Hundreds Of Drones |
| China's Handheld Electromagnetic Gun |
| Is The Seattle Ultrasonics C-200 A Heinlein Vibroblade? |
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'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.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
