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"I'm a farm boy. It's very interesting; you can detect self-starting characteristics in this society and they are strongest among people who have had some kind of rural upbringing and a very impressionable stage."
- Frank Herbert
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| Disruptor Bomb | ||
| A bomb with a very special purpose; when detonated in space, it makes it impossible to detect the center of the explosion from the dispersion of the fragments. |
In the novel, the protagonist wishes to divorce himself from humanity for a time. Not an easy thing to do when space travel is commonplace, and technology makes it easy for people to live wherever they like.
| ...he had carried out one final evasive maneuver ... a disruptor bomb, preprogrammed, had blasted the ship to molecules and sent the fragments traveling on a billion conflicting orbits through the universe...The bomb was designed to provide fifty false vectors per square meter of explosion surface, a virtual guarantee that no tracer could possibly be effective within a finite span of time. |
| Technovelgy from The Man in the Maze,
by Robert Silverberg. Published by Avon Books in 1969 Additional resources -
|
Those who believe that no one thinks about the fragments of explosive devices in this much detail are directed to the Ordnance Test and Evaluation Division of the U.S. Navy. Some typical user questions:
This device is intended to work on a large object, on a cosmic scale. To see a nanotechnological device that works in the microcosm, see the entry for ballisticule, from The Diamond Age
by Neal Stephenson.
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'If you're one of those rarities who haven't attended a rocket-polo "carnage", let me tell you it's a colorful affair.'
'They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side.'
'a walking balloon proceeded with long strides of its aluminum legs...'
'There was nowhere on the planet where science and technology could not provide one with a comfortable home...'
'Most men updated their PIP on New Year's Day...'
'...a misshapen, many-tentacled thing about twice the size of a man.'
