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"Science fiction operates a little bit like science itself, in principle. You've got thousands of people exploring ideas, putting forth their own hypotheses. Most of them are dead wrong; a few stand the test of time; everything looks kind of quaint in hind"
- Peter Watts
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| Lasgun | ||
| A continuous-wave laser projector; can be used as a weapon or as a cutting tool. |
The lasgun is another in a series of laser-based weapons; the descendant of the "blasters" of the science fiction of the 1920's.
This term was coined by Herbert for the Dune universe.
| Kynes took a deep breath, said: "This door should hold for at least twenty minutes against all but a lasgun." "They'll not use a lasgun for fear we've shields on this side," Paul said. |
| Technovelgy from Dune,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Putnam in 1965 Additional resources -
|
I’ve only seen it used one other time, in Pater One, Pater Two (1969) by Patrick Meadows; published in F&SF:
"Start looking. Mehmet and I will work on the metal with a lasgun in the meantime.”
… When he returned to the tunnels, the lights were on, and Osman was cursing tightly in front of the door. He had spent the power pack of one gun trying to cut through, and then the door had simply started sliding back into the wall when the power came on. It was stuck half open because the jagged edges of the laser cut wouldn’t clear.
Its use as a weapon is limited by subatomic fusion that occurs when the beam of a lasgun (offensive weapon) intersects that of a shield using the Holtzman field (defensive weapon). See the blaster (1925) from When the Green Star Waned by Nictzin Dyalhis, the neutron blaster (1951), from The Complete Paratime, by H. Beam Piper and the heat ray from The War of the Worlds (1898), by H.G. Wells.
Compare to nuclear shears from Foundation (1951) by Isaac Asimov, the
toaster from Accidental Flight (1952) by WF Wallace, the
Slaver disintegrator from Ringworld (1970) by Larry Niven and the
atomic torch from One Against the Legion (1939) by Jack Williamson.
He scanned the neighboring walls with a torch. "The doors were probably electrically operated. The power is off at this end. Somewhere there is a switch for the door and a generator.”
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