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"On-line gaming environments are completely different things... Essentially it's massive global role-playing."
- Peter Watts
 |
| Ray Gun | ||
| A weapon shaped like a handgun that shoots rays of energy. |
This is probably the first occurence of the all-important science fiction phrase "ray gun."
| Soon they saw a hand reaching out with a ray gun; then another hand with a different ray gun, from behind the silent engine; a sudden crash of metal, a groan and quiet. |
| From The Black Star Passes,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Amazing Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the equally useful blaster from When the Green Star Waned (1925) by Nictzin Dyalhis. See also the stationary automatic blaster from Red Planet (1949) by Robert Heinlein, the neutron disruption blaster from The Complete Paratime (1951) by H. Beam Piper and the meteor blasters from First Contact (1945), by Murray Leinster.
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'The planes flew continuously, twenty-four hours a day...'
'It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.'
'...a single perfectly level platform, which rose so high above the water that it was not splashed by the waves.'
'Is an extra-factual memory that convincing?' Quail asked.
Megastructures have repair robots, which have repair robots, ad infinitum.
‘She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew...’
Perfect for clot-busting in the human brain. No Raquel Welch and no lasers, though.
