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"We're about 20 minutes away from the point where Clarke's law kicks in and technology becomes indistinguishable from magic."
- Peter Watts
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| Synchrophased Power Beams | ||
| Focuses energy beams from multiple planets on the same object. |
Intruders! The object entering the solar system on what appears to be a cometary orbit is plainly no comet. Better blast first and ask questions later.
| The Department of War was being feverishly organized to coordinate every erg of energy in the entire solar system into synchrophased power beams which at a given moment would stab out from the four planets at once - all of them on the same side of the sun - and converge terribly on the pseudo comet. There would be no material weapon for the ships detectors to note in time for any maneuver of escape. This weapon would strike at the speed of light. An object in the focus of the combined beams would experience the interior temperature of a sun... But the computation of the phase relationships of the moving planetary projectors, so that the separate beams would reinforce instead of partially canceling one another, was a task of terrifying complexity... Days or weeks were required for the adjustment of the multitude of beams for a hit on a predetermined spot. |
| Technovelgy from Propagandist,
by Murray Leinster. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1947 Additional resources -
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'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
