Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"[Science fiction] is the only kind of writing that allows you to look at the world we live in and change one piece at a time."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Pinlight | ||
| Thimble-sized photonuclear bomb. |
In the story, interstellar travel is threatened by creatures that lived "underneath space itself". They are able to move millions of miles in a millisecond and are intelligent. For ships that encounter these monsters, the crews face either death or permanent insanity. Fortunately, these creatures were destroyed by light. The best way to combat these weapons was a system using human telepaths (manning sensors) that were partnered with cats:
| "Pinlighting consisted of the detonation of ultra-vivid miniature photonuclear bombs, which converted a few ounces of a magnesium isotope into pure visible radiance... ...Man and Partner could do together what Man could not do alone. Men had the intellect. Partners had the speed. The Partners rode their tiny craft, no larger than footballs, outside the spaceships. They planoformed with the ships. They rode beside them in their six-pound craft ready to attack. The tiny ships of the Partners were swift. Each carried a dozen pinlights, bombs no bigger than thimbles. The pinlighters threw the Partners—quite literally threw—by means of mind-to-firing relays direct at the Dragons. What seemed to be Dragons to the human mind appeared in the form of gigantic Rats in the minds of the Partners. Out in the pitiless nothingness of space, the Partners' minds responded to an instinct as old as life. The Partners attacked, striking with a speed faster than Man's, going from attack to attack until the Rats or themselves were destroyed. Almost all the time, it was the Partners who won." |
| From The Game of Rat and Dragon,
by Cordwainer Smith. Published by Galaxy Science Fiction in 1953 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to Gatomon41 for submitting this item!
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Game of Rat and Dragon
More Ideas
and Technology by Cordwainer Smith
Tech news articles related to The Game of Rat and Dragon
Tech news articles related to works by Cordwainer Smith
| HEL TVD Laser System To Be Built By Dynetics Lockheed Martin |
| ZKZM-500 LASER Assault Rifle |
| Drone Assassin Fails To Kill Venezuelan President |
| Musk's Boring Flamethrower |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'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.
