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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
 |
| Chardion Field | ||
| Electronic 'envelope' that retained atmosphere on tiny worldlets. |
The field can contain an atmosphere, but doesn't provide gravity.
| The Starbrand stood upright on a small field — and this worldlet was so tiny that every edge of the field was a horizon. The sky was a pale bowl of shimmering violet. That strange light was the fluorescence of the Chardion field — the envelope of electronic vibration that contained the artificial atmosphere, that the feeble gravity of Veron was too weak to hold. |
| Technovelgy from Star of Dreams,
by Jack Williamson. Published by Comet in 1941 Additional resources -
|
It allows for the tiniest of habitable "planets":
Blue water turned hollows into
crystal lakes. Terrace-gardens were
luminous with blooms. Every sharp
cliff was softened with its blanket of
blue-flowering crimson Martian moss.
"The Chardion field is tuned to
serve as an energy-trip,” Kellon commented. “That keeps up the temperature. Also, the light-absorption makes
Veron almost invisible.” Again, warning rang hard in his voice. “Any passing ship would be far within the range
of the guns, long before we could be
discovered.”
Compare to paragravity from Collision Orbit (1941) also by Williamson and to planetoid with earth gravity from The Soul Eaters (1944) by William Conover.
Once, Haldane knew, Veron must
have been stark and bare and ugly.
A mere half-mile rock, it was too tiny
for gravitation to have rounded any
harsh jutting pinnacle. But science
had cloaked it with the Chardion field,
and clothed it with pure loveliness.
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