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"Science fiction is the very literature of change. In fact, it is the only such literature we have."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Diabological Armory | ||
| A set of verbal tools based on a higher form of reasoning. |
In this classic story by Eric Frank Russell, Wayne Hillder is a space scout; he travels to distance star systems in search of intelligent life. He lands, alone, on planets teeming with space-faring lifeforms. Is he scared? No, because he knows that once a lifeform is intelligent enough to develop space travel, it is a lifeform that can be reached by the right sort of reasoning.
| What might be awaiting him at ground level did not bother him at all. The Terrans of today ... had become space-sophisticated. They had learned to lounge around with a carefree smile and let the other life forms do the worrying. It lent an air of authority and always worked. Nothing is no more intimidating than an idiotic grin worn by a manifest non-idiot. Quite a useful weapon in the diabological armory was the knowing smirk. |
| Technovelgy from Diabologic,
by Eric Frank Russell. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1955 Additional resources -
|
If you are looking for more information on specific diabological tools, consider deflatory gesture twenty-two.
Four hundred pairs of eyes examined the stranger, some curiously, some doubtfully, some challengingly, many with unconcealed antagonism.
Sitting down, Hillder looked them over much as one looks into one of the more odorous cages at the zoo. That is to say, with faint distaste. Gently he rubbed the side of his nose with a forefinger and sniffed. Deflatory gesture twenty-two, suitable for use in the presence of massed authority. It brought its carefully calculated reward. Half a dozen of the most bellicose characters glared at him.
Those who wish to reject diabological reasoning in favor of heavy-duty mathematical logic should take a look at Mathematical Logic around the world.
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'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
