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"I kind of take it for granted that our great-grandchildren will regard us as a sort of precursor species. That they won't think of us as human and if we could see them, we probably wouldn't think of them as human either."
- William Gibson
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| Life Detector Shield | ||
| An electronic field that is intended to shield living tissue from a Life Detector. |
In this short story, there are sensors that will detect the presence of living beings. And as is always the case in the history of warfare, there is also a counter-weapon.
| Hulser was back in the chill present, a deadly suspicion gnawing at him: The enemy has a new type of shield, not as good as ours. It merely reduces image size!
...another corner of his mind began to think about the shields, the complex flicker-lattice that made human flesh transparent... |
| Technovelgy from Cease Fire,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Conde Nast in 1958 Additional resources -
|
In the real world, there are various ways to detect the presence of living beings (most of them don't differentiate that well between animals and people). For example, there are sensors that will detect the presence of carbon dioxide, which we all give off when breathing. And there are infrared sensors, which detect our body heat.
Compare to the life-shield blanket from Heretics of Dune (1984) by Frank Herbert, the
radiant shield from The Houses of Iszm (1954) by Jack Vance, the
protective shield from Triplanetary (1934) by 'Doc' Smith and the
personal force-shield from Foundation (1951) by Isaac Asimov and the geofractor shield from One Against the Legion (1939) by Jack Williamson.
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
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'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
