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"[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
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| Flexible Armor Suit | ||
| A pressure suit that, while flexible, becomes rigid like armor upon impact. |
As far as I know, the earliest science fiction reference for this idea.
| He [Nessus the puppeteer] went up a rise, moving slowly, though his feet wanted to dance. He was weaponless, but his suit was a kind of defense. No projectile short of a fast meteorite could harm him. Like a silicone plastic, the pressure suit was soft and malleable under gentle pressures, such as walking, but instantly became rigid all over when something struck it...
The top of the swell behind Nessus suddenly sparkled with harsh blue-white sunlight. ... He saw the light, he curled into a ball, and the ground swell came. It batted him like a beach ball. His rigid, form-fitting shell retained his shape. It could not prevent the ground swell from slamming him away, nor his brain from jarring under its thick skull and its extra padding. |
| Technovelgy from The Soft Weapon,
by Larry Niven. Published by Not known in 1967 Additional resources -
|
This is from "The Soft Weapon" (originally published in Worlds of If, February, 1967) from the Neutron Star story collection.
Niven makes use of this idea again in The Ringworld Engineers:
The soldiers were close, but Filistranorlry was standing back and firing his pistol. The roar was disconcerting, even terrifying. A slug slammed into Louis's ankle; the suit went rigid, and he rolled like a tumbled statue, picked himself up, and ran again. As two soldiers threw themselves at him, he swung over the fence and dropped.
Another example of this idea, this time from March Upcountry (2001) by John Ringo and David Weber:
Thanks to a helpful reader for providing the reference and text quote for Niven.
Compare to the karatand from Stand on Zanzibar (1968) by John Brunner.
Louis and Chmeee donned impact armor: leathery stuff, not unpleasantly stiff, which would go rigid as steel under impact from spear, arrow, or bullet...
One of the pack beasts’ tails had hit her hard enough to harden her chameleon armor and throw her ten meters through the air and into a tree. She spun around in place and immediately spotted the bellowing carnivore that had started the ruckus.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Soft Weapon
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven
Tech news articles related to The Soft Weapon
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven
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| Bionic Body Armor Makes You Dodge Bullets |
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'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
