Re: "Realistic" Systems Ideas

Excerpts from FT: 31-Oct-96 Re: "Realistic" Systems Ideas by
@peninsula.starway.net.a 
> > ALBATIVE PARTICLE CASTER:
> >	  These devices are designed for games where screen technology 
> > is unavailable.  The caster launches a clould of chaff, aerosol, 
> > reflective dust, whatever that defuses and scatters incoming fire
from 
> > directed energy weapons. 
>  
> As well as stopping beam weapons, this sort of thing can be a useful
> defense against very fast projectiles. The British Interplanetary
Society's
> Daedelus starprobe concept of the 1970s featured a "screen" which
involved
> a
> cloud of a few kilograms of smoke flown ahead of the ship. It was
> calculated
> that this would be able to shred a half-tonne chunk of rock at a
relative
> speed of 12% light.

My favorite story excerpt along this arc is from David Brin's _Startide
Riding_, where the... umm...

SPOILERS!

...where the Streaker ejects all the excess water it was carrying as it
rounded a gas giant, and some Tandu ships (& others) hit the mist of ice
particles at something like 0.5c.  BOOM! <grin>

It's one sequence I'd *love* to see animated....  (The other,
incidentally, would be from Timothy ahn's _Conqueror's Legary_, when the
Wolf Pack arrvies. <grin>  Anyone have anything like that for FT? ^_^ )

		    Aaron Teske
		    Mithramuse+@cmu.edu