Re: Arabic Empire in space was: Re: NSL, Not Nazis.

On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, John M. Atkinson wrote:

> Thomas Anderson wrote:
> 
> > however, one thing that did occur to me was this. the book describes
the
> > interaction of screen and laser: if a laser beam cuts a screen,
there is a
> > good chance both laser generator and screen generator will be
destroyed.
> > the trick is to use disposable lasers.
> 
> Actually, you always have an explosion of some power at both ends. 
> Sometimes just the laser and screen generators are wrecked, sometimes
> the reaction is mistaken for usage of the House Atomics.

the fact that the explosion is at both ends is not a problem, as the
laser
end is a one-shot expendable anyway - think nuke-pumped x-ray lasers.
the
real obstacle is the random variability of the effect - the minimum is
that the shield is knocked down, the maximum is that you nuke the other
side.

given the former case, it would be sensible to use disposable lasers as
an
opening weapon, and follow up with kinetics against the now unshielded
targets.

given the latter effect, erm, take *really* good body armour? if you
could
deploy the lasers as drones (like the suspensorlift assassination knife
that the harkonnens send against paul when he arrives at the palace)
then
you would be able to minimise the blowback; even if the laser went
nuclear, it would be on the other side of the battlefield and you
wouldn't mind so much.

and, yes, the political implications are pretty hairy too.

however, i bet if scientists looked into it, they could figure out some
way to make it more reliable. except, of course, the dune universe seems
to be a bit light on scientists. they were probably done away with along
with computers. damn, i hate that future history :-).

> That would
> make _me_ real hesitant to be the bloke pulling the trigger, no?

Tom