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In the Dune universe, why not use laser weapons as bombs? (lemmy.world)
submitted 6 months ago by sudo42@lemmy.world to c/sciencefiction@lemmy.world
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In the Dune universe, when a laser weapons hits a shield, both are destroyed in a nuclear explosion reaction.

So instead of building nuclear weapons, wouldn’t it be easier to tie a timer and a “parachute” to a laser gun and drop it from orbit onto your enemy’s city?

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[-] sudo42@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

I’m pretty sure the answer is that building a lasgun and a shield is more expensive than building a nuke.

I proposed to drop a (inexpensive) laser gun on the enemy’s (existing city/fortress) shield. Simple, cheap and (overly) effective.

[-] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago

I'm not entirely sure how you would rig the lasgun to fire in a way that hits the shield, while it's falling from the sky. And I believe it's random whether or not the shield blows up, so you'd need to drop several for safety.

But at the end of the day, deliberately engineering explosions using shield-laser interactions still contravenes the convention against atomics. The great houses all have plenty of nukes, they really don't need bootstrap solutions. The problem is political, not technical.

this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
94 points (92.7% liked)

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