94
In the Dune universe, why not use laser weapons as bombs? (lemmy.world)
submitted 7 months ago by sudo42@lemmy.world to c/sciencefiction@lemmy.world
55 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] sudo42@lemmy.world 1 points 7 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 7 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)

Science Fiction

13635 readers
2 users here now

Welcome to /c/ScienceFiction

December book club canceled. Short stories instead!

We are a community for discussing all things Science Fiction. We want this to be a place for members to discuss and share everything they love about Science Fiction, whether that be books, movies, TV shows and more. Please feel free to take part and help our community grow.

  1. Be civil: disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally insult others.
  2. Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, ableist, or advocating violence will be removed.
  3. Spam, self promotion, trolling, and bots are not allowed
  4. Put (Spoilers) in the title of your post if you anticipate spoilers.
  5. Please use spoiler tags whenever commenting a spoiler in a non-spoiler thread.

Lemmy World Rules

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Tenthrow@lemmy.world