this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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In the Dune universe, why not use laser weapons as bombs? (self.sciencefiction)
submitted 7 months ago by sudo42 to c/sciencefiction
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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 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 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.