war in heaven
By Fletcher Pratt
Who is going to use death-rays
when solid-shot and space-mines
will bring far cheaper victory?
An article about space-warfare.
Virtually all science fiction authors and most of those who read the stuff have speculated at one time or another upon space-warfare. How will it be waged? What will the ships be like, the weapons, the tactics? Fletcher Pratt, even more renowned as a military and naval historian and student than as a science fiction author here take a peek into an all-too probable future and comes up with some well-thought-out answers that are guaranteed to surprise all would-be spacemen.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic Universe June-July 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The mighty ship released a flashing sheet of energy but the Uranian space-vessel's beams were met by a counter-energy screen that caused its blinding heat to ricochet in flashing showers from a barrier invisible against the star-studded black wall of space....
Oh, yeah? It reads well—or has a few thousand fictional times—but it doesn't make sense in a too-real future.
Look chum, a searing bolt of flame has to have something that will support combustion or it will go out. And what do you mean "sheet of energy?" How do you generate it? How do you expect to keep radiation in a tight beam across a couple of thousand miles of space when you can't even prevent a beam of light from spreading after a couple of thousand feet?
The tractor and repulsor beams, screens of force and death-rays of high-power interplanetary stories simply aren't going to work. At least not according to any science we know now. About the only kind of "ray" that might be dangerous would be ultra-violet.