What do you mean by ‘conceit’? I’m not familiar with the meaning you’re trying to get at here. Similarly, what do you mean by ‘thinly veiled’? It’s pretty normal for SF writers to make imaginary technologies have the properties that allow for the story they want to tell. I’m not aware that Herbert ever claimed to be doing otherwise, so rather than in any way veiled it’s just openly done, and ‘conceit’ usually means some kind of fancy metaphor, which it isn’t.
And I don’t see how either of those mean that it was ‘badly designed’.
Yeah, the real problem with Dune shields is that a suicide bomber, or even just a simple mechanism, can easily nuke the place. And yes, I know, Butlerian jihad, but you could make a machine much simpler than the ones actually seen in-universe that could do it. Just attach a spring-loaded alarm clock to the trigger of a lasgun, and put it on a motorized cart aimed at your target. Or aim the gun with the alarm clock, and set the alarm for a long enough time to get out of there.
Its clear that Herbert was trying to create a scenario where the combatants could use swords. In that regard he got the swashbuckling element he (and the books’ many fans) wanted.
I hadn’t considered your Kevlar analogy before, and I don’t know enough about Kevlar to meaningfully reply. It just seems odd that an energy field mechanism can stop rifle fire but can’t stop a slow-moving sword (there are plenty of references to Paul Atriedes slowing down his strike in order to get through a shield).
As I recall (I haven’t read Dune in over 30 years) the personal shields could have been set to stop even slow moving objects, but the user would have run out of breathable air within the shield very quickly.
The do-it-all gun in The Fifth Element that has a self-destruct button on the bottom of it. (Though to Zorg, I’m sure that’s a feature, not a bug.) It just begs to be accidentally pushed. The gun is clearly not to be used by anyone particularly clumsy.
This. It seems to me that Dune technology is suitably advanced that they could have designed some sort of ranged weapon that can penetrate the shields. In fact, I recall in the film Duncan Idaho using such a weapon to kill a Sardaukar.
And the other problem with Dune is that the Fremen – the violence-embracing, but practical and not tech-averse tribes who live in areas where shields are impractical-- don’t use rifles (and anti-personnel mines, artillery, and hand grenades for that matter).
It occurs to me that the rebels are smart. Hyperspace is more difficult to navigate around large gravity wells. Pick a small moon next to a large gas giant, to greatly limit the entry points for capital ships (or death stars) dropping in on you.
We see more evidence for hyperspace risk on the assault on Hoth. The admiral didn’t come out of hyperspace “too early” just because he was dumb - he probably followed standard Imperial protocols for safe distance given the stated mission. And after all, the assault succeeded completely as a military mission. That he should take greater outside-the-books risks with the whole fleet because Darth Vadar’s sole purpose was to stop one person from slipping away in a small ship - hardly his fault he messed up that part.
That’s also consistent with Han hyperspacing through Starkiller Base’s shields, in The Force Awakens, which establishes first that it’s possible, and second that it’s so incredibly risky that only someone like Han would try it, and that only if he were desperate.
Actually, IIRC, Ozzel had the fleet come out of hyperspace close to the system (as General Veers tried to justify it, he thought he would surprise the rebels). Problem was, he couldn’t really get close enough to Hoth to deny the rebels any time to prepare a counter-assault/evacuation (as we saw, most of the important assets – not to mention the stars of the movje – were able to be moved off the planet). If Ozzel had come of HP further away, the rebels might not have noticed them before the fleet could be properly deployed to prevent the rebels from escaping.
OTOH, I do think you’re correct on the Death Star/Yavin questions.
Ah that’s right! And just went and looked at the clip to confirm - I got it wrong there.
This put me in mind of something else in terms of design flaws. If we can talk about defensive systems instead of weapons, in Hoth: (1) why was the Imperial ship knocked offline so easily by the ion cannon, and (2) if ion cannons have that effect on capital ships, why aren’t ion cannons used more? Seems like a huge defensive mistake/hole somehow.
I believe it’s canon that using it destroys Galactus- only he is then instantly recreated, being the incarnation of the balance between Eternity and Death. OTOH, if anyone else uses it against Galactus, he’s screwed.
As I recall from the ST:TAS adaptation, the slide gave you the mundane settings (perhaps the equivalent of a ceremonial sword?) while the key to the secret settings was to rotate the sphere at the end of the handle: one axis gave you the conversion beam, another gave you the AI computer, and the third the self-destruct.
From the story I read, rotating gave you the matter conversion beam weapon.
The AI computer just sort of “showed up” after the weapon had listened to enough human/kzinti jabber to communicate. It offered to show the kzinti the secret, but of course by that time the AI knew they were not tnuctipun or tnuctip allies/descendants. So it showed them the self destruct, which they obligingly activated.
I suppose it could have just decided to self destruct by itself, once it knew it had fallen into enemy hands…?
The cannon is massive, and we actually don’t know they aren’t used. Given that the Empire felt the need to build a planet-busting superweapon, they probably didn’t think the fleet alone was able to take on hardened planetary defenses and win. Of course, on reason for that would likely be that, as stationary defenses, they can’t guard anyplace else on the planet and can only fire into medium orbit at best. (Star Wars, being made by nerds for nerds, actually lists all the information on Wookiepedia.) Sure enough, the ion cannon the rebels had wouldn’t have been able to hit anything - except that Ozzel brought the fleet in too close.
