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[LordBaal]

Well the Dune Novels had an excuse. personal forcefield technology outstripped weapon technology. So now everyone was back to using swords.

In never quite figured out why then people didn't use lasers from afar to blow people up, with all those forcefield blowing up in thermonuclear fire when in contact with lasers. Or was it only for vehicles force fields?

[Neonivek]

Well the Dune Novels had an excuse. personal forcefield technology outstripped weapon technology. So now everyone was back to using swords.

In never quite figured out why then people didn't use lasers from afar to blow people up, with all those forcefield blowing up in thermonuclear fire when in contact with lasers. Or was it only for vehicles force fields?

Because the way it works is if you have a forcefield, and they have a forcefield... There is a feedback loop that keeps gathering in power and intensity that it CAN lead to exactly that.

Those lasers would have to be remote.

[LordBaal]

Well the Dune Novels had an excuse. personal forcefield technology outstripped weapon technology. So now everyone was back to using swords.

In never quite figured out why then people didn't use lasers from afar to blow people up, with all those forcefield blowing up in thermonuclear fire when in contact with lasers. Or was it only for vehicles force fields?

Because the way it works is if you have a forcefield, and they have a forcefield... There is a feedback loop that keeps gathering in power and intensity that it CAN lead to exactly that.

Those lasers would have to be remote.

Oh right! My dune-fu is really rusty. But remote lasers seems like an option, just equip them on a robo....afadhfdhaghh...

[Neonivek]

Yep, you just stumbled into the other big barrier to that plan.

[10ebbor10]

Yeah, Dune's laser forcefield interaction was strange an unpredictable. A blast with variable yield and a variable explosion point. Sometimes it blows up the enemy, sometimes the shooter.

[Starver]

After Earth... the mind boggling stupidity of overcomplicated solutions piling all over.

You had me at "After Earth".  So many flaws with that movie, as I recall.  Exactly what the flaws were, I have forgotten.  As a necessary part of trying to forget After Earth in its entirety.

[Arx]

Well the Dune Novels had an excuse. personal forcefield technology outstripped weapon technology. So now everyone was back to using swords.

In never quite figured out why then people didn't use lasers from afar to blow people up, with all those forcefield blowing up in thermonuclear fire when in contact with lasers. Or was it only for vehicles force fields?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm pretty sure that is actually done in one of the later books. It's been years since I read them, though, so I could be wrong.

[PTTG??]

The laser AND the shield blows up.

Still, trading one dude with a laser for an entire enemy division is good tactics.

[Vattic]

In never quite figured out why then people didn't use lasers from afar to blow people up, with all those forcefield blowing up in thermonuclear fire when in contact with lasers. Or was it only for vehicles force fields?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm pretty sure that is actually done in one of the later books. It's been years since I read them, though, so I could be wrong.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Doesn't Paul do this toward the end of the first book even?

[Neonivek]

The laser AND the shield blows up.

Still, trading one dude with a laser for an entire enemy division is good tactics.

Sure you just have to be suicidal.

Though part of me questions how much of an enemy division could really be blown up. Given that an explosion would be blocked by the shields as well.

[Starver]

A couple of no-spoiler nitpicks regarding The Martian (which, on the whole, I found quite good, so not ruined, but certainly a stand-out issue in such a decent representation)...

One: Says a technically-trained person, "Wind velocity is twenty-one point forty-one metres per second" (or very similar).  I can't believe that any technically-trained person (in NASA, no less) would specify decimals in such a manner.  And, if they do, I hope they're ashamed of themselves.

Two: The trajectories of the crew transitioning from the Hermes central corridor to the 'spoke' corridor down to the habitat appeared to consistently exhibit a curve.  Treating it as a non-rotating frame of reference, the angled push-off of the central corridor would be straight (as a diagonal), and then upon entering the 'down-spoke' you contact the tube-wall before you start going straight down it.  Treating it as a rotating frame of reference, you'd have to account for the Coriolis forces and aim ahead (to the turn-wise wall) and still wait until you contacted it before you'd curve in that direction.  In neither case would you execute a graceful dive.  (And I'd be doubtful about going in head-first, given you need to make sure you quickly tuck in to go feet-first down the ladder, however stylishly it seems they get to slid down to the apparently 1G end-node.  You don't want to risk not getting a hold and being flung out head-first/downwards, by being propelled by the withershins edge of the spoke-tube.  However, they've had months and months and months to get their space-legs.  Even if they couldn't defy the laws of momentum.)

I'll avoid the spoilerish nitpicks, for now.

[PTTG??]

The laser AND the shield blows up.

Still, trading one dude with a laser for an entire enemy division is good tactics.

Sure you just have to be suicidal.

Though part of me questions how much of an enemy division could really be blown up. Given that an explosion would be blocked by the shields as well.

You are familiar with the Fremen, yes? The only reason they'd hesitate would be to dehydrate themselves so they don't inadvertently vaporize useful water.

As for the shields, they're transparent. Even if they protected against the blast wave, the heat alone would destroy quite a large enemy force.

[scriver]

One: Says a technically-trained person, "Wind velocity is twenty-one point forty-one metres per second" (or very similar).  I can't believe that any technically-trained person (in NASA, no less) would specify decimals in such a manner.  And, if they do, I hope they're ashamed of themselves.

How should a technical person have put it?

[i2amroy]

Twenty-one point four-one I would assume? Twenty-one point forty-one sounds kinda strange to me.

[Arx]

In never quite figured out why then people didn't use lasers from afar to blow people up, with all those forcefield blowing up in thermonuclear fire when in contact with lasers. Or was it only for vehicles force fields?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm pretty sure that is actually done in one of the later books. It's been years since I read them, though, so I could be wrong.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Doesn't Paul do this toward the end of the first book even?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

IIRC, he uses the Atreides actual atomics to blow up the Shieldwall (or whatever it's called).

Later, after the second jihad (not the computer one, the one Paul started), I think there's a specific ban on atomics and the 'pseudo-atomic' lasgun-shield interaction.

The laser AND the shield blows up.

Still, trading one dude with a laser for an entire enemy division is good tactics.

Sure you just have to be suicidal.

Though part of me questions how much of an enemy division could really be blown up. Given that an explosion would be blocked by the shields as well.

Spoiler: Actual fairly major spoilers for later Dune books (click to show/hide)

One dude for the God-Emperor of Mankind is pretty good odds.