Aes

Well, chainmail, samurai armor, cheramic composite... Anything that isn't too constricting and would require a considerable amount of force to penetrate. It's the principle of the thing. I find it strange noone in the Duniverse seemed to buy themselves invunerability by wearigna composite armor. An outer layer that could only be penetrated by slow-moving objects and an inner layer that could only be penetrated by fast-moving objects.

A good point. I just picked a sphere as it was a nice geometric shape to play with physics in. Form-fitting shields could work to some extent, though it would depend on just how form-fitting they were. For example, the Lynch filmatization had the shields appear as big (if somewhat form-fitting) boxes around the wearers. If that's what is meant by form-fitting, the ornithopter would be roughly as aerodynamic as a shoebox made out of lead. The problem still remains however, as to wether forces applied to the shield can affect the thing that projects it. The 'thopter needs to produce some sort of force downwards to generate lift, and if said force collides with the shield, the force of the collision ought to nullify the force generating lift. Again, the holtzmann shield is a tricky thing to apply physics to, as it doesn't really conform to known physics. After all, how does the shield determine the form to fit? If I pick up a large metal rod, how will the shield determine wether to fit around the rod or just my hand? How will the shield tell the difference between a physical object (a bunch of atoms) and air (a bunch of atoms) when determining its shape and size?

Currently hooked up to the network are: Asmodeus (Gaming platform/media player): P4 2.4 ghz 1.25 gb DDR RAM GeForce 4 Ti 180 GB harddisk 10/100 network and sound card courtesy of ASUS mobo CD/DVD/CD-RW/DVD-R drive POSWare

Going back to the original post in this topic (because I had a somewhat coherent formulation of my opinion back then before overloading my poor non-mentat mind trying to encompass all that were added), I would say that, yes, a form of marriage should be allowed for homosexuals. I would even go as far as to say it's fine to call it "marriage", as multiple religions (not just christianity which seems to be what everyone has been referring to thus far) use the term, invalidating any copyright a religion could claim to the word. That being said, a state that allows homosexuals to marry should also provide a way for them to do so (getting married at town hall for instance) as to not impose said law on the religious system of any recognized faith. I don't beleive it is any religions right to tell those who do not follow it what they can do any more than the government of any given country has a right to tell a faith how to conduct its rituals. I might not subscribe to the quasi-psychologic spiritual mumbo-jumbo most religious preachers throw at me, but I recognize that it is their right to beleive as they do. Just as it's the right as citizens of my country for those two men over there *points* to grope at one another, regardless of how uneasy it makes the rest of us pseudo-bigots feel about it. Those little freedoms to do as we will as long as it causes noone harm is the entire point in living in a supposedly free country.

Actually, there are 9 DVD regions: Region 0 - Universal Region 1 - U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories Region 2 - Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt) Region 3 - Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong) Region 4 - Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean Region 5 - Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia Region 6 - Peoples Republic of China Region 7 - Reserved Region 8 - Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.) Region 0 - which is region-free - can be played on any DVD player. When you "unlock" a DVD drive, you basically hardwire it to read all DVDs as region 0. The original purpose (as explained by the multibillionaire corporations) was that DVD regions would help facilitate releasing Hollywood movies at different times in different regions. But by far the easiest solution for the consumer is to ignore those silly regions and shell out for a legal, region-free DVD player. :] Still waiting for a chance to sample the CoD miniseries before shelling out for the DVD (and even then, I'll probably wait for the SE). No sci-fi channel for me :[

That would depend on the answer on another question that has baffled me for a while: where does the kinetic energy go when something collides with the Holzmann wave field. When you see someone get hit by a fast-moving projectile or blade in the movies they don't flinch at all. Neither are anyone described (to the extent of my knowledge) as being knocked around by violent forces hitting their shields in the books. If we assume this is not an oversight, and the energy from the collision with a holzmann field dissipates without affecting the field or the object it shields, shielding an ornithopter would be quite feasible. Assuming the shield forms a sphere around the thopter, air would be deflected downwards by the wings/engines and collide with the shield, where its movement is negated without affecting the thopter. The movement of air to the bottom of the shield sphere will create a pressurized cushion below the ship and a vacuum above it into which more air can flow for the wings to push down. This wonderful closed system is somewhat hard for me to swallow in that it would not function under the laws of physics as we know them today. (I'm not going to exclude the possibility that a Tio Holzmann pops along and tells me everything I have taken for fact is wrong). It's mostly speculation based on the fact that I've never observed the forces that collide with a holzmann wave field invoke any form of inertia or kinetic energy upon the object the wave field shields. My previously described model should be physically impossible if not for that single observation, in that the force of the air being pushed downward by thr 'thopter and the force of the air colliding with the wave field ought to negate one another. An alternate solution, depending on the specifics of the holzmann field would be loosening the masks in the net of waves (possibly by modulating amplitude or frequency -- it's a bit tricky to know with undiscovered technology that defies physics ;]) to allow for objects the size of whatever gasses your planets atmosphere consists of. This would still give you immunity to various forms of projectile weapons while allowing air to pass unhindered through your shielding providing you with lift.

The two Face Dancers were with Duncan from before the no-ship IIRC. He suspected it was something the Tleiaxu did to him in the axlotl tanks, as was stated elsewhere in Chapterhouse. Chapterhouse: Dune spoiler: [hide] Also, at the end when he wiped shipsystems one of the face dancers complained to the other that he let him get away. So with the wiped shipsystems, they appearently had no way of tracking the no-ship. My guess is that they (assuming they did know where the no-ship was going) had a beacon of sorts installed either into shipsystems, or were using Ghola-Idaho as a beacon of sorts (again falling back to his suspicion of being tampered with by the Tleiaxu) [/hide] But while I'm at the questions-asking, there's something else that has been bothering me. Why don't we ever see references to people in traditional heavy armor in the Dune books? All the movies and books I've read so far seems to have people in cloth armor with Holzmann shields. You'd think that traditional full plate would be in vogue again, after Holzmann shields stopped all fast-moving objects. If you had even just a thin layer of metal covering your body, it ought to be virtually impenetrable due to the fact that the invading weapon would not posess enough kinetic energy to pierce it. [edit] Added spoiler tags

Is there given any explanation in the books (Haven't read all of them yet. Waiting for Amazon to send me CoD and Heretics) as to how no-things prevent prescient searchers from detecting them? You'd think that if a no-ship flew somewhere and unloaded an army, the prescient searchers would be able to deduce it had been there from their prescient warning of army x invading.