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I have kind of lost interest in Fade for some reason. Guess I just want to try something new. One idea I'm workshopping is an anthology book called Gunwake.

The premise is this. There's an iron Man type hero we see in the first issue. He's building the suit, and he takes it out for a test run. The key part of the technology in the suit is a device that renders guns completely useless. Maybe it stops them from firing. Maybe it makes them unable to strike the hero. Whatever. Anyway. It doesn't go so well for our hero. He's bulletproof, but frankly he's still a nerdy engineer with no fighting experience. He gets pushed off a roof, apparently to his death.

But see, he's a red herring anyway. The story wasn't directly about him. Someone steals the bulletproof tech from his suit before anyone arrives. Some junkies who just realize they can probably sell it for drugs. They sell it and it works its way into the right hands. Someone duplicates it, it sells and eventually it's everywhere. Guns are effectively useless. So the anthology premise is the world--well the US underworld especially--in the absence of guns.

So is it GUN-wāk or gun-WA-kay?

--Patrick

This reminds me of The Trigger. The writing in it was pretty meh but the concept was very thoroughly explored. I think there is a lot of interesting stories to tell about such a world, kind of like The Machine of Death anthologies wherein a machine gives a cryptic, but perfectly accurate, phrase describing the user's eventual death. Every story in those anthologies was quite unique but all centered on the same concept.

PatrThom said:

So is it GUN-wāk or gun-WA-kay?

--Patrick

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In the absence of our reactions, "You're Doing The Thing Again."

MindDetective said:

This reminds me of The Trigger. The writing in it was pretty meh but the concept was very thoroughly explored. I think there is a lot of interesting stories to tell about such a world, kind of like The Machine of Death anthologies wherein a machine gives a cryptic, but perfectly accurate, phrase describing the user's eventual death. Every story in those anthologies was quite unique but all centered on the same concept.

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Huh. That is similar. Though that looks more 10000 feet than I was thinking.

There are also some stories by... Niven/Pournelle, I think? Which have the world being deprived of either nuclear activity or even just plain fire in general until the deity(-ies) involved are satisfied that we humans will get back in line.

--Patrick

fade said:

Huh. That is similar. Though that looks more 10000 feet than I was thinking.

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Yes and that was it major failing. Closer up stories would work a lot better.

The first bit made me think of the personal field generators from Dune. Sounds like it could be fun! Think you might try for smaller, personal stories?

DarkAudit said:

In the absence of our reactions, "You're Doing The Thing Again."

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I was asking the question in total seriousness.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

I was asking the question in total seriousness.

--Patrick

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Still counts as Doing The Thing.

If it's a serious question, it's "wake" with a long "a", as in both the turbulent waters following the passing of a boat and the vigil held for one who has died. Gotta get that double entendre in there.

drifter said:

The first bit made me think of the personal field generators from Dune. Sounds like it could be fun! Think you might try for smaller, personal stories?

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This is what I'd do as well. Inertial dampening prevents bullets from reaching the target. The inertial dampener could be set at a specific range (say between 150-3000 mps) which would cause bullets to be ineffectual while still allowing light to pass through and not really bother much else.

These shields could be easily powered through SCIENCE so that they are small and able to be used on a personal level. Make it in the future where there are electric cars which include a breakthrough tech that allows for smaller batteries and you'd have a power supply that anyone could access. Certainly a feasible premise for a story.

Edit: Got my inertial range from this site: https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/MariaPereyra.shtml

Dave said:

This is what I'd do as well. Inertial dampening prevents bullets from reaching the target. The inertial dampener could be set at a specific range (say between 150-3000 mps) which would cause bullets to be ineffectual while still allowing light to pass through and not really bother much else.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wundarr_the_Aquarian

On another note, I know I remember a sci-fi story where everyone has a sidearm weapon, but only the “elite“ caste has the models which also provide a personal shield. The story centers around an attempt by the resistance folks to go back in time and convince the inventor of these weapon/shield devices to share with them the secret of the shielding half of the weapon to remove the imbalance. The story takes several twists in the process, especially the ending.

—Patrick

Wundarr. Huh. That's a fucking pull. Never heard of him. Love the blatant ripoff of the Superman story, though.

Dave said:

Wundarr. Huh. That's a fucking pull. Never heard of him. Love the blatant ripoff of the Superman story, though.

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Heh. No, that’d be Gladiator.
I mean, Gladiator is Marvel’s equivalent to Superman (the character), but you’re definitely not wrong about the story part.

—Patrick

My feeling is that it's not a personal device. It was for the original superhero, but I figured it was somehow everywhere. Maybe like cell coverage. Which gives some neat story opportunities. Dead zones certain people know about, jammers, etc.

fade said:

My feeling is that it's not a personal device. It was for the original superhero, but I figured it was somehow everywhere. Maybe like cell coverage. Which gives some neat story opportunities. Dead zones certain people know about, jammers, etc.

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As if a radical anti-gun group somehow got a hold of the technology and started broadcasting the field all over? Or someone learned how to expand the range of the field to insane proportions (10-15 mile range)?

There's all sorts of things you could do with this. Hell, you don't even have to explain the technology, merely hint at what it could be. Depends on how much the protagonist knows. I mean, ask a lot of us how a lightbulb works and we might have a general idea but not really specifics. There would be exceptions, of course, but you get my point.

Dave said:

There's all sorts of things you could do with this. Hell, you don't even have to explain the technology, merely hint at what it could be.

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The world at large may never understand how it works, either. You don't ever have to explain how your MacGuffin works if you don't want to. The people using it just need to know how to use it, not how it works. Clarke's 3rd law, and all that. People download apps to their cellphones all the time and don't know how apps work (or even how cellphones themselves work).
...
Also the idea of someone being able to stop all guns in a xxx radius from working simply by downloading an app to their phone sounds hilarious*.

--Patrick
*by which I of course mean treacherously disruptive.

fade said:

My feeling is that it's not a personal device. It was for the original superhero, but I figured it was somehow everywhere. Maybe like cell coverage. Which gives some neat story opportunities. Dead zones certain people know about, jammers, etc.

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What about anti-jammer jammers?! Though that makes me curious about government deployment in high crime cities. Probably just more stabbings.

Providing an explicit explanation invites people to come up with ways to defeat it, and a basic story element here is that defeating it is not easy. Not to mention somebody is going to point out a really simple solution that you didn't see because you were too close to the story, like taking the eagles to Mordor.