On 9/27/2017 7:49 PM, Cole wrote:
> I'm fairly sure a communications laser that can cause a decent amount of
> damage to something close would be problematic. Dead birds, holes in the
> shuttle that just dropped you off, etc. Now, of course, there's nothing
> stopping a larger laser being built with the necessary systems to focus
> it down to a comms laser. Perhaps the weapon style laser comes larger or
> more expensive to account for the extra complexity of switching between
> blasting a hole through another vehicle and talking with the seller
> survey expedition.

Well, consider that in the real world, strong radars and transmitters -
the kind mounted on ships and surface installations - can't really be
/stopped/ from doing this, at least at close range.  A comm laser is
just a collimated version, operating at a different range of wavelengths
(maybe).

A sufficiently high-output energy beam is going to do a number on
anything that gets in its way, whether it's "meant" to do that or not.
That is the essence of Niven's Kzinti Lesson.

--
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Kelly St. Clair
xxxxxx@efn.org