Negasphere

E. E. Smith's version of anti-matter, negaspheres are one of the most dangerous weapons in the Lensman universe. Utterly black spheres, they annihilate any matter they come into contact with, releasing two quanta of hard radiation as a result. The first negasphere was one of planetary anti-mass and was used as a new planet-killing weapon by the Galactic Patrol - but it did not take long for the Boskonians to copy the idea.
Thereafter, negaspheres became a staple of fleet battles. Bombers (actually light cruisers converted to fire smaller negaspheres) were used to hurl negaspheres at enemy ships. Defensive shields actually sucked negaspheres in faster rather than repel them and the spheres were naturally attracted to the heaviest masses aboard a ship. In addition, tractor beams and pressor beams did not work as normal: a tractor beam pushed and a pressor pulled - something that few Boskonians knew about when their two fleets first fought and used negaspheres (allowing the Patrol ships to grab enemy negaspheres and hurl them back).
During the defence of Arisia, both sides used negaspheres to negate the others' planets: in case the Boskonians sent a planet down a hyper-spatial tube the Patrol threw a negasphere in and vice versa if they were worried about an incoming negasphere. At the Battle of Klovia, loose Boskonian negaspheres designed to destroy Klovia were more of a threat to the Boskonians when the Sunbeam destroyed the support structure that held such massive negaspheres in place - presumably they were destroyed by Patrol inertialess planets to prevent them harming Klovia or anything else nearby after the battle.
Overall though, negaspheres were not as effective as more conventional ship weapons - two competent ship crews could arguably reach a stalemate if trying to hurl negaspheres into each other due to their tractor and pressor beams - whilst the planet-killer versions were easily stopped by sacrificing a barren inertialess planet.

Record 1217 - technology - Last update 07 Jun 2007, 01:05:12

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