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Arbitrary Maximum Range: Difference between revisions
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== Real Life ==
* [http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3x.html#xray Project Rho] considered the limits of beam weapon technology grounded in [[Shown Their Work|real-life physics]]. A 10 megawatt [[Frickin' Laser Beams|X-ray laser]] could quite conceivably kill spacecraft out to at least a light minute... sure, most things that were actively evading would be hard to hit due to lightspeed delay but consider this: such a weapon in orbit around the Earth would be able to vaporize well armored satellites in orbit around Mars when the two planets were at their closest, and thoroughly frazzle the electronics of any unarmored device fifty times further away (over twice the distance between Earth and Mars when they are furthest apart). So, yeah, [[Viewers Are Goldfish|no maximum range, but maximum
* Anti-aircraft shells are designed to avert the trope as described in the top-of-page example. Because AA gunnery in the [[World War II]] fashion basically consists of firing large quantities of explosive-packed steel into the air ''over a major city'', something has to be done to make sure those quantities that miss their targets don't descend upon the people and things you are trying to protect. AA shells have a self-destruct mechanism, which triggers long after they should expect to have hit their target but before they have had a chance to fall to earth. The worst the people below suffer is a light rain of tiny fragments....in theory.
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