Weaponized Exhaust: Difference between revisions

[[File:KzintiLesson.png|link=Known Space|frame|A Kzinti warship finds itself on the wrong end of a human fusion drive. [[Superweapon Surprise|Surprise]]!]]

 

 

Most [[Jet Pack|jetpacks, rocket boots]], and [[Cool Starship|spaceships]] give off impressive plumes of fiery exhaust when they're moving. For the most part, this exhaust is just there to [[Rule of Perception|show that something's happening]]. But the exhaust of a rocket can also double as a [[Kill It with Fire|short-ranged weapon]], especially during a getaway. Characters with [[Jet Pack|jet boots]] can perform really effective [[Goomba Stomp]]s, while starship pilots can [[Superweapon Surprise|cause enormous damage]] with their drive flames.

* Taken to absolutely humongous extremes in Mark Geston's novel ''Lords of the Starship'', in which a ''seven mile long'' rocket is built to carry humanity away from a war-ravaged Earth. But it's all a horrible trick: when the rocket is finally completed after more than a century a vast battle rages in its shadow between its millions of supporters and opponents. And then the ship slides down the slipway, and turns around until its engines are pointing towards the warring armies... just imagine how big and how hot a seven-mile long spaceship's rocket exhaust would be. It was all part of a plot by an ancient enemy to get revenge and take over the world. What's left of it.

* In the first ''[[Dune]]'' novel, the Emperor reports that his [[Super Soldiers|Sardukar]] only escaped with their lives after attacking a Fremen sietch by doing this (he was aghast, and rightly so, that his [[Super Soldiers|Super Extra Elite Finest Troops]] were outfought by [[Superweapon Surprise|a settlement of elders, women and children]]).

* As part of the climactic sequence of [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s ''Scourge the Heretic'', an Inquisition shuttle pilot uses his exhaust to blast the front wall off the bad guys' mansion.

* In the early [[Terry Pratchett]] novel ''[[Strata]]'', at one point Marco mentions they could use their ship's engine's fusion flame as a weapon (although this is never actually seen).

* Used in ''Aeons Child'' in [[Robert Reed]] - a starship's fusion rocket is disassembled, brought inside the [[Big Dumb Object|Great Ship]], and reassembled to be used as a last-ditch weapon to purge a chamber of a hostile [[Genius Loci|Gaian]] entity.

 

* In the ''[[Firefly]]'' [[Pilot]], Wash uses Serenity's exhaust flame to ignite a planet's atmosphere as a way to disable/distract a Reaver ship after performing a "Crazy Ivan".

{{quote|'''Zoe:''' Ain't no way they can come around in time to follow us now.}}