In the Dune universe, when a laser weapons hits a shield, both are destroyed in a nuclear explosion reaction.
So instead of building nuclear weapons, wouldn’t it be easier to tie a timer and a “parachute” to a laser gun and drop it from orbit onto your enemy’s city?
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The reaction between a shield and laser is completely random, not knowing wether you are going to vaporise a few molecules, an entire city or everything in between makes it very unreliable for warfare purposes.
And you’d probably find the whole Landsraad against you, as using atomics is outlawed. While a bomb like that isn’t an atomic weapon by definition, the effects are the same and it stands to reason that they’ll therefore still retaliate in full force.
The whole lasgun-shield interaction concept is one of the hand-wavy parts of Dune, kind of like the eagles in LOTR, or the ridiculously inaccurate laser blasters in Star Wars.
Shields in Dune are common defensive technology, which means that lasguns would almost certainly have to be outlawed altogether to prevent some random encounter from turning into nuclear apocalypse.
In the first movie, I think Villeneuve deals with it somewhat haphazardly. The use of a lasgun at the agricultural research station perhaps makes some sense because shields can’t be used in the open desert without attracting worms. On the other hand, they show lasers being used at the first Battle of Arrakeen in close proximity to other ships that are shown to have active shields.
I remember that the location of the reaction is random and happens anywhere along the beam path. So they are safer to use at long range like from orbit as the reaction is less likely to be close to the shooter.
Yeah I always just figured the nuclear reaction would happen on the “outside” of the shield sending it in a less directional method. The shield would still fail but kinda ricochet it?
My understanding is that such a technique is known, but the first person to do it is going to get dog piled by the other houses. MAD
Given the basic premise from the very beginning, where the emperor wants to destroy house atreides, I doubt it. If the houses were going to honor their promises, they already should have
There is a big difference between invading a foreign nation (Ukraine?) against established treaties and nuking a foreign nation. Mutually assured destruction is avoided by even those on the losing side until they’re well aware they’ve lost and have been given a reason not to surrender.
Even IRL multiple different leaders have ordered MAD in multiple different circumstances, only stopped by some peon committing treason by disobeying launch orders.
You are giving conservatives far too much credit to their intelligence.
Iraq was invaded specifically because they had no WMDs. Any sane ruler would launch when faced with death. Real interesting how the rogue nations with proven nuclear weapons capability are the only ones still standing…
I’m not sure I’m giving them far too much credit when you’ve sort of already proven my point by bringing up the multiple times it has been ordered and yet still avoided. I’m sure the situation would have changed if the person’s responsible for launch believed themselves and their families to be dead already, but a chance at anything else is better than nuclear MAD. There’s a hell of a lot of reason not to press that button.
I actually just came across the line that explained this in the first book. apparently, after the fact, there’s no way to tell the difference between this and the use of an atomic, so using this strategy could get your family accused of illegally using atomics against another house.
I’m pretty sure the answer is that building a lasgun and a shield is more expensive than building a nuke.
Like, the reason they don’t use nukes in Dune isn’t because they don’t know how to make them, it’s because if you ever use them you’ll immediately unite the entire Landsraad against you. They have very strict rules against it. And creating a pseudo-nuke as you described still falls under the convention. So, sure, you can do it, but it’s wasteful and pointless. Only reason to do it is if a lasgun and a shield is all you’ve got handy, and you’re willing to become public enemy number one for the galaxy.
I’m pretty sure the answer is that building a lasgun and a shield is more expensive than building a nuke.
I proposed to drop a (inexpensive) laser gun on the enemy’s (existing city/fortress) shield. Simple, cheap and (overly) effective.
I’m not entirely sure how you would rig the lasgun to fire in a way that hits the shield, while it’s falling from the sky. And I believe it’s random whether or not the shield blows up, so you’d need to drop several for safety.
But at the end of the day, deliberately engineering explosions using shield-laser interactions still contravenes the convention against atomics. The great houses all have plenty of nukes, they really don’t need bootstrap solutions. The problem is political, not technical.
It’s sort of like the nuclear weapons situation in our world. Everyone who has the weapon know they can use it, but they won’t, unless there’s somone crazy enough cough Muadib cough to do it, because it all but assures complete destruction of your house by the rest of the great houses. It’s an unspoken rule.
That’s not their question though. Their question is about why build nukes when you can achieve the same effect with a shield and a lasgun.
They did answer the question. Anyone who tries it without some SERIOUS protection would be utterly annihilated once word got around they intentionally induced nuclear detonations. Using nukes of any kind is a major taboo in universe, everyone is able to do it but when you break the taboo nothing is stopping your enemy from repaying in kind.
You can just people do neither
Also, afaik, the reaction isn’t consistent or predictable - its more of a risk thing, which doesn’t make for a great weapon.
Well in addition to the other answers, out of universe, the answer is power of plot. Simply nuking the shit out of everything wouldn’t really make for an interesting story.
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I don’t think you can assume that would be easier than building a nuke
Shields and lasguns were available to a significant number of fighters. If you were able to accurately hit a shield with a lasgun, you were probably within the blast radius too.
