Posted by Anthony Appleyard on
URL: https://www.shado-forum.com/Can-some-body-tell-me-tp1504157p1504168.html

--- In [hidden email], SumitonJD@a... wrote:
> It takes a lot of power to make a laser work. ...

and only a few % of it goes into the beam; the rest of the energy
used merely makes the gun hot. That is with real-world technology. In
fictional time-lines there may be a much more energy-efficient
compact way to make a laser beam or other sort of ray gun. Perhaps
Gerry Anderson wanted to get away from the habit of automatically
thinking of ray guns whenever space travel arises. But in some of the
UFO series comic stories in "Countdown" and "TV Action", UFO series
alien rifles are called rayguns and shown firing a ray. In the UFO
series fictional world, there may be a lower limit to the size of a
raygun, same as in the real world there is a lower limit to the size
of a fission bomb.

To go off the point: in Gerry Anderson's Space Precinct series, the
aliens called Tarns have a third eye in their foreheads. Normally
this is closed; when it is open, it gives them special power. I get a
definite suspicion that that characteristic was plagiarized from the
Hindu god Shiva.