Does it sound like "a whale farting"?
Jeffrey Jenkins, "A Twist of Sand", 1959.
8 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Jul 2008
"But then he quickly departed without any visible means of propulsion in the general direction of stars. If he can defy gravity (ahem) in such a way, he might just as easily teleport himself to a distant exoplanet to have a drink or two while enjoying the view..."
Ah, well, if he was Defying Gravity then one of the Artefacts must have been calling him. :-)
"Assuming you don’t put your faith in ancient weapons and hokey religions, your only option is to pack a good blaster at your side"
Nah, I put my faith in a nice little piece from the Weapon Shops of Isher. Dreebo woldn't even have started to move his hand towards his gun before being toast. :-)
"Think of the fascist police state from 'V for Vendetta' when they read about the NSA actions etc?"
Actually I thought more of the extreme totalitarian world government of Neal Asher's "The Owner" series http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/unhappy_32.png
These, like the other gunsights, need to have their aiming reticules "boresighted" - that is, accurately aligned with the gun barrel - every time they get attached to a weapon. (Movie scenes where people gaily snick aiming attachments on and off weapons and never bother to zero them on the range are strictly creative licence.)
At least the Jackal (not that pretender tosser Sanchez) made the attempt to zero his sight on his custom made weapon before striking it down into a crutch for transport.