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by GeoAtreides 17 days ago
They had advanced computing, a whole region was full of it: IX.

The rest of the empire was too feudal and too religious to dabble into advanced technology. And the other players (the BG, the Tleilalxu, the Guild) were against it as well.

What good are drones, except as weapons of assassination? Can't use them in an conventional war, there are shields. And they're very expensive, remember, the Great Houses don't have advanced manufacturing capabilities (that's IX). And, finally, there are no great wars in the empire, most houses keep to their planetary fief; the Baron's attack on the Atreides' forces on Dune was an exception. It was also mindbogglingly expensive, 80 years of spice profit.
1 comments
GlibMonkeyDeath 17 days ago
>What good are drones, except as weapons of assassination? Can't use them in an conventional war, there are shields.

Presumably a drone could get close enough to push a blade through the shield (maybe use a rocket booster or some other advanced "suspensor" tech) at low-ish speed (a knife would have to travel through the shield on the order of a human reaction time, otherwise even knives wouldn't work. That's about 0.1s/0.1 m, so 1 m/s - ish.)

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GeoAtreides 17 days ago
if it moves slow enough to pass a shield, it moves slow enough to be easily dispatched. And remember, no autonomous behaviour, there has to be human operator. And it's very expensive. It just doesn't scale.
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GlibMonkeyDeath 16 days ago
OK we are really nerding out here but I just can't resist :)

The propelled blade weapon doesn't need a control system in the "shape of a human mind" to be effective. A very simple control system would work. If they have ornithopters, then they have control systems. The blades could even work like hawk talons (so an ornithopter drone falling on a shielded fighter, then springing what is effectively a pointed metal trap.)

But more importantly, you are right that if the weapon moves too slowly, then you could just get out of the way. That's true of any weapon, no matter how it is propelled. That's why I said above you have to be able to penetrate a shield faster than a human reaction time, otherwise no weapon would be effective.

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