On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 10:37 AM, Kelly St. Clair <xxxxxx@efn.org> wrote:
I'm skeptical that weapons-grade lasers, particle beams, etc etc can be as easily "piped" as their much-lower-power lab-grade equivalents. Every angle or bounce will inevitably deposit SOME amount of heat on the internal mechanisms, and when a deflector degrades under continued fire (as it eventually will), it is likely to do so explosively.  This is not something you can do with magic hand mirrors.

True.

But if we install the beam generators toward the center of globular vessels - one generator per "orange slice" - we can set up "pipes" that are straight channels to different surface emitters. Then we can physically rotate the axis of the beam generator between the different "pipe breeches." Thus the beams are only actually bent at the "muzzles."

--
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein
"I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as Muhammed." Alexis de Tocqueville (1843)
"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester
"It has been my experience that a gun doesn't care who pulls its trigger." Newton Knight (as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey), to a scoffing Confederate tax collector facing the weapons held by Knight's young children and wife.