The Carrying of Weapons in Science Fiction
A common theme of American science fiction is the carrying of weapons by an armed populace; much early science fiction depicts the space frontier as analogous with the Wild West or medieval Europe, where the carrying of weapons is an unexceptional fact of life. As American society evolved its science fiction would revisit the theme of an armed society from a sociological viewpoint. One example of carrying weapons in science fiction is that they can be folded and put away for easy storage. For instance the sword carried by Hikaru Sulu in the Star Trek movie of 2009 had its blade unfold from its own form into the fully extended position from the state of a simple handle. Another example of this are the weapons of the Mass Effect universe. The weaponry in the games would fold up into smaller and more compact shapes when holstered or deactivated.
Read more about this topic: Weapons In Science Fiction
Famous quotes containing the words carrying, weapons, science and/or fiction:
“Thought dissolves the material universe by carrying the mind up into a sphere where all is plastic.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91)
“He has been described as “an innkeeper who hated his guests, a philosopher, and poet who left no written record of his thought, a despiser of women who gave all he had to one, an aristocrat, a proletarian, a pagan, an arcadian, an atheist, a lover of beauty, and, inadvertently, the stepfather of domestic science in America.””
—Administration in the State of Colo, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today—but the core of science fiction, its essence ... has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.”
—Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)