HOLTZMAN EFFECT
So named for its discoverer, I.V. Holtzman, the Holtzman Effect is actually a series of four interrelated forces, each named for the number of dimensions that the single or composite force has:
Point-source Holtzman effect nodes, which have no physical existence, but which do occupy definite locations. (This incarnation of the Holtzman Effect was theoretically explained very late in the development of HE devices and theory, though it had been used without being understood since the discovery of the suspensor-nullification effect.)
One-dimensional incarnations of the Holtzman Effect commonly called Holtzman Waves, though this is a very long way from the truth. (The Holtzman Wave is the only known method for interstellar communications, and is the only method available for communicating with a ship in transit.)
Two-dimensional or planar incarnations of the Holtzman Effect, which have achieved widespread notoriety as the common Defensive Shield.
Three dimensional Holtzman Effect fields, the first manifestation of the Holtzman Effect to be discovered, and still referred to by the name used for thousands of years before Holtzman discovered the rest of the forest of effects: the suspensor-nullification effect. (The major use of the suspensor-nullification effect is in providing a means of interstellar travel.)
HISTORY. The discovery of the suspensor-nullification effect in 13004 B.G. marked the limit of research into the theory of the effect for thousands of years. The greatest minds of every age failed to develop an unifying theory of the suspensor-nullification effect. Not until the fortunate though tragic accident of I.V. Holtzman did there exist a mind capable of the insights of a genius, the data recall of a major comp, and the daring of a 'thopter racer. Had Holtzman not lived, died, and half-lived again, what we now called the Holtzman Effect would probably still lie undiscovered. The details of the discovery of the suspensor-nullification effect, on the other hand, are not fully known, and much must be interpolated from second-hand sources.
The suspensor-nullification effect was discovered by scientists in the First Empire, ten centuries after the empire first ventured from the surface of Terra. It was thought, until Holtzman proved otherwise, to be a "resonance effect" arising from coherent-light (laser) mechanics. The discovery is credited to one "Verifax Marktoo," who may have been a machine in the service of House Ceres (the Imperial House), though this theory is hotly disputed by theologians. [Nevertheless, the discovery at the Rakis Finds of a reference to an extremely ancient medal of commendation struck for this "Verifax Marktoo” seems to prove that he (it?) actually did exist. — Ed,]
It took about a century of experimentation and guesswork before Imperial navigators learned how to operate the suspensor-nullification effect field with any degree of certainty. The delay was so long mainly because the effect was considered to be an Imperial secret, and jealously guarded. Eventually the secret was leaked, and House Ceres and its most powerful and influential allies began a program of exploration and exploitation greater than any other since the beginning of the empire.
House Ceres had no way of knowing it, of course, but this use of the suspensor-nullification device doomed the First Empire, which collapsed after 3,000 years of continuous rule that had seen Terra develop from iron tools to space travel. The centrality crucial to administration was impossible to maintain when there was no quick method of communication from one end of the Empire to the other — and until the discovery of Holtzman Waves, the only way to send a message was to send a ship, which made for impossibly expensive administrative costs, and diffused the power of the emperor irreparably.
In 7562 B.G., I.V. Holtzman discovered the Holtzman Wave; in 7556 B.G. he passed on information necessary for its use to six planetary systems. Also in 7556, his research was interrupted and he was unable to resume it until his orbit brought him back within panel range of his sun. In his second return (5694 B.G.), Holtzman kept silent; however, he evidently used this period to discover the curious "existence" of the point-source node. On his third pass (3832 B.G.), Holtzman was able to communicate freely after some initial difficulties were overcome, and on that pass he published the theory that led to the development of the two-dimensional Holtzman Effect, the famed Defensive Shield. The Defensive Shield attained current levels of popularity within a century, and, when the Superconductor Plague brought on the Machine Death and the Little Dark Ages, reliance upon the Shields became almost total, and was instrumental in preserving enough of the social fabric to limit the Dark Ages to less than twenty centuries. Holtzman's fourth pass was in 1970 B.G., when, fortunately for the annals of science, the combatants at the Battle of Liesco XI called a two-month truce to accommodate Holtzman's passage. It was during this pass that Holtzman transmitted his Unified Effect Theory, linking the various phenomena together under the blanket term of "Holtzman Effects." He also hinted of further development to come. Unfortunately, Holtzman's fifth passage in 108 B.G. was his last: he arrived into the waiting jaws of the Butlerian Jihad, and was destroyed.
THEORY AND OPERATION. Point-Source Nodes. Essentially, a point-source HE node is the "seed" for a higher-order effect: when one of the higher-dimension Holtzman Effect incarnations is discontinued, it collapses into a point-source Holtzman Effect node which has a location, and can be moved by gentle application of probability nudges, even though it has no physical existence whatsoever. When triggered back into existence, the effect which arises from a point-source Holtzman Effect node is exactly the same as before. Debate has raged, ever since Holtzman's day, as to exactly how it is possible for something with no existence to interact with the real world. Arguments have ranged from quasi-religious claims that the node "knows" when it is being invoked, to involved mathematical theories that maintain that the node actually does exist, but in a spacetime "pocket" with no volume.
Point-source Holtzman Effect nodes are caged and transported in devices known as "Laser Pens" to theorists, though the operation of these devices does not intrude upon the consciousness of the user of a Holtzman Effect device, such as a Shield. The construction of a Laser Pen consists of three pairs of microlasers emitting coherent radio waves with a wavelength of approximately one light-second. The six microlasers impact the location of the point-source Holtzman Effect node in such a way as to cancel one another out completely at that location only: the node is thereby kept at that location and is not allowed to wander. To trigger the node, the microlasers switch simultaneously to a wavelength of approximately one angstrom, maintain that frequency for a single pulse, and then disconnect. At the same time that the microlasers disengage, the field's power is turned on, and electrical power is fed into the field from whatever power source is providing the necessary energy for the effect's maintenance. These power sources are usually microbatteries for Defensive Shields, since they must be contained completely within the volume affected by the Shield: for other effects, though, much more powerful external energy sources can be used.
All Holtzman Field Effects can be forced back into their point-source status either by discontinuing the maintenance power, in which case the microlasers must reengage instantly or the point-source will wander and be lost, or by overloading the field, which requires an enormous amount of electrical energy to be grounded into the effect. The electrical energy required to short out even a small personal Shield is more than the total consumption of the average Shire. If this much power is brought to bear against any incarnation of the Holtzman Effect, though, the field will immediately collapse into the node for that effect, and, since the electrical jolt also generally fries the microlaser mechanisms, the node is generally lost. (The existence of a "seed" was generally suspected when the suspensor-nullification effect was first developed, but no truly satisfactory theoretical proof could be developed to describe the nature of this "seed" until I.V. Holtzman revealed his theory of point-source nodes in 3832 B.G.)
Holtzman Waves. The one-dimensional "Holtzman Wave" is not actually anything like a wave, but is rather a mathematical phenomen
on which causes real space-time to form microcatastrophic folds along a selectable vector, causing the excitation of local matter such that long-wave radio emissions result, which can then be received on normal radio antennae. Like point-sources, Holtzman Waves cannot really be said to exist except as philosophical constructs which are remarkably immanent.
Holtzman Waves are aimed by use of radio lasers: when the point-source is released, a single long-wave radio laser is aimed at the source, whereupon a Holtzman Wave is created along the vector defined by the laser beam. In general, these waves can be maintained for only a few minutes — one cycle of the radio wave being used — before the wave causes sympathetic vibrations in the laser crystal, leading to its explosion.
As might be expected, the aiming of a Holtzman Wave is incredibly difficult, since relativistic considerations concerning the shape of the continuum between the sender and receiver must be fully mapped. In the case of the transmissions from system to system, inaccuracy is not insurmountable, because normal practice is to "flicker" the transmission over a relatively large area, and the holographic nature of the wave assures that if any part of the wave hits any matter more dense than interstellar hydrogen, the radio waves will be manifested. However, trying to send a transmission to a ship in transit is another matter entirely. The ship must be struck exactly, since the only matter which exists, so far as the ship is concerned, is that which accompanies the ship's suspensor-nullifier (usually the ship itself and a few hydrogen atoms). For this reason, most ships have certain predesignated points (called "mail drops") where they drop out of the Void in order to send or receive messages.
Theoretically, the range of a Holtzman Wave is infinite; in practice, its effective range is limited by the ability of the sender to aim the wave so that it will strike a large (planetary or larger) mass at or near the receiver. This requirement limits the useful range of Holtzman Wave communications to approximately 250 light-years without re-broadcasting.
It has been theorized that the background radio emissions which blanket the visible universe are transmissions, via Holtzman Waves, of civilizations in the Galactic Core, but this thesis remains unproven.
Two-dimensional effect. The two-dimensional, or planar, Holtzman Effect, which has achieved permanent and deserved notoreity as the common Defensive Shield, is the lowest-order incarnation of the Holtzman Effect to have a physical existence. It consists of the electromagnetic force of atomic bonds, however, these bonding forces have been polarized: in one direction (the "outside edge" of the effect), the forces have been subverted into acting only on pseudo-atoms of incoherent matter (and can revert with disastrous consequences in the presence of coherent energy); on the opposite side of the plane, the forces have been shifted so that they repel normal matter above a certain critical density (ranging from .06 to .35 grains per cubic centimeter). Pseudo-matter, though it does exist, cannot be manifest in real space-time, so the only effects of the Defensive Shield are the effects of the bonding force.
The result of the strange half-existence of the planar effect is that normal matter can pass through a planar effect region, but only slowly. In addition, a planar effect is reflective on its outer surface to certain wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, and this reflectivity is determined by the manufacturer of the Shield and cannot be altered once the point-source node for that field has been constructed. In general, the less of the spectrum the field admits, the more unstable it is: nearly all fields are constructed to admit at least visible light. Fields can be constructed, though, to admit only a single monochrome of the electromagnetic spectrum, or to admit everything but a single monochrome.
As matter impinges upon the outside surface of a Holtzman Shield, the electromagnetic bonds in the impinging matter undergo a phenomenon known as "chameleon coating," whereby the matter takes on an outward sheath of pseudo-atoms in a layer a single atom thick, at the intersection lines of the matter and the planar effect. These atoms then sublimate into the planar field as the normal matter passes through the field, and the speed at which this atomic sublimation can proceed determines the velocity, called the "strike speed," at which the normal matter can pass through a planar Holtzman field. This speed varies depending upon the emission spectrum of the planar field, but is never less than 5.81665 cm/s for one-angstrom fields, and increases only to 9.322 cm/s for all-absorptive fields.
An object attempting to pass through a planar field at a right-angle vector speed of more than the strike speed is faced with resistance which grows more intense as the fourth power of the velocity. When the speed is sufficiently high, the field becomes essentially solid to the impinging object.
Energy "absorbed" by a planar field when it is struck by a fast-moving object is instantaneously re-radiated, in wavelengths throughout the electromagnetic spectrum which complement those which the field admits. Commercial Defensive Shields are normally manufactured to admit all wavelengths from the very short-wave radio through gamma rays, and emit longer-wave radio. Though it might seem foolish to admit such dangerous wavelengths as the gamma and X ray wavelengths, the common decision has been that it is far better to expose oneself to a little background radiation than it is to have one's shield emitting dangerous radiation during a fight, possibly endangering unshielded bystanders. The ill effects of the radio emissions, on the other hand, cause, at worst, a bad bout of static in the immediate neighborhood.
Special shields have been manufactured on occasion to take advantage of the radiational properties of the planar field: among artists and dye-makers, who are interested in planar fields which admit or reflect only a single, precise color (or group of colors); or for cosmetic uses (by muting all of the colors except yellow, one can conceal a pallor); or for jailors, who normally transport prisoners in Shields which admit no visible spectra; or for those desiring Shields which emit only a single wavelength of gamma rays (this variation has been used by assassins in several particularly vicious exercises of kanly); or, most recently, for the development of Shields which specifically do not emit in the three-kilocycle radio bandwidth, for special use on Arrakis, where the local fauna is sensitive to radio transmissions on that bandwidth and tends to devour any source of such a transmission, even one as diffuse as that from a personal Shield.
Matter above certain densities is repelled by the inside surface of a planar field, and it is this repellent property which made the Personal Defensive Shield a possibility. When a planar field node is being manufactured, the plane of the effect can be warped with a great deal of freedom: whenever a planar field is warped so as to intersect with itself, the shield fuses into a seamless connection. (If not warped, then the effect forms a flat plane with an area dependent upon the amount of energy used in its construction.)
Planar effect fields which are warped tend to contract towards their geometric centers, but cannot contract fully if obstructed by matter in concentrations above the critical density. Since planar effect fields are infinitely elastic (given enough power, of course), and infinitely malleable, so long as topographic identity is maintained, they are usually produced in globular or hemispherical formats: when placed around an object, the field contracts to within a few centimeters of the object being englobed. A field's shape can be freely and instantly altered from the inner side: when any mass is moved toward the inner side at less than the reflection velocity of the field, the field in that region is instantly repelled by the mass, and the field stretches into a new shape, as required. The reflection velocity is the reason that missile weapons cannot be fired from the inside of a Shield: whenever a mass impinges upon the inner surface of a planar field at a velocity of approximately 200-400 meters per second (the exact speed is inversely related to the strike speed), the field undergoes an instantaneous reflective reversal, with the outer surface and the inner surface switching positions. The field then functions as usual, except that the radiation emitted due to absorption of the mass's energy is radiated inward, and, furthermore, that radiation is reflected by the now-inte
rior surface of the field. This normally leads to any wearer of a personal Shield being cooked by long radio waves in a very short time.
Likewise, a planar effect field is transparent to all incoherent electromagnetic emissions traveling from the interior of the field to the exterior, regardless of its outer surface's absorption characteristics. However, when coherent light impinges upon a planar effect field from either surface, there is an uncommonly violent reaction. This reaction is the result of the coherent light causing the subverted binding force acting upon the pseudo-atoms in the field to rebel, rejecting its grip on the pseudo-matter. This causes an instantaneous and total conversion of the pseudo-mass of the shield into a lump of degenerate real matter at the spatial center of the volume enclosed by the planar effect, which matter then converts to pure energy. Fortunately, the actual mass of a planar field is usually quite tiny, on the order of .005 gram for a personal shield. Thus, this typical field, if touched by a laser beam, would result in an atomic blast with a power of 4,500,000,000,000,000,000 ergs, or a little less than .1 kiloton of the atomic scale.
The suspensor-nullification effect. The three-dimensional Holtzman Effect field operates, like all Holtzman Effect fields, by drawing upon the energy of the controlled interface of something that cannot exist with something which must exist. In this instance, the effect depends upon the tension between real and inchoate four-dimensional spacetime: the strain between the two causes realspace to fracture in a tiny locality (generally a globe no more than a kilometer across, though larger effects have been generated), whereupon the mass within that area falls through into the Void. Skilled maneuvering requires either a basic prescience or enough mental power to project the future with a high degree of certainty. The field itself mast be moved, rotated, struck, or steadied to induce desired movement with regard to the Outer Universe and can deliver that mass nearly anywhere, or, if one is not very careful, nowhere.
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