Almost 50 years ago there was a science fiction short story in Analog or F and SF

[PCIntern]

Entitled "The Xeenemunde Half-wit" which was a story about a young boy,seemingly retarded, who could build tiny missiles of death and send them to destroy the homes of anyone whom he didn't like for some reason. By the time responsible adults realize what is going on and from whence all this is coming from, it is too late and the Government has co-opted him for its deadly work.

At the time Von Braun was seemingly the chief engineer of our missile programs and WWII was still reasonably fresh in everyone's minds. The changing of the P of Peenemunde to an X was an eye catcher, of course.

So the past is once again Prologue, and here we are in a world filled with technological capabilities in most if not all nations. We shall see how this plays out, of course,but it is just one more thing to worry about, in addition to all the things we don't even know that we should be worried about.

[hfojvt]

1. first time I ever heard of Peenemunde

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peenem%C3%BCnde_Army_Research_Center

As Vonnegut wrote in Galapagos (and I paraphrase) "Much scientific research was devoted to taking the rather diffuse violence of nature and compressing it into relatively small convenient packages that one could drop on their enemies"

So it goes.

[lapidus48]

2. Wasn't Analog, nee Astounding....but

It was F&Sf, and it was about 1961, 62. I had started delivering newspapers in upstate New York and the first thing I did with my first news profit was spend it on a subscription to what I thought was the most elegant S-F magazine I'd ever seen, so yes, I remember this...and I think it was a foreign writer who was the author (F&SF had a tradition, especially during the mid-sixties, of featuring foreign authors of S-F [see, for instance, the memorably harsh-it would put Cormac McCarthy to shame-S.S. Jonson's the House by the Crab Apple Tree]

[gopiscrap]

4. welcome to DU

[PCIntern]

5. Thank you...

You're right of course.

Do you by any chance recall the name of the novella wherein 100 people a day are drafted and are shipped to an uninhabitable world and they have to pair off and make do. On this particular world, Four are kidnapped by creatures and stashed in a cave. Not quite hilarity ensues...

[lapidus48]

3. Analog...(con'd)

see, for instance, the memorably harsh-it would put Cormac McCarthy to shame-S.S. Jonson's the House by the Crab Apple Tree