>Depending on what they've decided, some of the materials science might
>be used in the top-of-the-line luxury cars. However, some things are
>probably still being kept out of civilian hands. ("The 2022 Ford
>Fusion: Powered By Elerium." Yeah, right.)

The problem with going wide with Elerium-115 applications is that it can't be mass-produced. If it could, then there might well have been an energy revolution on par with the adoption of the Shizuma Drive in Giant Robo, because there is really no downside other than the economic to using Elerium as a power source, besides its habit of exploding when ill-treated (and that is, after all, a drawback it shares with a good many popular real-world energy solutions). It doesn't produce harmful radiation or dangerous levels of waste heat, isn't toxic, leaves no measurable residue... it's pretty much the ideal power source, apart from its scarcity.

That said, technology spin-offs like those implied by the "help out so-and-so" side jobs in XCOM: Enemy Unknown are entirely possible. PPE reinforced with "alien alloys", and so forth.

(I love the unintentionally ominous results you sometimes get from the fact that the countries involved are random. "I'm sure the people of China rest easier knowing that their police have the latest laser weapons," says Bradford without apparent irony after we sell the Chinese government a couple of Heavy Lasers. Yeah, uh... I'm sure they do.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.