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"Does it open a new horizon for my thinking? Does it lead me to think new kinds of thoughts, that I would not otherwise perhaps have thought at all? These qualities are what [make] science fiction ...unique."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Loiter-Drone | ||
| A autonomous flying device that hovers protectively over a defined area. |
Interesting concept now under active development.
| The ship's ruins had only been discovered because somebody in a flier had crashed, fatally, into one of the great curving ribs (perfectly holo-disguised at the time as sheer and invitingly clear sky)... it had been cordoned off and a series of airborne loiter-drones posted on indefinite guard above, just in case. |
| Technovelgy from The Algebraist,
by Iain M Banks. Published by Orbit in 2004 Additional resources -
|
The idea of having some sort of airborne craft that can indefinitely watch over a defined area is being worked on with different technologies. Consider the DARPA Vulture:
(DARPA Vulture - aircraft with a 5 year flight plan)
Compare to the raytron apparatus from Beyond the Stars (1928) by Ray Cummings, the scarab robot flying insect from The Scarab (1936) by Raymond Z. Gallun, the artificial eye drone from Glimpse (1938) by Manly Wade Wellman, eyes from This Moment of the Storm (1966) by Roger Zelazny, the Ultraminiature Spy-Circuit from The Unknown (1972) by Christopher Anvil, copseyes from Cloak of Anarchy (1972) by Larry Niven, the sky ball from A Day For Damnation (1985) by David Gerrold, the drone floater camera from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton, the aerostat monitor from The Diamond Age (1995) by Neal Stephenson and the bee cam from City of Pearl (2004) by Karen Traviss.
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'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
