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"...the people dealing with these new technologies will still be derived from the human stock we're familiar with today."
- Charles Stross
 |
| Martian Print Amoeba | ||
| An organism able to mimic consumer goods. |
Making even modern manufacturing methods obsolete.
| ...the greater economic aspects of another extraterrestrial creature, the Martian print amoeba. This august unicellular organism survived by its ability to mimic other life forms - those of its own size, specifically - and although this ability had amused Terran astronauts and UN officials, no one had seen an industrial usage until Virgil Ackerman of [Martian flap bat] guano fame had come upon the scene... he had presented a print amoeba with one of his current mistress' expensive furs; the print amoeba had faithfully mimicked it... |
| Technovelgy from Now Wait For Last Year,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Doubleday in 1966 Additional resources -
|
Unfortunately, when the Martian print amoeba gets bored, it tends to switch back to its real form. So, a method of "fixing" the amoeba was developed:
Dick fans will recognize the Biltong life forms from his 1956 short story Pay for the Printer as well as the autofac nanorobots from his 1955 short story of the same name. All three show PKD's fascination with the seemingly infinite capacity of modern manufacturing, and the fact that the source of this cornucopia is a complete mystery to the average consumer.
The answer... consisted of killing the amoeba during its interval of mimicry and then subjecting the cadaver to a bath of fixing-chemicals which had the capacity to lock the amoeba in that final form; the amoeba did not decay and hence could not later on be distinguished from the original.
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'Tell me your torments,' the Padre said, in an elderly voice marked with compassion.
'...a slender-legged tripod surmounted by a spherical body no larger than a football.'
'... 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.'
