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"[Science fiction] has become big business, where books are merchandised and promoted and distributed and placed on sale like slabs of bacon or cans of soup."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Proxy Robot | ||
| A remote-controlled floating telepresence robot, for use by aliens who cannot share an atmosphere. |
This is a very early example of an often-used idea.
| Visitors from across space seldom emerged from their rooms, other than to go to the recreation halls, if such were provided for the particular type of creature they happened to be. The most important reason was simply that direct exposure to Earthly conditions usually held a promise of swift death. Instead, they accomplished their contacts with the terrestrial environment by means of radio-controlled proxy robots, usually provided by the hostelry itself...
The robot was a little flying sphere, about eight inches in diameter. It had a single mechanical eye, and one flexible metal arm. More than that, besides its propulsion, radio direction, and auditory receiver units, it possessed only the capacity to speak, as its unseen guide, hidden in one of the rooms here, directed. |
| Technovelgy from Hotel Cosmos,
by Raymond Z. Gallun. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1938 Additional resources -
|
Proxy robots did as they were directed - including attacking helpless human attendants in the hotel!
Old Dave — Easy Goin’ — Ledrack, rushed forward, the pistol-like device in his hand flaming vengefully. Ragged bolts of energy lanced from it blindingly, and with each blast a proxy robot clattered to the floor in glowing, superheated fragments...
The remaining proxies hurtled toward Dave, like wickedly glittering projectiles, their camera eyes agleam, their metal arms extended like spearpoints!
...Dave, armed as was no one else present, smashed the last of the small attacking mechanisms with a series of dazzling bursts of energy.
Compare to remote telepresence robot from Buck Rogers, 2430 AD (1929) by Philip Nowlan (w/D. Calkins) and the robot probes from Oath of Fealty (1981) by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle). See also the copseyes from Larry Niven's 1972 story Cloak of Anarchy, Eyes from This Moment of the Storm (1966) by Roger Zelazny and the Raytron apparatus (1928) from Beyond the Stars by Ray Cummings and the artificial eye drone from Glimpse (1938) by Manly Wade Wellman.
Four white-clad youths were down, screaming on the floor, while proxy robots wheeled and darted over them like angry hornets of gigantic size. No weapons were in evidence here, but the proxies, by hurling their own bulks swiftly, could strike furious blows against their human adversaries.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Hotel Cosmos
More Ideas
and Technology by Raymond Z. Gallun
Tech news articles related to Hotel Cosmos
Tech news articles related to works by Raymond Z. Gallun
Proxy Robot-related
news articles:
- Porta-Person Remote Conferencing Stand-In
| No Tips! Robotic Food Delivery In Phoenix |
| Micro-Robots Are Smallest, Fully Functional |
| DIY Robotic Hand Made After Loss Of Fingers |
| Robot Snakes No Longer Stopped By Stairs |
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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...'
