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"What I have in my stories is ethics. Ethics and morality are very different cups of tea. I adhere to a very strict rigor of personal ethics and I demand it of those around me as well."
- Harlan Ellison
 |
| Wabbler | ||
| An autonomous underwater robot. |
The Wabbler is an autonomous robotic underwater munition. It is launched from a plane into waters outside enemy scrutiny, and then it slowly makes its way to the target.
| ...The Wabbler lay in its place, with its ten foot tail coiled neatly above its lower end, and waited with a sort of deadly patience... It and all its brothers were pear-shaped, with absurdly huge and blunt-ended horns, and with small round holes where eyes might have been, and shielded vents where they might have had mouths...
 ('The Wabbler' by Murray Leinster) Splash! The Wabbler plunged into the water with a flare of luminescence and a thirty-foot spout of spume and spray rising where it struck... It dived swiftly for twenty feet... Then its falling checked. It swung about, and its writhing tail settled down below it... and then slowly, it settled downward. Its ten-foot tail seemed to waver a little, as if groping. Then it made small sounds from inside itself. More bubbles came from the round place like a mouth. It settled one foot, two feet, three... The Wabbler leaned infinitesimally toward the shore. Presently its flexible tail ceased to be curved where it lay upon the ooze. It straightened out. Then the Wabbler moved. Shoreward... |
| Technovelgy from The Wabbler,
by Murray Leinster. Published by Street and Smith in 1942 Additional resources -
|
As an underwater robot, compare to the Mitsubishi turbot from Slow Life (2002) by Michael Swanwick and the the robotic Eel from Re:Set by Susan Beetlestone.
As a munition, compare to the magnetic shell from The Great Stone of Shardis (1897) by Frank Stockton, the atomic bomb from The World Set Free (1914) by HG Wells, the atomic shell from Buck Rogers: 2430 AD (1929) by Nowlan and Calkin, the roving bomb from Lost Rocket (1941) by Manly Wade Wellman, the planet-busting bomb from Testing (1956) by JJ Ferat and the smart bullet from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton.
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and Technology from The Wabbler
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and Technology by Murray Leinster
Tech news articles related to The Wabbler
Tech news articles related to works by Murray Leinster
Wabbler-related
news articles:
- Squid Robot Underwater Inspector Has Unique Propulsion
- RoboClam Smart Anchor
- Underwater Robot With Touch Sensitive Skin
- Underwater Mine Detection Robots Vs. Wabbler
- Adelopod Amphibious Tumbling Robot
- DARPA's Upward Falling Payload Like Leinster's Wabbler
- Eel Robots Ideal For Naval Warfare
- Ad Astra! JPL's Autonomous Undersea Drones
| WaPOCHI Micro-Mobility Robot Follows Like A Pet With Your Bags |
| Ultra-Realistic Robotic Arowana Robo-Fish |
| GITAI R1 Lunar Rover Like NASA Robonaut Centaur |
| Meshworm Soft Robot, With Peristaltic Crawling, Is Getting Better |
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'Alex did not find it surprising that people... were electronically minting their own cash.'
'I had determined that my first attempt should be a visit to Mars.'
To follow the user like a pet while carrying their cargo!
'Deveet unhooked his catch and laid it on the bank beside him. It was a metal fish.'
'...waldoes in the screen followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.'
'Seen close it was not completely flexible, but made instead of pivoted and smoothly finished segments.'
