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"I feel like I've been very fortunate in that I've stuck like a burr to the dog-leg of the next generation of nerdism. I've been carried into the XXIth century on Bill Gates' pants-cuff."
- William Gibson
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| Airmaker | ||
| A device that creates a specific breathable mix directly from the atmosphere. |
It seems clear that at least part of the breathable mix required for Trinocs can be taken directly from the atmosphere.
| "How did you get a Trinoc to come?" "Don't tell me he's still here." "Oh, no. His air was running out and he had to go home." "A little white lie," Louis informed her. "A Trinoc airmaker lasts for weeks." |
| Technovelgy from Ringworld,
by Larry Niven. Published by Ballantine in 1970 Additional resources -
|
This is actually a pretty good idea, since similar products called "oxygen concentrators" are starting to replace oxygen cylinders. They are substantially less dangerous that cylinders of oxygen.
Aliens in sf sometimes require something in addition to the elements of Earth's air. In his classic 1953 novel Childhood's End, for example, Arthur C. Clarke's Overlords sometimes needed more than the atmosphere provides:
Compare to David Brin's oxygen hip flask from his 1990 novel Earth.
Though they [the Overlords] seemed able to breathe terrestrial air, they sometimes carried small cylinders of gas from which they refreshed themselves occasionally.
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'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
