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"Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful."
- Philip K. Dick
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| Cookie-Cutters | ||
| Very small (corpuscle-sized) devices that can enter the blood stream and destroy an enemy from within. |
Very creative, very scary. Let's hope it's not possible to manufacture these. In the world of The Diamond Age, most of the threats were too small to see with the naked eye.
| Microscopic invaders were more of the threat nowadays. Just to name one example, there was the Red Death, a.k.a. the Seven Minute Special, a tiny aerodynamic capsule that burst open on impact and released a thousand or so corpuscle-sized bodies, known colloquially as cookie-cutters, into the victim's bloodstream. It took about seven minutes ... for the cookie cutters to be randomly distributed throughout the victim's organs and limbs. A cookie-cutter was shaped like an aspirin tablet ... two tiny centrifuges. Detonation dissolved the bonds holding the centrifuges together so that each of a thousand or so ballisticules suddenly flew outward...The victim was just a big leaky sack of undifferentiated gore at this point and, of course, never survived. |
| Technovelgy from The Diamond Age,
by Neal Stephenson. Published by Bantam Books in 1995 Additional resources -
|
The key to this particular weapon is the sudden release of the kinetic energy concealed in the paired spinning ballisticules.
A nasty weapon; I wonder if he somehow got the name from the cookie-cutter shark (Isistius brasiliensis) - a small (about 50 cm in length) shark that takes the unusual (if sensible) approach that you don't need to eat the whole animal - just take a small bite. It attaches itself to its prey with suctorial lips, and then spins to slice out a cookie-shaped piece of flesh with its sharp teeth.
Also, gastroenterologists will (rarely) diagnose the following problem with children complaining of stomach aches: the child has swallowed a penny, which has become stuck in the intestinal tract. Over time, the acids present have transformed the relatively blunt edge of the penny into a razor-sharp edge that cuts into the intestine, moved by peristalsis like the rest of the contents.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Diamond Age
More Ideas
and Technology by Neal Stephenson
Tech news articles related to The Diamond Age
Tech news articles related to works by Neal Stephenson
Cookie-Cutters-related
news articles:
- Microgrippers Grab, Cut Tissue Internally
- Mu-Gripper Microsurgical 'Robots'
- Robot Swarm Performs Colonoscopy And Biopsy
| Can A Swarm Of Deadly Drones Take Out An Aircraft Carrier? |
| Has Turkey Been Stealing Rain From Iran? |
| We Need To Build Anti-Drone Systems For Civilian Spaces |
| Bullet Steers Itself! The Advanced Low-Cost Munitions Ordnance ALaMO |
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'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
'We had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect.'
'Detailed plans for the construction of the Gundstetter-Halone warp drive were flowing.'
'Do not waste your priceless company on the unappreciative folds of a sleep pod...'
'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
