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![]() In this near-future story, areas are set aside as anarchy zones. Police use a special kind of remote surveillance drone to ensure that there is no physical violence, but are otherwise uninvolved.
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It was impressively simple. I picked out the stunner by its parabolic reflector, the cameras, and a toroidal coil that had to be part of the floater device. No power source. I guessed that the shell itself was a power beam antenna.
![]() (Copseye from 'Cloak of Anarchy' by Larry Niven)
This story is an interesting exploration of the concept of anarchy in a real setting. Makes for an interesting contrast with the same kind of setting in Robert Heinlein's Coventry (if you did not agree to live up to the rules of society, you were given the choice to live with the asocials in a fenced-in environment). Bruce Sterling wrote about this technology in his 1993 story Deep Eddy:
At 08:00 a police drone attempted to clear the park. It flew overhead, barking robotic threats in five languages. Everyone simply ignored the machine. Remote drones are under development to serve a variety of purposes. The Traffic Surveillance Drone project in Georgia has a ducted fan drone under development; it uses an aluminum chassis with a carbon composite body structure to provide stability. You might also want to check out the endearing entry for little bird, from Darwin's Children by Greg Bear. Compare to the raytron apparatus from Beyond the Stars (1928) by Ray Cummings, the scarab robot flying insect from The Scarab (1936) by Raymond Z. Gallun, the artificial eye drone from Glimpse (1938) by Manly Wade Wellman, eyes from This Moment of the Storm (1966) by Roger Zelazny, the Ultraminiature Spy-Circuit from The Unknown (1972) by Christopher Anvil, the sky ball from A Day For Damnation (1985) by David Gerrold, the drone floater camera from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton, the aerostat monitor from The Diamond Age (1995) by Neal Stephenson, the loiter drone from The Algebraist (2004) by Iain Banks and the bee cam from City of Pearl (2004) by Karen Traviss. Comment/Join this discussion ( 3 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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