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"The thing that I'm most interested in at the moment is the so-called Infinite Energy solution - the possibility of finding new ways of tapping into virtually limitless sources of energy."
- Arthur C. Clarke
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| Procreative Stump | ||
| A woman's torso, kept alive for the purpose of using the womb as an incubator. |
In Hellstrom's Hive, a group of early settlers in America decided to pursue a different evolutionary path. Recognizing the evolutionary success of insects, they sought to emulate them in every way.
If the Hive's interest is best served by maintaining an individual only for the purpose of procreation, why keep and feed all of those unnecessary parts?
| When one of the youngsters asked if they would take the carcass to the vats or try for a procreative stump, he paused for only the briefest reflection before agreeing that they should try for a stump. Perhaps some of that female flesh could be revived and preserved. If her womb could be maintained, she might yet serve the Hive. It would be interesting to see a child of that flesh. |
| Technovelgy from Hellstrom's Hive,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Bantam Books in 1972 Additional resources -
|
Yes, this is a very creepy novel. However, every aspect of the novel is fully realized; the correspondence with modern green movements is eerie. The philosophy part, not the hive part.
Charles Stross uses a similar idea, that of people who are involuntarily and intentionally placed in a paralyzed state, to carry more hosts for the alien horrors from outside space-time.
Compare to synthetic babies from A Biological Experiment (1928) by David H. Keller,
Bokanovski's Process from Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley,
artificial womb from Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley and the
uterine replicator from Shards of Honor (1986) by Lois McMaster Bujold.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Hellstrom's Hive
More Ideas
and Technology by Frank Herbert
Tech news articles related to Hellstrom's Hive
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
Procreative Stump-related
news articles:
- Brain-Dead Pregnant Woman Taken Off Life Support
| Lunar Biorepository Proposed For Cryo-Preservation Of Earth Species |
| Let's Make Slaver Sunflowers! Engineering Plants To Reflect Light |
| Machete-Wielding Philodendron Isn't Going To Take It Anymore |
| Tsunami Forecasts Improved By Ionosphere Signals |
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'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?''
'I opened the oblong box, where lay the automatons side by side...'
'They tied the memory to the bloodline and that was their record!'
