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"The bottom line in the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes. Much better to rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes."
- Frank Herbert
 |
| Andréide (Andraiad) | ||
| An entirely artificial human-imitation, a synthetic person. |
In the story, an English nobleman Lord Celian Ewald comes to Thomas Edison with a problem. His fiance, Alicia Clary is everything he wants in a woman physically, but her mind, talk and taste are not.
Edison has been working on Hadaly, an imitation human being.
| He guided the young man through the maze of miscellaneous
instruments installed about the room before they stood before
the ebony table.
‘What impression do you get at sight of that?' he asked, pointing to the white-skinned feminine hand and arm lying on the velvet silk cushion. Lord Ewald gazed with a still greater thrill of astonishment at the unexpected human relic on which the light from the marvelous lamps now focused. ‘What is it?' he asked. ‘Look at it well,’ the professor urged, evasively. ‘Examine it.’ The young man leaned over. He lifted up the hand, then he drew back abruptly and demanded ‘What can it mean - a human hand - and it is still warm?' ‘Don’t you find anything extraordinary in the arm?' the professor inquired. The young Englishman appeared to be fascinated by the object. He took up the arm and began comparing his own hand with the feminine fingers. ‘The weight – the form – the colour, even,’ he murmured, as if in a stupor. ‘Do you mean to tell me that this is not human flesh that I am touching at this moment? Upon my word, my own hand trembles at the very touch of it.’ ‘That is better than human flesh,’ said the scientist simply. ‘Human flesh fades and grows old. Here is a composition of delicate substances compounded by chemistry in such a way as might well confuse nature herself.‘ But let us say this is a copy of nature – to use this word empirically – which will always appear living and young. A thunderbolt could destroy it, but it will never age. It is artificial flesh, and I can explain how it is produced. You have only to read Berthelot. ’The younger man could only murmur in stupefaction:‘Eh? What did you say?’ ‘I say that it is artificial flesh,’ declared the professor. ‘I believe that I am the only one who can fabricate it to such perfection.’ Lord Ewald, who was now in such a state of confusion that he could not readily express his thoughts, again turned to examine the artificial arm.‘But, professor,’ he said, ‘this pearly fluid – this carnal splendour and the intense life in it – how was it possible to produce such an amazing illusion?’ ‘Oh, that part of the experiment is a mere nothing. It is done simply by the aid of the sun,’ was the smiling response. ‘In a certain sense, we can catch the secret of the sun’s vibrations, and once the shade of the dermal whiteness is determined I reproduce it by a setting of the object plates. ‘Here is how I do that,’ he continued. ‘Albumin is supple, but it solidifies; the elasticity in this example is due to hydraulic pressure. This material is then made sensitive by a very subtle photochromatic action. Of course, I had a splendid model. ‘As for the rest, it is simple, the humerus constructed of ivory contains a galvanic marrow in constant communication with a network of induction wires which are entwined in the same way as nerves and veins, and which are held between the releases of a perpetual calorific unit that gives to it this impression of warmth and malleability. ‘If you wish to know where the elements of this network are disposed, how they feed themselves, so to speak, and in what manner the static fluid transforms its action into almost animal heat, I can give you the entire anatomy of it. It is nothing more than a matter of handwork. ‘What you see here is an Andraiad of my making, moulded for the first time by the amazing vital agent we call electricity. This gives to my creation the blending, the softness, and the illusion of life.’ ‘An Andraiad?’‘Yes,’ said the professor, ‘a human-imitation, if you prefer that phrase. In the future we will have to be careful that the facsimile does not, in the manufacture, surpass the model physically. That is a danger to be avoided. |
| Technovelgy from L’Ève future (Tomorrow’s Eve),
by Jean-Marie Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. Published by La Vie moderne in 1885 Additional resources -
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
