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"One can see the free software movement as a precusor for a "free hardware" or "free wetware" movement--one that will provide free libraries of designs for biological or nanotechnological products that replicators can be programmed to churn out."
- Charles Stross
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| Distrans | ||
| Device produces a temporary neural imprint on the nervous system of Chiroptera or birds. |
In Dune, a variety of animals from earth have been introduced. Bats are used as message carriers. But Frank Herbert has a great twist on the idea of tying a message to the leg of a pigeon.
This is such a striking idea; it meets the author's need to present a medieval society that nevertheless uses space travel. A bat is also an animal more in keeping with the dark tone of the novel
| "We will fight in the time of fighting," the man said. He reached beneath his robes, brought out a small cage, lifted a creature from it. Hawat recognized a tiny bat ... Saw its blue-within-blue eyes. The Fremen stroked the bat, soothing it, crooning to it. The man took a tiny tube, held it beside the bat's head and chattered into the tube; then, lifting the creature high, he threw it upward. The Fremen folded the cage, thrust it between his robe... |
| Technovelgy from Dune,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Putnam in 1965 Additional resources -
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The creature's normal cry then carries the message imprint which can be pulled out of the normal cry (carrier wave) by a matching distrans unit carried by another person.
Compare to the Argento-Platinoid Dispatch Box from Schachner and Zagat's 1931 story Venus Mines, Incorporated, the personal capsule from Foundation (1951) by Isaac Asimov, the single sheet molecule from Dorsal! (1960) by Gordon R. Dickson, truffle skins from The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) by Philip K. Dick and the message cylinder from Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert.
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and Technology from Dune
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Tech news articles related to Dune
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
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'He was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors...'
'The robant and the tiny old woman entered the control room slowly...'
'Guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs... What are the odds?'
'It is as you thought when you constructed the time crystal, my master Vaylan.'
'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
