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"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson
 |
| Remotely Operated Auto-targeting Gun (ROAG) | ||
| A weapon able to pick out its own targets; it's action can be remotely initiated. |
Soldiers in the near-future Iraq of the novel had access to the latest in weapons.
| The Humvee had a ROAG - Remotely Operated Auto-targeting Gun - a rapid-fire twenty millimeter mounted over the roof like a small steel sewage pipe. |
| Technovelgy from Quantico,
by Greg Bear. Published by Vanguard in 2007 Additional resources -
|
In an interview with Technovelgy.com, Greg Bear had this to say about the ROAG:
Greg Bear: "No, I haven't. I've seen some of these things on the military Discovery channel. Some of that stuff is astonishing; the self-targeting bullets, the flechette technology. I discussed flechettes back in the 1980's - man, it's really happening."
T: For self-targeting bullets, [Michael] Crichton directed a movie in the 1980's - Runaway - that showed self-targeting bullets. [see smart bullets]
GB: "I think they did that in [Who Framed] Roger Rabbit, too. [Laughs] I don't know if you've listed that."
T: I don't think I listed that...
(Read the rest of Greg Bear's interview on Quantico.)
Be sure to take a look at these real-life autonomous sentry guns:
Technovelgy: You also write about an ROAG. Have you seen the work they've been doing on [autonomous] sentry guns?
A very early (possibly the earliest) reference to this kind of weapon is the automatic gun from Michael Crichton's 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain.
Also, take a look at the Handwear Computer Input Device Combat Glove (which was demonstrated at NextFest 2006).
Amateur roboticists (and gunmakers) built an autonomous sentry gun as a summer project.
Watch the video of this South Korean guard robot.
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'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
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'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.'
