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"By the time I can take people out to where Hubble is looking, they won't be human anymore, by a long way."
- Larry Niven
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| Scooter | ||
| Biotechnology working to bring you a better solar system - a creepy crawly created to do terraforming work on Jupiter's moon. |
No nanoparticles for Benford; he wants real creepy crawlies, which fit into his picture of a sort of dilapidated moon (of Jupiter) in the middle of being worked on by some ill-paid workers. Given the extreme conditions, no terrestrial life will be able to survive. In the future, it is possible that biotechnology may have the answer in the form of genetically altered Earth life forms.
| Bioengeering had put out a spec report on the long crawly things five months back. Scooters had been designed to soak up ammonia-based compounds and digest them into oxy-available ones. |
| Technovelgy from Against Infinity,
by Gregory Benford. Published by Simon and Schuster in 1983 Additional resources -
|
The scooters also make an interesting contrast with the Aleph, the mysterious object that is trundling along the surface on a mission of it's own.
This novel has a theme similar to Arthur C. Clarke's Rendevous with Rama, which also explores the indifference of alien intelligence to human life and values.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Against Infinity
More Ideas
and Technology by Gregory Benford
Tech news articles related to Against Infinity
Tech news articles related to works by Gregory Benford
Scooter-related
news articles:
- Tumblin' Tumbleweeds Lend Hand In Depleted Uranium Roundup
- Cleaning Up Chernobyl With Beets
- GMO Houseplant Cleans Your Air
- Chinese Fern Helps Remediate Arsenic Soil
- Can We Grow Crops On Mars?
| Biological War: A Scenario |
| What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells? |
| Black Fungus Blocks Radiation |
| Lunar Biorepository Proposed For Cryo-Preservation Of Earth Species |
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'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
