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"[Science fiction] is the one literary medium left in which we have a free hand. We can do any damn thing we please."
- Alfred Bester
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| Wabbler | ||
| An autonomous underwater robot. |
The Wabbler is an autonomous robotic underwater munition. It is launched from a plane into waters outside enemy scrutiny, and then it slowly makes its way to the target.
| ...The Wabbler lay in its place, with its ten foot tail coiled neatly above its lower end, and waited with a sort of deadly patience... It and all its brothers were pear-shaped, with absurdly huge and blunt-ended horns, and with small round holes where eyes might have been, and shielded vents where they might have had mouths...
 ('The Wabbler' by Murray Leinster) Splash! The Wabbler plunged into the water with a flare of luminescence and a thirty-foot spout of spume and spray rising where it struck... It dived swiftly for twenty feet... Then its falling checked. It swung about, and its writhing tail settled down below it... and then slowly, it settled downward. Its ten-foot tail seemed to waver a little, as if groping. Then it made small sounds from inside itself. More bubbles came from the round place like a mouth. It settled one foot, two feet, three... The Wabbler leaned infinitesimally toward the shore. Presently its flexible tail ceased to be curved where it lay upon the ooze. It straightened out. Then the Wabbler moved. Shoreward... |
| Technovelgy from The Wabbler,
by Murray Leinster. Published by Street and Smith in 1942 Additional resources -
|
As an underwater robot, compare to the Mitsubishi turbot from Slow Life (2002) by Michael Swanwick and the the robotic Eel from Re:Set by Susan Beetlestone.
As a munition, compare to the magnetic shell from The Great Stone of Shardis (1897) by Frank Stockton, the atomic bomb from The World Set Free (1914) by HG Wells, the atomic shell from Buck Rogers: 2430 AD (1929) by Nowlan and Calkin, the roving bomb from Lost Rocket (1941) by Manly Wade Wellman, the planet-busting bomb from Testing (1956) by JJ Ferat, the smart bullet from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton and the wandering mine from Half the Day is Night (1994) by Maureen F. McHugh.
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and Technology from The Wabbler
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and Technology by Murray Leinster
Tech news articles related to The Wabbler
Tech news articles related to works by Murray Leinster
Wabbler-related
news articles:
- Squid Robot Underwater Inspector Has Unique Propulsion
- RoboClam Smart Anchor
- Underwater Robot With Touch Sensitive Skin
- Underwater Mine Detection Robots Vs. Wabbler
- Adelopod Amphibious Tumbling Robot
- DARPA's Upward Falling Payload Like Leinster's Wabbler
- Eel Robots Ideal For Naval Warfare
- Ad Astra! JPL's Autonomous Undersea Drones
| It's A Giant Robot! You Reporters Have Been Warned! |
| Tactile Skin Supplier Map |
| Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo |
| DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It |
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'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
'Our planes are going to start bringing in bales of discarded plastics...'
'... completely forgetting the ship at sight of the awesome figure and great head of the giant Gaut...'
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
