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"Science fiction represents the modern heresy and the cutting edge of speculative imagination as it grapples with Mysterious Time---linear or non-linear time."
- Frank Herbert
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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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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Wabbler
More Ideas
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
| Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Runs With His G1 Robot Army |
| Blue Collar AI Goes To Work To Mine Its Own Crypto |
| HandelBot Helps Two-Handed Robots Learn Piano |
| Woven Fiber Electronic Skin For Robots |
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'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
