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"The science fiction method is dissection and reconstruction. You look at the world around you, and take it apart into its components. Then you take some of those components, throw them away, and plug in different ones, start it up and see what happens."
- Frederik Pohl
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| 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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Additional
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and Technology from Quantico
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Tech news articles related to Quantico
Tech news articles related to works by Greg Bear
| Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade |
| Moscow Attacked By Hundreds Of Drones |
| China's Handheld Electromagnetic Gun |
| Is The Seattle Ultrasonics C-200 A Heinlein Vibroblade? |
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