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"I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Grapple Tracks | ||
| A means of automating the process of parking and releasing passenger vehicles from a parking garage. |
Herbert didn't need to add this detail, but it's an interesting idea. In films like Minority Report, you see vehicles which are sometimes under manual control, and sometimes under the control of a central traffic network. In this case, the difficulty of having a traffic network covering an open road is recognized. Instead, the more sensible place to automate is in a very constricted area - a parking garage.
| He activated the grapple tracks. The skitter jerked into motion, danced sideways, and slid smoothly down the driveway to the street.
As they emerged from the parking spire's enclosing shadows, even before the grapple released and Havvy activated the skitter's own power, Jedrik firmed her decision not to look back. |
| Technovelgy from The Dosadi Experiment,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Berkley Putnam in 1977 Additional resources -
|
The author uses this detail to both show the ingenuity of the Dosadi, and their painstaking efforts to automate mindless tasks.
Stacked in the building beneath her, each one suspended by its roof grapples on the conveyor track, were the vehicles of the power merchants and their minions. The machines varied from the giant jaigers heavy with armor and weapons and redundant engine systems, of the ruling few, down to the tiny black skitters assigned to such as herself.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Dosadi Experiment
More Ideas
and Technology by Frank Herbert
Tech news articles related to The Dosadi Experiment
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
Grapple Tracks-related
news articles:
- Stan, Robot Valet, Will Drag Your Car Away
| Roborock Saros Z70 Is A Robot Vacuum With An Arm |
| Secret Kill Switch Found In Yutong Buses |
| The Desert Ship Sailed In Imagination |
| The Zapata Air Scooter Would Be Great In A Science Fiction Story |
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"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
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'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
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'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...'
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...'
