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"I feel like I've been very fortunate in that I've stuck like a burr to the dog-leg of the next generation of nerdism. I've been carried into the XXIth century on Bill Gates' pants-cuff."
- William Gibson
 |
| Autonomic Plow | ||
| A set of farm implements able to combine and perform as a weapon. |
| On the miniature TV screen Bunny Hentman was doing an act in which he played a German industrialist; wearing a blue, double-breasted suit, he was explaining to his board of directors how the new autonomic plows which their cartels were producing could be used for war. Four plows would guide themselves, upon news of hostilities, into a single unit; the single unit was not a larger plow, but a missile-launcher. |
| From Clans of the Alphane Moon,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Ace Books in 1964 Additional resources -
|
Delicious sarcasm from PKD; it derives from a passage in Isaiah:
In this case, peaceful plows become weapons.
The United States government promoted Operation Plowshare starting in 1962, which was an attempt to use nuclear explosives for excavation. Take a look at the Operation Plowshare video shown below; 12 million tons of earth were displaced, creating a crater 320 feet deep by 1280 feet wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.
Dick himself wrote about a world in which competing nations maintained a balance of power by thinking of an offensive weapon and then immediately "plowshare" them into consumer goods (see The Zap Gun).
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Autonomic Plow-related
news articles:
- Grapevine Pruning Robot
| TIKAD Armed Drone Ready To Fight |
| LaWS Laser Can Take Out Rogue Drones |
| Keith Laumer's Bolo Autonomous Tanks Right On Schedule |
| Railguns For Surface Ships |
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'Everyone was aware that the damned platform was wandering around in its own orbit...'
'In the crimson darkness, stewing warm on their cushion of peritoneum and gorged with blood-surrogate and hormones...'
'They plop down on the Red and if the dust is deep enough ... they burrow in...'
Little robots cooperating can do big tasks. Eventually.
Ever wonder how you look when you enter a new part of a spacecraft?
