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"If you don't care about science enough to be interested in it on its own, you shouldn't try to write hard science fiction."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Coder | ||
| Specialized humans who excel at engineering tasks. |
| "Trnsctn s vr," the Coder whirred. Rail shook his head. "More."
The Coder remained still. It was impossible to tell what his reaction was. His whole body was encased in an interlocking exoskeleton like chitin on a beetle, and his features were hidden by a full face helmet of smooth black. Two bulbous, blank eyes glowed pale blue from within. There was a circular grille on his thin chest where his voice came from, flat and mechanical. "Vry wll," he said and continued counting out chits. ... Coders were mechanics, whose purpose was to understand the fingerprints of the deity in circuitry and the interlocking of a gear or a cog. They could always be relied on to buy technology like a glimmer visor. Rail was selling his now, to make extra money for their passage up-Artery towards the centre of Orokos. ... "Stsfd?" the Coder asked. Coder language was tricky to follow as they didn't use vowels, but Rail had enough experience so the half spoken words were clear enough. He scooped up the chits into a bag. "That'll do fine." |
| From Storm Thief,
by Chris Wooding. Published by Scholastic in 2006 Additional resources -
|
Compare to admin gnomes from John Varley's excellent 1983 novel Millenium.
Thanks as always to Connor Lawrence for contributing the text quote and reference for this item.
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'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
'...the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers.'
'LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE.'
'...a rolled-up sheet of a thin, dark metal strange to them.'
'... his contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory complex.'
'Space-weather men had been placed at their disposal...'
With each successive print, our model needed to incorporate more structural ingredients to minimize print failures.
'... Wendis stared thoughtfully at the brilliant lines on the spectroscope screen.'
'A special spot-wavex scrambler also caused his televised image, in the area immediately about his lips, to mouth the vowels and consonants beautifully.'
