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"[Science fiction is] an integration of the mood and attitude of science (the objective universe) with the fears and hopes that spring from the unconscious."
- Gregory Benford

Nurse Drone  
  A larger flying platform to provide power to smaller drones.  

Enough wrestling with the wind, and a pod's battery would run down. Then it would swim over and nuzzle its neighbor. The two would mate in midair, like dragonflies, and the weaker would take power from the stronger. The system included larger aerostats called nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods all over the grid, which would then distribute it to their neighbors.
Technovelgy from The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson.
Published by Bantam Books in 1995
Additional resources -

Compare to the parent drone from Kill Decision (2012) by Daniel Suarez.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Diamond Age
  More Ideas and Technology by Neal Stephenson
  Tech news articles related to The Diamond Age
  Tech news articles related to works by Neal Stephenson

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