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"Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful."
- Philip K. Dick
 |
| Slaver Sunflowers | ||
| Plants evolved to reflect light to burn natural enemies. |
I believe that the first appearance of the sunflowers is in World of Ptavvs, but Niven's Ringworld has more details.
| The sunflowers were usually the only defense for a plantation, and everyone who had land had a sunflower border. It got the landowners used to isolation, so that they might not cooperate in wartime. I’d give odds the tnuctipun had a spray to kill sunflowers.
 (Sunflower from 'World of Ptavvs') |
| Technovelgy from World of Ptavvs,
by Larry Niven. Published by Worlds of Tomorrow in 1965 Additional resources -
|
Here's a longer quote from Ringworld:
He landed and dismounted beside one of the
plants. The plant stood a foot high on a knobbly green
stalk. Its single blossom was as big as a large man's
face. The back of that blossom was stringy, as if laced
with veins or tendons; and the inner surface was a
smooth concave mirror. From its center protruded a
short stalk ending in a dark green bulb.
All the flowers in sight watched him. He was
bathed in the glare. Louis knew they were trying to
kill bun, and he looked up somewhat uneasily; but
the cloud cover held.
"You were right," he said, speaking into the
intercom. "They're Slaver sunflowers. If the cloud
cover hadn't come up, we'd have been dead the
instant we rose over the mountains..."
There was no alien
survivor anywhere in the domain of the sunflowers.
No smaller plant grew between the stalks. Nothing
flew. Nothing burrowed beneath the ashy-looking
soil. On the plants themselves there were no blights,
fungus growths, disease spots. If disease struck one of
their own, the sunflowers would destroy it.
The mirror-blossom was a terrible weapon. Its
primary purpose was to focus sunlight on the green
photosynthetic node at its center. But it could also
focus to destroy a plant-eating animal or insect. The
sunflowers burned all enemies. Everything that lives
is the enemy of a photosynthesis-using plant; and
everything that lived became fertilizer for the
sunflowers.
…A single species of plant evenly dispersed across
the land, from here to the infinity-horizon. Each plant
had a single blossom, and each blossom turned to
follow Louis Wu as he dropped. A tremendous
audience, silent and attentive.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from World of Ptavvs
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven
Tech news articles related to World of Ptavvs
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven
Slaver Sunflowers-related
news articles:
- Laser-Armed Robots To Do Weed Control
- Laser-Wielding Weeding Robot Rules In Densely Planted Chard
- Let's Make Slaver Sunflowers! Engineering Plants To Reflect Light
| What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells? |
| Black Fungus Blocks Radiation |
| Lunar Biorepository Proposed For Cryo-Preservation Of Earth Species |
| Let's Make Slaver Sunflowers! Engineering Plants To Reflect Light |
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'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
