Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I think we could solve our problems more easily through strength of character; but that's always been a commodity in extremely short supply."
- Gregory Benford
 |
| 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.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
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
| Biological War: A Scenario |
| What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells? |
| Black Fungus Blocks Radiation |
| Lunar Biorepository Proposed For Cryo-Preservation Of Earth Species |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
