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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
 |
| Microlight | ||
| Winged, unmanned aerial vehicle used for surveillance in the revolving space station. |
Ultralight drones were part of the scene in Straylight:
Although beautiful, they could serve other ends than mere surveillance.
Case watched a drone microlight bank gracefully in an updraft at the green verge of an artificial mesa, lit for seconds by the soft glow of the invisible casino. The thing was a kind of pilotless biplane of gossamer polymer, its wings silkscreened to resemble a giant butterfly. Then it was gone, beyond the mesa's edge. He'd seen a wink of reflected neon off glass, either lenses or the turrets of lasers. The drones were part of the spindle's security system, controlled by some central computer.
| They were a little over a quarter of the way across when the microlight struck, its electric engine silent until the carbon fiber prop chopped away the top of Pierre's skull. They were in the thing's shadow for an instant, Case felt the hot blood spray across the back of his neck, and then someone tripped him. He rolled, seeing Michle on her back, knees up, aiming the Walther with both hands. That's a waste of effort, he thought, with the strange lucidity of shock. She was trying to shoot down the microlight. And then he was running. He looked back as he passed the first of the trees. Roland was running after him. He saw the fragile biplane strike the iron railing of the bridge, crumple, cartwheel, sweeping the girl with it down into Desiderata. |
| Technovelgy from Neuromancer,
by Joe Gibson. Published by Phantasia Press in 1984 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the copseyes from a story by Larry Niven as well as tracer-birds from an unusual story by Roger Zelazny.
As far as I know, the earliest reference to a little flying UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) is the scarab robot from a 1936 story by Raymond Z. Gallun.
Also, the raytron apparatus from Beyond the Stars (1928) by Ray Cummings, the artificial eye drone from Glimpse (1938) by Manly Wade Wellman, eyes from This Moment of the Storm (1966) by Roger Zelazny, the Ultraminiature Spy-Circuit from The Unknown (1972) by Christopher Anvil, copseyes from Cloak of Anarchy (1972) by Larry Niven, the sky ball from A Day For Damnation (1985) by David Gerrold, the drone floater camera from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton, the aerostat monitor from The Diamond Age (1995) by Neal Stephenson, the loiter drone from The Algebraist (2004) by Iain Banks and the bee cam from City of Pearl (2004) by Karen Traviss.
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