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Science Fiction
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"[Science fiction is] nightmares and visions, always outlined by the barely possible."
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![]() The most precious substance in the Dune universe is a substance called spice, or mélange. It was found only on the planet Arrakis (aka Dune), a planet that was almost entirely desert. It was not possible to establish fixed mining sites, because of enormous sandworms that roamed freely across the surface of the planet. For this reason, mobile, self-contained factory units were dropped onto the surface where spice sands were observed.
Since the giant sand worms would invariably come to any source of rhythmical vibration, a carryall wing aircraft was always on standby to remove it. Shai Hulud, the sandworm of Dune, was large enough to swallow a factory crawler as long as a football field whole, with all aboard.
![]() (Solido Projector Factory Crawler Image from 'Dune' by Frank Herbert) Obviously, we have no equivalent of spice on Earth, but huge mobile harvesting factories can be found in various forms. For example, timber harvesters capable of felling, debarking, debranching and cutting entire trees in lengths for transport, at an average of one tree every thirty seconds changed the logging industry. One could imagine unscrupulous logging companies landing one of these in a stand of virgin timber, hoping to clear as many acres of land as possible before being discovered. Comment/Join this discussion ( 1 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Science Fiction
Timeline
Small Town Wants 60 License Plate Readers
'the registration number which the traffic control automatically photographed as she left the controlway...'
Lightyear 0 World's First Production-Ready Solar Car
'It could maintain a steady six miles per hour...'
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'Then they press one of these here thirteen buttons...'
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'...without burning a single hydrocarbon molecule to injure the diseased atmosphere any further.'
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'Bird-like robots now descended from the ceiling of the theatre...'
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'The efficient robot waiter of the Sky Club had cleared away the remnants of an epicurean meal.'
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'...in the tank the new body and the new mind and memory and life has taken almost instant form.'
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'pirate three-vee satellites sanded out of orbit...'
Low-Cost Gel Pulls Water From Atmosphere Like Star Wars Vaporator
'The atmosphere yielded its moisture with reluctance. It had to be coaxed down...'
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