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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner
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| Mechanical Mole | ||
| A self-contained device for digging large tunnels. |
In Oath of Fealty, the same company that operates the Todos Santos Independency, a single structure that houses 250,000 people, is also building a subway under Los Angeles. The use of the device is elaborately explored, in, shall we say, unusual circumstances.
| The vehicle Tony Rand was driving was longer than four Cadillacs, and shaped roughly like a .22 Long Rifle cartridge. Thick hoses in various colors, some as thick as Tony's torso, trailed away down the tunnel and out of sight. The visibility ahead was poor. The top speed was contemptible. The mileage would have horrified a Cadillac owner. The best you could say for the Mole was that, unlike your ordinary automobile, it could drive through rock. |
| Technovelgy from Oath of Fealty,
by Jerry Pournelle (w/L. Niven). Published by Timescape in 1981 Additional resources -
|
I don't want to spoil the surprise of how this device is used in the novel; let's just say it's the slowest getaway car in history.
Compare to the mechanical earthworm from Death Dives Deep by Paul Ernst (1936) and the automatic shell from The Great Stone of Sardis (1897) by Frank Stockton.
For comic book look at a mole machine, read about Cave Carson: Adventures Inside Earth.
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Tech news articles related to Oath of Fealty
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Mechanical Mole-related
news articles:
- Tunnel Boring Machine B6 For Sale
| Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles |
| Centipede Robots Down On The Farm |
| Vipera Electric Skis From Frigid Dynamics |
| Pivotal Blackfly Electric Aircraft Lifts And Hovers |
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
