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"The SF approach: an awareness that things could have been different, that this is one of many possible worlds, that if you came to this world from some other planet, this would be a science fiction world."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Machine City | ||
| A city that is a self-maintaining whole entity. |
This is a very early reference to the idea of a city that is really one large, complex machine. It is self-maintaining; it is designed to exist forever, without any intervention by man.
| The city was divided into two sections, a section of many strata where machines
functioned smoothly, save for a deep,
humming beat that echoed through the
whole city like a vast, unending song
of power. The entire metal framework
of the place echoed with it, transmitted
it, hummed with it. But it was soft
and restful, a reassuring beat.
There must have been thirty levels above ground and twenty more below, a solid block of metal walls and metal floors and metal and glass and force machines.  (Machine city from 'Twilight' by Don Stuart (John W. Campbell).) Seven or even seventy million years don't mean much to old Mother Earth. She may even succeed in wearing down those marvelous machine cities... When the builders made those cities, they forgot one thing. They didn't realize that things shouldn't go on forever. |
| Technovelgy from Twilight,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1934 Additional resources -
|
Readers familiar with Robert Silverberg may recall the city on Lemnos, from his novel The Man in the Maze; also, in Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles he refers to cities that kill invaders and clean up after themselves.
Compare to the Machine from The Machine Stops (1909) by EM Forster, the government machine from Mechanocracy (1932) by Miles J. Breuer, the games machine from The World of Null-A (1945) by AE van Vogt, central computer from The City and the Stars (1956) by Arthur C. Clarke, the Vulcan 3 computer from Vulcan's Hammer (1960) by Philip K. Dick and the WatchdØg from WatchdØg (1972) by Jack C. Haldeman.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Twilight
More Ideas
and Technology by John W. Campbell
Tech news articles related to Twilight
Tech news articles related to works by John W. Campbell
Machine City-related
news articles:
- Songdo IBD Smart City
- UK's Self-Repairing Cities
| Why Not Move A Warehouse District? |
| Amazon Will Send You Heinlein's Knockdown Cabin |
| Elegant Bivouac Shelter Produces Water And Electricity |
| AI-THu Shapeshifting Transformer Home |
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'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
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'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
