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"What television does is rent us friends and relatives who are quite satisfactory. This is quite something, to rent artificial friends and relatives right inside the house."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Crechepod | ||
| A small, enclosed medical device providing full life support as well as advanced regrowth technologies. |
A continuing theme in science fiction works is the idea that medical knowledge will be increasingly implemented in mechanical systems, rather than in people.
| A label on the crechepod identified the disrupted flesh inside as having belonged to an identity called Lewis Orne... The flesh in the pod bore little resemblance to the photo, but even in the flaccid repose of demideath, Orne's unguent-smeared body radiated a bizarre aura.... "Why'd you bother with the pod?" a medic asked. "This patient's vital tone is too low to permit operative replacement of damaged organs due to the energy drain of regrowth." |
| Technovelgy from The Godmakers,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Berkley Medallion in 1972 Additional resources -
|
There are two main reasons to have medical expertise available in a small package. One is to provide medical expertise without needing to add another character. The other is to bring characters back from otherwise final plot devices.
For more details on how energy redirection can lead to regrowth, see Atlotl/Gibiril Regimen; also, compare this device to autodoc.
Compare to the emergency treatment tank from Agent of Vega (1949) by James Schmitz, the
regeneration tank from Contagion (1950) by Katherine MacLean, the
Gobathian from Time is the Simplest Thing (1961) by Clifford Simak, the surgical homeostatic unit from Now Wait For Last Year (1966) by Philip K. Dick, the autodoc from The Warriors (1966) by Larry Niven, the diagnostat from The Man in the Maze (1969) by Robert Silverberg, electronic body analyzer from The Andromeda Strain (1969) by Michael Crichton and the autosurgeon from Altered Carbon (2003) by Richard Morgan.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Godmakers
More Ideas
and Technology by Frank Herbert
Tech news articles related to The Godmakers
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
Crechepod-related
news articles:
- Trauma Pod Battlefield Medical Treatment System
| 3D Printed Organs From Space |
| Health Kiosk Has No Human Doctor |
| NEO Brain Computer Interface (BCI) |
| MIT Computerized Bionic Leg Is Part Of The User |
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'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
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'...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.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
