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"The first thing that's wrong with being a science-fiction writer today is that the present has caught up with the future and surpassed it."
- Peter Watts
 |
| Telecop (Mechanical Police) | ||
| A fully automatic mechanical policeman. |
| There came a hum above the house. A big plane
dropped past the window. Zulerich looked out as it
landed light as a bird upon a twig. Its door opened.
Three grotesque imitations of men got out. They were
giant fellows. They must have been ten feet tall, with
angular arms as thick as a man's thigh, and legs as
large in proportion as the arms. They walked forward
with a stiff mechanical lock step. They reached the door,
wheeled in perfect unison, and came tramping in, bowing
their heads to clear the doors. The whole inside of the
house reverberated with the pulse of their measured
tread. They filed in and Zulerich shrank involuntarily
from them as they marched to where he sat. Their heads were not round but box-like, and to make them more horrible they were fitted with great glass eyes which stared at one with wide greenish pupils as through they were dead. Of course they could not see, for they were not live things, just mechanical police, but Zulerich learned later that they sensed a man or an object by the shadow thrown upon their eyes. This operated an electrical device which guided them. In the back of each steel body was a hinged door, which looked to be a way of entering the mechanical chamber to mend any defects.
 (The telecop from 'The Eternal Man Revives' by D.D. Sharp)) One of the telecops stood back at the door. The other two advanced and Zulerich sat as stiffly as he had done in his glass case, wondering what they were about to do to him. Long, stiff arms reached out with three jerky moves and seized him with hard, iron fingers. "We arrest you in the name of the Rulers. Come !" |
| Technovelgy from The Eternal Man Revives,
by D.D. Sharp. Published by Wonder Stories Quarterly in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Compare to R. Daneel Olivaw from Caves of Steel (1953) by Isaac Asimov, the undercover detective robot from The Velvet Glove (1956) by Harry Harrison, the precogs from The Minority Report (1956) by Philip K. Dick, the Pry-Vie robotic detective from Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964) by Philip K. Dick and Sven, the artificially intelligent detective from The Turing Option (1992) by Harry Harrison.
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and Technology from The Eternal Man Revives
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and Technology by D.D. Sharp
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Tech news articles related to works by D.D. Sharp
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
