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"Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Airmaker | ||
| A device that creates a specific breathable mix directly from the atmosphere. |
It seems clear that at least part of the breathable mix required for Trinocs can be taken directly from the atmosphere.
| "How did you get a Trinoc to come?" "Don't tell me he's still here." "Oh, no. His air was running out and he had to go home." "A little white lie," Louis informed her. "A Trinoc airmaker lasts for weeks." |
| Technovelgy from Ringworld,
by Larry Niven. Published by Ballantine in 1970 Additional resources -
|
This is actually a pretty good idea, since similar products called "oxygen concentrators" are starting to replace oxygen cylinders. They are substantially less dangerous that cylinders of oxygen.
Aliens in sf sometimes require something in addition to the elements of Earth's air. In his classic 1953 novel Childhood's End, for example, Arthur C. Clarke's Overlords sometimes needed more than the atmosphere provides:
Compare to David Brin's oxygen hip flask from his 1990 novel Earth.
Though they [the Overlords] seemed able to breathe terrestrial air, they sometimes carried small cylinders of gas from which they refreshed themselves occasionally.
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'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
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'... completely forgetting the ship at sight of the awesome figure and great head of the giant Gaut...'
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
