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"The immediate problem with our meat brains is that they have no back-up. We can lose the most precious information we have from one bump on the head or stroke. You want a mind system with back-up that can access other databases."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Haberman | ||
| Modified humans controlled by cybernetic implants. |
A human that have been modified from most sensory reception, while their bodily functions are controlled by cybernetic implants. Habermans are needed to crew spacecraft, since unmodified humans would not be able to withstand the "pain of space". The Pain is a side effect of interstellar travel, which causes a desire for death in living beings.
| "'And how, O Scanners, are habermans made?' "'They are made with the cuts. The brain is cut from the heart, the lungs. The brain is cut from the ears, the nose. The brain is cut from the mouth, the belly. The brain is cut from desire, and pain. The brain is cut from the world. Save for the eyes. Save for the control of the living flesh' "'And how...is flesh controlled?' "'By the boxes set in the flesh, the controls set in the chest, the signs made to rule the living body...'" |
| Technovelgy from Scanners Live in Vain,
by Cordwainer Smith. Published by Fantasy Publishing Co. Inc. in 1950 Additional resources -
|
The eponymous "Scanners" are volunteers who undergo the haberman creation process. Since Habermans tend to be robotic and disturbed as a result of their condition, they need constant supervision and adjustment. Scanners makes sure the habbermans survive, or if need be, kill them.
Thanks to Gatomon41 for submitting this item!
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'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?''
'I opened the oblong box, where lay the automatons side by side...'
'They tied the memory to the bloodline and that was their record!'
