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"The bottom line in the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes. Much better to rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes."
- Frank Herbert
 |
| Electro-Telescope | ||
| A device that could clearly image space battles from a great distance. |
| Around a small electro-telescope a group of officials were gathered. The telescopic image was magnified through a prism series, and was spread upon a little two-foot mirror grid so that in the gloom all might see it...
The silent drama of space had almost reached its climax. The little transport ship, Queen of the Starways, showed clearly etched against the starfield of the mirror grid image. And behind and above it was another shape - a long, black, queerly domed vehicle. A Nomad ship. |
| From Blood of the Moon,
by Ray Cummings. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1936 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the Directrix, a somewhat more grandiose viewing device from E.E. 'Doc' Smith's 1942 novel Gray Lensman.
This science-fictional instrument is a variant on the idea of a heliostat telescope that uses a moving mirror to follow the sun's movement, and then beam the image to a static device.
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'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.'
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.'
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
