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"Science fiction operates a little bit like science itself, in principle. You've got thousands of people exploring ideas, putting forth their own hypotheses. Most of them are dead wrong; a few stand the test of time; everything looks kind of quaint in hind"
- Peter Watts
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| Manufactured Planet | ||
| Is that a moon - or a space station? |
| Our first vague impression was corroborated; the object was a vast sphere of perhaps a thousand feet in diameter and of a dark, greenish metal. It was encircled by criss-crossing and massive bands of the same material. There were no other distinguishing features...
...what was our astonishment to find ourselves close to and moving steadily toward the green sphere, and a great door in its side yawning to receive us! |
| Technovelgy from The Heritage of the Earth,
by Harley S. Aldinger. Published by Amazing Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
|
This iconic picture should be familiar, at least in outline:
(We were pulled inside!)
The reader might be reminded of the Death Star pulling in the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars.
The author does not describe the means by which the craft is drawing others in side, saying only "we were drawn forward by a force not our own..."
Elsewhere in the story, the sphere is described as "the little manufactured planet, swinging through space, bearing its precious burden, the Heritage of Earth."
Compare to the battle sphere from The Space Rover (1932) by Edwin K. Sloat and the Transparent Spherical Ship from Schachner and Zagat's 1931 novel The Emperor of the Stars.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Heritage of the Earth
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Tech news articles related to The Heritage of the Earth
Tech news articles related to works by Harley S. Aldinger
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'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
'Gaines and Harvey mounted tumblebugs, and kept abreast of the Cadet Captain...'
Accompanied by a small selection of similar ideas from science fiction.
'...war-balloons, or, as it would be more correct to call them, navigable aerostats.'
