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"...the elements of cyberpunk have dissolved into the whole SF genre, so it’s hard to find anyone writing who doesn’t owe serious debts to Gibson and his crew."
- Richard Morgan
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| Atmosphere Control | ||
| Recently terraformed planets require constant maintenance. |
I just thought that this was a clever idea, taking advantage of a planet's natural vulcanism to distribute material throughout the atmosphere.
| Potter was doing most of the talking and all the pointing. "Those twin volcanoes; d'ye see them, Mr. Renner? D'ye see yon boxlike structures near the peak of each one? They're atmosphere control. When yon volcanoes belch gas, the maintenance posts fire jets of tailored algae into the air stream. Without them our atmosphere would soon be foul again." |
| Technovelgy from The Mote in God's Eye,
by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle). Published by Simon & Schuster in 1974 Additional resources -
|
Did I mention that this planet is called New Scotland. I hope that explains the accent.
Scientists believe that volcanoes have played (and continue to play) a vital role in the development of our own Earth's atmosphere. Most of the gas that surrounds the planet came from eruptions from below the surface. Volcanoes can inject remarkable volumes of SO2 and chlorine gas into the atmosphere, as well as dust that alters the albedo of the Earth. Volcanism has played an important role in recent history; the eruption (or explosion) of the Krakatoa volcano caused debris to fall upon locations as far away as Madagascar. Sunsets around the world were notably altered for years, as was the amount of sunlight reaching the surface.
See the entry for Pina2bo from Termination Shock (2021) by Neal Stephenson for another method of seeding the atmosphere, this time for geoengineering to prevent climate change.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Mote in God's Eye
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle)
Tech news articles related to The Mote in God's Eye
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle)
Atmosphere Control-related
news articles:
- Algae To Clean Atmosphere
- Reduce Hurricanes By Altering The Atmosphere
- Volcanoes Terraformed Mars?
- Dim The Sun With Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment
| Hybrid Wind Solar Devices |
| BeamBike Solar Power Canopy For Electric Bikes |
| REALLY Remote Control Excavators |
| Your Solar Electric Paint Is Ready, Larry Niven |
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
