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"SF is a controlled way to think and dream about the future."
- Gregory Benford
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| Claws (Attack Robot) | ||
| Autonomous guard robots that attack living tissue. |
They are made in underground factories; they come up from underground and attack anything that lives.
| Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday. A metal sphere, it raced up the hill after the Russian, its treads flying. It was small, one of the baby ones. Its claws were out, two razor projections spinning in a blur of white steel. The Russian heard it. He turned instantly, firing... already a second had emerged and was following the first...
A third sphere leaped up the Russian's leg, clicking and whirring. It jumped to the shoulder. The spinning blades disappeared into the Russian's throat. |
| Technovelgy from Second Variety,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Space in 1953 Additional resources -
|
Here's a little more detail:
Off to the right something scuttled, something round and metallic. A claw, going lickety-split after something. Probably after a small animal, a rat. They got rats, too. As a sort of sideline.
The claws got faster and they got bigger. New types appeared, some with feelers, some that flew. There were a few jumping kinds...
Some of the little claws were learning to hide themselves, burrowing down into the ash, lying in wait.
And they started getting into bunkers, slipping down when the lids were raised for air and a look around. One claw inside a bunker, a churning sphere of blades and metal - that was enough. And when one got in others followed.
This short story was the inspiration for the 1995 film Screamers.
"It doesn't take them long. Not after the first one gets in. It goes wild. You know what the little claws can do. Even one of these is beyond belief. Razors, each finger. Maniacal."
(Claws - or Screamers - from the 1995 movie)
Screamers are the claws described above, "...churning sphere of blades and metal ... spinning, creeping, shaking themselves up suddenly from the grey ash..." to attack any warm body.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Second Variety
More Ideas
and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to Second Variety
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
Claws (Attack Robot)-related
news articles:
- Screamers - PKD's Claws - The Robotic Research Begins
- Soldiers Learn To Trust Robots
- Robotic Underground Munitions
- Armed Robots Bad Idea
- 'Sandfish' Robot Moves Through Sand
- Coman Bully-Resistant Robot
- Self-Burying Robots - What Could Go Wrong?
- PUFFER Robots - From Philip K DIck's Second Variety?
| Robot Gas Station Attendant Pumps Gas For You |
| SnapBot Robots - You Choose Their Legs And They Choose Their Gaits |
| Humanoid Robots Building Humanoid Robots |
| What's The Best Way To Ship And Unpack Humanoid Robots? |
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'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.'
