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"My father was a master mechanic; I grew up with a screwdriver in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other."
- Frank Herbert
 |
| 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. |
| 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...
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
| CurvACE Artificial Compound Insect Eye |
| MIT Robot Cheetah Video Shows Gait Transition |
| Drosophila Robotica, The Mechanical Fly |
| Robo-Raven Flapping Wing Robot Bird |
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