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"I realized there was a heavy-duty change coming in biology, and I could write a really compelling novel about catastrophic evolution, punctuated equilibrium."
- Greg Bear
 |
| Machine City | ||
| A city that is a self-maintaining whole entity. |
This is a very early reference to the idea of a city that is really one large, complex machine. It is self-maintaining; it is designed to exist forever, without any intervention by man.
| The city was divided into two sections, a section of many strata where machines functioned smoothly, save for a deep humming beat that echoed through the whole city like a vast unending song of power.
Seven or even seventy million years don't mean much to old Mother Earth. She may even succeed in wearing down those marvelous machine cities... When the builders made those cities, they forgot one thing. They didn't realize that things shouldn't go on forever. |
| From Twilight,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1934 Additional resources -
|
Readers familiar with Robert Silverberg may recall the city on Lemnos, from his novel The Man in the Maze; also, in Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles he refers to cities that kill invaders and clean up after themselves.
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resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Twilight
More Ideas
and Technology by John W. Campbell
Tech news articles related to Twilight
Tech news articles related to works by John W. Campbell
Machine City-related
news articles:
- Songdo IBD Smart City
- UK's Self-Repairing Cities
| 3D Printed Dubai Building Is World's Largest |
| Driverless Hotel Rooms Predicted In 1828 |
| Humans Could Take Up A LOT Less Space |
| Oh Yes, We're Building The Rotating Tower In Dubai |
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