Stephenson:Neal:Snow Crash:83, 414-416, 436-437:Fido, aka The Rat Thing (Mike Lorrey)
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This Snow Crash page is for Fido the Rat Thing.
Stephensonia
Rat Thing Mark II
just before paws are hooked up...
Many love how Neal Stephenson
portrays the thoughts of the "rat thing"
*The Rat Thing is a product of Ng Security, and is part cyborg, part dog, and the subject of many urban myths. It appears that the civilians know of the existence of these creatures, but are not sure about the rumours of converted dogs. Semi-autonomous guard unit B-782 AKA Fido, one particular Rat Thing, used to be the pet of Y.T., and so lovingly looks out for her - convenient as it is a nuclear-powered moving defence system:
So she was right. The Rat Things are made from dog parts.
"That's cruel," she says.
"This brand of sentimentalism is very predictable," Ng says.
"To take a dog out of his body -- keep him in a hutch all the time."
"When the Rat Thing, as you call it, is in his hutch, do you know what he's doing?"
"Licking his electric nuts?"
"Chasing Frisbees through the surf. Forever. Eating steaks that grow on trees. Lying beside the fire in a hunting lodge. I haven't installed any testicle licking simulations yet, but now that you have brought it up, I shall consider it."
"What about when he's out of the hutch, running around doing errands for you?"
"Can't you imagine how liberating it is for a pit bullterrier to be capable of running seven hundred miles an hour?"
YT doesn't answer. She is too busy trying to get her mind around this concept.
"Your mistake," Ng says, "is that you think that all mechanically assisted organisms -- like me -- are pathetic cripples. In fact, we are better than we were before."*
Authored entries
- TBA
The Rat Thing, AKA Fido
The Rat Thing
Image by Pacific Data Images' Drew Olbrich
The Rat Thing is a cyborg. Nuclear powered, cooled by liquid nitrogen while in its hutch, by the passage of air when in motion outside, it is controlled by the nervous system of a pit bullterrier. These are the 'non-human security systems' that Ng Security Industries, Inc. manufactures for Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, such that Mr Lee doesn't have to employ lots of minium wage employees to stand around with machine guns.
We first meet one of the Rat Things early in the novel when Hiro helps YT abscond from The Clink and avoid a bunch of taxi driving heavily armed jeeks. The two seek sanctuary in a Mr. Lee's franchulate, since Hiro is a citizen of Mr. Lee's. That particular rat thing is damaged by a jeek thrown hand grenade, and YT and Hiro help get it back to its hutch to heal.
Fido is one particular Rat Thing, living in a hutch in Arizona. He was once a pit bull owned by YT, but was kidnapped by someone and later sold to Ng, where he transcended to Rat Thingdom. He remembers YT as 'the nice girl who loves him' and he especially likes being let loose on people that hurt nice girls, as do all Rat Things. Fido is of particular importance late in the novel when another rat thing tells him how the nice girl who loves him is being hurt by L Bob Rife.
Rife is in for a world of hurt, cause no power in the 'verse can stop Fido.
Cybernetic Animals
Athena's reproduction of her pet"
The concept of the robotic pet goes back into antiquity, though in science fiction we see it quite commonly. The movie "Clash of the Titans" featured a robotic-clockwork owl. After Perseus' first encounter with Calibos in the marshes he loses his magical helmet, Zeus decides to provide him with a replacement to aid him in his quest to save the princess. Bubo was Athena's beloved magical owl, Zeus commands her to hand over her owl to Perseus, but she "will never part" with her owl. She decides to build an exact replica of Bubo but made of brass and iron with the help of Hephaestus. This mechanical owl is not very well documented in real Greek mythology and as comic-relief in the movie is generally considered a flop by most critics.
The 1980's television show "Battlestar Galactica" featured a dog-like pet of the young character 'Boxie' which was killed in the first episode and replaced by a cybernetic/robot daggit named Muffit.
Muffit on occasion saved Boxie and others, earning the recognition of the crew of Galactica for going beyond his artificial programming in caring for humans, a feat not accomplished by the Cylons, a robot/cyborg race created by the humans of the colonies which turned against humanity. The duality of Muffit versus Cylon depicts the distinction in how humanity treats its creations. Treated as loved pets or children, they could be benevolent partners and evolutionary offspring. However, if feared or hated by those that distrust technology, and subject to penalizing regulation as a result, our technological offspring could destroy us because of our own flaws, not because of theirs.
Battlestar Galactica Characters Boxie and
his pet "Muffit", a daggit cyborg
On the show, this character was played by a three-year-old chimp named Eve. The chimp was said to have hated humans and would never listen to its trainer, frequently tossing her costume head across the stage.
In the S Andrew Swann novel "Emperors of the Twilight", we see a cybernetic doberman pinscher assault the main character following the opening scene sequence, only to be blown to pieces by its victim, an artificial person or 'frank' herself who daily lives with the conundrum of protecting the human species that fears or hates her.
The Cybernetic Conundrum
If we treat our technological offspring with fear, hate, abuse and slavery, what result are we to expect but to be destroyed by them due to our own failures as 'parents'? The future of "The Terminator" is one that results from our own fears and distrust of not only our creations, but of ourselves. Purely robotic entities might never be able to learn the love of humanity that has been bred over thousands of years into the domesticated canine.
Pet Prosthetics
While the field of veterinary medicine has exapanded greatly over the past two decades, vets have not found a lot of market for pet prosthetics, primarily because they have a tendency to destroy them due to irritation. However, in 2004 a dolphin in a Japanese aquarium was equipped with an artificial main fin, the original having wasted away from a flesh eating micro-organism. The dolphin is reportedly quite happy with her prosthetic.
Exceeding Baseline Performance
As commented by Ng, cybernetic technologies have the potential to allow their users to exceed the performance they had as baseline humans prior to their becoming handicapped. Users of hearing aids and cochlear implants have reported such abilities, and in the field of leg and foot prosthetics, handicapped human runners now enjoy the use of technologies which allow them to out-run baseline humans by a significant degree.
This leads to a question of whether a person with superhuman performance would properly be an acceptable athlete at a Paralympics competition, or an Olympics Competition, or should superhuman-abled athletes have their own competetive leagues entirely?
From:Keeping Track Newsletter DOUBLE-AMPUTEE Oscar Pistorious, a 17-year-old from South Africa competing in the Athens Paralympics, became the first amputee to dip under 22 seconds for 200 meters. His 21.97 in Athens compares with the current B Olympic standard for able-bodied men, 20.75. Given his disadvantage coming out of the blocks, Pistorious may move up to the 400 in an attempt to become the first person with even one prosthetic leg to compete in the Games. He is just .45 shy of the qualifying mark for world juniors in the 200 and has only been competing in track since January of this year.
When asked if an athlete with a prosthetic leg could compete in the Olympics, the IOC referred the question to the IAAF. There is no mention of prosthetics in the rules, an IAAF official tells the Agence France Presse. The case has never presented itself before.
Whether this open mindedness lasts beyond the day when amputees sweep gold-silver-bronze in an Olympic event is questionable, given the International Olympic Committee's opposition to use of performance enhancing drugs for normal athletes. At the Athens games, the leading single-amputee Americans, Brian Frasure and Marlon Shirley, were inspired by Pistorious' performance to lodge a light-hearted complaint that the Springbok's twin prosthetics constituted an unfair advantage for Pistorious.
Liam Chronnell: Dog's wheel clamp triumph
Bethany
A disabled dog has won through to the finals of a national competition - thanks to an ingenious "wheel clamp" that has enabled her to walk again.
Beagle-mongrel Bethany suffered paralysis of her back legs two years ago, but the canine has triumphed in the northern heat of the cross-breed awards. (complete in link).
Dog As Cyborg
Animal rights advocate, Professor Donna Harraway, looks at dogs as the first cyborg species: humans shaped their evolution to serve as tools of our needs, and particularly in work areas such as bomb sniffing, assisting the blind or other handicapped, guard dogs, etc. dogs are already cyborgs metaphorically speaking as creatures of biotechnology that serve our needs.
If dogs had any more intelligence, and seeing how we treat some of them, they might have grounds to rise up against us.