Anders Sandberg wrote:
> As for future architecture, I'm currently interested in biotech
> architecture for my next sf scenario (no, I can't get enough :-). I'm
> thinking along the lines of Stateless in Egan's _Distress_ and the
> stuff described in the Wired article "Newer York, New York"
> (http://wired.lycos.com/wired/archive/8.01/futuretekture.html). Any
> other ideas for what you can do with programmed bacteria, transgene
> plants and good biotech?
Not knowing much of the background of your story, I can only point out a few
interesting uses in various bits of SF I've read:
In "The Helix and the Sword", there has been some sort of major war that has
wiped out humanity on the various planets. Humanity now lives on huge living
spaceships that resemble nautiluses (nautili?). They have mined the asteroid
belt and Saturn's rings until they have reached a resource crises. It seems
that none of their ships (or people) are very capable to entering even a low
gravity well any more. The idea of landing on even one of the lesser moons of
Jupiter seems like suicide.
In "The Bohr Maker", nanotechnology has been rigidly suppressed by terran
authorities. The heroine accidently becomes infected with a rogue thought-
controlled general-assembler called the 'bohr maker' and becomes a hunted
fugitive. She eventually ends up living in a huge floating tree in space,
hiding amongst a group of rogue genengineers. She eventually discovers that the
entire tree is not only a living ship but also a sophisticated nano-fabrication
factory that makes anything 'man-portable' pale in comparison.
I don't remember the authors of either book off-hand. There was also one book I
read recently in which giant modified bees were used to build skyscrapers.
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