Edge Innovations has designed an animatronic dolphin that can pass for the real thing. The U.S. engineering company used its experience creating life-like animals for movies to help relieve the reliance on captive animals to entertain crowds.
If you want one, prepare to spend $3-5 million.
Dolphins are common in theme parks throughout the world. A life-like robotic version would have a massive impact and go a long way with conservationist groups. In the future, it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine every animal in a theme park, including zoos, is a robotic version. Would you visit a mechanical Jurassic park island?
What if robotic animals were the initial taste of advanced technology that paves the way for life-like human robots? It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine the people accepting tickets into the theme parks to see robotic dolphins could one day be robots themselves.
If you’ve read The Hysteria of Bodalís, you know my affinity for androids. This could be another treatment of the issue.
The story could revolve around a tinkerer who’s responsible for fixing the robots. He’s a solitary man, working at night to fix the robots for the theme park visitors. Over time, he takes decommissioned robots, both animals and humans, and creates a private utopia in an abandoned warehouse—everything changes when someone starts breaking into the theme park and kills the robotic animals.
The authorities don’t invest too many resources into the case since it involves property damage and not an actual killing.
The stakes rise when human robots are dismembered. The repairman is suspected, and he has to solve the case before he’s fired or found guilty.
The most intense part of the story would be the discovery of his secret world, where both animal and human robots are slaughtered, making his guilt seem all but certain.
The story could end with the tinkerer discovering that the accountant is responsible for the damage; he wanted to recover the insurance payments after losing the theme park’s money. Similar to a Scooby-Doo episode, but darker and written for adults.
A series could revolve around the theme park, tying together the underlying social connections and their interactions with the robotic humans and animals. The theme park could expand to include other parks with dinosaurs or make strides in creating other uses for human robots.
A potential second book could be about their foray into making robotic humans available for humans to kill–an outlet for primal urges. The tinkerer has to solve a different case: why one man orders so many robot humans. His detective work reveals a string of past murders, and he brings the serial killer to justice.
The third book could be animal robot focused, a Jurassic park where someone is killing real human visitors, making it look like the robot dinosaurs are committing the crimes. In the end, it could be a rival company or a spurned former partner.
