Brains as computers for spaceship

[hairy_wookie]

So I keep remembering this book I read when I was a late teen or my early 20's (so 17-20 years ago, but the book may well be older than that), and it might have even been a short story or novelette.

But one of the central frameworks to the story was that this starship used brains removed from humans as computing power.

The bodies (with hollowed out skulls filled with radio bits) were kept alive and were used occasionally as a reward and when the ship came across other ships (that they could pirate for other brain donors and supplies)

Does this strike a bell with anyone, I can't even remember if it was good or not, only that the concept stuck with me, and I would love to track it down and re-read it.

 

[dask]

I'd like to read it myself.

 

[WizardofOwls]

Sounds sort of like Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang.

 

[hairy_wookie]

I had not read that series. It sounds similar, but the ship had more than one brain in it, i.e. it was crewed by many brains. And bodies were retained for later use by the "crew".

 

[ghost8772]

its not McCaffrey's. those brain ships had the entire body inserted. I can't say I've heard of the type of "brain" ships in the story your looking for, sorry.

 

[Vertigo]

Wasn't there a Star Trek episode about something like that - possibly TNG or Voyager? Only it wasn't a spaceship but some sort of automated repair station IIRC.

 

[ghost8772]

Wasn't there a Star Trek episode about something like that - possibly TNG or Voyager? Only it wasn't a spaceship but some sort of automated repair station IIRC.

there was an episode in TOS, "Spock's Brain" but was one facility that was being controlled by a brain.

 

[dask]

Just a shot in the dark but any chance it might be "Scanners Live In Vain" by Cordwainer Smith?

 

[Metryq]

The short story "Gottlos" by Colin Kapp appeared in the November 1969 Analog science fiction magazine. The opening scene features a remotely controlled battle tank running up against a new "super tank" that continues to function fluidly despite heavy radio jamming. The first-person operator is "dismembered" by the super tank (consequently suffering psychosomatic trauma from the experience), and the last thing he sees is the name plate on his opponent: Gottlos ("godless" or "ungodly"). The operator later learns the horrifying truth about the super tank when Gottlos begs the operator's assistance...

The 1995 videogame The Daedalus Encounter begins with a video segment of three soldiers in an interstellar battle where their ship is destroyed. One of the escape pods is severely damaged. The game begins after the war has ended, and the player assumes the role of the soldier who was in the damaged pod. His shipmates (Tia Carrere and Christian Bocher) inform him that he is "a brain in a box." The "box" is their new salvage ship, and the player can adventure beyond the ship with a small drone.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Might be a stab in a dark, because it is a long time since I read it, but was not Frank Herbert (Dune creator) Destination Void something like this...

The starship Earthling, filled with thousands of hybernating colonists en route to a new world at Tau Ceti, is stranded beyond the solar system when the ship’s three Organic Mental Cores—disembodied human brains that control the vessel’s functions—go insane. An emergency skeleton crew sees only one chance for survival: to create an artificial consciousness in the Earthling’s primary computer, which could guide them to their destination . . . or could destroy the human race.

 

[hairy_wookie]

Just a shot in the dark but any chance it might be "Scanners Live In Vain" by Cordwainer Smith?

Checked it, thats not it. Thanks

 

[hairy_wookie]

Might be a stab in a dark, because it is a long time since I read it, but was not Frank Herbert (Dune creator) Destination Void something like this...

The starship Earthling, filled with thousands of hybernating colonists en route to a new world at Tau Ceti, is stranded beyond the solar system when the ship’s three Organic Mental Cores—disembodied human brains that control the vessel’s functions—go insane. An emergency skeleton crew sees only one chance for survival: to create an artificial consciousness in the Earthling’s primary computer, which could guide them to their destination . . . or could destroy the human race.

nope thats not it either. Balls!! I am begining to lose hope of finding this book.

Although I am enjoying this forum which is a new discovery for me.

 

[merritt]

Not the same but super similar

A Plague of Demons semi-juvie by Keith Laumer

Aliens harvest human brains to put in "spaceship" war machines for battle

Been a while since I read it, was great as a boy. Ah Nastalgia!

last time it didn't really hold up that well

 

[lazygun]

Have a look at Fred Saberhagan's "Berserker" stories.

 

[monkeypooper]

no not berserkers there premis is to destroy all life even down to microbes scouring a planet clean

 

[lazygun]

True,but they kept humans alive for taking over other ships by deception.And there is also a cyborg/reward element for the "GoodLife?" that rings a bell.

 

[monkeypooper]

True,but they kept humans alive for taking over other ships by deception.And there is also a cyborg/reward element for the "GoodLife?" that rings a bell.

so long since i read it and so much since i forgot about the goodlife element of the books

 

[Metryq]

"Goodlife" was a human slave brainwashed to serve a berserker since childhood—from one of the stories in the original anthology.

 

[WarLord]

I remember a similar short tory. People signed up for a "tour" as a semi-aware space ship brain while their bodies were kept in huge warehouses. Then after their tour was over their minds were put back in their body and they were sent home. I don't know if this was a physical thing, or just their mind put into the ships computer while the bodies were preserved temporarily while they were in service. This had been going on for some time, but the point of the story was that the ship destroyed the warehouse housing the bodies of the minds serving it. The main character was semi aware it was destroying it's own body, but not enough to care. Always struck me as sad, which is why I remember it .

 

[iansales]

Christopher Hodder-Williams' 98.4 features a scientist who uses disembodied brains as guidance systems for missiles.