mechanical controllers

29:4.19Of all the Mas­ter Phys­i­cal Con­trol­lers as­signed to the in­hab­ited worlds, the me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers are by far the most pow­er­ful. Pos­sess­ing the liv­ing en­dow­ment of anti­grav­ity in ex­cess of all other be­ings, each con­trol­ler has a grav­ity re­sis­tance equaled only by enor­mous spheres re­volv­ing at tremen­dous ve­loc­ity. Ten of these con­trol­lers are now sta­tioned on Uran­tia, and one of their most im­por­tant plan­e­tary ac­tiv­i­ties is to fa­cil­i­tate the de­par­ture of se­raphic trans­ports. In so func­tion­ing, all ten of the me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers act in uni­son while a bat­tery of one thou­sand en­ergy trans­mit­ters pro­vides the ini­tial mo­men­tum for the se­raphic de­par­ture.

41:1.4Ten Su­preme Power Cen­ters of the fifth or­der are as­signed to each of Neb­a­don’s pri­mary sub­di­vi­sions, the one hun­dred con­stel­la­tions. In Nor­la­ti­adek, your con­stel­la­tion, they are not sta­tioned on the head­quar­ters sphere but are sit­u­ated at the cen­ter of the enor­mous stel­lar sys­tem which con­sti­tutes the phys­i­cal core of the con­stel­la­tion. On Eden­tia there are ten as­so­ci­ated me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers and ten fran­dalanks who are in per­fect and con­stant li­ai­son with the near-by power cen­ters.

29:4.20The me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers are com­pe­tent to di­rec­tion­ize the flow of en­ergy and to fa­cil­i­tate its con­cen­tra­tion into the spe­cial­ized cur­rents or cir­cuits. These mighty be­ings have much to do with the seg­re­ga­tion, di­rec­tion­iza­tion, and in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion of the phys­i­cal en­er­gies and with the equal­iza­tion of the pres­sures of the in­ter­plan­e­tary cir­cuits. They are ex­pert in the ma­nip­u­la­tion of twenty-one of the thirty phys­i­cal en­er­gies of space, con­sti­tut­ing the power charge of a super­uni­verse. They are also able to ac­com­plish much to­wards the man­age­ment and con­trol of six of the nine more sub­tle forms of phys­i­cal en­ergy. By plac­ing these con­trol­lers in proper tech­ni­cal re­la­tion­ship to each other and to cer­tain of the power cen­ters, the as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors are en­abled to ef­fect un­be­liev­able changes in power ad­just­ment and en­ergy con­trol.

39:5.14And now, un­der the in­flu­ence of the trans­form­ers and the trans­mit­ters, a strange meta­mor­pho­sis be­gins as the ser­a­phim is made ready to swing into the en­ergy cur­rents of the uni­verse cir­cuits. To out­ward ap­pear­ance the ser­a­phim grows pointed at both ex­trem­i­ties and be­comes so en­shrouded in a queer light of am­ber hue that very soon it is im­pos­si­ble to dis­tin­guish the en­ser­a­phimed per­son­al­ity. When all is in readi­ness for de­par­ture, the chief of trans­port makes the proper in­spec­tion of the car­riage of life, car­ries out the rou­tine tests to as­cer­tain whether or not the an­gel is prop­erly en­cir­cuited, and then an­nounces that the trav­eler is prop­erly en­ser­a­phimed, that the en­er­gies are ad­justed, that the an­gel is in­su­lated, and that ev­ery­thing is in readi­ness for the de­part­ing flash. The me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers, two of them, next take their po­si­tions. By this time the trans­port ser­a­phim has be­come an al­most trans­par­ent, vi­brat­ing, tor­pedo-shaped out­line of glis­ten­ing lu­mi­nos­ity. Now the trans­port dis­patcher of the realm sum­mons the aux­il­iary bat­ter­ies of the liv­ing en­ergy trans­mit­ters, usu­ally one thou­sand in num­ber; as he an­nounces the des­ti­na­tion of the trans­port, he reaches out and touches the near point of the se­raphic car­riage, which shoots for­ward with light­ning­like speed, leav­ing a trail of ce­les­tial lu­mi­nos­ity as far as the plan­e­tary at­mo­spheric in­vest­ment ex­tends. In less than ten min­utes the mar­velous spec­ta­cle will be lost even to re­in­forced se­raphic vi­sion.

30:2.1022. Me­chan­i­cal Con­trol­lers.

29:4.182. Me­chan­i­cal Con­trol­lers. These are the ex­ceed­ingly ver­sa­tile and mo­bile as­sis­tants of the as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors. Tril­lions upon tril­lions of them are com­mis­sioned in Ensa, your mi­nor sec­tor. These be­ings are called me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers be­cause they are so com­pletely dom­i­nated by their su­pe­ri­ors, so fully sub­servient to the will of the as­so­ciate power di­rec­tors. Nev­er­the­less they are, them­selves, very in­tel­li­gent, and their work, though me­chan­i­cal and mat­ter-of-fact in na­ture, is skill­fully per­formed.

29:4.62. Me­chan­i­cal Con­trol­lers.