What's your favorite science fiction device (that isn't a weapon)?

[Verdac]

Might just be my bad joints talking but would love some cybernetic implants or nano-infusion for bad joints.

[Lentrax]

Cyberdecks.

A Quantum Harmonizer. (Not sure what it does, but man does it do awesome stuff when you stick it in someone's Photonic Resonance Chamber)

An Electronic Thumb

A Voight-kampff machine.

Whatever tech it took to be able to have streetdocs able to perform perfect plastic surgery in one hour or less.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[Dorath]

Give me the miracle machine or desirovac. Maybe Pym particles, it's a tough choice.

[Bohandas]

*the total perspective vortex

*any device by which something we would consider "supernatural" is harnessed and controlled like any other phenomenon (proton packs and other ghostbusting equipment, the sunlamps and other troll hunting equipment from The Troll Hunter, Hex the arcane computer fron Discworld, the No Chambers from the Dune series, etc) or mass produced as if it were an ordinary thing (the gag factory from Roger Rabbit, the mass manufactured bound-demon powered watches from Discworld, etc)

[togapika]

Holodeck.

Not only can I now have sex with celebrities or fictional characters, but I can turn any tabletop rule set or Larp rule set into an immersive experience. It could also be used to learn a skill from a vastly knowledgeable tutor that would normally cost large amounts to hire.

[AMFV]

Holodeck.

Not only can I now have sex with celebrities or fictional characters, but I can turn any tabletop rule set or Larp rule set into an immersive experience. It could also be used to learn a skill from a vastly knowledgeable tutor that would normally cost large amounts to hire.

You'd also die horrifically when the safeties malfunctioned and the tutor turned murderous.

[2D8HP]

.

Holodeck..

You'd also die horrifically when the safeties malfunctioned and the tutor turned murderous.

Judging by how troublesome and dangerous the holodeck seemed to be, episode after episode, Starfleet personal must've been really dependent (addicted?) to it.

[Peelee]

You'd also die horrifically when the safeties malfunctioned and the tutor turned murderous.

Tutor wouldn't turn murderous. The holodeck malfunctions had characters like Moriarty loaded and running at the time. Already evil, murderous people. Tutor, in the event of malfunction, would continue to tute.

[Lord Joeltion]

*any device by which something we would consider "supernatural" is harnessed and controlled like any other phenomenon (proton packs and other ghostbusting equipment, the sunlamps and other troll hunting equipment from The Troll Hunter, Hex the arcane computer fron Discworld, the No Chambers from the Dune series, etc) or mass produced as if it were an ordinary thing (the gag factory from Roger Rabbit, the mass manufactured bound-demon powered watches from Discworld, etc)

Laughter Energy from Monsters Inc. would be awesome too. Then again, I fear we would spawn a new cross-breed of environmentalists/SJWs attempting to police over what kind of jokes bring the less pollution

You'd also die horrifically when the safeties malfunctioned and the tutor turned murderous.

I would fear more for my safety during Kinky Time, to be honest. You don't want a murderous Black Widow at the worst possible time

.Judging by how troublesome and dangerous the holodeck seemed to be, episode after episode, Starfleet personal must've been really dependent (addicted?) to it.

You mean you wouldn't?

[2D8HP]

...You mean you wouldn't?

A luxury once tasted becomes a necessity.

They are substances and activities that I do not try for fear of my liking them too much.

[AMFV]

Tutor wouldn't turn murderous. The holodeck malfunctions had characters like Moriarty loaded and running at the time. Already evil, murderous people. Tutor, in the event of malfunction, would continue to tute.

That town in Voyager. The Irish one. I can continue with other examples, because there are several.

[Bohandas]

A luxury once tasted becomes a necessity.

They are substances and activities that I do not try for fear of my liking them too much.

Malfunctions or not the holodeck's still safer than cocaine

[togapika]

Malfunctions or not the holodeck's still safer than cocaine

I'm a part of a group of responsible holodeck users...

[rooster707]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Ahem.

[Peelee]

That town in Voyager. The Irish one. I can continue with other examples, because there are several.

Please do, because Voyager was terrible. Anyway, what were the details of that town? Wasn't there some sort of monster or something, and not just "simple idyllic town becomes murderous for no reason?"

[Rynjin]

Please do, because Voyager was terrible. Anyway, what were the details of that town? Wasn't there some sort of monster or something, and not just "simple idyllic town becomes murderous for no reason?"

Wasn't that the one where they were ALL sentient holograms and the people disappearing/being "snatched by a monster" were just disappearing because the power was failing?

[GloatingSwine]

Tutor wouldn't turn murderous. The holodeck malfunctions had characters like Moriarty loaded and running at the time. Already evil, murderous people. Tutor, in the event of malfunction, would continue to tute.

Yes.

With all the doors locked.

Forever.



Now, obviously the best science fiction device that is a weapon is the Lazy Gun.

Spoiler

Show

There had been eight Lazy Guns. A Lazy Gun was a little over half a meter in length, about thirty centimeters in width and twenty centimeters in height. Its front was made up of two stubby cylinders which protruded from the smooth, matte-silver main body. The cylinders ended in slightly bulged black-glass lenses. A couple of hand controls sitting on stalks, an eyesight curving up on an other extension, and a broad, adjustable metal strap all indicated that the weapons had been designed to be fired from the waist.

There were two controls, one on each hand grip; a zoom wheel and a trigger.

You looked through the sight, zoomed in until the target you had selected just filled your vision, then you pressed the trigger. The Lazy Gun did the rest instantaneously.

But you had no idea whatsoever exactly what was going to happen next.

If you had aimed at a person, a spear might suddenly materialize and pierce them through the chest, or some snake's spit fang might graze their neck, or a ship's anchor might appear falling above them, crushing them, or two enormous switch-electrodes would leap briefly into being on either side of the hapless target and vaporize him or her.

If you had aimed the gun at something larger, like a tank or a house, then it might implode, explode, collapse in a pile of dust, be struck by a section of a tidal wave or a lava flow, be turned inside out or just disappear entirely, with or without a bang.

Increasing scale seemed to rob a Lazy Gun of its eccentric poesy; turn it on a city or a mountain and it tended simply to drop an appropriately sized nuclear or thermonuclear fireball onto it. The only known exception had been when what was believed to have been a comet nucleus had destroyed a city-sized berg-barge on the water world of Trontsephori.

Rumor had it that some of the earlier Lazy Guns, at least, had shown what looked suspiciously like humor when they had been used; criminals saved from firing squads so that they could be the subjects of experiments had died under a hail of bullets, all hitting their hearts at the same time; an obsolete submarine had been straddled by depth charges; a mad king obsessed with metals had been smothered under a deluge of mercury.

The braver physicists--those who didn't try to deny the existence of Lazy Guns altogether--ventured that the weapons somehow accessed different dimensions; they monitored other continua and dipped into one to pluck out their chosen method of destruction and transfer it to this universe, where it carried out its destructive task then promptly disappeared, only its effects remaining. Or they created whatever they desired to create from the ground-state of quantum fluctuation that invested the fabric of space. Or they were time machines.

Any one of these possibilities was so mind-boggling in its implications and ramifications--provided that one could understand or ever harness the technology involved--that the fact a Lazy Gun was light but massy, and weighed exactly three times as much turned upside down as it did the right way up, was almost trivial by comparison.

[Bohandas]

Ahem.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who's made the connection between Wikipedia and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[2D8HP]

I for one have a hankerin' for some of that delicious....

[Euclidodese]

Interocitor?

[TuggyNE]

I for one have a hankerin' for some of that delicious....

Sorry to disappoint you, but that's not sci-fi anymore.

(I know of a webcomic artist, thunt, who claims to live almost entirely off Soylent, so as far as I know it's not some sort of elaborate prank.)

[Bohandas]

Sorry to disappoint you, but that's not sci-fi anymore.

(I know of a webcomic artist, thunt, who claims to live almost entirely off Soylent, so as far as I know it's not some sort of elaborate prank.)

It's every bit as much still science fiction as the Hoverboard, the Everlasting Gobstopper, and any number of other fantastical items and devices whose names have been co-opted by unrelated mediocre products of unrelated mediocre companies.

[FinnLassie]

The magical ovens and the like that poof out a nice meal out of just some pill or undefined goo. Like, it turns into an actual meal. ... I know, it's some heavy 60's sci-fi dreaming, but damn it, it's so cool.

[ImperiousLeader]

It doesn't shoot, it doesn't kill, it doesn't maim. And it's crap against wood. But a sonic screwdriver is definitely something I wish I had.

[Peelee]

It doesn't shoot, it doesn't kill, it doesn't maim. And it's crap against wood. But a sonic screwdriver is definitely something I wish I had.

I have yet to see it drive a screw.

[golentan]

The Ark from Tuf Voyaging.

Spaceship with FTL drive and artificial gravity, larger than the city I live in and equipped with all of the necessities and pleasures for a crew of thousands.

AI control assist capable of making it operatable by a single person.

Vast genetic library of every organism known to mankind at time of construction. They even recreated at least one dinosaur species.

Cloning vats to produce those organisms, with a psychic leash to keep them from harming crewmembers. The cloning vats have a time-dilation feature allowing their occupants to be brought to adulthood in seconds, or mass produce and deliver organisms to a planetary surface.

A vast menu of modifications which can be installed in any organism created.

Basically, yeah. I and my loved ones could go exploring all across the galaxy, petting elasmosaurs in our olympic sized swimming pool and seeing what's out there from a position of safety.

The story has it having been built as a weapon, but it's clearly a versatile and useful tool independent of that and I would give any two non-essential organs or limbs to get my hand on a single cloning tank, let alone the whole package.

[ImperiousLeader]

I have yet to see it drive a screw.

IIRC, he's mentioned putting up cabinets, so it should be a feature.

[Celticbear]

Fellas, fellas you are all missing the greatest invention in the history of science fiction.

Spoiler: Boom

Show

[JNAProductions]

The T-Gun, from EGS.

Despite having gun in the name, it's not a weapon.

[golentan]

The T-Gun, from EGS.

Despite having gun in the name, it's not a weapon.

Yeah, but it also explicitly is magic.

Magic through the lens of scientific study and application, but still magic. Magic which can choose to stop working because it, as a person, does not feel like playing nice with human beings demystifying it.