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"Poised between intransigent scepticism and uncritical credulity, it [science fiction] is par excellence the literature of the open mind."
- John Brunner
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| Thought Pattern Divination | ||
| Attempting to construct the thoughts of a person by imitating their actions. |
The Iszic were fanatical in their determination to protect their intellectual property - the seeds of their amazing house trees and other products.
| One phase of the surveillance puzzled Farr. He approached the lieutenant and indicated an operative a few yards away. “Why does he mimic me? I sit down, he sits down. I drink, he drinks. I scratch my nose, he scratches his nose.”
“A special technique,” explained the Szecr. “We divine the pattern of your thinking.” “It won’t work,” said Farr. The lieutenant bowed. “Farr Sainh may be quite correct.” Farr smiled indulgently. “Do you seriously think you can predict my plans?” “We can only do our best.” “This afternoon I plan to rent a sea-going boat. Were you aware of that?” The lieutenant produced a paper. “I have the charter ready for you. It is the Lhaiz, and I have arranged a crew...” |
| Technovelgy from The Houses of Iszm,
by Jack Vance. Published by Better Publications in 1954 Additional resources -
|
A similar method was detailed in Niven and Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye; an individual alien assigned to learn everything about an individual person. See Fyunch(click)
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'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
