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"What television does is rent us friends and relatives who are quite satisfactory. This is quite something, to rent artificial friends and relatives right inside the house."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| Provigil-C | ||
| A special drug that promotes wakefulness in troops. |
| "Michelle, order all the AIDs to administer Provigil-C."
The drug was a combination of Terran anti-narcolepsy drug and a Galactic stimulant. The Terran drug prevented sleep from forming. However it was believed that the stresses of combat were such that more than an anti-narcotic was necessary. When the powerful and persistent Galactic stimulant started coursing through their veins, the troops started to move. |
| Technovelgy from A Hymn Before Battle,
by John Ringo. Published by Baen Books in 2000 Additional resources -
|
Provigil is the name of a real drug (Modafinil) used to treat narcolepsy.
The idea of a pill or other means for doing without sleep recurs in science fiction. Robert Heinlein's 1941 story Methuselah's Children has a reference to a "sleep surrogate" that you could take in the morning after an inadequate night's sleep. Also, see the article for A-som, anti-somnolence drugs mentioned in Paul Di Filippo's 2006 story Shuteye for the Timebroker; this story examines what it would be like to eliminate sleep entirely.
Thanks to Connor Lawrence for writing in with the quote for this item.
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Tech news articles related to A Hymn Before Battle
Tech news articles related to works by John Ringo
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| Heart Patches Grown In The Lab Repair Hearts |
| Pixel Watch 'Loss of Pulse Detection' And Philip K. Dick |
| ErythroMer Artificial Blood |
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'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
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'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
