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"I don't have an e-mail address. As much as I admire the Internet I suffer literally agoraphobia, which in it's original sense means a fear of the marketplace. I do not want to receive three hundred e-mail messages per week from strangers…"
- William Gibson
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| Post Office | ||
| A vault used to store time capsules left by travelers to the past; not your usual delivery service. |
Time travelers would sometimes send themselves messages in the far future. They had to be kept someplace safe; you also need to make sure that they are not opened prematurely; that might cause a paradox.
| We use the Fed to house the vault somebody nicknamed the "Post Office" many years ago, no doubt because the vault is clogged with packages that are not delivered for years or centuries. The Post Office is one of those weird side-effects of time travel. It proves once more that paradoxes are possible, though only strictly limited ones. .. |
| Technovelgy from Millennium,
by John Varley. Published by Berkley Books in 1983 Additional resources -
|
It is an unusual package delivery system. The business model of most such systems is based on the shortness of the delivery time; this system is based on the length of the delivery time - sometimes many millennia. See also Time Capsule from the same novel.
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'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
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The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
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'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
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