Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"What has allowed so many Psychopathic Personalities to rise so high in corporations and government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| Organlegging | ||
| Technology needed to deal in illicitly obtained body parts. |
As far as I know, Niven was the first writer to really work with a topic that is just starting to become a problem, thanks to drugs that make transplantation viable.
What happens when the need for "spare parts" exceeds the supply - the organs that are produced by chance events, like car crashes? You could start with the criminals, like an organlegger who had stolen another person's life to make his body into spare parts. First, you cool the body to the point where preservation of delicate body structures is possible -
| The doctor was a line of machines with a conveyor belt running through them. When the organlegger's body temperature reached a certain point, the belt started.
The first machine made a series of incisions in his chest. Skillfully and mechanically, the doctor performed a cardiectomy. The organlegger was officially dead. His heart went into storage immediately. His skin followed, most of it in one piece, all of it still living. The doctor took him apart with exquisite care, like disassembling a flexible, fragile, tremendously complex jigsaw puzzle. The brain was flashburned and the ashes saved for urn burial; but all the rest of the body, in slabs and small blobs and parchment-thin layers and lengths of tubing, went into storage in the hospital's organ banks. Any one of these units could be packed in a travel case at a moment's notice and flown to anywhere in the world in not much more than an hour. If the odds broke right, if the right people came down with the right diseases at the right time, the organlegger might save more lives than he had taken. Which was the whole point. |
| Technovelgy from The Jigsaw Man,
by Larry Niven. Published by Not Available in 1967 Additional resources -
|
The term is a corruption of the word "bootlegger." This story is in several collections of Niven's works - highly recommended.
The ultimate danger, when a citizen could live for as long as possible if enough organs were available?
In Anne McCaffrey's 1990 novel Pegasus in Flight, street children are stockpiled for later use as organ donors:
The cause of it all was the organ banks. With good doctors and a sufficient flow of material in the organ banks, any taxpayer could hope to live indefinitely. What voter would vote agains eternal life? The death penalty was his immortality, and he would vote the death penalty for any crime at all.
Until we have the right to use infertility drugs in subsistence-level food, there'll be unreported births... And the ones with the right blood factors and healthy organs will be stashed away by the very rich for transplants as needed.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 3 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Jigsaw Man
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven
Tech news articles related to The Jigsaw Man
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven
Organlegging-related
news articles:
- Real Organleggers: Human Organ Trafficking
- RFID Tags Proposed To Halt Blackmarket Cadaver Trade
- Donation After Cardiac Death (Wait, I needed that!)
- 10K Illegal Kidneys Transplanted Every Year
- Child Trafficked To Britain By Organleggers
- Heart-In-A-Box Saves Organ For Later
- Islamic State Now Organlegging?
- China Accused Of Harvesting Organs From Unwanted Groups
- Anti-Forced Organ Harvesting Global Summit
| Let's Make Slaver Sunflowers! Engineering Plants To Reflect Light |
| Machete-Wielding Philodendron Isn't Going To Take It Anymore |
| Tsunami Forecasts Improved By Ionosphere Signals |
| EctoLife Concept Video Artificial Womb For Baby Mass Production |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'The clothes and jewelery drew their tiny power requirements from her movements.'
'At the end of each appendage's eight fingers there are tinier appendages...'
'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.
