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"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today -- but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Sheep Dip Isolator | ||
| A non-lethal malodorant weapon. |
In 2000, the Pentagon started work on the mother of all stink bombs, a malodorant device, as part of its Nonlethal Weapons Program.
Phil Dick was working on the same idea, conceptually, in the 1960's.
| "We in the West," Febbs said, "have never smelled the Sheep Dip Isolator's implementing irritant. It's said to defy description... It descends in the form of condensation from a Type VI Julian the Apostate satellite. The drops spatter in an area of say ten square miles. And wherever they land they penetrate inter-mol-wise - intermolecularly - and can't be eradicated, even by Supsolv-x, the new detergent we have. Nothing works."
... he could imagine the Sheep Dip Isolator in Boise, Idaho. The effect on the million citizens of the city. They would awaken to the stench, and it would be inter-mol everywhere, on and in buildings, in sub-supra- and surface-vehicles, autofacs - and the stench would drive one million people out of the city. |
| Technovelgy from The Zap Gun,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Galaxy Publishing in 1965 Additional resources -
|
Obviously the idea of a stink bomb has been around for a long time; there is nothing new there. However, the idea of isolating an agent that could serve a formal military purpose is probably not so old.
It turns out that during WWII, the Office of Strategic Services thought up a secret weapon known affectionately as "Who Me?" The intent was to create a noxious fluid for use by the French Resistance to humiliate German officers.
Is there a smell that transcends cultures to offend everyone? One such mixture is US Government Standard Bathroom Malodor, a scent concocted to test the efficiency of deodorant cleansers. Reportedly, the stench is so awful that some volunteers began to scream and curse after just a few seconds exposure.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Zap Gun
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and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to The Zap Gun
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Sheep Dip Isolator-related
news articles:
- Stink Bullets And PKD's Sheep Dip Isolator
| Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets |
| Can A Swarm Of Deadly Drones Take Out An Aircraft Carrier? |
| Has Turkey Been Stealing Rain From Iran? |
| We Need To Build Anti-Drone Systems For Civilian Spaces |
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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.'
