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
"did I had an extremely expensive wife - she would see a new car that she liked and just buy it... under California law I was bound to buy her debts. I think I turned out 16 novels in five years."
- Philip K. Dick
 |
| 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.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Zap Gun
More Ideas
and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to The Zap Gun
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
Sheep Dip Isolator-related
news articles:
- Stink Bullets And PKD's Sheep Dip Isolator
| 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 |
| Bullet Steers Itself! The Advanced Low-Cost Munitions Ordnance ALaMO |
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
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?''
'I opened the oblong box, where lay the automatons side by side...'
'They tied the memory to the bloodline and that was their record!'
