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"I do think there is a link in that in both cases, writing fiction or writing a computer program, at any given moment you're focusing on a very specific and particular thing—one word, one line of code, whatever."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Synthetic Personality | ||
| A artificial identity, a legal fiction of a person. |
When relocating members of a clandestine organization, it was necessary to create travel documents based on legal fictions, identities that do not correspond to an individual, but are specially curated for just this kind of use.
| "What's a synthetic?" I enquired.
"Eh? Oh, it's a composite personality, very carefully built from faked records and faked backgrounds. A risky business--it involves tampering with the national archives. I don't like to use a synthetic, for there really isn't anyway to fill in completely the background of a man who doesn't exist. I'd much rather patch into the real background of a real person." "Then why use synthetics at all?" |
| Technovelgy from If This Goes On...,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1940 Additional resources -
|
I can't remember the exact term used, but I think this is called a "legend" in espionage tradecraft.
Thanks to Connor Lawrence for submitting this item.
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'... an artificial intelligence equal to the human.'
'Rayno folded up the microterm and tucked it back inside his jumper.'
'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.'
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.'
'Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement.'
'Norman... had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems.'
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
'As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped...'
'At the ringside opposite them a table had been removed to make room for a large transparent plastic capsule on wheels.'
