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"Science and science fiction, how do you even distinguish the two?"
- Jerry Pournelle
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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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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
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'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
