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"The answer to the problem of information overload on the Net is reputations… engineer a system called a reputation server."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Telesolidograph | ||
| Projects three-dimensional images at great distances. |
| The Hierarchy’s solidograph is a three-dimensional
motion picture. The telesolidograph is the same sort of thing, except that the primary multiple-beam
is invisible, long-range, and highly penetrating, only erupting into a visible, three-dimensional
image when it reaches the focus. Slightly analogous to a needlepoint spray. So, for instance, if we
want bare feet scampering around, or what not, we just fake a solidograph of them and feed the
tapes into the projector. Phantoms to order! Vocal manifestations work in about the same way. “The instrument I used is a bit more complicated, of course. Two-way. Viewer and projector. So I’d have a miniature image of the general focal region to guide me in operating my lifesize phantoms and manipulating the remote controls of the house. |
| From Gather, Darkness!,
by Fritz Leiber. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1943 Additional resources -
|
It is possible to use interference techniques to dissolve such phantoms:
“Dissolve it!” Goniface called sharply to Cousin Deth. Then he rose, too. “The thing is only a
telesolidographic projection—as all of you must realize!”...
Partially reassured, the archpriests noted that there was indeed a certain transparency to the
advancing monster, so you could dimly see through it to the wall beyond; and it was a ghostly
slaver that dripped in ropes from the gigantic jaws. Moreover, the great paws with their foot-long
nails seemed sometimes to step a little above the floor and sometimes a little below...
“There was, of course, no need to dissolve it,” said Goniface coldly. “I merely wished to
demonstrate conclusively its solidographic nature. Our Fourth Circle brethren were able to dissipate
it with the recently invented polyfrequency neutralizer. The thing was purely photonic in nature and
yielded quickly to an application of the principle of interference. All phantasms employed by the
so-called New Witchcraft are of a similar sort.
A vast wolfish shape materialized from the misty gray of the walls at the other end of the
Chamber. Its eyes were like two sooty hearths filled with dying embers. Toward the Council table it
stalked, big as a house, the very incarnation of skulking, slavering destruction...
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