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"Cyberspace is a metaphor that allows us to grasp this place where since about the time of the second world war we've increasingly done so many of the things that we think of as civilization."
- William Gibson
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| Stasis Field | ||
| Energy field which prevents time from passing inside the field walls; no time passes, nobody gets hurt. |
Compare to the Slaver Stasis Field.
| "Suppose they do release the field?" one of the men present was saying. "What will it amount to? What will it contain? Some artifacts possibly, perhaps some records of the period in which it was set up. But nothing more than that. The notion that life could be preserved in it, unchanged, in absolute stasis, for several centuries is preposterous."
"How do you know? It's certain that they thought they had found a way of suspending, uh, shall we say freezing entropy. The instructions with the field are perfectly plain." Monroe-Alpha began to understand what they were talking about. It was the so-called Adirondack stasis field. It had been a three-day wonder when it was discovered, a generation earlier, in a remote part of the mountain from which it got its name. Not that the field itself was spectacular-it was simply an impenetrable area of total reflection, a cubical mirror. |
| Technovelgy from Beyond This Horizon,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1942 Additional resources -
|
Larry Niven used the phrase this way in There is a Tide:
The Tnuctipun-Slaver war had wiped out most of the intelligent species of the galaxy, a billion and a half years ago... Often the Slavers, losing a battle, had stored valuables in a stasis box and hidden it against the day they would again be of use.
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| The FLUTE Project - A Huge Liquid Mirror In Space |
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'What would you do,' Eric asked the robot cabdriver, 'if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?'
'those suits they wear -- call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water...'
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.'
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...'
'..the synthetic intellects at the Place of Knowledge had far outstripped the minds of men.'
'But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...'
