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"As the rate of technological development speeds up, the gap between science fiction and what we’re living now is getting narrower all the time."
- Richard Morgan
 |
| Zero-Time Jail | ||
| A building in which an energy field prevents time from passing. |
In this future world, an escape-proof prison is invented which requires no guards, dogs or razor wire to keep the prisoners in. Time itself is stopped; the prisoners don't age a day.
| "They learned my crime from my ship's log. They sentenced me to - " Untranslated. "What was that?" "They stopped time for me. There was a building where some criminals went to be stored against need." The bitter smile again: "I was to be flattered. Only unusual breakers of the law were thought to be of future need to the State. People of high intelligence or with good genes or interesting tales to tell future historians. The building would hold perhaps ten thousand, no more. I was lucky they let me keep my medicines. At that I could choose only as much as I could carry." |
| Technovelgy from A World Out of Time,
by Larry Niven. Published by Random House in 1976 Additional resources -
|
This is another solution to the problem of time travel; you stay "still" in time while the rest of the world progresses. Of course, it only works one way. A similar idea is used by Vernor Vinge in his wonderful novel, The Peace War.
Compare to the asteroid prison from One Against the Legion (1939) by Jack Williamson, the Alcatraz of Space from Reunion on Ganymede (1938) by Clifford Simak, the Moon as prison from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) by Robert Heinlein, Brainlock from Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) by William Gibson and the orbital penal colony from Tekwar (1989) by William Shatner.
You might also be interested in the null-entropy bin - the world's best salad crisper, from Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert.
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and Technology from A World Out of Time
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Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven
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'Not like me. A T-1000, advanced prototype. A mimetic poly-alloy. Liquid metal.'
'It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'The massive feet working the pedals, arms and hands flashing and glinting...'
'There were cubic miles of it, and it glistened like a silvery Christmas tree...'
'Jason had been guiding the caravan of cars as usual...'
"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
