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"It was my preferred entertainment when I was a kid, so when I set out to be a writer, it was perfectly natural that I should write the sort of stories that I used to enjoy reading."
- John Brunner
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| Universal Card | ||
| A device that mimics every credit card and identification card you possess. |
In the world of Hyperion, hundreds of worlds are open via farcaster portals - a means of instantaneous transportation between worlds. There is no need to make sense of the financial systems in place in these worlds; they all accept the Universal Card.
Note: Be sure to see the Science Fiction in the News item about the Chameleon Card.
| If our society ever opted for Orwell's Big Brother approach, the instrument of choice for oppression would have to be the credit wake. In a totally noncash economy with only a vestigial barter black market, a person's activities could be tracked in real time by monitoring the credit wake of his or her universal card. There were strict laws protecting card privacy but laws had a bad habit of being ignored or abrogated when societal push came to totalitarian shove. |
| Technovelgy from Hyperion,
by Dan Simmons. Published by Doubleday in 1989 Additional resources -
|
In this society, there is almost no off-the-books cash or barter; every transaction is recorded. Surely, this is VISA taken to the logical extreme - and thanks to farcaster technology, it really is everywhere you want to be.
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and Technology from Hyperion
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Tech news articles related to Hyperion
Tech news articles related to works by Dan Simmons
Universal Card-related
news articles:
- Chameleon Card: Simmons' Universal Credit Card?
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Science Fiction
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'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
