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"I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Jaunte Stage | ||
| A cleared space that existed to serve the needs of people who would jaunte (teleport) into that space. |
The ability to jaunte, or teleport yourself by mental ability, is at the center of this complex novel. Think of all of the laws and economic arrangements that are based on the idea that it is not easy to get from one point to another.
| Robin was re-educating the patients (all head injuries who had lost the power to jaunte) to the express stops, so to speak, of the public jaunte stages. Later they would memorize the local stops at street intersections... ...the stage began to flicker with a sudden flurry of arrivals and departures. Figures appeared momentarily as they jaunted in, hesitated while they checked their surroundings and set new co-ordinates, and then disappeared as they jaunted off. At each disappearance there was a faint "Pop" as displaced air rushed into the space formerly occupied by a body. "Wait, class," Robin called. "There's a rush on. Everybody off the stage, please." Laborers in heavy work clothes, still spattered with snow, were on their way south to their homes after a shift in the north woods. Fifty white clad dairy clerks were headed west toward St. Louis. They followed the morning from the Eastern Time Zone to the Pacific Zone... |
| From The Stars My Destination,
by Alfred Bester. Published by Berkley in 1956 Additional resources -
|
And how did it work?
See also the discussion of teleportation in the article on flash crowd, from Larry Niven's story of the same name.
Any man was capable of jaunting provided he developed two faculties, visualization and concentration. He had to visualize, completely and precisely, the spot to which he desired to teleport himself; and he had to concentrate the latent energy of his mind into a single thrust to get him there...
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More Ideas
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