speculative technology theme
Featured is a novel technology falling somewhere on the spectrum from being a realistic elaboration on a currently existing technology (for example, human cloning), to a scientifically plausible portrayal of a technology far beyond our current capabilities (for example, self-replicating nanomachines), to a technology that is unsupported by science as we know it (for example, time machine).
Examples
"speculative technology" themes come in great numbers in science fiction, and also great variety. It is convenient to further sub-categorize them according to function, for example "artificial intelligence", "speculative biotechnology", "mind altering technology", and "speculative weapon".
13 total · 11 major · 2 minor
| Story | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| as1985e2x02 | major | Phil accidentally concocted a special blue goo that turned pictures of people in magazines into the real thing. |
| futurama7x23 | major | The Professor had a machine that allowed Fry to enter into his own dream. Later other people were able to enter into his dream, too. |
| movie: Avatar (2009) | major | A main novelty of the film is a special technology enabling people to remotely operate special Na'vi alien bodies. |
| movie: Deja Vu (2006) | major | The Snow White surveillance system enabled the FBI to look up to four days into the past. The system worked by integrating data from several satellites to form a triangulated image of past events. |
| movie: Simone (2002) | major | A main novelty of the film is the virtual actress Simone - a non-sentient piece of software that when presented on screen was indistinguishable to the public from a real actress. |
| movie: Source Code (2011) | major | A main novelty of the film is a machine that somehow sent its occupant to parallel realities that were slightly different from the "real" reality. |
| movie: The Cell (2000) | major | A main novelty of the film is an experimental technology that enabled people to enter into the dreamscape-like psyches of comatose people. |
| movie: The City of Lost Children (1995) | major | Krank was using a dream-extracting machine that he'd invented to steal dreams from children. |
| movie: The Dark Knight (2008) | major | Batman setting up a sonar grid-based mass surveillance system by co-opting people's cell phones was a novelty of the story. |
| shortstory: Futility (1929) | major | Central to the story is a machine capable of predicting future events with 100% accuracy. |