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"The SF approach: an awareness that things could have been different, that this is one of many possible worlds, that if you came to this world from some other planet, this would be a science fiction world."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Cloaking Device | ||
| A force field that renders an object invisible to human eyes as well as other sensor devices. |
I can't believe this idea only dates from the 1960's. More recently, this kind of idea has been incorporated in movies like Predator and the last James Bond movie.
When the Enterprise responds to a distress call from Outpost 4, Commander Hansen reports an attack underway by a ship that simply vanished.
| You knew of the cloaking device that we have developed. |
| Technovelgy from Balance of Terror,
by Paul Schneider. Published by Paramount in 1966 Additional resources -
|
The Romulans were the first ones to have it; Kirk and Spock try to steal it in the original series episode titled "The The Enterprise Incident." This episode was first broadcast in December of 1966.
To hide something a bit smaller, like a person, see the invisible cloak from Brigands of the Moon (1930) by Ray Cummings.
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'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
