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"I'm a farm boy. It's very interesting; you can detect self-starting characteristics in this society and they are strongest among people who have had some kind of rural upbringing and a very impressionable stage."
- Frank Herbert
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| Decorative Implant | ||
| Small devices that can be implanted subcutaneously in the body and then controlled consciously. |
Babel-17 has a variety of kinds of body modifications; scales, feathers, walrus-sized incisors - if you want it, you can get it. I chose this item because it shows a marriage between technology and medicine. In our current thinking, we want to have some sort of conscious control over prosthetic devices - to regain something like normal function. In this novel, the characters seek to express themselves or go beyond their normal capabilities.
| The Officer pushed open the door of PIastiplasm Plus ("Addendums, Superscripts, and Footnotes to the Beautiful Body").
"It's listed in your catalog as 5463," the Customs Officer declared. "I want it there." He clapped his left hand to his right shoulder. The surgeon returned ... with a tray full of fragments. The only recognizable one was the front half of a miniature dragon with jeweled eyes, glittering sc ales, and opalescent wings: it was less than two inches long. "When he's connected up to your nervous system, you'll be able to make him whistle, hiss, roar, flap his wings and spit sparks..." |
| Technovelgy from Babel-17,
by Samuel R. Delany. Published by Ace Books in 1966 Additional resources -
|
Every time I see someone with a body piercing, I think about how simple these modifications are compared with what you could think of - compared with what Delany already thought about in 1968.
For a look at alternative dentition, take a look at toothbud transplants, from Neuromancer, by William Gibson, written about 15 years later.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Babel-17
More Ideas
and Technology by Samuel R. Delany
Tech news articles related to Babel-17
Tech news articles related to works by Samuel R. Delany
Decorative Implant-related
news articles:
- Union Of Driver And Vehicle (and Astronaut And Spacecraft?)
- Useful Body Modifications - The Ruler Tattoo
- Stable Motor Memory For Mastery Of Prosthetics
- Augmented Reality Tattoo Flaps Wings
- Robotic 'Third Thumb' Rewires Your Brain
- Low-Cost, Implantable Electronics Get Closer
| Heart Patches Grown In The Lab Repair Hearts |
| Pixel Watch 'Loss of Pulse Detection' And Philip K. Dick |
| ErythroMer Artificial Blood |
| MouthPad Supports Head And Tongue Tracking |
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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.'
'He carried on his person a triggering mechanism sensitive to his heartbeat.'
'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
