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"[Science fiction] is the one literary medium left in which we have a free hand. We can do any damn thing we please."
- Alfred Bester
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| Barytrine Field | ||
| Very large scale stasis field. |
In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Earth was demolished because it stood in the way of galactic progress. The superintelligent race in Troubled Star, however, was a bit nicer; they offered to tow the Earth to a new star.
| "...We put a barytrine field around Earth and tow the planet to some star similar to Sol. The barytrine field is a sort of time stasis - we don't know all about them yet but we're learning - which will make it seem as though there was a sudden cosmic wink...
"...You won't notice it. We've got maybe a half-dozen planets in the barytrine field right now... It stops all time - not dead-still but damned near... I assure you that if you drop a marble just before the barytrine field goes on , it will land after the field is off and you will have traversed a thousand years." |
| Technovelgy from Troubled Star,
by George O. Smith. Published by Better Publications in 1952 Additional resources -
|
Compare this item to the Slaver stasis field from Larry Niven's 1970 novel Ringworld and the nullentropy bin from Frank Herbert's 1984 novel Heretics of Dune.
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'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
'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.'
