Science Fiction
Dictionary Latest By
"...science fiction is sort of like a sociological genome. It's a huge range of possible futures, most of them useless; some vital. You never really know in advance."
|
In Dune, the Bene Gesserit tested ordinary people to find the humans, the ones with sufficient emotional intelligence to rise above a merely animal existence. One test was by pain and observation.
The box slowly induced the feelings equivalent to heat sufficient to burn his hand to ash. Pain was the axis of the test; the Bene Gesserit wanted to see which way he turned.
(Pain box from Denis Villeneuve's 2020 film Dune) In Heretics of Dune, also by Frank Herbert, this item is called an agony box. For an earlier use of the same idea, see the pain-producer from Edmund Hamilton's 1928 novel Crashing Suns, as well as the pain canopy from Fritz Lieber's 1943 novel Gather Darkness. Comment/Join this discussion ( 5 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
resources: Pain Box-related
news articles:
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
Vast Apartment Living Will Get Even More Vast
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
Elon Musk Says Robotaxis Will Be Ready This August, 2024
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Moonwalkers AI-Controlled Electric Shoes
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
Steve Jobs: 'Capture The Next Aristotle - With AI'
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
No Tips! Robotic Food Delivery In Phoenix
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
Electric Catamaran 'Explorer Eco 40m' Has 'Solar Skin'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
Orbital Mechanics, The Liftoff, The Turnover, The Retrograde Burn
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
Harvest Power From Tears And Blinking With Smart Contact Lens
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
|
Home | Glossary
| Science Fiction Timeline | Category | New | Contact
Us | FAQ | Advertise | Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™ Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved. |
||