Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"People ask me how I do research for my science fiction. The answer is, I never do any research. I just enjoy reading the stuff, and some of it sticks in my mind and fits into the stories."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Tasp | ||
| A device that induces a current in the pleasure center of the brain, at a distance. |
In the future universe of Larry Niven, mankind encounters a very warlike species, the kzin. Described as looking like an eight-foot tall tabby cat, with paws the size of baseball mitts and long retractable claws, the kzin had a warrior culture that demanded fighting at the slightest provocation. The journey has been arranged by puppeteers, an obsessively cautious species. How to travel safely with a kzin?
| The puppeteer addressed himself to Speaker-to-Animals. "You understand that I will use the tasp every time you force me to. I will use it if attempt to use violence too often, or if you startle me too much; you will soon become dependent upon the tasp; if you kill me, you will still be ignobly bound by the tasp itself." "Very astute," said Speaker. "Brilliantly unorthodox tactics. I will trouble you no more." "The puppeteer is right," said Speaker. "I would not risk the tasp again. Too many jolts of pleasure would leave me his willing slave. I, a kzin, enslaved to a herbivore!" |
| From Ringworld,
by Larry Niven. Published by Ballantine in 1970 Additional resources -
|
Niven uses the word "tasper" to describe a person who pranks with a tasp:
"Have you ever been hit by a tasp? None of my business, of course."
Teela grinned derision for his delicacy. "Yes, I know what it feels like. A moment of - well, there's no describing it. But you don't use a tasp on yourself. You use it on someone who isn't expecting it. That's where the fun comes in. Police are always picking up taspers in parks."
The puppeteer is a three-legged plant-eating herd animal; ordinarily, not much of a threat to a kzin. The puppeteers as a species rarely engaged in direct physical confrontation (too dangerous); they tended to use long-range planning and indirect actions. The tasp is well-suited to their purposes; it induces a current in the pleasure center of the brain at a distance.
The author remarks that
...Usually a tasp is just small enough to aim with one hand."
Tasp is short and easy to say. Such words give away the fact that they are in common currence throughout a culture, like lamp and pan and pen.
The same effect can be more easily induced by running a wire directly to the pleasure center of the brain; see droud for more information about directly stimulating your neural pleasure center with an ecstasy plug.
The Words in Science Fiction (by Larry Niven)
Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Ringworld
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven
Tech news articles related to Ringworld
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven
Tasp-related
news articles:
- iPlant Brain Implant Advocated For Self-Improvement
| Cosplay Style Wings Could Work On Moon |
| Music Not Impossible (MNI) Vibrotactile Wearable Experience |
| Augmented and-or Virtual Reality Shoes From Google |
| MSG Sphere Las Vegas, ala Star Wars |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'Immediately an enormous apparatus fell on to her out of the ceiling...'
'... filling their great tanks with the finely divided dust which the ionic rockets would spit out in electrified jets.'
'In the napcap a client became an instant yoga master...'
'Employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors...'
'Jeremiah is a sports-model to begin with and that kind is awfully hot-tempered.'
'If anything can glue the asteroids back into the planet they once were, magnology will do it.'
A cooling unit had to be strapped to every commuter's back, by law.
'...lined with durite, that strange close-packed laboratory product.'
'He was still roaring when the knife missile flicked past him...'
