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"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson
 |
| Scramble Suit | ||
| A superthin membrane upon which are projected the characteristics of a million different people, it confers instant anonymity. |
In the novel, narcotics officers wear these suits to disguise their appearance.
"Let's hear it for the vague blur!" the host said loudly...
"Now you will notice," the Lions Club host said, "that you can barely see this individual... because he is wearing what is called a scramble suit...
| The scramble suit was an invention of the Bell laboratories, conjured up by accident by an employee named S. A. Powers... Basically, his design consisted of a multifaceted quartz lens hooked up to a million and a half physiognomic fraction-representations of various people: men and women, children, with every variant encoded and then projected outward in all directions equally onto a superthin shroudlike membrane large enough to fit around an average human.
As the computer looped through its banks, it projected every conceivable eye color, hair color, shape and type of nose, formation of teeth, configuration of facial bone structure - the entire shroudlike membrane took on whatever physical characteristics were projected at any nanosecond, then switched to the next... In any case, the wearer of a scramble suit was Everyman and in every combination (up to combinations of a million and a half sub-bits) during the course of each hour. Hence, any description of him - or her - was meaningless. |
| From A Scanner Darkly,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Not Known in 1977 Additional resources -
|
As it turns out, they have artificial voices as well, leaving "in our minds no characteristics."
Here's an explanation of how this "technology" of Dick's was shown in the movie version of the book:
(Explanatory Scramble suit video from the movie version)
Compare the scramble suit with the mimetic polycarbon suit worn by Panther Modern leader Lupus Yonderboy in William Gibson's Neuromancer.
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Gerry was dubious. She had seen abortive attempts at paralysis rays before.
Let your fingers - uh - your robot do the walking. And hopping.
