Fiction where tech is so advanced that even workaday stuff is powerful?
May 13, 2020 1:10 PM Subscribe
I’m looking for fiction/tv/film that features technology so advanced relative to the norm that even stuff that’s not supposed to be weaponized or super powerful is a game changer. Very spoilery examples below the fold.
In Rick and Morty, the ship is kind of junky but brokers interspecies peace to keep Summer safe.
In The Windup Girl, Emiko is basically a sex-bot but is still qualified to kick everyone’s ass.
In The Book of Koli, a music player from a past civilization is an incredibly powerful piece of tech in their fallen and agrarian civilization.
Other examples? This might be a TVTrope but I can’t find it.
In Rick and Morty, the ship is kind of junky but brokers interspecies peace to keep Summer safe.
In The Windup Girl, Emiko is basically a sex-bot but is still qualified to kick everyone’s ass.
In The Book of Koli, a music player from a past civilization is an incredibly powerful piece of tech in their fallen and agrarian civilization.
Other examples? This might be a TVTrope but I can’t find it.
The predictive stuff in Minority Report comes to mind. Also the nano-tech stuff in The Diamond Age, but maybe neither is removed far enough from present day. One of the great conceits in Dune is that there's a distinct lack of robots/androids, computers, and pew-pew lasers.
posted by jquinby at 1:20 PM on May 13, 2020
posted by jquinby at 1:20 PM on May 13, 2020
...to complete my thought about Dune - this means that there's colossal tech everywhere that's either super familiar (like knives for fighting) or beyond anything we can imagine (like the Guild Navigators).
For the ultimate take on tech that's simply beyond our imagination, take a look at the Southern Reach novels (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance).
posted by jquinby at 1:23 PM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
For the ultimate take on tech that's simply beyond our imagination, take a look at the Southern Reach novels (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance).
posted by jquinby at 1:23 PM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
Futurama (mostly for gags, often for plot)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:25 PM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:25 PM on May 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
The Dying Earth short stories by Jack Vance do this a lot, though normally in the context of much older technology that's no longer understood.
posted by sagc at 1:39 PM on May 13, 2020
posted by sagc at 1:39 PM on May 13, 2020
The story “The Little Black Bag” by Cyril M. Kornbluth, about a doctor who gets his hands on miraculous medical technology from 500 years in the future.
posted by ejs at 1:42 PM on May 13, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by ejs at 1:42 PM on May 13, 2020 [5 favorites]
Also the Doctor Who two-parter “The Empty Child”/“The Doctor Dances,” In which an alien medical technology wreaks havoc in 1941 London.
posted by ejs at 1:45 PM on May 13, 2020
posted by ejs at 1:45 PM on May 13, 2020
There’s a lot of stuff in the Hitchhiker’s series. The elevators that are prescient so you don’t have to wait for them come to mind.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:56 PM on May 13, 2020
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:56 PM on May 13, 2020
I also came in here to say Futurama -- I'm thinking specifically of Bender, a robot who was built only to bend metal. Only he can do so much more...
posted by BlahLaLa at 2:08 PM on May 13, 2020
posted by BlahLaLa at 2:08 PM on May 13, 2020
My first thought was Marvin in Hitchhiker's Guide—it's not even clear what he's actually intended for (at least in his own mind, all he does is pick up that piece of paper), but he has a brain the size of a planet and on several occasions thwarts danger simply by either irritating or depressing other machines to death.
This is sort of the inverse of your question, but the technology in Transmetropolitan also tends to be wildly overpowered—that power just isn't really used. If you have a household machine that can turn trash into literally anything at a nano level, shouldn't you be able to eliminate disease and hunger? But people seem to mostly be using their Makers for snacks and drugs. Or, for another example, using genetic modification to give themselves more interesting penises. Possibly a more realistic, and certainly a more cynical, take on overpowered everyday tech.
posted by babelfish at 2:36 PM on May 13, 2020
This is sort of the inverse of your question, but the technology in Transmetropolitan also tends to be wildly overpowered—that power just isn't really used. If you have a household machine that can turn trash into literally anything at a nano level, shouldn't you be able to eliminate disease and hunger? But people seem to mostly be using their Makers for snacks and drugs. Or, for another example, using genetic modification to give themselves more interesting penises. Possibly a more realistic, and certainly a more cynical, take on overpowered everyday tech.
posted by babelfish at 2:36 PM on May 13, 2020
Mass Effect 2 has a throwaway gag about one character's electric toothbrush being powered by the same mass effect fields that allow FTL travel.
posted by waffleriot at 2:43 PM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by waffleriot at 2:43 PM on May 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
(Marvin was a personality prototype, on a ship so new the sales catalogues were still lying about. He was maybe just a demo appliance in a show home, poor bastard) (and as such might have been otherwise shoddily made, hence the diodes problem)
Taking a shot at the actual question, it seems like most electronic devices in Banks' Culture novels were controlled by or accessible by the locally presiding Mind, (all-knowing "AI) and so also theoretically accessed all its capabilities...
posted by runincircles at 6:00 PM on May 13, 2020
Taking a shot at the actual question, it seems like most electronic devices in Banks' Culture novels were controlled by or accessible by the locally presiding Mind, (all-knowing "AI) and so also theoretically accessed all its capabilities...
posted by runincircles at 6:00 PM on May 13, 2020
It's a major spoiler, so I will ROT-13 it, but this made me think of Ebfrznel Xvefgrva'f Fgrrefjbzna obbxf
posted by jeather at 7:04 PM on May 13, 2020
posted by jeather at 7:04 PM on May 13, 2020
Larry Niven's Known Space stories have several plots based around variations on this premise.
An ancient, extinct empire of starfarers called Slavers left stasis boxes (within which time stops), "sunflower" plants which reflect and focus sunlight using silver leaves as deadly parabolic reflectors, and a "digging" tool:
There are also Pak protectors, whose food (for sci-fi Reasons) sends humans of a certain age into a frantic ravenous frenzy to eat it. I suspect I'm missing a few examples.
posted by daveliepmann at 12:17 AM on May 14, 2020
An ancient, extinct empire of starfarers called Slavers left stasis boxes (within which time stops), "sunflower" plants which reflect and focus sunlight using silver leaves as deadly parabolic reflectors, and a "digging" tool:
Where its narrow beam fell, the charge on the electron was temporarily depressed. Solid matter, rendered suddenly and violently positive, tended to tear itself into a fog of monatomic dust.Just about everything the Puppeteer species does might qualify, particularly their system of local transportation (open-air transporter booths).
There are also Pak protectors, whose food (for sci-fi Reasons) sends humans of a certain age into a frantic ravenous frenzy to eat it. I suspect I'm missing a few examples.
posted by daveliepmann at 12:17 AM on May 14, 2020
Also from the Hitchhiker’s universe, the cows that have been bred/engineered up to a cognitive level where they are able to communicate clearly and effectively that they wish to be eaten.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:10 AM on May 14, 2020
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:10 AM on May 14, 2020
The 'Fire Upon the Deep' series by Vernor Vinge. In his books, the laws of physics change depending on how far you are from the center of the galaxy, getting more complex further from the center. Most of the book takes place in the 'Beyond' where FTL travel and communication, and real AI are possible (Earth is in the 'Slow Zone', and further in are the 'Unthinking Depths' where even intelligent thought isn't possible because it's too complicated.) Species in the Beyond do a lot of trade with the 'High Beyond' and the 'Trancend' where advanced products like anti-gravity fabric can be made (and engineered to work in lower zones...though they tend to be fragile. There's a TON of the kind of stuff you're looking for in their exports). Creatures that go to the Trancend (and sometimes entire civilizations, when their star system wanders into it) rarely return and fade quickly from communication as their interests become loftier and more inscrutable. (One of these 'gods' is called 'Old One' because he has remained in contact almost 10 years. Trade with the gods is intensely lucrative, but filled with peril...their motivations are unknowable.)
The books were written in the early internet era, when a lot of stuff was being learned about networks, and network theory (like formulas for 'ideal network structure and operations'...practically laws of nature, and exrapolatable to the distant future), so there's things like, every chapter starts with 'posts from the Galactic Internet' with network headers and footers (that I think you will devour), with just...the most rando stuff, advertisements, propaganda, parts of the story, totally unrelated things. There's one species that's like really concerned with the concepts of 'twisting' and 'turning'...and they talk about it a lot. (At one point the book goes into some detail about the economics of operating a galactic internet...and you realize this species has been spending like trillions of dollars/significant fraction of Global GDP ...to blather about 'twisting' to the broadest audience possible.)
The main story concerns the discovery of an ancient abandoned archive in the 'Low Trancend' (with a bunch of 'future digital archive theory' thrown in as they search for 'recipes') that ends up unleashing a pandora's box of malevolent AI horrors...lot's of the kinds of things you're looking for here...gifts that become traps. And then the adventure leads to a planet of dog-like creatures that communicate sub-sonically and are intelligent (distributed) in packs of 4-8ish, and what happens when they find a child's laptop in the form of an elephant and learn how to make radio (which allows an individual to spread out to the size of a region) and how that triggers a world war.
Also, can't recommend the Diamond Age enough...great book. The first 40 pages or so are kinda disorienting...things are just so different. It starts to make more sense after that. Then it gets weird. Great book.
posted by sexyrobot at 7:41 AM on May 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
The books were written in the early internet era, when a lot of stuff was being learned about networks, and network theory (like formulas for 'ideal network structure and operations'...practically laws of nature, and exrapolatable to the distant future), so there's things like, every chapter starts with 'posts from the Galactic Internet' with network headers and footers (that I think you will devour), with just...the most rando stuff, advertisements, propaganda, parts of the story, totally unrelated things. There's one species that's like really concerned with the concepts of 'twisting' and 'turning'...and they talk about it a lot. (At one point the book goes into some detail about the economics of operating a galactic internet...and you realize this species has been spending like trillions of dollars/significant fraction of Global GDP ...to blather about 'twisting' to the broadest audience possible.)
The main story concerns the discovery of an ancient abandoned archive in the 'Low Trancend' (with a bunch of 'future digital archive theory' thrown in as they search for 'recipes') that ends up unleashing a pandora's box of malevolent AI horrors...lot's of the kinds of things you're looking for here...gifts that become traps. And then the adventure leads to a planet of dog-like creatures that communicate sub-sonically and are intelligent (distributed) in packs of 4-8ish, and what happens when they find a child's laptop in the form of an elephant and learn how to make radio (which allows an individual to spread out to the size of a region) and how that triggers a world war.
Also, can't recommend the Diamond Age enough...great book. The first 40 pages or so are kinda disorienting...things are just so different. It starts to make more sense after that. Then it gets weird. Great book.
posted by sexyrobot at 7:41 AM on May 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
Black Panther. Wakanda's tech is amazeballs due to vibranium and ingenuity therewith. Kimoyo beads do pretty humdrum things astonishingly.
Many of the culture novels by Iain M Banks are built around staggering feats of engineering just happening in the background of his characters' everyday doings. The Algebraist notches this up the planetary level.
posted by freya_lamb at 8:12 AM on May 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
Many of the culture novels by Iain M Banks are built around staggering feats of engineering just happening in the background of his characters' everyday doings. The Algebraist notches this up the planetary level.
posted by freya_lamb at 8:12 AM on May 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
not a huge example, maybe, but in Rebecca Clarke's Wayfarers Trilogy there are frequent mentions of people using dentbots (nanobots you squirt into your mouth) instead of toothpaste/brush.
posted by daisystomper at 9:45 AM on May 14, 2020
posted by daisystomper at 9:45 AM on May 14, 2020
The Expanse (Amazon prime show, based on a book series) has some of that.
On the one hand, it's hard science-fiction, so most of the tech is believable and FTL is out the window.
On the other...their little hand held phone/computer things are devastatingly powerful and used in a way the belies the complexity of the underlying systems that need to exist for them to work that way.
Things like:
-just asking the device to plot orbital trajectories for *everything* visible
-swiping info from one screen to the other
-probably other stuff, been a while since I watched it, but was always pleased by the way it was just "part of their world"
posted by jaded at 11:26 AM on May 14, 2020
On the one hand, it's hard science-fiction, so most of the tech is believable and FTL is out the window.
On the other...their little hand held phone/computer things are devastatingly powerful and used in a way the belies the complexity of the underlying systems that need to exist for them to work that way.
Things like:
-just asking the device to plot orbital trajectories for *everything* visible
-swiping info from one screen to the other
-probably other stuff, been a while since I watched it, but was always pleased by the way it was just "part of their world"
posted by jaded at 11:26 AM on May 14, 2020
I've read 2 of the Ian M Banks Culture novels; Culture tech is everywhere and is very advanced. They were sent to me by a MeFite; send me your address, and I'll send you at least 1(because I'm not sure where they are).
posted by theora55 at 3:01 PM on May 14, 2020
posted by theora55 at 3:01 PM on May 14, 2020
Roadside Picnic (one of the obvious inspirations for the Vandemeer books and the basis for Tarkovsky's Stalker). The entire "picnic" allegory is based on trying to understand this goldmine of potentially deadly, half-understood tech left by the aliens passing through, when for all anyone knows it's just the equivalent of trash from a picnic.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:17 AM on May 15, 2020
posted by aspersioncast at 8:17 AM on May 15, 2020
Seconding Iain M Banks' Culture novels, there's a ton of stuff like this in them. In fact, I think it's the main instigating event for pretty much every story – mundane thing from an advanced society falls into the hands of a society that can't handle the implications.
Check out his short story collection, State of The Art.
posted by lucidium at 7:18 AM on May 24, 2020
Check out his short story collection, State of The Art.
posted by lucidium at 7:18 AM on May 24, 2020
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posted by Winnie the Proust at 1:19 PM on May 13, 2020 [7 favorites]