Looking for mcguffin - Page 2

alexondria · 10-14-2012, 02:22 PM

something that can effect brain waves making them more efficient and as such the person smarter. The raise in int though comes with the price of just how much more intelligent you are become more and more painfully obvious as you deal with all the dullards around you.

Xplo · 10-14-2012, 08:02 PM

There was a bit in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon dealing with the idea that EVERY action has some kind of signature; if I splash around on the beach, the waves will eventually carry to the other side of the ocean, and while those on the other side may not be able to separate them from the background noise, given enough time or signal, patterns will become apparent.

(The significance this had to the novel was that the Allies, having broken Enigma during WW2, wanted to conceal this fact from Germany by any means necessary - and that meant that it was too risky to actually act on the intelligence thus gained because doing so would reveal that Enigma had been compromised. Some of the characters, therefore, were assigned the task of engineering plausible-seeming coincidences explaining how the Allies could thwart German plans without necessarily having broken Enigma.)

So, I approached your question from the standpoint of making the effects of the device subtle to the point of being undetectable, or nearly so.

I propose a device which, through some handwavy superscience, engineers events in such a way as to benefit the user of the device without requiring his direct input or foreknowledge of events. One might randomly open a newspaper or magazine to a glowing advertisement for a company which is close to revealing a breakthrough (and gaining considerable stock value) - perhaps after finding most of his assets liquidated. Or one might attempt to rob a bank, only to have police tied up with some sort of unexpected riot or explosion when the robbery happens. The net effect is to make the user unusually lucky, but not in any way that can obviously be traced to him - he just frequently seems to be in the right place at the right time. Kind of like Serendipity, but on a larger-than-personal level.

There's no outright reason to want to destroy this device, of course... unless you just happen to be frightened and appalled by the existence of a device that manipulates reality on a tremendous scale in order to confer good luck to its user. How many people have suffered and died undeservingly so that one person could be better off?

dylan · 10-16-2012, 11:18 AM

How about a medical nanite power and control box. This is a little box you carry on your person to produce, control and power medical nanites. Anybody who carries this on their person has the nanites introduced into his body. As long as the box is in close proximity to the vic, er, patient the nanites are in operation. Since the box provides power to the nanites, when the box is gets too far away the nanites "die" and pass from the body by its natural waste removal systems.

The nanites heal the host and protect against disease. The problem is that neither the PC's species nor his species common illnesses are in the device's database. At first this isn't a problem because the device recognizes the signs of an unstressed and thus healthy individual. But after the character carrying the box is injured or becomes ill the device starts to heal him. But since the device doesn't have the DNA profile on file, the more damaged or sick the individual becomes the more likely the device will decide that his normal DNA sequence is a sign of cancerous growth and try to correct it. The nanites will begin modifying the characters DNA to the type in the database closest to the characters. This will not be pleasant or advantageous to the character.

The process will stop if the character stays away from the box but the box cannot be reprogrammed for modern species nor can it be shut off. The box and it's nanites cannot be used to repair the DNA damage they have wrought as it will always see the ancient DNA reconstructions as the correct sequence for that person.

10-14-2012, 02:22 PM	#11
alexondria Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Atlanta GA	Re: Looking for mcguffin something that can effect brain waves making them more efficient and as such the person smarter. The raise in int though comes with the price of just how much more intelligent you are become more and more painfully obvious as you deal with all the dullards around you.

10-14-2012, 08:02 PM	#12
Xplo Join Date: Apr 2006	Re: Looking for mcguffin There was a bit in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon dealing with the idea that EVERY action has some kind of signature; if I splash around on the beach, the waves will eventually carry to the other side of the ocean, and while those on the other side may not be able to separate them from the background noise, given enough time or signal, patterns will become apparent. (The significance this had to the novel was that the Allies, having broken Enigma during WW2, wanted to conceal this fact from Germany by any means necessary - and that meant that it was too risky to actually act on the intelligence thus gained because doing so would reveal that Enigma had been compromised. Some of the characters, therefore, were assigned the task of engineering plausible-seeming coincidences explaining how the Allies could thwart German plans without necessarily having broken Enigma.) So, I approached your question from the standpoint of making the effects of the device subtle to the point of being undetectable, or nearly so. I propose a device which, through some handwavy superscience, engineers events in such a way as to benefit the user of the device without requiring his direct input or foreknowledge of events. One might randomly open a newspaper or magazine to a glowing advertisement for a company which is close to revealing a breakthrough (and gaining considerable stock value) - perhaps after finding most of his assets liquidated. Or one might attempt to rob a bank, only to have police tied up with some sort of unexpected riot or explosion when the robbery happens. The net effect is to make the user unusually lucky, but not in any way that can obviously be traced to him - he just frequently seems to be in the right place at the right time. Kind of like Serendipity, but on a larger-than-personal level. There's no outright reason to want to destroy this device, of course... unless you just happen to be frightened and appalled by the existence of a device that manipulates reality on a tremendous scale in order to confer good luck to its user. How many people have suffered and died undeservingly so that one person could be better off? Last edited by Xplo; 10-14-2012 at 08:08 PM.

10-16-2012, 11:18 AM	#13
dylan Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Davis, CA	Re: Looking for mcguffin How about a medical nanite power and control box. This is a little box you carry on your person to produce, control and power medical nanites. Anybody who carries this on their person has the nanites introduced into his body. As long as the box is in close proximity to the vic, er, patient the nanites are in operation. Since the box provides power to the nanites, when the box is gets too far away the nanites "die" and pass from the body by its natural waste removal systems. The nanites heal the host and protect against disease. The problem is that neither the PC's species nor his species common illnesses are in the device's database. At first this isn't a problem because the device recognizes the signs of an unstressed and thus healthy individual. But after the character carrying the box is injured or becomes ill the device starts to heal him. But since the device doesn't have the DNA profile on file, the more damaged or sick the individual becomes the more likely the device will decide that his normal DNA sequence is a sign of cancerous growth and try to correct it. The nanites will begin modifying the characters DNA to the type in the database closest to the characters. This will not be pleasant or advantageous to the character. The process will stop if the character stays away from the box but the box cannot be reprogrammed for modern species nor can it be shut off. The box and it's nanites cannot be used to repair the DNA damage they have wrought as it will always see the ancient DNA reconstructions as the correct sequence for that person.