What makes science fiction great? Yes, the story, and yes, the characters, but don’t forget all those nifty gadgets! Equipped with this list of goodies, you could go anywhere, create anything, know everything, have a faithful, useful friend, and look really cool the whole time. These are the items that represent SciFi’s greatest imaginings:
Lightsaber
Star Wars, by George Lucas
It’s a weapon at heart, but so versatile that it is infused with gadgety cool–use it as a flashlight, to melt through metal doors, to slice open large meat carcasses, and it’ll probably slice fresh bread into instant toast (as seen in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, using a much smaller version of the tool). With an extremely rare Adegan crystal in its core, and being crafted in a month-long rite by a Jedi Knight, the lightsaber is the ultimate tool of the ultimate philosopher/warrior society. Nostalgia is one reason this futuristic gadget is so cool: the idea was obviously borrowed from feudal Japan’s Shogun warriors and their attachment to their carefully crafted artisan swords.
See also: Crysknife from Dune; Ultimate Nullifier from Marvel Comics
Stillsuit
Dune, by Frank Herbert
Quoting the book from Wikipedia:
It’s basically a micro-sandwich — a high-efficiency filter and heat-exchange system. The skin-contact layer’s porous. Perspiration passes through it, having cooled the body … near-normal evaporation process. The next two layers . . . include heat exchange filaments and salt precipitators. Salt’s reclaimed. Motions of the body, especially breathing and some osmotic action provide the pumping force. Reclaimed water circulates to catchpockets from which you draw it through this tube in the clip at your neck… Urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads. In the open desert, you wear this filter across your face, this tube in the nostrils with these plugs to ensure a tight fit. Breathe in through the mouth filter, out through the nose tube. With a Fremen suit in good working order, you won’t lose more than a thimbleful of moisture a day…
R2-D2
Star Wars, by George Lucas
You can have Threepio, you can even take HAL; I’ll take Artoo. This little robot can do almost anything from underway spaceship repair to serving drinks. He takes the AI concept to a whole new level, with built-in courage, humor, fear and devotion.
See also: HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey
Holtzman Shield
Dune, by Frank Herbert
The Holtzman Shield is a potent literary device: it makes directed-energy weaponry impossible against any worthwhile opponent, and also proves traditional projectile-based firearms and missiles ineffective, adding to the feudal atmosphere, and enforces the usage of mêlée weaponry despite other more advanced technology.
Cornucopia Machine
Singularity Sky/Iron Sunrise, by Charlie Stross
The Cornucopia can be programmed with the atomic structure of virtually any item (including another Cornucopia Machine) and, so long as it has fuel, material and time, fabricate it. (I would ask it to make everything on this list.) This is the only item on the list that hasn’t been adapted (yet) into a movie or television program; if you haven’t read these two books yet, I highly recommend them.
See also: Nutrimatic Dispenser from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Food Replicator from Star Trek
Transporter
Star Trek, by Gene Roddenberry
The Transporter was so powerful you could almost call it the deus ex machina of Star Trek, but you can’t, because it wasn’t spontaneous; it was there from the beginning. Still, though; how many times have Trek characters escaped imminent doom by uttering the phrase: “Beam us up”? There are many incarnations of teleportation devices, but none done so well as Star Trek’s Transporter. It was in almost constant use in every movie and throughout every television series, making it one of the most useful gadgets on this list.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Complete with it’s Don’t Panic! mantra, this wholly remarkable “book” can tell you anything you want to know about anything in the universe. The Guide was an electronic guidebook which was connected to the galaxy-wide Sub-Etha network for updates. The book was published in 1978, making the Sub-Etha one of the first imaginings of what the Internet could be.
Iron Man’s Armor
Marvel Comics, by Stan Lee
Super strength, supersonic flight, repulsors, missiles, and pimped out with a red and gold titanium alloy…Nothing is cooler.
See also: KITT, from the 80s TV show Knight Rider
May 6th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Its a gold/titanium alloy, not just titanium alloy.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
A gold/titanium alloy IS a titanium alloy…
May 6th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Its a gold & red apples alloy obviously. You can see it has red bits. I guess it makes the whole thing and the movie more tasty and crunchy.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:36 am
I love apples
May 7th, 2008 at 12:50 am
“I LOOOOoooveee GOOOOOOoLD”
May 7th, 2008 at 3:11 am
Wow, 5 posts and the only thing people can nick pick about is Iron Mans suit. I am really surprised the Start Trek fans haven’t demanded the transporter be moved up.
May 7th, 2008 at 3:27 am
lightsaberftw…. idk even if i sliced off my own arm. lightsaberftw
May 7th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
The transporter should be moved to top of the list.
May 7th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
the orgasmatron from sleeper should be at the top of the list, with a “see also:” whatever that thing was that did essentially the same thing in demolition man
May 7th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Cornucopia Machine = a really slow Industrial Replicator from Star Trek (whose sales and installations are actually heavily regulated because of the Prime Directive).
May 7th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Stilsuits from Dune a very interesting technology that we could use here on Earth.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
wow, iron man’s armor? Just a bit of advertising there?
first of all, what about the freakin holodeck? and the replicators? way cooler than the transporter.
and I have to interject with the cortical stack from Richard K. Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs series. I recorder inserted at birth to remember everything for you? It even eludes death by fitting into a new body or cyborg. Way cooler than iron man’s armor.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
@DragonTHC: Nah, it’s not advertising. I have no affiliation with Marvel or anyone else having anything to do with the movie. I’m just all fanboy over Iron Man. Also: Yes, the cortical stack was awesome, wish I’d thought of it when I did the list. I may add it yet…
May 7th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
What about a Green Lantern Power Ring
May 8th, 2008 at 7:33 am
@Thomas: Yeah, I’ve always liked the Green Lantern ring too, but it has that one significant weakness–that is, anything colored yellow–that drops it way down in my rankings.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Great list! There are so many great sci-fi gadgets that would be great to have… I think Well’s time machine would be near the top of my list.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Cornucopia Machine = matter compilers from Neal Stephenson’s “The Diamond Age, or a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer”. They use trace elements extracted from water to build anything you program them with from the atom up.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Ummm i guess none of you are Dr. Who fans. Because the Tardis would have been the best thing ever. Even though they are all very excellent. Only flaw, the list isnt long enough to have all the nifty gadgets that we all want :-) Loves the list.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Yes, the Tardis should rightly be on there, but it’s a bit silly, isn’t it?
Second; The Cornucopia machine didn’t use trace elements to build things atom by atom, it used fission/fusion to create the atomic structure needed for whatever materials were required ensuring success regardless of the environment it was in. (these machines could be as small as a trunk). I’m not certain what the industrial replicator is all about, so I can’t really compare.
May 9th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
You forgot the Jetsons… Personally I liked that device that changed Judy’s nail polish at the click of a button. Sooo practical and lovely.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Tio Holzman’s shield is actually not that cool, since if you fire a laser beam at it, it explodes with the strength of a good NUKE…
May 11th, 2008 at 8:09 am
good list. the Holtzman shield would be awesome, but would a lightsaber be an erffective against it or cause a feedback loop and nuke your jedi ass? The stillsuit would be cool, but I think it’s… well there’s alot more I’d rather have. How about an android like Priss from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Blade Runner)? Data (star trek next gen) would kick R2’s little beer can shaped ass, and for that matter something to freeze my foes in carbonite would also be awesome. L.E.Moddesitt also has a good idea with the nueronet.
This one hasn’t been thought of yet, but flame throwing optic implants would give me a Guild Ship sized chubby it would take a mentat to calculate the size of. Serial Gholas so that I could share myself with future generations would also be nice for them.
May 11th, 2008 at 8:11 am
On the Jetsons, a Rosy to baby-sit would fookin rock. Sorry for the typos above… it’s early and my mood organ is busted.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Yeah, the cornucopia machine sounds a lot like the matter duplicator from Venus Equilateral by George O. Smith, which takes any matter and breaks it down to build things atomically from preprogrammed discs.