candothat | Entries tagged with things that haven't been invented

[It's immediately obvious that this video is being shot outside--in the garden, likely. The setting is somewhat incongruous with Chekov's tendency to post about technology he has been working on, but there he is. Judging from the seventeen year-old's expression, he is prepared to explain something. At length.]

I am not sure if this is of interest to the medical staff of the City's hospital, but I believe I have a device that may be of use to you. I will require the aid of City Solutions to replicate this, but...

[He trails off and pulls a small, boxy item into view. It doesn't look that impressive; honestly, it could pass for an early cell phone if it weren't for the screen.]

This was, originally, a medical tricorder, which I assume has been introduced to the City, since Doctor McCoy had one. Usually they are used only in the field, but a full-sized medical diagnostic array is far beyond me. But I was saying... at home, where I am from, we also have instruments called psychotricorders--specifically programed to display brain activity--that are not typically attached to other devices. Unless I have made a mistake, this is capable of performing all activities that a psychotricorder can, in addition to those of a medical tricorder.

[reluctantly] The data chips may, perhaps, need to be reprogrammed by doctors, the psychotricorder chip especially. I am not a specialist in the field of biochemistry, but it is simple enough to alter the program. I can show a medical professional how.

But how it works is like this. The detachable scanner is used [he removes a smaller device from the back of the modified medical tricorder] to gather readings. The information it gathers is sent to the central processing unit [the midsection of the device is indicated], and the information is displayed on the screen, here. Very simple. Not that the information itself is useful without a doctor or someone sufficiently schooled in interpreting medical readouts to analyze it... make a diagnosis.

Ah, and I have perfected--to the best of my abilities--my early modifications that allow this tricorder to serve also as a dermal and osteogenic regenerator. Only good for small breaks and relatively minor injuries, but useful, I hope. So, with this, physical and psychological diagnoses may be made without intrusive procedures, and some wounds may be fixed in minutes.

[Chekov looks rather pleased with himself. Understandably so, perhaps.]

Please, if you are associated with the hospital and would like to make use of this technology, contact me. I would like to be of help.

Saya, if I may--there was a curse the last time you offered to show me how the Impala works. Would you still be willing to teach me about it?

[And with that, he ends the feed. Chekov will be loitering in Xanadu, should anyone wish to come across him.]

[COMMENTS]

[The wee hours of Friday morning find Chekov, dressed in ill-fitting but time-period-appropriate clothing, on the roof of apartment building number twelve. He's sitting cross-legged on one of the long lawn chairs recently moved up there by Charlie with papers, pencils, a ruler, and goodness-knows what else in front of him and working by the dim glow of a light that, as far as the video shows, appears to be mounted on his network device.

Well, was working. Chekov studies the papers in front of him--what's on them will remain a mystery to the network--as he addresses his device, tone rather contemplative.]

Are there stories concerning what is beyond the City's barriers? I think that there must be something; there is a curvature to the horizon, as if we are on a planet. The area we may access would take up only a small amount of room on a planet, and I wonder what may be out there.

The sky, too, is peculiar. The moon and sun and stars look as they would on any planet with a rotational period of nearly twenty-four hours, appearing in the east and disappearing in the west. I do not think that this moon's features are the same as Earth's moon, but maybe I am mistaken. The stars flicker as they do on Earth when their light passes through the atmosphere. It is hard to see unaided, but I believe the stars are different colors--hot blue stars, cool red stars. It is all very like Earth.

What is odd is that I cannot find planets. Very few stars have only one planet orbiting them. [He looks up at the sky and then back down at the paper he's holding.] I cannot find familiar constellations, either, but that is to be expected.

With a telescope, maybe, I might find distant planets.

[Chekov pushes his papers and gadgets aside to stare at the early-morning sky, as if he can make sense of all of this by staring at it long enough.]

So that is all strange, but I am posting this mostly because I am curious: why would an advanced species--or whatever the deities may be--go to the trouble of creating an Earth-like planet with a moon and a sun and stars, but not put in other planets? Or, if this planet was here already, why is it so similar to Earth and why can we access only a small part of it? If the deities have trapped us here to observe our behavior, they constructed our cage oddly.

But then, of course, it is possible that everything beyond the barriers is illusory. Even a complex hologram would be relatively simple to create, given the right technology. I think that its maintenance would be problematic, but I am not a technologically or evolutionarily superior being with a human ant farm, so what can I know?

[He reaches for the network device and turns off the light. Little remains visible but stars and the faint glow of approaching daybreak.]

Deities, you are teasing us by showing us things we cannot reach. Very rude.

[petulantly] You might have also considered equipping this City with replicators.

[COMMENTS]

Pavel Andreievich Chekov

Lieutenant, Serial #656-5827B

Entries tagged with things that haven't been invented

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