This Thread: “http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=46713” and the trailer for the new Dune movie on Sci Fi channel inspired me to create this thread.
I think that the Stillsuits from Dune are one of the coolest inventions in Science Fiction, just a fantastic idea.
Second, the Guns they invented in “The Legacy of Heorot” to kill the Grendels with speed. Cool.
What are your favorites?
LateComer, the guns in Legacy were normal guns. The reason that the Grendels were dying was because when they Speeded, they overheated themselves. The guns just let the colonists keep the Grendels at a distance until the Grendels own bodies did them in.
As for me, my favorite SF invention is the Ansible.
For those of you who don’t know, the “ansible” is a faster-than-light communicator named by Ursula K. leGuin in “The Dispossessed” and other works. “The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction” has picked up the term and lists it. Other folks have name FTL communicators, too, so I don’t understand why leGuin’s gets picked – I guess because it sounds neat. Certainly better than Dan Simmons’ “Fatline” (I assume from “FTL line”).
This was in a children’s book -
the flying vacuum cleaner
It seems like just the sort of thing kids would think of on their own. They sit on a tank type vacuum, with the air rushing out the back, and think they are riding a jet.
I really got caught up with that one, and could imagine myself on an ElectoLux, just barely skimming the rooftops around my neighborhood, bent on high adventure! 
I don’t know if it’s my favorite or not, but Power Armour certainly ranks up there.
The link doesn’t work. And what’s all this about the SciFi channel doing DUNE again?!? Info please!
December 3rd, 9PM.
Like the De Laurentis picture, I have little doubt that the masterpiece will be hacked to death and roasted over a low fire for two hours. However…
the trailer rocked. I saw it twice in the movie theatres and it is absolutely gorgeous. Even if it is a lousy movie, it will have an overabundance of style and high-budget SFX. So I’m there.
MR
Oh, and my favorite device is also the ansible. Orson Scott Card paid homage to Le Guin in his Ender quartet. His instantaneous communication machine was called an ansible because its creator had “dredged the name out of some old book.” Brilliant.
Perhaps it is the nearly mystical way in which Le Guin approaches this piece of technology in The Dispossessed and all of her other Hain stories that captures my interest so intensely.
MR
It must have only been in the sequel, “Beowulf’s Children”. This makes sense (it’s been a while since I read them, and I read them in the wrong order) as they wouldn’t have had time to develop such a device while fighting the Grendels.
In the sequel they had guns that would cause the Grendels to discharge all of their Speed at once. I cannot recall what the method was, but it was cool
My favorite is probably teleportation devices – in all forms (booths, transporters, discs, etc.) Something that is desperately needed, if only to shorten my commute.
Ever since the idea was invented people have been basing stories on the premise that SOMETHING GOES WRONG. If ever an idea was old hat, that is it, but it keeps getting used and re-used. It was old when George Langelaan wrote “The Fly”, having first been used over a hundred years ago (!)
If I ever invent a teleporter, I swear the first thing I do is get in it with a fly.
Duh, Calvin’s Transmorgrifier.
God, this is too easy.
Hello?
Woody Allen’s Orgasmatron. Cinch.
I’d probably vote for the Chronosynclastic Infundibulum from The Siren’s of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. Just the type of thing we need to get us out of this election mess.
2nd runner-up would go to the sonic screwdriver. Nothing that little whirring gizmo couldn’t do.
The thing on Star Trek that makes their food, what’s it called? A replicator? Just imagine coming home after a hard day’s work, and shouting out the name of a delicious meal into the kitchen and presto it’s there on your table!
I’ve always assumed it did the dishes as well.
Mark Twain’s television.
Or H.G. Wells’s death ray/laser.
Or Gene Roddenberry’s cell phone, I mean communicator.
Or Jules Verne’s space ship.
Spoke–
You can keep Jules Verne’s spaceship (From “FRom the Earth to the Moon”), for my money. It’s a big bullet, and when it goes off, the passengers get smashed into jam at the bottom. I feel certain that Verne knew this, but he let it slide so he could write the rest of the book, and “Around the Moon” as well. It wasn’t until he got to the little-known THIRD book in the series – “The Sale of the North Pole” – that he finally said, “OK, you can’t really do this.”
Me, I’d rather have a General Products hull, equipped with a stasis field (from Larry Niven’s “Known Space” stories). You could get shot out of a cannon and STILL survive with one of those.
I vote for the holodeck, or any of the thousands of machines that give you full, life-like virtual experiences and you are in full control that have been around as long as sci-fi. You can argue that a holodeck or similar device is not “actual” reality, but in your subjective reality, you are god.
Once again, I am beaten to the mark by everyone.
Arrgghh…today is just not my day. Both of the previous ideas popped into my head the second I saw this thread, and I figured I’d have a good chance of beating someone to the holodeck. Sadly, I was mistaken.
::hangs head in shame::
Wait! How about the Infinite improbability Drive from THGTTG?
Hehe…
The gates used in the Hyperion/Endymion saga. Exact names escape me right now. That saga also gives us one the creepiest sci-fi ceations: the Cruciform.
I’ll cast my vote for the Nexus 6.