Unimatrix Two

Imagine a world where the Star Trek transporter had been absolutely perfected, to the point where it was as safe and as easy to use as a telephone. To go somewhere, you find the nearest booth, stick a dollar in the slot for a local trip, up to $25 or $50 for international travel, and punch in a 12-digit number. Before you have time to get your hand 2 inches away from the “enter” key, *blink* and you are there.

Telephone-booth-sized units are spaced every few blocks in urban and suburban areas – wider spread in rural and wild areas. If you live anywhere that has decent phone or Internet service in the real world, going anywhere is a matter of walking a block or two, using the booth, then walking another block or two. Show-offs have their own booths (in locked waiting rooms, of course – no point in inviting thieves into your home). The local super mega-mall has four or five. Large travel centers have dozens.

The SF writer Larry Niven wrote a half-dozen stories about this situation, and its effect it has on society. Private cars disappear. In crime, the idea of the alibi is no more – you can leave the dinner table to use the bathroom, kill someone in another state, and be back before anyone notices you’re gone. You can now work in New York City and come home every evening to your house in the Rockies.

There would be issues, there always are; but I’d like it. There’s so many people I want to meet, so many places I want to go – I’d just love to be able to phone a friend in Britain and say, “Hey, are you busy? I’d like to come by this evening.”

Like everything else in the 21st century, this desire of mine is the Internet’s fault.

Tags: star trek, technology, travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 24th, 2002 at 12:17 pm by Mikhail and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.