Considering we’re celebrating all things Geek with the imminent arrival of Geek Pride Day, it got me thinking about things in Anime, literature, films and books. The fact they are so fantastical that we may never see them here, in the real world, in our lifetime.
This then leads me to think just how hard it would be to make fantasy real. A perfect example is a conversation I stumbled across on the internet about Pokeballs. Yes, Pokeballs. It sounds strange but just go with me for a moment here...
So the concept of a Pokeball (for those that aren’t Pokemon mad like me) is that it captures, and holds inside, a Pokemon. The conversation was around how the Pokeball actually worked. People were having a serious and furiously passionate conversation about the technology behind making this bit kit work.
There were two main theories that I saw as being the most likely.
1.The Pokemon was/is actually ‘broken down’ once they were asked to return to the Pokeball. They lost their physical and corporeal form and became data that was then stored in this small ball until they were later called upon to battle. The main argument against this was how something with a physical living form can be broken down into data. Well, our DNA is pretty much our data, so I guess with the right technology this could be a credible way as any that a Pokeball works.
2. The second theory was that the Pokemon are actually shrunk and fit inside the ball nicely and continue to exist in a physical form. I think a lot of people lean towards this theory mainly because of the feeling that the Pokemon isn’t being mistreated (Psst! They’re not real guys!) They see this as the more humane option and that the Pokemon is just smaller and frolicking around a field inside the Pokeball, rather than be deconstructed into digits and crammed into a sphere of nothingness.
The level of depth this conversation went into was amazing, and it is people like this, people who Geek out over tech in fantasy settings, that are the people that will drive the push to make this sort of tech real in the future.
The Pokeball example I’ve given is an extreme version of that- I don’t think anyone is going to be trying to turn their pet cat or lizard into data and cram them in a small portable orb anytime soon (or at least I hope to God not!) But the fact is, 50 years ago, people would have thought that Drones were also impossible and yet we now have them filling the sky and even working for us on farms and as delivery vehicles. We've even seen them built as part of one of our Design Challenges, Sci-Fi Your Pi where we were treated to the QuadCop build by screamingtiger . We might not have a FULLY working Lightsaber, but we have this which is at least part of the way there!
So my question to you is what tech from your geek fandom would you bring to life if you could?? And do you think that any other fantasy tech is likely to make it into reality anytime soon?