Have false memories implanted.
How to lie to a telepath?
Use a drug that makes you believe falsehoods.
Similar answers to similar questions in Poul Anderson's first two future histories.
Anderson probably did not think of "Honorable Enemies" (1951) when writing "The Big Rain" (1954). However, they exemplify the proliferation of ideas through works of fiction.
"Honorable Enemies" has two contexts. Originally published in the pulp magazine, "FUTURE combined with SCIENCE FICTION stories," it is now republished as part of one of the seven volumes of The Technic Civilization Saga, which includes not only pulp short stories but also substantial novels about Dominic Flandry.
Although Anderson's later future histories leave the adventures of secret agents in the remote past, they nevertheless present post-organic intelligences as finding reasons to alter memories, in Genesis, or to falsify data, in The Fleet Of Stars. Conflict continues on vaster scales and in different forms.
2 comments:
The Sword of the Lady doesn't technically reveal truth; what it can detect is the -intent to deceive-. Rudi tells Orlaith she'll have to watch out for that -- if someone truly believes they're telling the truth, she won't get any warning if what they believe is factually wrong.
Still, it would be alarming.
(Work is being done on a lie-detector using that method, by the way, rather than measuring stress. Stress can be successfully hidden, but there's apparently a brain center that activates when the speaker intends to lie.)
Dear Mr. Stirling and Paul,
Mr. Stirling: Hmmm, and might there be soon a real world device similar to Poul Anderson's "hypnoprobe"?
Paul, and "Honorable Ememies" has a THIRD context. I discussed in one of my notes how the chronologically "earlier" THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN contradicted "Honorable Enemies" on an important point of plot development regarding Aycharaych. I discussed as well a possible way of "saving the appearances" in that note of mine.
Sean
Post a Comment