User:Scoutersig/practice/Psychic probe

The Psychic Probe is a fictional device created by the Master of Sci-Fi Isaac Asimov and is a small clumsy device used to read and adjust minds. It is usually described in Asimov's novels as a highly feared gun used by officials or high profile characters with a certain social status (someone who could afford to buy or have easy access to funded Psychic probes). It can be used to retrieve knowledge from someone, willing or not (frequently not, as they are used in extreme circunstances, such as to prevent someone from doing something terrible or to make them forget things they showuldn't know, such as state secrets and catastrophic predictions about human kind, for example). It can also change a person's knowledge or emotion. In the works of Asimov, its largest use is in The Currents of Space, where its use is the chief plot device. The goal here was to erase all information Spatio-analyst Rik had gathered in a report out-in-space of a dying sun. The Psychic probe could be any device suitable enough to fit someone's head. As described in Asimov's books, it is a small device with pieces of wires here and there. The psychic probe is also mentioned as a device to be used for great purposes such as to make someone remember things they had forgotten (as suggested in other novels by the same author).

A few extracts from The Currents of Space, by Isaac Asimov, where the Psychic Probe was first introduced

"The Psychic probe was a self-contained unit. Its wires needed only to be fixed to the appropriate places on the skull." The Currents of Space, Chapter 1, pg 9, pharagraph 5) "He said, 'This man has been treated with a psychic probe. Do you know what it is?'... at first she had shaken her head again, but then she said in a dry whisper, 'Is it what they do to crazy people, Doctor?' [...] 'And to criminals. It is done to change their minds for their own good. It makes their minds healthy, or it changes the part that makes them want to steal and kill. Do you understand?' She did. She grew brick-red and said, 'Rik never stole anything or hurt anybody'..." The Currents of Space, Chapter 1, pg 17, pharagraph 1)

Other uses in fiction

• The game City of Heroes includes a character that provides the player with a psychic probe.
• Ironically, in Disney's cartoon Ducktales, a crazy scientist uses a similar device in his head at all times, suggesting a connection with Asmov's ideas of controlling the mind to achieve whatever purposes it was designed to.
• In Back to the future, a blockbuster time-travel sci-fi movie released in 1985, Dr. Emmett Brown wears a wired device on his head to read minds.

References

Contribution: Ric Cezar