Missed Opportunities and Misapplied technology in fiction

[Rater202]

You've all seen something like this. The "Reed Richards is Useless" and "Cut Lex Luthor a Check" tropes exist for a reason.

What are your favorite examples? Things that are used for things that they just... Honestly seem like a waste.

A recent example that's been on my mind lately: The Genome Soldiers from the Orignal Metal Gear Solid.

to summarize, the Untied states Government, probably under the influence of The Patriots, as a successor to the "Les Enfantes Terrible" protect to clone Big Boss, used genetic manipulation technology to manipulate the DNA of The Next-Generation Special Forces, a... an Army Special Forces division in order to artificially alter their "soldier genes,"—genes allegedly linked to the development of physical might, athleticism, intelligence and learning, physical endurance, recisliance, and recovery, and a healthy metabolism and so on. All traits that you want to be well developed in soldiers—to become identical to those within Big Boss's own genome.

Science fiction aside, and ignoring Liquid Snake's rant about Dominant and Recessive genes that was later established to have been him misunderstanding what happened du o his poor grasp of biology, Big Boss and his clones are all very intelligent and show superhuman physical attributes on occasion, so the idea that there's something special in their genes? Especially since they do live in a world where superhumans exist.

In particular, the sheer amount of punishment that The Snakes go through and keep going is absurd.

And... It works! The Genome Soldiers, while suffering from some health-based side effects that lead them to side with the Rogue Foxhound Unit to treat, do all become Superhuman in physicality and are said to have boosted intelligence. Even Johnny, the recurring character most famous for crapping himself in every game he's in, is a Genome Soldier and in the 4th game is shown to be able to keep up with nanomachine augmented soldiers without any nanomachines himself, given the appropriate motivation.

(Some will suggest that the fear of needles that led him to opt-out of Nanomachine treatments would have lead to him skipping on the Genome treatments, but I would counter that... He would have literally no reason to be at Shadow Moses if he wasn't, and regardless the genome soldier experiment was done incredibly unethically with at least one test subject being confirmed to have been experimented on against his well. This might have even caused his fear of needles.)

I want to focus on Big Boss's resilience. His and his son's ability to take the punishment they take, keep going, and fully recover. Even if we assume that the games are canonically a "zero damage perfect run," Big Boss still makes an almost full recovery from injuries up to and including a broken arm and being ninth in the vicinity of a nuclear detonation in less than a week. Big Boss and Solid Snake both survive torture, Big Boss is able to perform surgery on himself and be perfectly fine just afterward which is alluded to by the characters and thus, presumably canon.

Liquid was able to just shrug off multiple rockets to the face, among other similar injured, and was apparently still going after his heart stopped for a few minutes before finally succumbing to FOXDIE. He is probably the only boss in the entire Franchise that the Snake you're playing as never properly defeats. He just keeps getting back up.

The heightened intelligence, the enhanced strength, the ability to be really good with any military equipment you can get your hands on, taking incredibly well to training... That's all nothing compared to how fricking durable these people are, and how quickly they can recover from injury.

Making better soldiers with the Genome treatments is a waste of its potential. Think of what the power to give that kind of resilience to someone could do to the field of medicine.

If the Genome soldier tech was perfected to remove or minimize the side effects and get the most out of those genes, then an injection of Big Boss's genes could be the difference in whether or not someone can keep their legs after a car wreck.

---

Another example is Doctor Gero's android technology in Dragon Ball.

Gero invented portable, clean perpetual energy, a means to allow machines to charge themselves at seemingly 100% efficiency from any given source, even draining the energy right out of someone's body, with no exchange of tangible matter., a means to meaninglessly integrate machinery into a human body, a means of gravity manipulation that allows for perfect omnidirectional flight, a means to use mechanical energy to support a human metabolism without food or sleep, and a biomechanical compound that can be bound to human cells that vastly increases the durability and resilience of human flesh and bone while completely halting the process of aging. 17 and 18, despite being confirmed to still be mostly organic, are effectively immortal on the grounds that they will never get older or weaker and most beings in the universe aren't capable of harming them.

He did this solely to kill one man.

He invented some other really useful things, such as sapient AI and cellular manipulation tech, but the above is the big stuff.

And Bulma Briefs is given access to most, if not all, of that tech from Trunks salvaging the blueprints for the androids from Gero's subbasement.

Literally, all it ever gets used for is building a remote to shut down the androids, and giving 16 a patch job.

Bulma could drag the planet into post-scarcity and heal a whole host of severe medical problems... Or even just use the permanent anti-aging compound on herself, since it's later established that she's concerned about aging, but no.

---

Anyone else has an example of fictional technology they think is wasted?

[Lord Raziere]

oh boy Rater.

this will be a thread we visit often. ahem.

World of Warcraft Technology:
Like okay, goblins and gnomes in this world have made: guns, airplanes, tanks, small mecha, numerous explosives, helicopters, motorcycles, wormhole generators, robots, rideable rockets, airships, mail delivery machines, mind control devices, and so on and so forth. like a whole bunch of technology.

So why in the world, does WoW act like its still freaking medieval fantasy, and have its classes go around hitting things with swords, when its advanced technology is so advanced and ubiquitous, that swords should be outdated by now? like the level of inventions that these two races make, should've catapulted Azeroth into a modern setting long ago but its coming out of nowhere, being used for a quest or being uselessly crafted by player engineers and not doing much, what gives? I know its an MMO and lazy, but setting wise it makes no sense, Azeroth bounces back and forth between still being medieval fantasy and being in the middle of one the most thorough fantasy industrial revolutions in the genre, and I think you could believably write WoW as a modern/steampunk warfare story with magic now. its just weird to me how the goblins and gnomes have all this great tech and yet apparently you still need to be an expert engineer to use most of it, so they don't design any of it to be practical even though its in their best interests.

and thats not getting into all the other tech out there! There is Titan Tech, Naaru tech, Burning Legion Tech, things like that which the heroes just seem to destroy or ignore despite them being incredibly advanced and could instead perhaps find ways to take or replicate them for their own advantage when they are in a world that is constantly a war and need every asset they can manage to defend themselves. yet they still default to just medieval tech with random goblin or gnome tech making an appearance as a plot device out of nowhere, its strange. like this is a universe where advanced magitechnology is just in every ruin or around the corner but no one is taking advantage of it despite them having every reason to do so, because its against their aesthetics it seems like? *shakes head* ( and no WoW does not have any explanation of excuses for why their tech is not more widespread or usable. it doesn't care)

Dwemer Tech in Elder Scrolls
in other news, y'know the Dwemer? those elves that made a lot of steampunk and clockpunk tech with some music-based tech in there then tried to become as gods and all disappeared? Yeah. Why hasn't everyone taken their tech and replicated it all? Its all still working and in good condition, Yagram Bagarn is/was around to translate any Dwemer texts so that people can understand the instructions, Sotha Sil made an effort to make a clockwork city and study it, and they've had 3800 years to figure it out since their disappearance! like, the machines are still on and going and making various robots to attack people with. yet no one has successfully managed to figure it out? people just see them as ruins to raid....you'd think that business would've dried up long ago in favor of actually taking advantage of the advancements that its possible to get from them.

Syndrome's Zero-Point Energy
Syndrome from the Incredibles not only managed to invent gauntlets to instantly stop any criminal from doing a thing by pointing at them, he harnessed zero point energy, which is basically infinite energy because its the lowest possible state energy can have and it never stops moving, so harnessing it means you somehow power things with things being still. thats on par with the infinite energy engines right there, yet he lets his own ego get in the way of just skipping to the final step in his plan of just selling his inventions to make the world a better place so police men have a easy way to detain criminals without violence, just so he can have a giant robot terrorize people so he can look good. the weirdest thing is how the final step in his plan of selling his inventions is played up as evil but if he just forgot making a threatening robot he could've just been known for being a super-rich billionaire whose invention would both solve a lot of energy problems and provide people an easy nonlethal weapon to use instead of guns. heck, why he is smart enough to make a robot that, he should be making friendly robots instead!

[Razade]

.

World of Warcraft Technology:
Like okay, goblins and gnomes in this world have made: guns, airplanes, tanks, small mecha, numerous explosives, helicopters, motorcycles, wormhole generators, robots, rideable rockets, airships, mail delivery machines, mind control devices, and so on and so forth. like a whole bunch of technology.

So why in the world, does WoW act like its still freaking medieval fantasy, and have its classes go around hitting things with swords, when its advanced technology is so advanced and ubiquitous, that swords should be outdated by now? like the level of inventions that these two races make, should've catapulted Azeroth into a modern setting long ago but its coming out of nowhere, being used for a quest or being uselessly crafted by player engineers and not doing much, what gives? I know its an MMO and lazy, but setting wise it makes no sense, Azeroth bounces back and forth between still being medieval fantasy and being in the middle of one the most thorough fantasy industrial revolutions in the genre, and I think you could believably write WoW as a modern/steampunk warfare story with magic now. its just weird to me how the goblins and gnomes have all this great tech and yet apparently you still need to be an expert engineer to use most of it, so they don't design any of it to be practical even though its in their best interests.

and thats not getting into all the other tech out there! There is Titan Tech, Naaru tech, Burning Legion Tech, things like that which the heroes just seem to destroy or ignore despite them being incredibly advanced and could instead perhaps find ways to take or replicate them for their own advantage when they are in a world that is constantly a war and need every asset they can manage to defend themselves. yet they still default to just medieval tech with random goblin or gnome tech making an appearance as a plot device out of nowhere, its strange. like this is a universe where advanced magitechnology is just in every ruin or around the corner but no one is taking advantage of it despite them having every reason to do so, because its against their aesthetics it seems like? *shakes head* ( and no WoW does not have any explanation of excuses for why their tech is not more widespread or usable. it doesn't care)

I mean...it kinda does. Burning Legion Tech would just be terrible to use since the Burning Legion will find you and you don't want that. Just for starters. Pretty sure Naaru tech is also linked to Void stuff and no one wants that. Titan stuff is all complicated by the Old Gods and that also is nothing anyone wants. There are entire questlines in WoW that start off with "We're using this cool new stuff" and end with "Ah crap, we've been corrupted/mind controlled/taken over by the technology we were trying to use to our own end!". Like, that's half of Northrend's quests I feel.

As to the rest...Gnomish and Goblin inventions are portrayed, often, as being unreliable, difficult/really expensive to repair or create (like seriously, tinkering is one of the most expensive and at least when I played most useless of the crafting trees), or just outright dangerous to the user and everyone around them. You make it sound like they're driving Tesla cars (yes I know there is a motorcycle) and stuff around when that's just not the case at all. Guns are not terribly sophisticated weaponry in WoW and it's easy enough to assume not as reliable as real life guns against the threats we're up against when used against demons and other magical threats they're up against. Especially where as a magic sword forged to kill demons might be a better thing to use.

Dwemer Tech in Elder Scrolls
in other news, y'know the Dwemer? those elves that made a lot of steampunk and clockpunk tech with some music-based tech in there then tried to become as gods and all disappeared? Yeah. Why hasn't everyone taken their tech and replicated it all? Its all still working and in good condition, Yagram Bagarn is/was around to translate any Dwemer texts so that people can understand the instructions, Sotha Sil made an effort to make a clockwork city and study it, and they've had 3800 years to figure it out since their disappearance! like, the machines are still on and going and making various robots to attack people with. yet no one has successfully managed to figure it out? people just see them as ruins to raid....you'd think that business would've dried up long ago in favor of actually taking advantage of the advancements that its possible to get from them.

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure there are tons of quests in Skyrim about going and getting Dwemer tech to study as well as tons of quests where Dwemer tech factors in and results in lots of awful bad no good events. As to why there isn't a proliferation of Dwemer stuff...have you seen what you have to go through to get Dwemer related stuff? You have to go into their trap laden, clockwork army patrolled corridors and that's just in hopes you get one or two things that are still usable. How many broken, junked Dwemer tools and creations do you find down there? Tons. How many people do you find dead as hell in Dwemer ruins trying to do the very thing you're doing? Tons. Also how many Dwemer Ruins can you just waltz in. Tons have weird methods of getting into like magic keys and rituals and silly things like that or are just hidden from the world. Like tons of them are things you discover for the first time in your journies. They're not just refrigerators laying out in the middle of the wilderness waiting for your Uncle to raid. They're dangerous enough that only the brave and foolish go into and just because you understand how something works doesn't mean you have the tools to replicate it after you've found it.

Who in their right mind would go into a dangerous location with a high chance of not getting anything useful for their troubles when not doing that and doing pretty much anything else would be a better use of their time?

[The Glyphstone]

As far as Syndrome, iirc to the best of my limited memory his plan is shown as evil because onscreen he hasn't invented anything except guns or weapons and giant robots, all powered by his zero point energy. He's just not interested in beneficial applications of his tech, so the 'sell my technology' stage of his plan is less about bringing a utopia and more proliferating a supertech arms race where any 2 bit criminal or warlord can have a giant robot to terrorize people with.

[Keltest]

As far as Syndrome, iirc to the best of my limited memory his plan is shown as evil because onscreen he hasn't invented anything except guns or weapons and giant robots, all powered by his zero point energy. He's just not interested in beneficial applications of his tech, so the 'sell my technology' stage of his plan is less about bringing a utopia and more proliferating a supertech arms race where any 2 bit criminal or warlord can have a giant robot to terrorize people with.

Also, you know, he kidnapped a bunch of people and murdered them to test his weaponry, and and was planning on killing/assaulting a bunch more when his robot actually hit the city to make his point.

[The Glyphstone]

Also, you know, he kidnapped a bunch of people and murdered them to test his weaponry, and and was planning on killing/assaulting a bunch more when his robot actually hit the city to make his point.

I mean yeah, the entirety of his plan was evil, but Raziere was specifically questioning why the last step, "sell his inventions" was as evil as the rest. My answer was that he would be selling weapons of doom and destruction to the highest bidders.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah that is how all those things are misused. come on, keep up. this isn't a "how the technology is actually justified in not being used" thread. I'm not interested in discussing that even if it was. don't even bother. this is how the technology could be, not how its justified in being not. contribute better examples of misapplied tech if you disagree instead of derailing the thread with a "I see night, you see day" debate.

Pokemon Tech:
It has teleporters, pokeballs and so on, yet people still use boats to get from one region to another even though there exists faster methods of transportation. in fact, why don't they just teleport their furniture in pokeball-like things if they have the technology? after all, pokeballs can store living beings so there is no reason for them to not store all your furniture as well as when your moving or to transport large loads since these things can carry wailords which are y'know, WHALES. they have the technology to revolutionize transportation as they know but they sit on it and only use it for pokemon.

[Rynjin]

Re: Gero's tech, it's unclear if the stuff he developed in regards to unlimited energy was relevant, usable tech. Androids 17 and 18 are the only models with that tech, and they are fully organic beings.

A lot of the other stuff you mention is basically already sold by Capsule Corp, like the hover tech. Even if the energy source WAS adaptable, it's unsure if it was needed. The main deal with 17 and 18 was their massive OUTPUT at an unlimited level. Micro nuclear reactors like 16 runs on don't seem to even raise an eyebrow, and energy concerns never seem to be a thing anyway.

And the AI thing was likely something they were leery of touching given that there was a fear of starting yet another potential robot apocalypse.

[Rater202]

As far as Syndrome, iirc to the best of my limited memory his plan is shown as evil because onscreen he hasn't invented anything except guns or weapons and giant robots, all powered by his zero point energy. He's just not interested in beneficial applications of his tech, so the 'sell my technology' stage of his plan is less about bringing a utopia and more proliferating a supertech arms race where any 2 bit criminal or warlord can have a giant robot to terrorize people with.

That, and his uh, motivation.

An argument I've seen often is people acting like the movie presenting the supers as being... Restricted from using their powers, as a bad thing, as itself being a bad thing.

Like the conversation where Dash and his mom take about how Dash wishes he could do track. He'd be good at it. Helen's response is "yes, you should be allowed to do it but you're not" and somehow this is equivalent to saving that normies should suffer and die for the sake of supers. I don't particularly get it.

Syndrome's very clear with his "When Everyone's Super, No one will be." He doesn't want to help the world. When he's old and tired of being the world's only Super... Since, you know, he's killed almost all the heroes, he's going to distribute hs weapons and gadgets to make everyone else Super...

Specifically to make people like Mr. Incredible obsolete and irrelevant.

If he just wanted to give people tech to make their lives better it would be fine, but he's doing it purely to sate his own ego and spite Mr. Incredibleand he's killing people to do it, it becomes evil.

And regardless, he's wasting his potential... Which is honestly kind of the point of th movie. He's accomplished so much but he's never developed past the little boy who is pissed off at being rejected by his hero, even when Mr. Incredible upon recognizing him admits that he did not treat Buddy fairly.

Yeah that is how all those things are misused. come on, keep up. this isn't a "how the technology is actually justified in not being used" thread. I'm not interested in discussing that even if it was. don't even bother. this is how the technology could be, not how its justified in being not. contribute better examples of misapplied tech if you disagree instead of derailing the thread with a "I see night, you see day" debate.

Pokemon Tech:
It has teleporters, pokeballs and so on, yet people still use boats to get from one region to another even though there exists faster methods of transportation. in fact, why don't they just teleport their furniture in pokeball-like things if they have the technology? after all, pokeballs can store living beings so there is no reason for them to not store all your furniture as well as when your moving or to transport large loads since these things can carry wailords which are y'know, WHALES. they have the technology to revolutionize transportation as they know but they sit on it and only use it for pokemon.

The Pokeball Icons on the field that you pick up to get an item are apparently "Item Balls" that use the same tech for storage.

Which makes it really weird when you pick up the item ball and get a Pokeball. Kinda implies that the Ball-Tech is stackable.

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Everyone's familiar with the "I don't want to cure cancer, I want to turn people into dinosaurs" meme, right?

What that comic doesn't mention is that there are already multiple cures for cancer in the Marvel Universe.

Ignoring things like the Infinity Formula and Super Soldier Serum, an alliance of Marvel's greatest minds created dozens of functional cancer treatments while trying to save the original Captain Marvel's life: He developed cancer after being exposed to some kind of nerve gas and it metastasized through his system before anyone noticed.

Those never get mentioned again.

Wakanda is hoarding a cure for most cancers until either a rainy day comes or "the rest of the world earns it."

Spider-Man and the X-Men: Spideys ethics class salvaged Sauron's "turn people into dinosaurs" tech and used it to create a cancer treatment under Spidey's supervision, which the class then entered in the Jean Grey Institute for Mutant Outreach and Education's annual Science Fair.

(Side note: Spider-Man claims, in that same issue, that he's a better scientist than Beast is because his inventions break before things go catastrophically wrong.)

Never gets brought up again.

But, most appropriately for this thread: Norman Osborn cured cancer.

He killed the Queen of the Skrulls during the Secret Invasion and was able to spin this into getting himself a full pardon for his crimes and eventually... Mor eor less take over the United States. (in fairness, Tony Stark did most of the groundwork during the Civil War.)

But, he was able to kill the Queen of the Skrulls because he went out of his way to screw over Deadpool, who at the time was desperately trying to get away from being a mercenary and become a "real" hero and Osborn stole his big chance.

Wade was understandably pissed off.

So, little known fact about Wade: His healing factor has adapted to his constantly regenerating cancer. It's used to having to majorly heal his body on a constant basis, which means that it doesn't know when to stop.

If his cancer ever goes into remission, his healing factor will effectively become cancer and kill him. The cells won't technically be malignant, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...

Osborn, having learned this, cured cancer soley to use it as a weapon to kill one man.

Re: Gero's tech, it's unclear if the stuff he developed in regards to unlimited energy was relevant, usable tech. Androids 17 and 18 are the only models with that tech, and they are fully organic beings.

A lot of the other stuff you mention is basically already sold by Capsule Corp, like the hover tech. Even if the energy source WAS adaptable, it's unsure if it was needed. The main deal with 17 and 18 was their massive OUTPUT at an unlimited level. Micro nuclear reactors like 16 runs on don't seem to even raise an eyebrow, and energy concerns never seem to be a thing anyway.

And the AI thing was likely something they were leery of touching given that there was a fear of starting yet another potential robot apocalypse.

You seem to be misunderstanding slightly: Android 16 also had a perpetual energy engine. The Nuclear reactor in his body was part of an explosive.

"Self destruct and take out everything in the immediate vanity with me" was the purpose of that.

Gero switched to energy absorption for Android 19 and his own body because giving multiple rebellious androids literally infinite power meant they didn't need him for anything and would be free to kill him. It was insurance in aNdroid 19's case and when it came time to convert himself into an android that was just what was easiest to make.

But even if the perpetual energy is only good for output... There's still the biomechanical compound that stops aging and makes humans super durable and super resilient. The potential medical applications of that are...

And in the video Game FighterZ. In the third campaign of the story mode, Android 21's good side actually expresses interest in, once issue of her unending hunger is taken care of, trying to explore the medical applications of the technology that created her.

(She was essentially born from what is implied to have been Dr. Gero's wife being modified using the same technology that created Cell, but on a more massive scale)

[Rynjin]

The ethics of introducing the tech that made 17 and 18 to the wider world is questionable. The process is not implied to be painless, and it's the kind of tech everyone needs to buy into, or nobody should get. Creating a race of superhuman overlords is not the outcome you want, which is what will naturally happen if availability is limited or subject to a choice divide between people who want it and those who think it is an abomination or whatever.

[Rater202]

Creating a race of superhuman overlords is not the outcome you want

I'm gonna be honest, in the dragon world that ship sailed centuries ago

And if we restrict it to compound instead of full conversion into an android, we're basically just talking eternal youth.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm gonna be honest, in the dragon world that ship sailed centuries ago

And if we restrict it to compound instead of full conversion into an android, we're basically just talking eternal youth.

honestly given the dangers of DB, I'd just call it a form of equalization with the saiyans and the saiyan-blooded. without those cybernetics, humanity is basically doomed to rely on two bloodlines to protect it from aliens, considering normal human track records with ki use.

While Syndrome? the only "doomsday weapon" he has is the giant robot, and his entire scam to get fame and glory as a hero revolves around him defeating that robot. if he turns around and starts selling the robot that is going to make people ask questions where the robot came from in the first place, so it isn't in his best interest to make more than one robot. he is already pulling a quite risky deception with that and knowing when to quit when your ahead is just being smart. the rest of his inventions are rocket boots, zero point gloves and various villain lair security stuff. his whole "sell the inventions" line is clearly a reference to the supers problem of "why not just patent your invention" question that gets asked a lot and helps explain how he fits into that. make the one deception with the robot, then destroy all the plans involving said robot and sell the inventions that stopped said robot is the logical plan for his position. he's evil yeah because he is willing to kill innocents, but him selling the giant robot after he deceived people into saving them from the robot is just shooting himself in the foot.

Portal
As in Portal, the game. Aperture made a portal gun and could've solved so many logistical problems.....if they just stopped being mad scientists and actually marketed their inventions to the public instead of constant testing for the sake of it. oh and other technologies like making robots, brain uploading, true AI and such.

[Wraith]

It varies from continuity to continuity, but it's generally accepted that Spider-Man being a struggling, semi-professional photographer for a living is ridiculous because Peter Parker is also a genius-level inventor on par with Reed Richards, but who works within the constraints of affordability and practical application.

His web-shooters and webbing fluid, for example. There's some excuse occasionally given that you'd have to be superhuman to use them - fast to be able to react to swinging, and strong to stop your arms from being ripped out of their sockets - but that's *just* for web-slinging. Spidey also uses them to prevent skyscrapers from falling down or entire ships from splitting in two just by "tying" them together with webbing, this would be immeasurably useful for construction, military, law enforcement and search & rescue operations.

He also has his "Spider Tracer", which was essentially miniaturised GPS technology which he's had around... what, since the 1960's? Which he built himself out of common recycled electronics because he doesn't have a laboratory or Stark Industries or anything else to fund it. This technology was cutting edge in the 1990's and he could easily have marketed a commercial version 30 years prior to that.

I always remember the last season of the Spider-Man animated show from the 1990's - one of the final episodes involves the Secret War and Spider-Man meets one of his extra-dimensional doppelgangers who actually realised what he had on his hands and went into business - he's essentially the Tony Stark of his world, being a billionaire, building Iron-Spider-Man armour and giant Spider-Robots as well as having his normal Spider-Man powers.

[TeChameleon]

Hoo, boy... my personal take is that Star Trek: The Next Generation is the poster child for this.

Just off the top of my head, Strong AI (from a misapplied computer command of all things!), multiple variations on time travel, matter phasing (at least two different versions of it, I think), interdimensional travel, brain uploading, the ability to live an entire lifetime in a matter of seconds and keep the skills you gained during it... there are probably a lot more, but the general gist is fairly obvious, I think.

Granted, the Star Trek:TNG universe also lacked some common present-day technologies, like fuses...

[Keltest]

It varies from continuity to continuity, but it's generally accepted that Spider-Man being a struggling, semi-professional photographer for a living is ridiculous because Peter Parker is also a genius-level inventor on par with Reed Richards, but who works within the constraints of affordability and practical application.

His web-shooters and webbing fluid, for example. There's some excuse occasionally given that you'd have to be superhuman to use them - fast to be able to react to swinging, and strong to stop your arms from being ripped out of their sockets - but that's *just* for web-slinging. Spidey also uses them to prevent skyscrapers from falling down or entire ships from splitting in two just by "tying" them together with webbing, this would be immeasurably useful for construction, military, law enforcement and search & rescue operations.

He also has his "Spider Tracer", which was essentially miniaturised GPS technology which he's had around... what, since the 1960's? Which he built himself out of common recycled electronics because he doesn't have a laboratory or Stark Industries or anything else to fund it. This technology was cutting edge in the 1990's and he could easily have marketed a commercial version 30 years prior to that.

I always remember the last season of the Spider-Man animated show from the 1990's - one of the final episodes involves the Secret War and Spider-Man meets one of his extra-dimensional doppelgangers who actually realised what he had on his hands and went into business - he's essentially the Tony Stark of his world, being a billionaire, building Iron-Spider-Man armour and giant Spider-Robots as well as having his normal Spider-Man powers.

The web could be explained by him not wanting to out himself as Spider-Man, which is maybe financially foolish and possibly morally irresponsible at that point, but at least a plausible in-character reasoning. And IIRC the spider trackers specifically keyed off his spider-sense, which is not something that could be readily replicated by, you know, anybody else.

[Rater202]

Spider-Man tried to sell his fluid early on, actually, or rather, an adhesive based on it rather than the fluid directly.

Peter did a bad job of explaining it, though, while the company rep he was talking to was a shortsighted idiot who thought that said adhesive would be useless since it wears off after a few hours.

BEcuase there's absolutely no use whatsoever for a temporary adhesive strong enough to hold buildings together, that can bond to human skin without causing any issues to said human skin, and can serve as both an electric conductor and an electric insulator depending on how you're using it.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I’ve complained about this before, but MCU Tony Stark’s Iron Legion would have been a lot more versatile if it weren’t so over-engineered. Make them all flying surfboards and you could use them to get injured people to the hospital faster (especially in places with no roads or heavy traffic), evacuate people from disaster areas, pile them with boxes and ship in supplies…and put a little of that hologram technology in and you can still use them as flying barricades and overpriced ‘KEEP OUT’ signs.

Re: Dwemer, another problem is that the tech is SO advanced that it has a built-in failsafe that shuts it down if it’s away from its city for too long. So even if you get a piece that’s working, you have to study it on site to keep it working. Unless you’re Neramo in ESO.

Pokemon Tech:
It has teleporters, pokeballs and so on, yet people still use boats to get from one region to another even though there exists faster methods of transportation. in fact, why don't they just teleport their furniture in pokeball-like things if they have the technology? after all, pokeballs can store living beings so there is no reason for them to not store all your furniture as well as when your moving or to transport large loads since these things can carry wailords which are y'know, WHALES. they have the technology to revolutionize transportation as they know but they sit on it and only use it for pokemon.

But if you teleport from place to place, you never see any new Pokemon! Or meet new people, or see any new places except possibly your destination…

Spider-Man tried to sell his fluid early on, actually, or rather, an adhesive based on it rather than the fluid directly.

Peter did a bad job of explaining it, though, while the company rep he was talking to was a shortsighted idiot who thought that said adhesive would be useless since it wears off after a few hours.

BEcuase there's absolutely no use whatsoever for a temporary adhesive strong enough to hold buildings together, that can bond to human skin without causing any issues to said human skin, and can serve as both an electric conductor and an electric insulator depending on how you're using it.

I know you’re being sarcastic on that last paragraph but I feel the need to list anyway:

• Spray-on bandages
• Non-lethal weaponry
  
  • Riot control
  • Self-defense
  • Protection from animals while hiking
• Secure things like wigs, fake nails, or costume pieces
• Glue together temporary storm protections (EX: Instead of nailing boards in place, web them there)
• Temporary repairs to anything from broken shoe heels to fencing

[Wraith]

The web could be explained by him not wanting to out himself as Spider-Man, which is maybe financially foolish and possibly morally irresponsible at that point, but at least a plausible in-character reasoning. And IIRC the spider trackers specifically keyed off his spider-sense, which is not something that could be readily replicated by, you know, anybody else.

Fair enough, that might be one of the different continuities "things". The Spider Tracker was, at one point, a little LED screen with an antenna sticking out of it so that's the one I was thinking of. On the other hand, if Parker can determine the frequency/wavelength that his Spider-Sense picks up and then build a miniaturised transmitter to exploit it using recycled parts and junk scavenged from whatever he could find on the cheap, I'm pretty sure he could find a way to turn a profit off that.

At the very least, I'm pretty sure that within about 60 seconds I could think up a plausible excuse for a New York-based chemist/physicist/scientist who claimed to see Spider-Man swinging around and thought, "Hey, I wonder if I could make that stuff in my lab? Might be useful..." and then sell it. Seems to me that despite being a genius, Peter Parker is also a bit of a dumbass.

[Rater202]

Peter has explicitly stated that part of the reason he's poor is that he has little business sense and is bad with money.

In one issue of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Peter goes to Tony Stark to get help dealing with a corporation that's stealing money from people in desperate need* and tony makes a comment about how Spidey's making a pretty big ask, then makes a comment about mortgages.

Spidey: "I rent."
Tony: "...Aren't you a genius?"
Spidey: "Not with money."

Other factors are circumstantial: During the Secret Empire storyline, PEter basically had to dismantle the company to stop HYDRA from gaining control of Parker Industries and its resources(Doc Ock, or rather an AI copy of him in a clone body, had signed up with HYDRA in an attempt to gain control of the company he created while in Peter's body and he knew all of the backdoors, so to speak.)

Peter was so focused on being a good boss and making sure all of his employees had their golden parachutes that he forgot to pack one for himself.

And yes, dismantling Parker Industries was the way to go. The last time someone got their hands on PI's tech they manufactured a superpowered Spree Killer who could shrug off everything short of being atomized by a nuclear fusion reaction and even then that really only slowed her down.

[Lemmy]

In the case of DBZ androids, it's implied that the process used to turn #17 and #18 is unreliable, unsafe and/or very unpleasant... Which is probably the reason why Gero didn't use it on himself.

...And if the "transplant your brain into a robotic body" idea was considered the safer, more reliable and/or less unpleasant method, that speaks volumes about the process used on #17 and #18.

He might also have prefered the energy absorption tech for its offensive capability. Unlimited stamina is great, but still doesn't protect you from a giant kame-hame-ha... And doesn't let you incapacitate an enemy with a simple touch.

[Sapphire Guard]

Web guns would be so useful to the police. So much easier to subdue non lethally.

[Rater202]

In the case of DBZ androids, it's implied that the process used to turn #17 and #18 is unreliable, unsafe and/or very unpleasant... Which is probably the reason why Gero didn't use it on himself.

Keep in mind that Gero was already an old man by the time he made the call to convert himself into an android.

The biomechanical compound grafted to 17 and 18's cells stops aging but there's no indication that it reverses aging that already happened.

In Gero's case, replacing most of his body with machinery was probably the better choice. It doesn't matter if you've got superhuman strength and toughness if your arthritic fingers are too stiff to make a fist.

On 17 and 18, it should be noted that they are fraternal twins(Real names Lapis and Lazuli.)

So presumably they were captured around the same time, and the procedure to make them at the very least is reliable enough to go off without a hitch two times in a row.

And if you're willing to ake FighterZ into account, which... It's not necessarily canon but Toriyama was involved in writing it's backstory, which slides neatly into a blank space in the canon, then there's the distinct possibility that Gero's brain in a robot body was a temporary measure. n FighterZ he'd somehow invented technology that allows you to take a soul out of its body and place another soul—either from a person or an artificial dummy soul—into a body.

In Fighter Z's story mode you're playing as a random Earthling's disembodied soul and by letting you into their bodies the PoV characters of the route can bypass a power suppressor to a degree.

And well... Cell did not have an android designation. He was not programmed to do anything beyond Absorbing 17 and 18.

there is the distinct possibility that Gero was planning to take Cell's body for his own after Cell became perfect, assuming that he lived long enough.

[Razade]

Web guns would be so useful to the police. So much easier to subdue non lethally.

They exist, sorta. Wrap technologies have existed for a while but they were unreliable and unsafe to the person. A new Wrap LTL Weapon has been showing a lot of promise though. So they're being worked on.

[Eldan]

Dwemer tech isn't even necessarily the highest tech in the Elder Scrolls. The games are full of lost tech, especially since Elder Scrolls online decided to canonize a lot of the weirdest lore and theories. In the second era, several nations travelled through space and into alternate dimensions, and there's settlements on the moon. The high elves may have time travelling martial artists and the Redguard used to know a sword strike that can split atoms and sank a continent.

[GloatingSwine]

Bulma could drag the planet into post-scarcity and heal a whole host of severe medical problems... Or even just use the permanent anti-aging compound on herself, since it's later established that she's concerned about aging, but no.

---

Anyone else has an example of fictional technology they think is wasted?

I mean when we're very first introduced to Bulma she's searching for the most powerful set of artifacts on the planet to wish for a boyfriend.

She does not have a strong set of priorities.

Also she's just about the richest woman on the planet and almost certainly has other ways to solve that boyfriend problem.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Portal
As in Portal, the game. Aperture made a portal gun and could've solved so many logistical problems.....if they just stopped being mad scientists and actually marketed their inventions to the public instead of constant testing for the sake of it. oh and other technologies like making robots, brain uploading, true AI and such.

Heh, that one's their in-universe fatal flaw. These are the guys that developed sentient turrets without friendly fire settings for home protection, boots capable of absorbing terminal velocity impacts to improve their testing procedures, gel that creates a perfectly elastic collision as a dieting aid, and a handheld portal device in order to get into the shower without touching the gross shower curtain. This is what happens when you let your insane CEO also be your entire marketing department.

[Eldan]

I mean, they also had budget problems. Like replacing all the astronaut test subjects with random hoboes who kept trying to eat the devices.

Chariots chariots.

[Rater202]

I mean when we're very first introduced to Bulma she's searching for the most powerful set of artifacts on the planet to wish for a boyfriend.

She does not have a strong set of priorities.

Also, she's just about the richest woman on the planet and almost certainly has other ways to solve that boyfriend problem.

Actually, no.

Her original wish, in the manga, was a lifetime supply of strawberries. She changed it to "perfect boyfriend" mid-journey.

Though, admittedly, the dragon balls are another one. Ignoring the asspull from GT, there's no consequence from using them as they become available.

You'd think the team would have made a habit of gathering them ahead of time instead of waiting for an emergency. Just keep them on the Lookout.

I also think it's weird that none of the good guys ever wanted to be immortal. Son Goku is an adaption of Sun Wukong... Who actively sought out immortality and was several different kinds of immortal by the end of the prolog and picked up a couple more by the story's end.

[Cazero]

I mean when we're very first introduced to Bulma she's searching for the most powerful set of artifacts on the planet to wish for a boyfriend.

She does not have a strong set of priorities.

Also she's just about the richest woman on the planet and almost certainly has other ways to solve that boyfriend problem.

...Honestly? Being the richest woman on the planet pretty much guarantees you need a carefuly worded wish to gt your boyfriend. Otherwise you will always have a nagging doubt in the back of your head that said boyfriend is only in it for your money.

[Eldan]

I forgot with Aperature, but per the ending of Portal 2: interplanetary teleportation. Without even light speed delay, it seems. Would need some setup to get it to, say, Mars (aiming would be a pain), but I can just imagine tying a piece of moon rock with a portal already on it to the next rover.