Technologies that people won’t believe actually exist.

1. The Neuralyzer. It’s a small handheld pen like device that allows an agent to set a minute, hour and day on it that when pointed at a subject and triggered, will flash a bright white light and erase all short term memories of that subject for the set period of time, and will leave the subject receptive for the next 60 seconds or so to an alternative narrative. The agent has to take precautions for obvious reasons.

Here’s a picture of that device.

2. The Holodeck

For most field agents of the NSA, the most important thing is responding to adverse scenarios while always maintaining emotional control. Because of the extreme nature of when and why an NSA field agent is called in – when one loses control, this is USUALLY in the presence of other authorities (The FBI, the Police, Homeland, even the CIA) – and not only does it reflect poorly on the NSA, but it also DESTROYS the credibility of the agency to do it’s job. All it takes is one agent to fuck it up for everyone else.

It’s difficult to train for the real weirdness of reality in traditional ways. So the NSA developed a fully immersive simulator EXACTLY as it appears on Star Trek – a holodeck – a room you can walk into that responds to voice commands, that can simulate anything with incredible detail – without haptic devices.

You can literally smell the world you’re in. Feel it. With this device, I personally experienced a post apocalyptic Terminator world that smelled and felt and looked and sounded absolutely real.

It’s astonishing, seeing something like this firsthand.

3. Nanorobots that can take control of a human body.

The very real threat of modern day viruses created for the sole use of biological warfare that can turn a man into a rabid beast had the FBI working with Homeland and the NSA to develop a solution to this growing biogenetic threat in the form of nanotechnology.

Distributed through any number of means, particularly through the air, nanorobots are tiny self replicating robots that target human DNA and can in a literal sense take over a human body and it’s motor functions.

Based on research of parasitic creatures which attach themselves to insects, these fast acting nanobots can – well – stop wars in their tracks, prevent a gunman from taking out hostages, and in a literal sense stop a zombie apocalypse (a very real concern I might add behind closed doors).

Here’s a fun article which describes one of the many inspirations for this technology.