| [Updated: 02:03 15/02/2009] |
(see: Interspex, by Clark Nida)
The Intensor (short for “information tensor") is a spatio-temporal field defining a covariant tensor of rank 2, conveying information via facial sensations about a nearby person. It mediates all transactions between citizens, taking the place of money, credit, credentials, personal identification and all other forms of advertisement. Intertalk, a system of short-range voice-channels, is treated as an integral part of the intensor.
This dry-as-dust definition hides its enormous influence on lifestyle, which changes the social contract out of all recognition. Indeed, to preserve a familiar social order, intensor fields are strictly banned on both Moon and Earth.
Intensor fields cover Nix City, Voronka Cosmodrome, and by implication other sizeable settlements on Mars such as Valles. The Marsgrav pod of Oberon, in which Martians can enjoy the pseudogravity they’re used to, has its own intensor. By implication Zemgrav (the Earth-gravity pod) doesn’t. Platform Two on Titan, being crewed mainly by Martians (Titan gravity being approximately that of Mars) is said to have a primitive intensor, though it has zero impact on the story, the crew mostly communicating by an even more primitive system based on pagers and t-units (telephones)!
Thus a Martian denizen spends his or her whole life bathed in an intensor field, and would be lost without it. It is associated with the ubiquitous eggshell-light Martian helmet to the extent that one wonders if people even take their helmets off in bed.