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OverviewThe story looks at the paradoxes and alternate realities that are created by their precognition when the chief of police intercepts a prediction that he is about to murder a man he has never heard of. It also touches on the danger of a powerful post-war military during peacetime, the main theme not revisited by the film (see below).
PrecrimeFounded thirty years prior to the story, Precrime is a system that has replaced the previous system of discovering a crime and its perpetrator after it had been committed (with punishment given as a penalty for such action), with imprisonment before the crime takes place to prevent it happening. As one character says in the introduction to the story, "punishment was never much of a deterrent and could scarcely have afforded comfort to a victim already dead". It is specified that Precrime deals solely with cases of murder. How the system worksThe system of predicting the future in reports is carried out by three mutants, called 'precogs', all of whom have the capacity to see up to two weeks into the future. Precogs are created by identifying the talent within a "subject" and cultivating it in a government-operated training school — for example, one precog was initially diagnosed as "a hydrocephalic idiot" but the precog talent was found under layers of damaged brain tissue. The precogs sit in a room which is perpetually in half-darkness, constantly talking nonsense to themselves that is incoherent until it is analysed by a computer into predictions of the future. This information is assembled by the computer into the form of symbols before being transcribed onto conventional punchcards which are ejected into various coded slots; when cards are produced, they appear simultaneously at Precrime and the Army GHQ, in order to prevent corruption. The precogs are kept in rigid position by metal bands, clamps and wiring, which keep them attached to special high-backed chairs. Their physical needs are taken care of automatically and it is said that they have no spiritual needs. Their physical appearance is somewhat different from that of ordinary humans, with enlarged heads and wasted bodies. Precogs are deformed and retarded... the talent absorbs everything; the esp-lobe shrivels the balance of the frontal area. They do not understand their predictions. Most of the data produced is useless in preventing murders and is then passed on to other agencies. A minority reportThe system of three precogs finds its genesis in the computers of the middle decades of the 21st Century. The results of a computer are checked by feeding the data to a second computer of identical design but two computers are not sufficient. If each computer arrived at a different answer it is impossible to tell a priori which is correct. The solution, based on a careful study of statistical method, is to utilize a third computer to check the results of the first two. In this manner, a so-called majority report is obtained. It can be assumed that the agreement of two out of three computers indicates which of the alternative results is accurate — it would not be likely that two computers would arrive at identically incorrect solutions. It is much more common to obtain a collaborative majority report of two precogs, plus a minority report of some slight variation, usually with reference to time and place, from the third mutant. This is explained by the theory of multiple-futures. If only one time-path existed, precognitive information would be of no importance since no possibility would exist, in possessing this information, of altering the future. Other media
A video game, Minority Report: Everybody Runs, published in 2002 by Activision, was based on the film. Differences between short story and film
Text of Minority Report
References
Short Stories by Philip K. Dick
The Cookie Lady · Stability · Roog · Project: Earth · Expendable · The Little Movement · The Preserving Machine · The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford · Beyond Lies the Wub · The Gun · The Skull · The Defenders · Mr. Spaceship · Piper In The Woods · The Infinities · The Indefatigable Frog · The Variable Man · The Crystal Crypt · The Builder · Meddler · Paycheck · Out In The Garden · The Great C · The King Of The Elves · Colony · Prize Ship · Nanny · Beyond the Door · Second Variety · Jon's World · The Cosmic Poachers · Some Kinds of Life · Progeny · Martians Come In Clouds · The Commuter · The World She Wanted · A Surface Raid · The Trouble with Bubbles · A Present for Pat · Breakfast at Twilight · Of Withered Apples · The Hood Maker · Human Is · The Impossible Planet · Adjustment Team · Impostor · James P. Crow · Planet For Transients · Small Town · Souvenir · Survey Team · Vulcan's Hammer · Prominent Author · Fair Game · The Hanging Stranger · The Eyes Have It · Time Pawn · The Golden Man · The Turning Wheel · The Last of the Masters · The Father-thing · Strange Eden · A Glass of Darkness · Tony and the Beetles · Null-O · Exhibit Piece · To Serve the Master · The Crawlers · Sales Pitch · Shell Game · Upon the Dull Earth · Foster, You're Dead! · Pay for the Printer · War Veteran · The Chromium Fence · Misadjustment · A World of Talent · Psi-man Heal My Child! · Service Call · Autofac · Captive Market · The Mold of Yancy · Minority Report · The Unreconstructed M · Recall Mechanism · Explorers We · War Game · If There Were No Benny Cemoli · Novelty Act · Waterspider · What the Dead Men Say · Orpheus with Clay Feet · Stand-by · The Days of Perky Pat · What'll We Do With Ragland Park? · Oh, to be a Blobel! · All We Marsmen · The War with the Fnools · Cantata 140 · A Game of Unchance · The Little Black Box · Precious Artifact · The Unteleported Man · Retreat Syndrome · Project Plowshare · Faith of our Fathers · We Can Remember It For You Wholesale · Holy Quarrel · Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday · Return Match · Not By Its Cover · The Story To End All Stories · The Electric Ant · A. Lincoln, Simulacrum · Cadbury, the Beaver Who Lacked · The Different Stages Of Love · A Little Something For Us Tempunauts · The Pre-persons · The Eye of The Sibyl · The Exit Door Leads In · Chains Of Air, Web Of Aethyr · Strange Memories Of Death · I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon · Rautavaara's Case · Fawn, Look Back · The Alien Mind · The Day Mr. Computer Fell Out Of Its Tree · Goodbye, Vincent · 11-17-80 · The Name of the Game is Death
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