July 8 - Wonder of the Age
Title: Two Fixed Points
Author: Pompey
Universe: umm, all of them?
Rating: PG
Warnings: spoiler for a single episode of “Elementary” S1 and a single episode of “SH in 22nd Century”
Word count: 443
Summary: Throughout every age, despite all advances in the field, two constants remain.
Prompt: July 8 - Wonder of the Age
A/N: Rather light and vague on the woe for Watson, I fear.
In the final years of Victoria’s reign and into the earliest years of Edward’s, the embryonic field of forensic science began in earnest. Teeth marks were used to convict a murderer for the first time. Fingerprints were noted to be unique to each individual, and used as evidence accordingly. Phrenology was on its way into the dustbin of history (where it rightly belonged, according to Watson and Holmes had no reason to disagree.) A pity that the leap forward in the art of detection meant that the common criminal merely stepped up his game and took to wearing gloves.
In the 1930s and 1940s, luminol - that blood-identifying substance such a far cry from his haemoglobin test of 1881 -- was invented, as was the acid phosphatase test that identified the presence of semen (admittedly a fluid he had not experimented with, although its usefulness was undeniable in certain cases that would have been unmentionable only a few decades prior.) Of course, the “tommy gun” had come into the public’s consciousness in perhaps the worst way possible.
Smart phones of the late 2000s created a breakthrough in the world of investigation the likes of which had never before been seen: phone records, photo evidence, internet access literally at one’s fingertips -- who needed a bulky, paper index with technology like that! But they also proved to be a vehicle for criminal activity the likes of which had never before been seen either. Not just phones either - although it took a rather devious mind to take a 3D printer and make it literally “print” a gun that could then be dissolved in acid to the point that it could be disguised as a bottle of milk.
The 22nd century certainly had its share of miraculous breakthroughs in the art of crime detection and prevention: police cruisers with their “pulses” capable of disabling the magnets of flying vehicles; new medications and mental stimulants that more effectively treated mental disorders, even sociopathic tendencies; international genetic databases that could compare a strand of DNA found in India to one found on the moon within a matter of minutes. But then, Holmes had also witnessed the horror that came when medical nanobots, created to heal, were turned into a truly vile weapon.
It seemed to Sherlock Holmes that there were virtually only two fixed points throughout eternity: 1) that evil people would always exist, taking new inventions and breakthroughs and twisting them to dastardly purposes; and 2) that through it all, Watson would always be by his side to stand with him against the forces of evil . . . regardless of what it cost Watson to do it.
Author: Pompey
Universe: umm, all of them?
Rating: PG
Warnings: spoiler for a single episode of “Elementary” S1 and a single episode of “SH in 22nd Century”
Word count: 443
Summary: Throughout every age, despite all advances in the field, two constants remain.
Prompt: July 8 - Wonder of the Age
A/N: Rather light and vague on the woe for Watson, I fear.
In the final years of Victoria’s reign and into the earliest years of Edward’s, the embryonic field of forensic science began in earnest. Teeth marks were used to convict a murderer for the first time. Fingerprints were noted to be unique to each individual, and used as evidence accordingly. Phrenology was on its way into the dustbin of history (where it rightly belonged, according to Watson and Holmes had no reason to disagree.) A pity that the leap forward in the art of detection meant that the common criminal merely stepped up his game and took to wearing gloves.
In the 1930s and 1940s, luminol - that blood-identifying substance such a far cry from his haemoglobin test of 1881 -- was invented, as was the acid phosphatase test that identified the presence of semen (admittedly a fluid he had not experimented with, although its usefulness was undeniable in certain cases that would have been unmentionable only a few decades prior.) Of course, the “tommy gun” had come into the public’s consciousness in perhaps the worst way possible.
Smart phones of the late 2000s created a breakthrough in the world of investigation the likes of which had never before been seen: phone records, photo evidence, internet access literally at one’s fingertips -- who needed a bulky, paper index with technology like that! But they also proved to be a vehicle for criminal activity the likes of which had never before been seen either. Not just phones either - although it took a rather devious mind to take a 3D printer and make it literally “print” a gun that could then be dissolved in acid to the point that it could be disguised as a bottle of milk.
The 22nd century certainly had its share of miraculous breakthroughs in the art of crime detection and prevention: police cruisers with their “pulses” capable of disabling the magnets of flying vehicles; new medications and mental stimulants that more effectively treated mental disorders, even sociopathic tendencies; international genetic databases that could compare a strand of DNA found in India to one found on the moon within a matter of minutes. But then, Holmes had also witnessed the horror that came when medical nanobots, created to heal, were turned into a truly vile weapon.
It seemed to Sherlock Holmes that there were virtually only two fixed points throughout eternity: 1) that evil people would always exist, taking new inventions and breakthroughs and twisting them to dastardly purposes; and 2) that through it all, Watson would always be by his side to stand with him against the forces of evil . . . regardless of what it cost Watson to do it.