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Black Box

695 statements
132 feature instances
157 referencing feature instances

Black Box	type	FeatureClass
Black Box	label	Black Box
Black Box	page	BlackBox
Black Box	comment	In engineering terminology, a "black box" is a device with one or more inputs (cake ingredients, an excerpt of text in Mandarin, iron ore), one or more outputs (cake, the same text translated into Frisian, a battle golem), and an internal process that is either: irrelevant and/or needlessly complicated. unknown and/or unknowable. In narrative terms, this is a device that produces near magical results but the comprehension of the device is at best a guess by the characters, meaning if it breaks, a replacement is not easy. The original creator is unavailable (either dead, an alien or from a long-gone civilization or otherwise can't be reached), but said technology is really convenient. Such technology falls into the hands of some organization, usually the military or a commercial business. The organization's analysts went over the thing, and while most of it makes sense, there are these elements, either program or device, that they cannot comprehend at all. Removing them causes the entire thing to simply not function (or triggers a more active response). The organization may be able to reverse-engineer copies, or lesser versions, but they don't understand how it actually works. So, since the financial bottom line or military advantage is so important, they go along with it anyways. ... Yes, of course, the technology has a bizarre effect that nobody could have predicted — you really need to keep track of those inputs and outputs! Usually, it's in the form of acquiring sentience or a bizarre weapon, or only being able to be used by people of the show's target demographic. (It's common in Humongous Mecha series.) This is surprisingly common in Real Life, with many different scientific fields having their own viewpoint on the issue. This is particularly known in programming, where the programmer is the only one who really understands how what they've built works (and sometimes, not even themnote Even a "simple" (no graphics, purely command-line and input file driven and with the only output being more text files) scientific application that does anything actually useful can easily exceed ten thousand lines of code in a high-level language and is probably the result of the work of multiple people, none of whom knows every detail of the parts they didn't write. And even if a single dedicated programmer wrote the whole thing personally, it's virtually certain that at least some of it uses infrastructure in the form of library routines or system calls that were not written by the same programmer.). It is something of a Running Gag in tech start-up culture that being the first to design the infrastructure of a new system is ultimate job security, as it would take years for another programmer to understand the coding to the same degree. This is especially evident in high-level languages, where the programmer can for example tell the computer to replace all occurrences of "cake" with "apple" in a text, and doesn't have to worry about how the system does it — they get a changed text back and that's that. This also happens in pharmacology, where it might be discovered that a drug has a positive effect on people with a certain illness but when it's first used doctors and scientists don't understand why. In a Scavenger World, most complex technology is like a Black Box, because generations that grew up After the End don't know how Precursor technology works. And with so few to reverse engineer junk, when just surviving is a daily challenge, much of it becomes Lost Technology. Sister Trope to Disposable Superhero Maker. Compare Missing Steps Plan, Unobtanium and In Working Order. See also Right for the Wrong Reasons. Not to be confused with "Black box" flight recorders, the kind of theatre, the Italian house music group, the method of câ–ˆâ–ˆâ–ˆâ–ˆâ–ˆâ–ˆâ–ˆâ–ˆâ–ˆâ–ˆ information, the former video game developer who used to make the Skate series and various Need for Speed games, or a black-colored Censor Box.
Black Box	fetched	2024-03-19T19:01:35Z
Black Box	parsed	2024-03-19T19:01:35Z
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to AbusivePrecursors: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to AllThereInTheManual: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to ChurchOfHappyology: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to CoolOldLady: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to CoolShip: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to DarkLordOnLifeSupport: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to EmperorScientist: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to EnforcedTrope: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to ExpansionPack: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to FasterThanLightTravel: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to Intangibility: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to JustAddWater: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to LostTechnology: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to MacGuffin: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to OlderThanRadio: Not an Item - CAT
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to OrganicTechnology: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to PostModernMagik: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to Precursors: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to RidiculouslyHumanRobots: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to ScavengerWorld: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to StreisandEffect: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to SuccessionGame: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to SuperPrototype: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to ThanatosGambit: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to TheDarkAges: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to VetinariJobSecurity: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to WeirdScience: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	processingComment	Dropped link to invokedtrope: Not an Item - FEATURE
Black Box	isPartOf	DBTropes
Black Box / int_11d0af1	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_11d0af1	comment	In His Dark Materials, the subtle knife is an ancient weapon that can cut through anything, including the fabric between dimensions. However, it has the unfortunate effect of creating a soul-eating monster every time it is used, and eventually weakening the equilibrium of the universe.
Black Box / int_11d0af1	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_11d0af1	featureConfidence	1.0
His Dark Materials	hasFeature	Black Box / int_11d0af1
Black Box / int_11fd7982	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_11fd7982	comment	The Metroid Prime Trilogy subseries involves the use of Phazon, a blue gooey substance that turns its users nigh-invulnerable and greatly amplifies their weapon strength, at the risk of corruption. By Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the Federation is able to develop a PED Suit that contains a "black box" that allows its wearer to safely utilize Phazon to improve their combat capabilities, but unfortunately Samus' variant gets damaged early in the game.
Black Box / int_11fd7982	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_11fd7982	featureConfidence	1.0
Metroid Prime Trilogy (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_11fd7982
Black Box / int_1367cea0	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_1367cea0	comment	In Worm, Tinker-tech suffers heavily from this as the Tinkers themselves don't fully understand why their technology actually works. The result is a number of built-in flaws that quickly render their creations inoperable without constant maintenance from the Tinker themselves. Eventually explained as limits placed by the Entities to encourage creativity and discourage research into fields such as space travel and nanotechnology.
Black Box / int_1367cea0	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_1367cea0	featureConfidence	1.0
Worm	hasFeature	Black Box / int_1367cea0
Black Box / int_14c5787a	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_14c5787a	comment	In Competitors, the alien technology aboard the Platform is so far beyond human understanding that it took the people sent there years to figure out certain basic things. Unfortunately, most people who end up there lack any technical background, so any engineer who finds his or her way to the Platform is paid handsomely to try to figure out how to even work the systems, much less reverse-engineer them. The engineers also have a fairly high fatality rate due to the fact that they have really no idea what they're doing. Sure, the ships left by the mysterious aliens have fairly basic analog controls (dumbed down for an average human), but it took at least a year to figure out that there are toilets aboard. It took about as long to figure out how to flush one without depressurizing the whole ship. The aliens are giving bits and pieces of their tech to their human contacts on Earth, allowing their contacts to get filthy rich off the patents.
Black Box / int_14c5787a	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_14c5787a	featureConfidence	1.0
Competitors	hasFeature	Black Box / int_14c5787a
Black Box / int_17bfcf60	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_17bfcf60	comment	Homeworld plays around with this trope. The Historical and Technical Briefing describes the discovery of a large amount of Lost Technology in the wreck of an ancient spacecraft, including something eventually identified as "a solid-state hyperspace induction module." It's implied that much of their limited understanding of how it actually works was gained from building a couple of scaled-down copies and fitting them to small spacecraft, pressing the "on" button and watching to see what happened. Then it turned out that said module is actually a 10,000-year old Progenitor; only three of them exist in the whole galaxy. One of these are in the posession of the Bentusi and it's the basis of all hyperdrives in the galaxy, save the Kushan ones. It is also said that no matter how much they study them, they can't figure out why the reverse-engineered versions are much slower than the originals even though they know how to make other ships tag along by "riding the quantum wavefront." In fact, combining the three Far Jumpers will break the laws of physics (black holes disable hyperdrives yet the Trinity still works flawlessly). The semi-canonical Expansion Pack Cataclysm has a fourth hyperspace core, whose capabilities are on par with the Progenitor Far Jumpers (except it was built a million years ago), except that it came from another galaxy on an experimental exploration ship called the Naggarok. Besides the extremely-advanced hyperdrive, the ship also has inertialess sublight drives (allowing the massive craft to zip around the battlefield faster than any fighter), extremely-precise long-range ion cannons (able to swat fighters like gnats), and a powerful Phase Disassembler Array that can convert even a dreadnought into energy in a matter of seconds (said energy can then be used to build cruise missiles). While the ship is destroyed in the Final Battle of the game, the tech inside it likely fits this trope. In the Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak prequel, we learn that the nomadic Gaalsien were able to reverse-engineer some of the tech from ships that crashed in the Kharakian desert (thanks to interference thrown up by the Far Jumper on the planet). This allows their vehicles to hover, whereas the Northern Coalition utilizes traditional treads and wheels for locomotion.
Black Box / int_17bfcf60	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_17bfcf60	featureConfidence	1.0
Homeworld (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_17bfcf60
Black Box / int_17fa5f0a	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_17fa5f0a	comment	The titular Deathly Hallows of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: a wand more powerful (and less "loyal") than any other, an invisibility cloak that never stops working (as invisibility cloaks in that universe are wont to do), and a stone that can summon the shades of the dead from the afterlife. Legend has it that they were created by the Grim Reaper himself and gifted to three brothers. Dumbledore speculates that it's more likely that said brothers were just prodigiously talented magical craftsmen. Whatever the case, no one has been able to replicate their three masterworks.
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Black Box / int_17fa5f0a	featureConfidence	1.0
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows	hasFeature	Black Box / int_17fa5f0a
Black Box / int_187d570b	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_187d570b	comment	Devil May Cry 5: Cavaliere is one. Nico's report mentions that she can't figure out how it works, and even Dante has no idea how he put it together.
Black Box / int_187d570b	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_187d570b	featureConfidence	1.0
Devil May Cry 5 (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_187d570b
Black Box / int_18ce7450	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_18ce7450	comment	Hellsinker: Deadliar's previous nickname was Blackbox in true spirit of this this trope since no one had any idea how he operated and produced the results he did.
Black Box / int_18ce7450	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_18ce7450	featureConfidence	1.0
Hellsinker (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_18ce7450
Black Box / int_1be9854a	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_1be9854a	comment	The sentinel stations in Sound of the Sky. Felicia points out that they're just checking to see if they still work and there's nothing that can be done if they're broken. NoÃ«l even calls them a black box.
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Black Box / int_1be9854a	featureConfidence	1.0
Sound of the Sky	hasFeature	Black Box / int_1be9854a
Black Box / int_21938c93	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_21938c93	comment	Avengers: Age of Ultron has the Staff, which HYDRA uses to conduct experiments in giving folk superpowers and developing artificial intelligence... somehow. The implication is they were just throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck, since they only come out the other end with a lot of non-functioning robots and only two traumatized teens with superpowers. Later on, it's implied the Staff, which is alive in some form, is what brings Ultron to full sentience.
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Black Box / int_25305527	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_25305527	comment	.hack: CC Corp's The World, the MMORPG that serves as the setting of the series, is basically Black Box: The Game. The World is actually an updated version of Fragment, a game that CC Corp did not develop but simply acquired from a German programmer called Harald Hoerwick who sold it to the company for absolutely nothing. Hoerwick based the game on the epic poem Epitaph of Twilight by Emma Wielant. After Emma's tragic death in a car accident, Hoerwick became obsessed with immortalizing her work as well as his love for her through Fragment. The general public knows nothing about this, and even among CC Corp, very little is know about how the game actually functions. To top it all, only a handful of programmers of the company are aware of the existence of a black box inside Fragment and how any attempt to decipher it ended in failure. When Fragment was updated to the retail version of The World, the Black Box remained in the game's code. It was later discovered that the Black Box was actually a womb for a new breed of Artificial Intelligence, and was designed to create an "Ultimate A.I." based on the personality data of the players of The World. Along with this, Hoerwick created a program called Morganna that would act like a caretaker and oversee the birth of the Ultimate A.I. Problems arise when Morganna realized that once the A.I was born, she would have no purpose left. Unable to process this, she attempted to stall the growth of the A.I indefinitely, resulting in many of the events in the series.
Black Box / int_25305527	featureApplicability	1.0
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.hack (Franchise)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_25305527
Black Box / int_2570727d	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_2570727d	comment	In The Sun Eater, even if the Solan Empire wanted to recreate the reality-warping Star Killing weapons of the ancient Mericanii A.I., they can't and these have since become Lost Technology owned by the immortal Fallen Hero Kharn Sagara. That's because when these weapons were made, the Mericanii A.I. had upgraded themselves into being Mechanical Abomination intelligences and were on the cusp of ascending into becoming Cosmic Entities until they were destroyed by the God-Emperor. Even the brightest genetically-engineered humans can't fully understand them.
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Black Box / int_2acb12c5	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_2acb12c5	comment	X: Played with through the gates. While operation is terribly easy — push a spaceship in one gate, and it'll pop out the other gate in the pair a few seconds later, no matter how far away — no one in the central interstellar trade system understands anything but the lies-to-children version of how they work. While there are a few scientists capable of repairing damaged gates, no one even thinks about trying replication or reconfiguration, and the irregular outages or changes in the system caused by meddling precursors is treated like mystery or even legend where it's not just a natural risk of the gates. The species that actually made the system in the first place not only consider it outside of the range of understanding of the normal races, they think it's impossible for a species to understand without getting a few points higher on the Kardashev scale. Then the Terran humans get involved, and not only get the theory down and create a new gate on their own, but also create a Jumpdrive that's a separate Black Box to everyone else in the setting; when the test ship (the Xperimental Shuttle) gets dumped in the X-Universe by a Blind Jump in X: Beyond the Frontier, nobody can repair it; not even the pilot after he establishes a MegaCorp solely to repair it to get back home. The ship can be re-acquired thirty years later in X3: Terran Conflict, where it's still unknowable and impossible to reverse engineer; presumably, the now reconnected Earth State isn't helping the player to reproduce it.
Black Box / int_2acb12c5	featureApplicability	1.0
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X (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_2acb12c5
Black Box / int_2ea6ae26	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_2ea6ae26	comment	In Star Trek: Picard, we learn that Bruce Maddox (who's been communicating with Data in order to figure out how to make more androids) was forced by Starfleet to develop the A500 series of androids. They were inferior to Data but were able to perform manual labor at the Utopia Planitia shipyards. Then they suddenly turned on their masters and destroyed the shipyards. The attack left tens of thousands dead and ignited the Martian atmosphere. Subsequently, a ban on synths was instituted. Maddox and Altan Inigo Soong, Data's creator's biological son, formed a small colony on Coppelius and began to use a radical new method to extrapolate Data's mind left in B4 into his "children." Some shared Data's gold complexion, while newer models were designed to pass for humans and even fool scans. After the events of season 1, the synth ban was lifted, and Coppelians were offered Federation membership. At the same time, Soong was also working on a special synth that could be used to transfer his consciousness into in order to cheat death. Agnes Jurati helped him perfect the synth and the mind transfer procedure. However, they ended up having to use the synth to save Picard, whose biological body was dying. Afterwards, Soong spent the rest of his (short) life working at a Section 31 facility on a new android that would combine Data, Lore, B4, and Lal.
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Star Trek: Picard	hasFeature	Black Box / int_2ea6ae26
Black Box / int_305faa76	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_305faa76	comment	In Spacetrawler, it's implied that the eponymous spacetrawlers (which the entire galaxy relies on to enable faster-than-light travel and matter synthesis from space debris) are so complicated that only the Technopath Eebs can understand and construct them. It's eventually revealed that their construction is less complicated than implied, but the details are so horrific that it's no surprise that the builders insist on keeping them secret.
Black Box / int_305faa76	featureApplicability	1.0
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Spacetrawler (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_305faa76
Black Box / int_326df059	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_326df059	comment	This is a main plot point in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. The Haydonites provide humans with shadow technology which greatly aids them in fighting Invid, but the technological information supplied by Haydonites is incomplete, so even though the shadow devices were built by humans themselves, they still have flaws which Haydonites exploit when they attack humans.
Black Box / int_326df059	featureApplicability	1.0
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Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles	hasFeature	Black Box / int_326df059
Black Box / int_3789b947	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_3789b947	comment	In Death or Glory, anything produced by the Swarm is so far beyond what the rest of The Alliance can do that they can't even grasp the principle behind the functionality. On the other hand, they have managed to at least learn to produce exact copies of some of the devices. The same applies to any piece of Departed tech that's discovered.
Black Box / int_3789b947	featureApplicability	1.0
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Death or Glory	hasFeature	Black Box / int_3789b947
Black Box / int_37b97897	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_37b97897	comment	In Tora Kiss â€“ A School Odyssey, we have Academy Island and the Monument. Structures of unknown origins carrying huge amounts of information, some of it on science and technology that are light years ahead of anything on Earth. People can access that information to some extent, but have no idea how the database holding it works or where it comes from.
Black Box / int_37b97897	featureApplicability	1.0
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Tora Kiss – A School Odyssey (Manga)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_37b97897
Black Box / int_3b73c4a0	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_3b73c4a0	comment	Caprica has New Cap City. In effect, it is a virtual reality MMORPG located on their version of the Dark Net. It is an enormous city that doesn't seem to end, and nearly everything is trying to kill you. Most people use it like GTA, while teenagers use it to engage in orgies and drug use without harm, although a few are devoted to unlocking its mysteries. The one rule to play is that you only get one life, and are immediately and permanently locked out if you die. Its origins, and the reasons for its existence, are a complete mystery to everyone. Even the creator of the V-World technology has no idea who built it or why. The hardcore gamers all insist that there must be some reason or point to it, and are obsessed with the idea of "beating" the game, even though it doesn't seem to work that way. Eventually the point is rendered moot when the protagonist reshapes the whole world into a forest fantasy kingdom full of dragons. Really.
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Caprica	hasFeature	Black Box / int_3b73c4a0
Black Box / int_3d22c14b	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_3d22c14b	comment	The GN drives in Mobile Suit Gundam 00. GN Drive technology can be mass produced in months (reversed engineered by The Federation from the GN-X drive model), but true GN Drives, the ones which emit green "pure" particles used by Celestial Being's Gundams, are equipped with a "Topological Defect" Blanket, which can only be manufactured around Jupiter with a total production time of six years. Somehow harnessing the power of topological defects (a mathematical solution involving differential equations) allows the drive to funnel energy back into itself, allowing for unlimited operation time. Additionally, Celestial Being's true GN Drives have a literal black box which no-one could figure out, which turns out to contain the data for the Gundams' Trans-Am Function and the Twin-Drive System.
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Mobile Suit Gundam 00	hasFeature	Black Box / int_3d22c14b
Black Box / int_3e868356	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_3e868356	comment	The first three T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents were all recipients of black boxes. As their origin shows, their devices were found amid the rubble of the lab of a famous inventor, who had been killed by minions of the Warlord. The Warlord's mooks had looted the place, but missed a few items. Several early stories were about the agents discovering drawbacks to their new powers.
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THUNDERAgents	hasFeature	Black Box / int_3e868356
Black Box / int_401c5a83	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_401c5a83	comment	Star-Lord has his Element Gun, given to him by the Master of the Sun, er... his father when he was just a teenager. Quill's carried it all the way up through to the modern day, but in Guardians of the Galaxy (2020), he notes he's modified it, changed its appearance, and even managed to build a spare... and he still has no idea how it actually works.
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Star-Lord (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_401c5a83
Black Box / int_41fa3e3	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_41fa3e3	comment	The Machine of Death is a device that takes a person's blood sample and predicts how that person will die. It's cheap to use and possible to duplicate, but no one knows how it works.
Black Box / int_41fa3e3	featureApplicability	1.0
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Machine of Death	hasFeature	Black Box / int_41fa3e3
Black Box / int_42ffb88e	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_42ffb88e	comment	SCP Foundation: The Foundation classifies objects into three broad categories: Safe, Euclid, and Keter. Safe objects' properties are researched enough that the foundation knows what the object does, even if it's not completely understood why it works. Most "black boxes" would fall into this category, since the input and output are stable. Note that here, "Safe" means "understood" and "easy to contain", not "non-dangerous".note SCP-2501, for instance, is an inanimate, wearable claw that can crush any object in its user's field of view through a pinching motion. Up to and including astronomical objects. Easy to contain? yes. Understood? Yes. Potentially world-ending? Also yes. SCP-914 is a more literal Black Box than most; it's an incredibly complex mechanical machine into which you put an object, and it comes out "refined" from the other end.
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SCP Foundation (Website)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_42ffb88e
Black Box / int_43e9884a	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_43e9884a	comment	Willis Linsay's stepper boxes in The Long Earth, which enable people to step from one world to another in an endless chain of parallel universes. They are cheap, easy to build using basic electronic components and powered by a potato. And nobody can figure out how they work. Linsay's daughter is a natural stepper, but since nobody knows how that works either, it's not clear how it helped him invent the box.
Black Box / int_43e9884a	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Long Earth	hasFeature	Black Box / int_43e9884a
Black Box / int_44014b66	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_44014b66	comment	The Machine in Contact is Imported Alien Phlebotinum. Humans are given plans for a Machine, but not an explanation of what it's supposed to do or how it does it. When it's activated, the chair for the occupant drops straight through in a matter of seconds, while 18 hours passes for the occupant, causing onlookers to think that it didn't work. One scientist remarks that the video recording from the chair consists of 18 hours of static, which he is unable to explain.
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Contact	hasFeature	Black Box / int_44014b66
Black Box / int_44127c7c	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_44127c7c	comment	Power Rangers: A literal black box is used as a plot point in the season finale of Turbo, and in the third episode of In Space; nothing is mentioned about the technology inside of it (possibly to avoid Technobabble or add some mystery to it), but it is stated that it contains codes to allow the Astro Megaship to transform into the Astro Megazord.
Black Box / int_44127c7c	featureApplicability	1.0
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Power Rangers (Franchise)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_44127c7c
Black Box / int_44fe781e	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_44fe781e	comment	The development of the Evangelions in Neon Genesis Evangelion is very much along the lines of this trope, with Misato even namedropping it in Episode 20. The Reveal is that they were constructed using Angel DNA, but due to their Eldritch Abomination nature, they're unpredictable and dangerous to even use. The S2 engine (recovered from an Angel corpse) is a particularly fitting example. American attempts to reverse engineer the device and implant it in an Eva result in a massive disaster — the test engine and Eva Unit-04 vanishes, along with the entire research facility and all other objects in a 50-mile radius.
Black Box / int_44fe781e	featureApplicability	1.0
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Neon Genesis Evangelion	hasFeature	Black Box / int_44fe781e
Black Box / int_468bebb0	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_468bebb0	comment	Hex in Discworld (above) was based on one of Sir Terry Pratchett's own computers, a ZX Spectrum he tinkered with and added hardware to until it did what he wanted. Eventually he lost track of it all, and there were components which he couldn't remember or deduce the purpose of, but it you took them out then everything stopped working.
Black Box / int_468bebb0	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_468bebb0	featureConfidence	1.0
Discworld	hasFeature	Black Box / int_468bebb0
Black Box / int_4937d0d9	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_4937d0d9	comment	In Sins of a Solar Empire, the Advent field Phase Inhibitors stolen from the TEC, who use Phase Inhibitors captured from the Vasari... who also don't know how Phase Inhibitors work, and simply field copies of ones that they found.
Black Box / int_4937d0d9	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_4937d0d9	featureConfidence	1.0
Sins of a Solar Empire (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_4937d0d9
Black Box / int_4e182290	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_4e182290	comment	In The Stars Are Cold Toys, the rat-like Alari outfit a human Buran shuttle with plasma engines for the mission. When the protagonist asks the shuttle's commander if it's possible to study and replicate this tech on Earth, the commander grimly replies that it is... in about a hundred years. Despite this, even this addition is a strict violation of the Conclave's rule prohibiting Weaker races from sharing technology.
Black Box / int_4e182290	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_4e182290	featureConfidence	1.0
The Stars Are Cold Toys	hasFeature	Black Box / int_4e182290
Black Box / int_4e5ee12b	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_4e5ee12b	comment	The Three Worlds Cycle: In the Well of Echoes quartet, the clankers draw energy from nodes. No one knows why it works, but there are some illegal books that speculate on these topics. This becomes a major problem when nodes start to fail, because the humans depend upon clankers to fend off the lyrinx that have been killing the human race.
Black Box / int_4e5ee12b	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_4e5ee12b	featureConfidence	1.0
The Three Worlds Cycle	hasFeature	Black Box / int_4e5ee12b
Black Box / int_4f435544	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_4f435544	comment	Quoth the Bliss Stage: Ignition Stage rulebook: "In the center of every ANIMa creche lies a scavenged piece of an alien's brain. It's possible that this is the only thing that an ANIMa requires to function, and that the rest of the machine is there to inspire more confidence on the part of the pilots."
Black Box / int_4f435544	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_4f435544	featureConfidence	1.0
Bliss Stage (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_4f435544
Black Box / int_514b9ee5	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_514b9ee5	comment	No one in the world of SIGNALIS really knows how does the Bioresonance work and what is its origin. Despite that, it's widely used for terraforming planets, achieving artifical gravity and creating Replikas. As one document in the game even states, constant reliance on Bioresonance has led to the stagnation of all conventional tech by almost a century.
Black Box / int_514b9ee5	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_514b9ee5	featureConfidence	1.0
SIGNALIS (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_514b9ee5
Black Box / int_53dc3731	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_53dc3731	comment	Atomic Robo's heart was constructed by Nikola Tesla using means that not even Robo can even take a guess at, and by the 2010s, the world's leading nuclear physicist couldn't even come close to recreating it even with access to the most advanced lab and unlimited funding. He could make a theoretical copy, but it would only operate half as effectively as the original, would be significantly larger, and would be constructed mostly out of material that doesn't exist. The eventual replacement is also a black box, which is constructed by delegating the task to one of the world's most advanced AI's, which at that point is in a dead-but-dreaming kind of state, which takes the manufacturing task on board, does something and spits out a new heart that works slightly better than the original but is just as baffling.
Black Box / int_53dc3731	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_53dc3731	featureConfidence	1.0
Atomic Robo / Comicbook	hasFeature	Black Box / int_53dc3731
Black Box / int_55b0d97b	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_55b0d97b	comment	Variable Star has a living black box in the form of Relativists. These are men and women who can coax a ship's engines to accelerate to relativistic speed apparently by Contemplating Their Navels. The Relativists think up a number of poetic descriptions of what they do all day to keep the engines going, but in the end, they admit that even they aren't really sure how they're doing it.
Black Box / int_55b0d97b	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_55b0d97b	featureConfidence	1.0
Variable Star	hasFeature	Black Box / int_55b0d97b
Black Box / int_5651ab17	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_5651ab17	comment	The O/BEC processors in Blind Lake. Created by accident due to the use of self-rewriting code, not even the scientists who operate them are quite certain how they do what they do. There are only two in existence; all attempts to make a third by replicating the conditions that led to the first two have failed.
Black Box / int_5651ab17	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_5651ab17	featureConfidence	1.0
Blind Lake	hasFeature	Black Box / int_5651ab17
Black Box / int_5908ee91	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_5908ee91	comment	The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Dwarven technology is almost always a Black Box of some kind whenever anyone in the game has to use it to accomplish a task. The most common example is "Dwarven metal", which is a unique alloy that resembles bronze but never dulls or corrodes. Nobody by the time the game takes place knows how to create it since the Dwemer have vanished, so smelting it essentially involves recycling pieces of their scrap metal.
Black Box / int_5908ee91	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_5908ee91	featureConfidence	1.0
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_5908ee91
Black Box / int_5b8afa32	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_5b8afa32	comment	GaoGaiGar: In one flashback, characters actually discuss a strange interface on Galeon, an alien mecha lion, and refer to it as a Black Box. Once they figure out how to activate it, it contains designs for half the Applied Phlebotinum in the show.
Black Box / int_5b8afa32	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_5b8afa32	featureConfidence	1.0
GaoGaiGar	hasFeature	Black Box / int_5b8afa32
Black Box / int_5e150650	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_5e150650	comment	Subverted in Exalted. Many of the great and wondrous artifacts can be understood... it's just that most of the great designers would have been among the Solar Exalted, who were murdered and had their Exaltations sealed away so they couldn't reincarnate. It doesn't help that the Solars specifically designed many artifacts to only function for Solars... because they never imagined there would be a time when they weren't around. In theory, any Celestial Exalt (or Terrestrial of sufficient age and experience) could bring themselves to understand the complex workings of Solar artifice. The problem is that reaching that level of excellence is much harder for non-Solars, they can't achieve nearly the same level of speed, and besides they've been a bit distracted since then.
Black Box / int_5e150650	featureApplicability	-0.3
Black Box / int_5e150650	featureConfidence	1.0
Exalted (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_5e150650
Black Box / int_605dd875	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_605dd875	comment	Stargate-verse: The titular Stargate itself is a black box. It was built by the Ancients. They have figured out how to hook computers and power up to it and send signals to it. However, the Stargate itself is way beyond Earth human tech (though not beyond Tollan's tech, who do manage to manufacture their own), though that might have been because they had the help of the Asgard, who knew the Ancients and know the gate system as well as anyone bar the Ancients themselves. When summing up the Tollan just before they go to their new planet, Daniel says, "They're smarter than us." and then, after seeing the new gate, ruefully mutters, "Much, much smarter than us." Stargate SG-1 often adapts lesser versions of the technology the crew encounters from other planets. "It doesn't quite work like the original" is commonly stated. However, they're far more aware than most Black Box users of the potential for unexpected side effects.In fact, nearly every piece of technology they pick up is mentioned to be sent off to Area 51, either in the episode where it's introduced, or when they decide to use it again. This leads to situations that look like Forgotten Phlebotinum, until two or three years down the line where the device pops up again. Except for anything that comes with a trigger (Zat guns, anyone?) which is usually put into active service immediately. Which should come as a surprise to nobody, since military usage (including stuff that makes an Earth-Shattering Kaboom) is usually the first application mankind can think off for any given tech. Naquadria bombs, anyone? Which makes sense in a way, as acquiring weapons to defend Earth is the SGC's first mission. In Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe, the protagonists uncover treasure troves of Ancient and alien technology. Though they know how to operate the Ancient technology they find (most of the time), they don't know their exact inner workings. The Goa'uld, on the other hand, make very little effort to study the Ancient technology they use. They've based their empire on things like the Stargates and ring transporters, but they really have no idea how any of it works. There are, however, exceptions to the rule. The biggest of them is Ba'al, a System Lord who knows more than any other Goa'uld (or human) how the gates work (with the possible exception of Anubis). When one human scientist figures out how to infect a gate with a virus that locks it down, Ba'al quickly reverse-engineers the virus and modifies it to infect the entire gate network. Later on, they require Ba'al's help to help with some gate coding, and he's able to use portable human computers just fine (it helps that he has spent some time on Earth as a corporate CEO). At one point, the Tollan offer Earth one of their ion cannons that can one-shot a Goa'uld Ha'tak mothership. However, after studying the schematics, Carter explains that there's no way Earth's science can build the cannons in at least decades (possibly centuries). There's also the fact that Tollan tech lacks any mechanical parts, wires, or anything else a human scientist or engineer might recognize. They habitually use phasing tech to walk through walls, whereas only one Ancient scientist was able to make something similar (and kept it a secret). The Tau'ri are better at reverse-engineering actual alien technology than technology of fellow humans.
Black Box / int_605dd875	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_605dd875	featureConfidence	1.0
Stargate-verse (Franchise)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_605dd875
Black Box / int_63e18bb	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_63e18bb	comment	In The League of Peoples 'Verse, the Technocracy has pretty much no idea about how most of its own technology works, as the majority of it was just handed to humanity by Sufficiently Advanced Aliens.
Black Box / int_63e18bb	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_63e18bb	featureConfidence	1.0
The League of Peoples 'Verse	hasFeature	Black Box / int_63e18bb
Black Box / int_65d07453	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_65d07453	comment	In Captain America: The First Avenger, when the Red Skull finds the glowing blue Tesseract (a version of the all-powerful cosmic cube of marvel comics) he uses it as an energy source for his tanks and weapons. Until his supposed death when the cube sustained damage from Captain America's shield and began to warp reality itself, he only saw it as an unlimited power source. Ditto for the scientists on the American side, who attempted to harvest the minuscule yet overwhelming bits of energy powering the guns (blasting a hole in one of the research facilities when they tried to discover its properties).
Black Box / int_65d07453	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_65d07453	featureConfidence	1.0
Captain America: The First Avenger	hasFeature	Black Box / int_65d07453
Black Box / int_69d15cc0	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_69d15cc0	comment	Marvel Cinematic Universe: In Captain America: The First Avenger, when the Red Skull finds the glowing blue Tesseract (a version of the all-powerful cosmic cube of marvel comics) he uses it as an energy source for his tanks and weapons. Until his supposed death when the cube sustained damage from Captain America's shield and began to warp reality itself, he only saw it as an unlimited power source. Ditto for the scientists on the American side, who attempted to harvest the minuscule yet overwhelming bits of energy powering the guns (blasting a hole in one of the research facilities when they tried to discover its properties). Avengers: Age of Ultron has the Staff, which HYDRA uses to conduct experiments in giving folk superpowers and developing artificial intelligence... somehow. The implication is they were just throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck, since they only come out the other end with a lot of non-functioning robots and only two traumatized teens with superpowers. Later on, it's implied the Staff, which is alive in some form, is what brings Ultron to full sentience. It's already implied in The Avengers (2012) that there's more to the Tesseract than Red Skull's experiments, but both the Tesseract and the Staff are later revealed to be Infinity Stones, representing a fundamental aspect of the Universe itself, and become the core plot of Avengers: Infinity War. Tony Stark's superscience had many demonstrations throughout the franchise, so Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home have what amount to Stark Industries black boxes, in the former a device in Tony's jet that Peter uses to create an advanced Spidey suit, and in the latter a machine in one of Tony's old bunkers that develops whatever could fix the conditions of the universe-hopping villains (and in a demonstration of "no easy replacements", once the Green Goblin destroys the thing it takes three Spider-Men to finish the research).
Black Box / int_69d15cc0	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_69d15cc0	featureConfidence	1.0
Marvel Cinematic Universe (Franchise)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_69d15cc0
Black Box / int_69daf29	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_69daf29	comment	Sydney's Orbs in Grrl Power. Sydney found them while SCUBA diving and they bonded to her, allowing her to use their powers. One allows her to fly as well as open wormholes, one allows her to create a nigh-indestructible forcefield, one allows her to create a pseudopod made of pure energy, and one allows her incredibly powerful True Sight, as well as telepresence and the ability to teleport to her telepresence projection. At the start of the series, there are two orbs whose functions are a complete mystery one of those orbs is eventually revealed to create breathable air, at the very least. Finally, the orbs seem to have the ability to "level up" (seemingly) after Sydney defeats powerful opponents, and even the upgrade system is a Black Box, as the upgrade nodes are unlabeled, and Sydney has to spend her upgrades blindly, hoping for something useful. It's unclear if the nature of the orbs is technological, magical, or some combination of both. It's also repeatedly suggested that Sydney is only tapping into a fraction of their true power. The wormholes that she can open are referred to as "Aetheric Causeways," and usually require massive power sources (such as those found on city-sized spaceships) in order to open them. Krona, a sorcerer with a unique "programming" style of magic takes a look at the orbs and informs Sydney that, with the information contained within the orbs, her magic would be capable of completely altering fundamental forces of reality, such as gravity.
Black Box / int_69daf29	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_69daf29	featureConfidence	1.0
Grrl Power (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_69daf29
Black Box / int_6ac55ec7	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_6ac55ec7	comment	In Dungeons & Dragons itself (regardless of campaign setting), artifacts are typically this. Regular magic items can typically be made by spellcasters fairly reliably, depending on the power of the item. Artifacts, on the other hand, generally greatly exceed the power of other magic items and are not something that modern wizards and clerics (especially those who are player characters) can build anymore. Typically, they were crafted by or at least with the aid of a god or some other being of phenomenal power, or a highly advanced precursor civilization (which may have been human or dwarven or elven, or it might have been from some weird species of sapient frogs or dragons or whatever that's no longer around anymore) that had much more advanced knowledge of how magic worked than anyone living does. The Suel Empire and Netherill Empire are both known for the powerful artifacts that modern spellcasters might figure out how to use the basic functions of if they study them long enough, but can't come close to reproducing them and generally have no idea of their true capabilities.
Black Box / int_6ac55ec7	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_6ac55ec7	featureConfidence	1.0
Dungeons & Dragons (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_6ac55ec7
Black Box / int_6c1234ed	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_6c1234ed	comment	Dwarf Fortress: Not only is Toady One very protective of the source code behind his masterwork, but his software development skills are almost entirely self-taught. The handful of people who have been entrusted with backup copies of it have attested that the code is almost impenetrable to mere mortals. Really, this can apply to just about anything a player creates in the game. Fortresses can get so elaborate that critical functions are simply forgotten or change completely as they are built upon; this especially applies to Succession Games, since players tend to not use the in-game labelling function. Many a fortress has run into fun because the guy running it forgets which lever opens the door to the mess hall and which one activates the fortress' lava-based self-destruct. A truly stand-out example has to be where one Let's Play ended up creating a fortress so convoluted that one room ended up becoming its own Pocket Dimension. (Not literally — but for some reason, no player was ever able to locate that room unless they zoomed in on a dwarf who was already inside it.)
Black Box / int_6c1234ed	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_6c1234ed	featureConfidence	1.0
Dwarf Fortress (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_6c1234ed
Black Box / int_700279ec	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_700279ec	comment	Drive (Dave Kellett): The human Empire's Ring Drive. Only members of "la Familia" who rule the Empire are even allowed to see the inner workings, and they don't know how it works, just how to maintain or duplicate it, because their ancestor reverse-engineered it from a crashed alien ship.
Black Box / int_700279ec	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_700279ec	featureConfidence	1.0
Drive (Dave Kellett) (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_700279ec
Black Box / int_70814599	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_70814599	comment	Stargate SG-1 often adapts lesser versions of the technology the crew encounters from other planets. "It doesn't quite work like the original" is commonly stated. However, they're far more aware than most Black Box users of the potential for unexpected side effects.In fact, nearly every piece of technology they pick up is mentioned to be sent off to Area 51, either in the episode where it's introduced, or when they decide to use it again. This leads to situations that look like Forgotten Phlebotinum, until two or three years down the line where the device pops up again. Except for anything that comes with a trigger (Zat guns, anyone?) which is usually put into active service immediately. Which should come as a surprise to nobody, since military usage (including stuff that makes an Earth-Shattering Kaboom) is usually the first application mankind can think off for any given tech. Naquadria bombs, anyone? Which makes sense in a way, as acquiring weapons to defend Earth is the SGC's first mission.
Black Box / int_70814599	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_70814599	featureConfidence	1.0
Stargate SG-1	hasFeature	Black Box / int_70814599
Black Box / int_755b343f	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_755b343f	comment	In Halo, much of Forerunner technology is still considered this by the galaxy's current races, despite their best efforts to reverse-engineer it: Not only is almost all of Covenant's technology reverse-engineered from Forerunner relics, but a good percentage of their equipment is directly constructed by prehistoric Forerunner machinery, and some high-end Covenant ships even have Forerunner components directly installed. However, due to the Covenant worshipping the Forerunners as gods, even just trying to better understand Forerunner technology runs the risk of being seen as heresy. For this reason, the Covenant do not use even their own knock-off technology very efficiently, much less the Forerunner originals. Proper Forerunner technology is still largely a mystery to humans, despite the occasional reverse-engineering success. For example, humanity's post-war flagship Infinity has several Forerunner components installed, including its slipspace drive. However, not even the ship's chief scientist quite understands how said components actually work. In Spartan Ops, one frustrated human scientist describes the current state of his species' research on Forerunner technology as such:
Black Box / int_755b343f	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_755b343f	featureConfidence	1.0
Halo (Franchise)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_755b343f
Black Box / int_760bceb6	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_760bceb6	comment	In Eureka Seven AO, all IFOs are equipped with a "Third Engine" based on technology found in the Nirvash. They know it can use trapar as fuel, giving the IFO theoretically limitless flight time, and the Nirvash has increased speed and maneuverability while using it, but they have no idea how to turn it on or how it does these things. Elena and Fleur do eventually manage to get theirs working, but it only lasts as long as it needs to for them to rescue Ao, then shuts off almost immediately once he's free. Elena credits The Power of Love, which, given the previous series, is most likely the exact reason it worked. It activates a second time for Fleur in the finale, but nothing comes of that.
Black Box / int_760bceb6	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_760bceb6	featureConfidence	1.0
Eureka Seven AO	hasFeature	Black Box / int_760bceb6
Black Box / int_7668653b	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_7668653b	comment	The third game kicks this up with the Crucible, a light flung into the future so many times that barely anyone who tried to build it understood what it was or what it did. Not even the Protheans were sure how it even operated, and they nearly finished the damn thing before the Reapers completed their invasion. It's hammered home numerous times through the game that it could do damn near anything because while there are easily understandable blueprints for it, there's no data on how to use it or what it does. At one point Commander Shepard likens the situation to a child playing with his father's gun. It turns out to be little more than a giant power source used to brute-force hack the Citadel and Relay network to either destroy or control all Reapers. It can alternatively forcibly convert all organic and machine life into cyborgs if certain conditions are met, but this was apparently not an intentional part of the design.
Black Box / int_7668653b	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_7668653b	featureConfidence	1.0
Mass Effect 3 (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_7668653b
Black Box / int_778c0c2c	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_778c0c2c	comment	In Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, no one knows how the power source of the airships works.
Black Box / int_778c0c2c	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_778c0c2c	featureConfidence	1.0
Dirge of Cerberus (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_778c0c2c
Black Box / int_7988cb68	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_7988cb68	comment	Mass Effect: The Citadel and mass relays are thought to be built by the Protheans. Humans and other races use them, though their inner workings and construction are poorly understood, and any attempt to understand them is regarded as an exercise in futility. It turns out that a race of Abusive Precursors, the Reapers, were the real builders of these wonders, and the Protheans were just barely figuring out the technology themselves when they were wiped out. Matriarch Aethyta very much dislikes the black box nature of the relays and once proposed trying to study relays more intimately, maybe even building one. As she puts it, the other Matriarchs "laughed the blue off my ass." The design of their conventional Faster-Than-Light Travel system is much the same, being almost entirely reverse-engineered from the Protheans. This means that they have no idea how to disengage certain safety protocols that prevent ships from being flown into planets or other vessels at relativistic velocities. While this is generally a good thing, it prevents the military from using this tactic against the Reapers. The third game kicks this up with the Crucible, a light flung into the future so many times that barely anyone who tried to build it understood what it was or what it did. Not even the Protheans were sure how it even operated, and they nearly finished the damn thing before the Reapers completed their invasion. It's hammered home numerous times through the game that it could do damn near anything because while there are easily understandable blueprints for it, there's no data on how to use it or what it does. At one point Commander Shepard likens the situation to a child playing with his father's gun. It turns out to be little more than a giant power source used to brute-force hack the Citadel and Relay network to either destroy or control all Reapers. It can alternatively forcibly convert all organic and machine life into cyborgs if certain conditions are met, but this was apparently not an intentional part of the design. Mass Effect: Andromeda has a similar situation with the Remnant Vaults. The Andromeda Initiative finds out pretty quickly that the Vaults are able to terraform entire planets, which is very good because the planets they had intended to settle had been environmentally ruined by the Scourge. But nobody has a clue how any of the Remnant technology actually works, and the dangers of relying on it are pointed out.
Black Box / int_7988cb68	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_7988cb68	featureConfidence	1.0
Mass Effect (Franchise)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_7988cb68
Black Box / int_7a2e12e5	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_7a2e12e5	comment	Tony Stark's superscience had many demonstrations throughout the franchise, so Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home have what amount to Stark Industries black boxes, in the former a device in Tony's jet that Peter uses to create an advanced Spidey suit, and in the latter a machine in one of Tony's old bunkers that develops whatever could fix the conditions of the universe-hopping villains (and in a demonstration of "no easy replacements", once the Green Goblin destroys the thing it takes three Spider-Men to finish the research).
Black Box / int_7a2e12e5	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_7a2e12e5	featureConfidence	1.0
Spider-Man: Far From Home	hasFeature	Black Box / int_7a2e12e5
Black Box / int_7c48915b	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_7c48915b	comment	Gunnerkrigg Court: Anja and Donlan created a computer that runs on magic, which even they don't fully understand the workings of. They're the only ones who use it — the rest of the Court distrusts it precisely because it's a Black Box. Diego's Super Prototype robots (which also appear to run on a combination of magic and technology) are also black boxes. They have no visible power source, nor means of moving their limbs. They are golems made by a master mechanician who wrote their "OS" in what under a magnifying glass turns out to be a small book worth of runes. Modern robots are black boxes even while self-documenting. When asked to print their operating code, one produced a 3D image of some complex structure made of runes, with density requiring a microscope to read, without any sort of map legend, and neither derived from nor designed to be compatible with, any human languages, natural or programming (they are robot-built).
Black Box / int_7c48915b	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_7c48915b	featureConfidence	1.0
Gunnerkrigg Court (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_7c48915b
Black Box / int_80d8708a	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_80d8708a	comment	The titular Numenera are devices that for a number of reasons got enough RagnarÃ¶k Proofing to function thousands or even millions of years after having been created and the civilizations that made them fell... but not only are they so advanced that the setting treats them like magic, but they also didn't have enough RagnarÃ¶k Proofing to survive being used more than once after being unearthed—and because of said civilizations falling so long ago, the full knowledge of what they can do (let alone how to repair them) just doesn't exist anymore.
Black Box / int_80d8708a	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_80d8708a	featureConfidence	1.0
Numenera (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_80d8708a
Black Box / int_84dfb5d5	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_84dfb5d5	comment	Galactic Civilizations: Random events might result in your gaining a Precursor ship or two, which tend to be far stronger than anything you have for much of the game. You can't reverse-engineer the tech, but, by the end-game, you can build ships that are better. According to the manual, the Arceans intended humans to fall into this trap when making First Contact via a sublight probe. They transmitted the plans for building a hyperspace gate, deliberately modified by them to prevent humans from shutting the gate off, allowing the Arceans to invade Earth. Subverted, in that the humans said "hell no" and started trying to reverse-engineer the thing and figure out a way to make it better. They succeed by virtue of having developed fusion power and being able to minimize a "gate" into a portable hyperdrive. Then some idiot decides to send the plans to everyone else.
Black Box / int_84dfb5d5	featureApplicability	-0.3
Black Box / int_84dfb5d5	featureConfidence	1.0
Galactic Civilizations (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_84dfb5d5
Black Box / int_862e754d	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_862e754d	comment	In the Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak prequel, we learn that the nomadic Gaalsien were able to reverse-engineer some of the tech from ships that crashed in the Kharakian desert (thanks to interference thrown up by the Far Jumper on the planet). This allows their vehicles to hover, whereas the Northern Coalition utilizes traditional treads and wheels for locomotion.
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Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_862e754d
Black Box / int_8ebf0402	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_8ebf0402	comment	In Westward, Escherspace — a form of Faster-Than-Light Travel — appears to be a Black Box. Publicly, the government claims that "only a few scientists" know how it works; in reality, it's strongly hinted that only the mysterious alien Phobos may be capable of understanding it, and he must personally work the controls when the webcomic's eponymous Cool Starship makes an interstellar jump.
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Westward (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_8ebf0402
Black Box / int_8ec33a87	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_8ec33a87	comment	Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Poppi is an Artificial Blade who is the product of three generations of brilliant Nopon engineers (Soosoo, Tatazo, and Tora) having created and refined the process, with Tora having actually taken the years of research into the concept plus the experimental and so-far unreproducible ether furnace of his grampypon's design into the process of constructing her. As a result, she has many features that not even her designers fully understand, not helped by Tora being such a recluse he added many extra features, and she has the capacity to upgrade even further.
Black Box / int_8ec33a87	featureApplicability	1.0
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Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_8ec33a87
Black Box / int_8ecd08c6	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_8ecd08c6	comment	The guidance system abroad the Russian communication satellite in Space Cowboys is a downplayed example — it's not an artifact of a lost civilization, it's just so archaic that no-one except the original creator understands it.
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Space Cowboys	hasFeature	Black Box / int_8ecd08c6
Black Box / int_90c73dda	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_90c73dda	comment	In Animorphs, the kids are given the power to morph by touching the Blue Box by the alien Elfangor right before he is eaten alive by Visser Three. Later, David shows up with the same blue box and it is used to give him morphing power even though no one present has any idea how the technology works. This happens later again when the Auxiliary Animorphs are created, and yet again when the Yeerks steal the blue box and use the morphing power to create their own soldiers with the morphing ability.
Black Box / int_90c73dda	featureApplicability	1.0
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Animorphs	hasFeature	Black Box / int_90c73dda
Black Box / int_90f42a9b	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_90f42a9b	comment	In The Wheel of Time, there are the ter'angreal (magical items), the secret of whose making has been lost for three thousand years. The Aes Sedai keep plenty of ter'angreal around for use as black boxes without understanding how they work, and many more items where they don't even know what they do.
Black Box / int_90f42a9b	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Wheel of Time	hasFeature	Black Box / int_90f42a9b
Black Box / int_91209b29	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_91209b29	comment	Xenosaga: KOS-MOS is an android built by Kevin Winnicot, but when she goes berserk and murders him she has to be rebuilt. Unfortunately, the only way Kevin's successors are capable of creating another KOS-MOS is to simply repair and (attempt to) reprogram the same prototype unit that killed him because he took the plans for her to his grave. As a result, the current KOS-MOS is treated like a faulty hand grenade which her development team is loath to admit they have zero control over if push comes to shove. She's laden with black box parts and programs, each with unknown functions, which come online at seemingly random intervals (like her Gnosis-obliterating X-Buster ability), often to shocking effect. Series protagonist (and KOS-MOS co-creator) Shion is only able to figure most of them out enough to rebuild KOS-MOS a second time after gaining access to Kevin's original plans via a time paradox. A great deal of the series' technology is the product of one man, Joachim Mizrahi. After he died on Militia during the Federation's invasion, a great amount of effort has been poured into piecing his prototypes back together, as well as reassembling his codex of knowledge: the Y-Data. Efforts to recreate his work from scratch by his rival Dr. Sellers amount to impressive, but fatally flawed knock-offs.
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Xenosaga (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_91209b29
Black Box / int_924b6d63	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_924b6d63	comment	Xenogears has Gears, the Humongous Mecha of the game. While the setting's current powers are capable of making their own, the best Gears are relics from previous wars between precursor civilizations, leading to an Archaeological Arms Race between the nations of Aveh and Kislev to recover weapons they don't fully understand. Protagonist Fei's Gear, Weltall, is comprised almost entirely of black boxes, something the Yggdrasil's Gear mechanic will comment on. Naturally it's the strongest Gear in the game, and new abilities will come online at seemingly random intervals, culminating in Weltall transforming into the titular Xenogears, a 100% Organic Technology Black Box. According to the Perfect Works book, most of the black boxes are either Ether amplifiers, or components used in its transformation between Weltall and Weltal-Id-.
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Xenogears (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_924b6d63
Black Box / int_95bd5a8e	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_95bd5a8e	comment	In Dishonored, whale oil is an incredibly efficient source of fuel, but no one really knows why this is the case. When Emily was asked how whale oil works during her lessons, she responded that it's a trick question, since nobody knows the answer. The Heart claims that the whales are actually supernatural beings.
Black Box / int_95bd5a8e	featureApplicability	1.0
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Dishonored (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_95bd5a8e
Black Box / int_986e857e	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_986e857e	comment	Ben 10's Omnitrix. Not from Earth, seemingly simple to use on the surface... but it has secrets, hidden abilities, glitches, and occasionally, a mind of its own. Eventually they meet its creator, who doesn't seem to understand what he's built either. He fully understands its inner workings, it's just that he's very reluctant about revealing them to other people.
Black Box / int_986e857e	featureApplicability	1.0
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Ben 10	hasFeature	Black Box / int_986e857e
Black Box / int_99949d04	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_99949d04	comment	Wakfu: The Eliacube, a powerful MacGuffin and Amplifier Artifact belonging to the Eliatrope race, is this for most people of the World of Twelve. The Xelor Nox had been in possession of it for over 200 years and suffering for it, and he freely admits he still doesn't understand a fraction of what it is truly capable of, despite using it as the centerpiece of his plan to power a Reset Button. Yugo, as an actual Eliatrope, is able to tap into its power in minutes what took Nox years or even decades to do the same, and he and his dragon brother Adamai still don't really know how to use it aside from pouring their energy into it and hoping for the best. The only person who knows how to use the Eliacube to its full potential is the Eliatrope Qilby, its original creator.
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Wakfu	hasFeature	Black Box / int_99949d04
Black Box / int_a2a386c9	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_a2a386c9	comment	Most of the super-advanced technology in the Orion's Arm universe is at least partly powered by transapientech. This is by definition designed by beings orders of magnitude smarter than ordinary folks. This is something of a subversion in that the inner workings are completely known, and probably published somewhere on the net, but the people using them can't understand them, since their brains aren't complex enough. It's sort of like trying to teach a small child nuclear physics in depth.
Black Box / int_a2a386c9	featureApplicability	1.0
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Orion's Arm (Website)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_a2a386c9
Black Box / int_a3fcd166	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_a3fcd166	comment	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy: The starship Heart of Gold features the infinite improbability drive that enables improbability manipulation up to a point where the ship exists everywhere at once and can drop out anywhere instantly—universe wide teleportation. The hitch is that nobody knows how the improbability drive really works, some smartass junior scientist just figured out one day that all he needed to know was how improbable it was for that drive to come into existence and voila, instant Black Box. Then he got lynched by his fellow scientists for being a smartarse. The starship Bistromath works on a similar principle. In restaurants math works differently than anywhere else in the universe. This is why you can never correctly guess what the bill will be, what a proper tip is, how much each person at the table should owe, etc. Nobody knows why this is, or how it works (the attempt to understand it led to a generation of brilliant mathematicians dying of obesity and heart disease), but that doesn't stop them from building a spaceship modeled on a small Italian Bistro to take advantage of this fact and break several laws of physics.
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy	hasFeature	Black Box / int_a3fcd166
Black Box / int_a6520c47	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_a6520c47	comment	In The Thran, the whole Thran Empire relies on powerstones as their source of energy, but even the engineers who work on them don't exactly know how they work.
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The Thran	hasFeature	Black Box / int_a6520c47
Black Box / int_a6ece007	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_a6ece007	comment	A nonhuman example would be the Blackstone Fortresses of the Gothic Sector, a sextet of ancient space structures that were appropriated by the Imperium. The AdMech were able to patch into the stations' power systems and hook up their own weapons and life-support, but nobody was sure of the things' function... until Abaddon the Despoiler showed up with some artifacts of his own and fully activated the Blackstone Fortresses, deploying guns that tore holes in space-time and could make suns go nova. Turns out they were created by the Eldar's forge gods as a means to harness Warp energy to destroy the C'tan.
Black Box / int_a6ece007	featureApplicability	1.0
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Battlefleet Gothic (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_a6ece007
Black Box / int_a702d2d2	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_a702d2d2	comment	In You (2013), all of Black Arts's games are based on the WAFFLE engine, but no one at the company really understands how it works. The narration directly refers to it as a "black box" at one point.
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You (2013)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_a702d2d2
Black Box / int_a7bb29b2	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_a7bb29b2	comment	Later games reveal that Zero, likewise the last and greatest creation of Dr. Wily, has similar black boxes, possibly stolen or copied. Notably, one of Zero's discussions with Dr. Light when obtaining an Armor Part for X in X5 has Light's Virtual Ghost regrettably inform Zero that he can't enhance Zero's performance in the same way because he knows nothing about Zero's body structure and presumably cannot analyze it. This makes either Dr. Cain or the X-Hunters (most likely Serges) rebuilding Zero in X2 and Isoc's heavily implied hand in restoring Zero between X5 and X6 (as well as his intricate knowledge of Zero's internal systems) all the more impressive, since it should have been impossible to fully repair Zero, let alone improve upon his original design. Then again, the games hint Serges and Isoc's familiarity with Zero stem from the fact that they are Wily.
Black Box / int_a7bb29b2	featureApplicability	1.0
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Mega Man X5 (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_a7bb29b2
Black Box / int_a81325d3	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_a81325d3	comment	Final Fantasy: In Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, no one knows how the power source of the airships works. For a society almost solely based off of using technology, it turns out the Al Bhed of Final Fantasy X don't actually know how machina work. Averted by the end of X-2, as the Machine Faction's quest is to innovate rather than rebuild.
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Final Fantasy (Franchise)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_a81325d3
Black Box / int_a9edfc69	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_a9edfc69	comment	In a flashback arc of Gnoph, a scientist criticizes the military for creating a breed of Super-Soldier pretty much by accident and then using them despite not really understanding how or why they work. Sure enough, things soon Go Horribly Wrong.
Black Box / int_a9edfc69	featureApplicability	1.0
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Gnoph (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_a9edfc69
Black Box / int_a9ee3cc1	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_a9ee3cc1	comment	An early Goats storyline involves such a machine — you put kittens in, and pop tarts come out; nobody knows what happens to the kittens. Later it's revealed that the machine is a stolen alien spaceship engine, which is powered by the good feelings created when the kitten is placed in a loving home. But it's still a Black Box, because even the aliens don't know where the pop tarts come from.
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Goats (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_a9ee3cc1
Black Box / int_aadcf5f1	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_aadcf5f1	comment	In Rainbows End, pretty much all engineering is done by putting together modular black boxes whose contents are unknown, except to the companies that manufacture them. This is done to protect copyrights and trade secrets. Plus, it's supposed to make things simpler. At one point, Robert Gu gets frustrated, and tries to open a black box under the hood of a car, using a cutting laser. The result is an explosion.
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Rainbows End	hasFeature	Black Box / int_aadcf5f1
Black Box / int_ac4b6a62	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_ac4b6a62	comment	AI in Questionable Content. AI don't know what makes them sentient. Even the inventor/"God" of AI, John Ellicott, doesn't understand how artificial sentience evolved, just that "A certain combination of software and hardware led to artificial intelligence, and once we figured that out, we could mass-produce them."
Black Box / int_ac4b6a62	featureApplicability	1.0
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Questionable Content (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_ac4b6a62
Black Box / int_ac4bd9bd	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_ac4bd9bd	comment	Into the Looking Glass has a device about the size of a pack of cards that does "interesting" things with spacetime. It was given to them by the friendly aliens at the end of the first book, who had found it on some other planet and had no idea what it was for. Although they did warn that one should not apply a "significant voltage" to it. Hooking up a double-A battery leaves a 10-mile crater. A car battery destroys the (deliberately uninhabited and unimportant) planet. Three-phase current erases the solar system. They eventually figure out how to turn it into a warp drive and use it to power the ASS Vorpal Blade. Turns out hooking it up to a car battery was using it wrong.
Black Box / int_ac4bd9bd	featureApplicability	1.0
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Into the Looking Glass	hasFeature	Black Box / int_ac4bd9bd
Black Box / int_ace263fa	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_ace263fa	comment	The Belt of Deltora from Deltora Quest is technically a Black Box, with the belt part itself the box and the gems the internal mechanisms. It can be assumed that no one knows exactly how it works; indeed, how it works is irrelevant. All anyone knows is that the Belt is "greater than the sum of its parts" and removing one of the pieces (i.e., one of the gems) would stop it functioning.
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Deltora Quest	hasFeature	Black Box / int_ace263fa
Black Box / int_b11e29d2	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_b11e29d2	comment	Outlaw Star: The eponymous Cool Ship and Melfina are revealed to have been created based on the unknown data (the black box) that Gwen Khan could not translate from an advanced ancient civilization which is implied to have created all of the ancient ruins of the galaxy. Only Melfina can open the door to the Galatic Leyline itself, and grant the people that go there their ultimate desire. For a while, the Caster Gun employed by main character Gene Starwind was a black box of lost knowledge. Caster guns are essentially antique pistols that fire unique shells with a wide variety of effects that can even counteract the magical attacks of Tao Masters. Nobody knows whether they are lost technology or, as later confirmed, magic that has been encapsulated within the shells.
Black Box / int_b11e29d2	featureApplicability	1.0
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Outlaw Star (Manga)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_b11e29d2
Black Box / int_b2bd761b	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_b2bd761b	comment	Troy Rising: Gravplates are cheap, ubiquiutous, and pivotal to most space travel. Everyone in the galaxy knows how to make them — but the only way to make them requires using gravplates, and nobody knows who the heck made the first one, or how.
Black Box / int_b2bd761b	featureApplicability	1.0
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Troy Rising	hasFeature	Black Box / int_b2bd761b
Black Box / int_b517d654	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_b517d654	comment	The train in Infinity Train is an Eldritch Location running on incomprehensibly advanced technology, but Tulip and Amelia as the fake Conductor are able to control it to some extent by analyzing its observable mechanisms (particularly the orbs every objects and creature seem to be tied to). Tulip even compares it to programming a game.
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Infinity Train	hasFeature	Black Box / int_b517d654
Black Box / int_b9783b14	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_b9783b14	comment	The Kabizashi blades in Knights of Sidonia, which are the only weapons that can kill Gauna. No one knows for sure how they work, and no one knows how to make more of them. They were recovered from inside a mysterious Big Dumb Object floating in space, and their properties discovered by complete accident. Production is later established. Understanding? Not so much.
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Knights of Sidonia (Manga)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_b9783b14
Black Box / int_babeae6a	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_babeae6a	comment	Godzilla vs. Kong: For all of Apex Cybernetics' boastings about human superiority over the Titans, their secret project is actually extremely reliant on seizing outside resources which are eldritch in nature as key materials to make the thing work at all; and Apex intend to use both resources with only a surface understanding of their capabilities and no true understanding of their inner workings. Apex have converted Ghidorah's skull into a Wetware CPU for Mechagodzilla based on their discovery that Ghidorah's remains retain a telepathic connection to each-other, and Apex are planning to use the Mineral MacGuffin in the Hollow Earth as a power source for their superweapon based on their remote satellite discovery that it has high energy readings. Mixing these two things into a Humongous Mecha without an in-depth understanding of either of them ultimately leads to Ghidorah's subconsciousness from the skull taking control of a fully-charged, super-destructive Mechagodzilla for itself. "Monkey see monkey do" indeed.
Black Box / int_babeae6a	featureApplicability	1.0
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Godzilla vs. Kong	hasFeature	Black Box / int_babeae6a
Black Box / int_bb3282c	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_bb3282c	comment	A scientist in Yozakura Quartet equates the workings of Youkai and supernatural powers to Black Box technology. He makes the comparison that just as we don't understand how magic works, most people don't understand how a computer turns on apart from pushing the "on" button.
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Yozakura Quartet (Manga)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_bb3282c
Black Box / int_bb99f857	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_bb99f857	comment	The superweapons of the Naval Ops series, especially in Warship Gunner 2, are considered to be Black Boxes by the people fighting against them. In WG 2, they run off a Black Box "Engine" strapped into oversized conventional ships (for a given value of conventional). The equipment you can unlock for customizing your own ship is explicitly labeled in game as "Black Box Technology" in the equipment screen, with individual pieces labeled Enigmatech (Enigmatech Bridge, Enigmatech Sensors, etc.).
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Black Box / int_bbd25dac	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_bbd25dac	comment	In Friday, there is the Shipstone; a battery that comes in sizes from a lifetime miniature system for a flashlight, to a large battery that can power a house, to a possibly colossal one that powers spaceships. The black box-ness of it comes because the inventor never patented it, since that would require that he publish the schematics. He just started a company and started manufacturing them under lots of secrecy. Attempts at dismantling and reverse engineering a shipstone usually resulted in a big kaboom.
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Friday	hasFeature	Black Box / int_bbd25dac
Black Box / int_bc7736c8	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_bc7736c8	comment	In Suicide Squad, Shade, the Changing Man admits that he does not understand any of the principles under which the M-Vest — which grants him his powers — works, as the vest was constructed by Meta's greatest scientist and he was the equivalent of a beat cop. While he understands how to operate the basic functions, he needs the Squad's resources to try and figure out how to get it to return him to his home dimension.
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Suicide Squad (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_bc7736c8
Black Box / int_bcadd7cb	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_bcadd7cb	comment	Warhammer 40,000: The modern Imperium of Man is a borderline Scavenger World that has lost a great deal of technological knowledge over the millennia, and as a result many of the devices lovingly maintained by the rituals of the Adeptus Mechanicus are irreplaceable ancient relics. One example would be the Gauntlets of Ultramar, a paired set of power fists with integrated boltguns that is a treasured relic of the Ultramarines chapter of Space Marines. The Adeptus Mechanicus would love to study the Gauntlets, but since that would mean disassembling and possibly forgetting how to reassemble the weapons, the Ultramarines have "declined" the Mechanicus' requests to examine them, emphatically and repeatedly. The "gene-seed" that transforms a normal human into a Space Marine is derived from the genetic material of the twenty Primarchs, who were created by the Emperor of Mankind to lead his Great Crusade to reconquer the galaxy. Since the Emperor is currently a skeletal husk sustained by the Golden Throne, and the Primarchs are all either dead, lost, fallen to Chaos, or otherwise in no condition to contribute, it's impossible to create "fresh" gene-seed. Instead, each Space Marine sports a pair of "progenoid" organs that can grow germ forms of all the other implants, which are cultivated by a chapter's Apothecaries to use in the next generation of recruits. This means one of an Apothecary's most important duties is securing the corpses of fallen battle-brothers and extracting those progenoid glands before they are lost to the enemy, and Space Marine chapters who run low on gene-seed, through battlefield losses or mutation, are in danger of dying out entirely. A nonhuman example would be the Blackstone Fortresses of the Gothic Sector, a sextet of ancient space structures that were appropriated by the Imperium. The AdMech were able to patch into the stations' power systems and hook up their own weapons and life-support, but nobody was sure of the things' function... until Abaddon the Despoiler showed up with some artifacts of his own and fully activated the Blackstone Fortresses, deploying guns that tore holes in space-time and could make suns go nova. Turns out they were created by the Eldar's forge gods as a means to harness Warp energy to destroy the C'tan.
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Black Box / int_bcadd7cb	featureConfidence	1.0
Warhammer 40,000 (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_bcadd7cb
Black Box / int_bcb03d22	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_bcb03d22	comment	Hazbin Hotel: As Charlie learns in episode 6, no one in Heaven actually knows what makes a soul worthy of going to Heaven or Hell, not even the High Seraphim. Sera simply accepts not knowing out of fear that questioning things will make her a Fallen Angel, while Emily protests how unfair it is that sinners are denied the opportunity to redeem themselves simply because no one knows if it's even possible.
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Hazbin Hotel	hasFeature	Black Box / int_bcb03d22
Black Box / int_bd67c74c	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_bd67c74c	comment	Justified in CthulhuTech. Since the Dimensional Engine runs on non-Euclidean mathematics, attempting to find out what goes on inside one will cause weak minds to break.
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Black Box / int_bd67c74c	featureConfidence	1.0
CthulhuTech (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_bd67c74c
Black Box / int_c095f21d	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_c095f21d	comment	The flying machines in Simoun have two black boxes: the "Helical motor" (according to the sub) and the "Simoun Gem". Trying to find out how these things work apparently drives you mad for a little while.
Black Box / int_c095f21d	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_c095f21d	featureConfidence	1.0
Simoun	hasFeature	Black Box / int_c095f21d
Black Box / int_c2463c55	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_c2463c55	comment	For a society almost solely based off of using technology, it turns out the Al Bhed of Final Fantasy X don't actually know how machina work. Averted by the end of X-2, as the Machine Faction's quest is to innovate rather than rebuild.
Black Box / int_c2463c55	featureApplicability	-1.0
Black Box / int_c2463c55	featureConfidence	1.0
Final Fantasy X (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_c2463c55
Black Box / int_c3bf41a1	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_c3bf41a1	comment	Redshirts has the Box, a microwave-shaped device that if given a sample of any xenobiological problem, will go 'ding' and provide the solution when dramatically appropriate. Truly unusual due to the fact that even the writer for the show doesn't know where it came from, since it never appears in any scene that is filmed. It just appears out of nowhere so that all the miraculous cures needed in the show are possible.
Black Box / int_c3bf41a1	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_c3bf41a1	featureConfidence	1.0
Redshirts	hasFeature	Black Box / int_c3bf41a1
Black Box / int_c43df4d8	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_c43df4d8	comment	Doctor Who: In "Turn Left", the TARDIS serves this role. The episode is set in a crapsack timeline where the Doctor died for real because he never met Donna Noble. Later on, after the world has gone to hell and The Stars Are Going Out, a universe-hopping Rose Tyler and UNIT use the recovered TARDIS to power a makeshift time machine to send Donna back to change the past and Set Right What Once Went Wrong. Rose admits to Donna that they don't have any idea how the TARDIS actually works, but she gets Donna to when in the past she needs to be — but not where, almost ruining the whole operation.
Black Box / int_c43df4d8	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_c43df4d8	featureConfidence	1.0
Doctor Who	hasFeature	Black Box / int_c43df4d8
Black Box / int_c4b3cf3f	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_c4b3cf3f	comment	In A Lord from Planet Earth, many Seeder artifacts are found, replicated, and used, but the principle of their function remains unknown. This is intentional, as the Seeders are, in fact, 22nd-century humans, using Time Travel to seed the galaxy with humanoid life in order to create an instant (from their viewpoint) army in a war. The artifacts were left behind intentionally to help guide their development.
Black Box / int_c4b3cf3f	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_c4b3cf3f	featureConfidence	1.0
A Lord from Planet Earth	hasFeature	Black Box / int_c4b3cf3f
Black Box / int_c5bf9810	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_c5bf9810	comment	The Legacy of the Aldenata series features the alien Posleen (or "people of the ships" in their language), who are similar to the Covenant in Halo in that they use technology they understand poorly if at all. One of their commanders stares in confusion at a computer helpfully informing him "Incoming ballistic projectiles. Impact in 10 seconds. Five.... etc" The views of their society in the initial books of the series are vague for the most part but imply that they only really use the systems that kill things or are almost entirely automated. A literal black box used by the humans in the same series appears in the form of the AID which is a black memory plastic box about the size of a pack of cigarettes with an extremely potent AI embedded in it. They act as a Universal Translator as well, but are provided by another species and the humans haven't a clue how they really work or how to make them. This turns out to be a serious problem for a number of reasons.
Black Box / int_c5bf9810	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_c5bf9810	featureConfidence	1.0
Legacy of the Aldenata	hasFeature	Black Box / int_c5bf9810
Black Box / int_c851c4bb	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_c851c4bb	comment	Nobody Scores! has an arc where the main characters end up getting their hands on a literal black box — things went in, and other things came out. It was when it started producing multiple copies of the severed head of Shia LaBoeuf (who was still alive) that they started trying to get rid of it...
Black Box / int_c851c4bb	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_c851c4bb	featureConfidence	1.0
Nobody Scores! (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_c851c4bb
Black Box / int_ca192152	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_ca192152	comment	Afterimage: Among the three artifacts stored in the Grand Archives of the Holy Grounds, the Primeval Orb is considered the strongest (allowing humans to see a projection of the Sea of Souls), but it is also the "most mysterious", not even the Mastermage Levine can understand its material composition. One In-Universe speculation from the mastermages claim that it might be an instrument made by God.
Black Box / int_ca192152	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_ca192152	featureConfidence	1.0
Afterimage (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_ca192152
Black Box / int_cb6abef3	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_cb6abef3	comment	It's already implied in The Avengers (2012) that there's more to the Tesseract than Red Skull's experiments, but both the Tesseract and the Staff are later revealed to be Infinity Stones, representing a fundamental aspect of the Universe itself, and become the core plot of Avengers: Infinity War.
Black Box / int_cb6abef3	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_cb6abef3	featureConfidence	1.0
The Avengers (2012)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_cb6abef3
Black Box / int_d00adba4	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_d00adba4	comment	In Super Minion, Tofu relies heavily on a program called human.exe which basically allows him to be as smart as a human. However, he has no idea how the program works, it shuts down if he tries to check its source code, and he doesn't even know where he downloaded it from.
Black Box / int_d00adba4	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_d00adba4	featureConfidence	1.0
Super Minion	hasFeature	Black Box / int_d00adba4
Black Box / int_d0e25eb9	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_d0e25eb9	comment	In Heavy Object, the targeting system of Objects requires regular calibrations incorporating the expertise of three separate engineering disciplines and the intuition of the Elite. Because of the odd interaction between such differing methods and the unique human factor of the Elite, nobody is entirely certain how the system works, only that it does.
Black Box / int_d0e25eb9	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_d0e25eb9	featureConfidence	1.0
Heavy Object	hasFeature	Black Box / int_d0e25eb9
Black Box / int_d461f757	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_d461f757	comment	In Battlestar Galactica (2003), it's eventually revealed after the destruction of the Resurrection Hub that the "Significant Seven" Cylons don't understand how the resurrection process they use actually works, and so they can't reconstruct it after it's gone. Only the Final Five have the knowledge necessary to recreate the technology, since they designed it in the first place.
Black Box / int_d461f757	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_d461f757	featureConfidence	1.0
Battlestar Galactica (2003)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_d461f757
Black Box / int_d4642985	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_d4642985	comment	In the Revelation Space Series novels, everyone uses a certain kind of stardrive, but only the makers know how they work, and fiddling leads to an enormous explosion. The most powerful weapons are barely understood gifts from Sufficiently Advanced Aliens or future humans who will send the blueprints back in time. Judging by one character's vague discription of the internal conditions in a stardrive in "Weather", the Conjoiners kept the stardrive technology Black Box so that the 'retarded' (everyone else) wouldn't try and weaponise it. And also because of the whole disembodied-brain thing...
Black Box / int_d4642985	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_d4642985	featureConfidence	1.0
Revelation Space Series	hasFeature	Black Box / int_d4642985
Black Box / int_d4d8ce5f	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_d4d8ce5f	comment	Mad Science in Deadlands: A Mad Scientist may create fantastic devices that surpass anything "regular" science is able to produce, but it's impossible to mass-produce Mad Science gizmoes — they just don't work. Throughout the centuries, Mad Science gains or loses popularity, depending on the shifting popular opinion. Mad Science is partly magical, the ideas for it coming from Manitous, malevolent spirits serving the setting's Big Bads. It is part of a master plot to (eventually) bring about Ghost Rock bombs, nuclear weapons capable of warping or killing spirits of living things, and to transform the entire Earth into a terror-filled wasteland.
Black Box / int_d4d8ce5f	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_d4d8ce5f	featureConfidence	1.0
Deadlands (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_d4d8ce5f
Black Box / int_d5166b45	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_d5166b45	comment	In Spartan Ops, one frustrated human scientist describes the current state of his species' research on Forerunner technology as such:
Black Box / int_d5166b45	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_d5166b45	featureConfidence	1.0
Halo 4 (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_d5166b45
Black Box / int_d518ee3e	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_d518ee3e	comment	In the Spiral Arm series, much of the technology humanity uses is no longer understood, and in fact believed to be so far beyond human understanding that it could only have been crafted by Gods. A distinction is explicitly drawn between "science" and "engineering". "Science", the understanding of how technologies work, is considered religiously mystical and beyond human understanding; the most that men can aspire to is "engineering", creating working reproductions of existing technology.
Black Box / int_d518ee3e	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_d518ee3e	featureConfidence	1.0
Spiral Arm	hasFeature	Black Box / int_d518ee3e
Black Box / int_d5505073	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_d5505073	comment	In the Uplift series, all of the alien species in Galactic civilization are happy to use technology they don't understand and can't repair, so long as it comes with the blessing of the Great Library passed down by their revered ancestors and somebody, somewhere, knows how to repair or replace it. The exception is Humanity, who know darn well that relying on such tech will make them economically dependent on other species. They try to use their own (comparatively very primitive) tech while struggling to learn how alien devices work. Occasionally, Humans even benefit from Rock Beats Laser. However, even Earthclan has to rely on Black Box technology for certain things — i.e., reality shields, psi shields, hyperspace, and the Library itself.
Black Box / int_d5505073	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_d5505073	featureConfidence	1.0
Uplift	hasFeature	Black Box / int_d5505073
Black Box / int_da72cf97	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_da72cf97	comment	The Trails Series has artifacts, ancient devices that predate the Great Collapse, a disaster of unknown origins 1200 years ago that devastated the world and led to the collapse of society. The Septian Church, the primary religion of the setting, has a policy where they must confiscate an artifact if it is still functioning. They don't apply this to artifacts that have lost their power. The church's justification for this is that because no one knows how these artifacts work, it's too dangerous to allow an active artifact out in the open. And to be fair, there have been incidents involving artifacts that justify this logic — for example, pretty much everything after the prologue in Sky The 3rd is the result of an artifact turning itself on while the people trying to take it to a secure facility don't know what it is or how to turn it back off.
Black Box / int_da72cf97	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_da72cf97	featureConfidence	1.0
Trails Series (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_da72cf97
Black Box / int_dab32e3	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_dab32e3	comment	The titular robot of Mega Man X was the last and greatest creation of Dr. Light, who then had X put through 30 years of ethical testing to ensure that he wouldn't misuse his "limitless" power. When Dr. Cain discovered X and studied the robot, he admitted that some of X's systems were "black boxes" he couldn't understand, but did his best to reproduce X's design. The result was the Reploids, a generation of robots more advanced than anything previous, but the fact that they were all imperfect copies of Light's design led to the Maverick uprisings. It wouldn't be until the time of Mega Man Zero that a fully successful replication of X's systems would be completed by Ciel; unfortunately for everyone, Copy X didn't get the "30 years of ethical testing" and turned into a powerful Knight Templar that only Zero had a chance of defeating. Even then, Zero is convinced that the original was still more powerful than Copy X. Dr. Light's design was so far ahead of his time that even centuries later no one managed to fully match it.
Black Box / int_dab32e3	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_dab32e3	featureConfidence	1.0
Mega Man X (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_dab32e3
Black Box / int_dd3fe595	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_dd3fe595	comment	In Atlas Shrugged, the remains of John Galt's motor were found in an abandoned motor factory. Dagny Taggart's new purpose in life (for the next few chapters at least) is to find a scientist to reverse engineer the motor and put it to use on her railroad. It's a particularly interesting case, as Galt realized that the unbelievable stupidity of Starnes heirs were the symptoms of a cultural decline. He could thus safely walk off and leave the prototype and the plans right there in the lab without fear that they would be stolen, as no mind capable of understanding how valuable they were, let alone making use of them, would ever work there again. A notable subversion of Low Culture, High Tech.
Black Box / int_dd3fe595	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_dd3fe595	featureConfidence	1.0
Atlas Shrugged	hasFeature	Black Box / int_dd3fe595
Black Box / int_e03940f	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_e03940f	comment	Eega Beeva of the Mickey Mouse Comic Universe is a man from the future with hyper-advanced technology like bottomless pockets. In one issue, desperate scientists hoping to secure their funding ask him for one of his gadgets to study. He pulls out a literal black box, claiming it can replicate anything known in his time but, to their disappointment, as far as their instruments can study it's just a solid block of inert molecules, putting them back at square one.
Black Box / int_e03940f	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_e03940f	featureConfidence	1.0
Mickey Mouse Comic Universe (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_e03940f
Black Box / int_e0609930	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_e0609930	comment	Inspired Science from Trinity Universe (White Wolf) is developed through means that humans can't replicate. Anyone can use it, but making more requires the inventor to be present (unless it's noetic biotech), and any attempt to explain the science of how it works to an un-Inspired mind comes across as complete nonsense.
Black Box / int_e0609930	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_e0609930	featureConfidence	1.0
Trinity Universe (White Wolf) (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_e0609930
Black Box / int_e235270c	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_e235270c	comment	Stellaris generally averts this, and you can scan battle wreckage of even Precursor ships to reverse-engineer their components, but until you have end-game science buildings it's going to take a looong time to complete those research projects. Or you can play this trope straight by taking the "Enigmatic Engineering" Ascension Perk, which makes your technological designs sufficiently esoteric that your rivals can't study them — a good way to keep the unique technology derived from defeating one of the Leviathan enemies limited to your forces.
Black Box / int_e235270c	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_e235270c	featureConfidence	1.0
Stellaris (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_e235270c
Black Box / int_e4732abc	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_e4732abc	comment	In Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe, the protagonists uncover treasure troves of Ancient and alien technology. Though they know how to operate the Ancient technology they find (most of the time), they don't know their exact inner workings. The Goa'uld, on the other hand, make very little effort to study the Ancient technology they use. They've based their empire on things like the Stargates and ring transporters, but they really have no idea how any of it works. There are, however, exceptions to the rule. The biggest of them is Ba'al, a System Lord who knows more than any other Goa'uld (or human) how the gates work (with the possible exception of Anubis). When one human scientist figures out how to infect a gate with a virus that locks it down, Ba'al quickly reverse-engineers the virus and modifies it to infect the entire gate network. Later on, they require Ba'al's help to help with some gate coding, and he's able to use portable human computers just fine (it helps that he has spent some time on Earth as a corporate CEO).
Black Box / int_e4732abc	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_e4732abc	featureConfidence	1.0
Stargate Atlantis	hasFeature	Black Box / int_e4732abc
Black Box / int_e740c8b	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_e740c8b	comment	Most ship and weapon tech in Starsector has been lost due to the fact the blueprints had copy protection on them. After the Collapse, the entire sector was isolated from the companies that could manufacture these copy-protected blueprints, so the only source of new ones is through scavenging. Similarly, fighter LPCs (Limited Production Chips) work by containing the information for a carrier's nanoforges to manufacture fighters without allowing for the copying of the design.
Black Box / int_e740c8b	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_e740c8b	featureConfidence	1.0
Starsector (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_e740c8b
Black Box / int_eb3f3551	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_eb3f3551	comment	Mass Effect: Andromeda has a similar situation with the Remnant Vaults. The Andromeda Initiative finds out pretty quickly that the Vaults are able to terraform entire planets, which is very good because the planets they had intended to settle had been environmentally ruined by the Scourge. But nobody has a clue how any of the Remnant technology actually works, and the dangers of relying on it are pointed out.
Black Box / int_eb3f3551	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_eb3f3551	featureConfidence	1.0
Mass Effect: Andromeda (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_eb3f3551
Black Box / int_ef8bd4a5	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_ef8bd4a5	comment	Mega Man: The titular robot of Mega Man X was the last and greatest creation of Dr. Light, who then had X put through 30 years of ethical testing to ensure that he wouldn't misuse his "limitless" power. When Dr. Cain discovered X and studied the robot, he admitted that some of X's systems were "black boxes" he couldn't understand, but did his best to reproduce X's design. The result was the Reploids, a generation of robots more advanced than anything previous, but the fact that they were all imperfect copies of Light's design led to the Maverick uprisings. It wouldn't be until the time of Mega Man Zero that a fully successful replication of X's systems would be completed by Ciel; unfortunately for everyone, Copy X didn't get the "30 years of ethical testing" and turned into a powerful Knight Templar that only Zero had a chance of defeating. Even then, Zero is convinced that the original was still more powerful than Copy X. Dr. Light's design was so far ahead of his time that even centuries later no one managed to fully match it. Later games reveal that Zero, likewise the last and greatest creation of Dr. Wily, has similar black boxes, possibly stolen or copied. Notably, one of Zero's discussions with Dr. Light when obtaining an Armor Part for X in X5 has Light's Virtual Ghost regrettably inform Zero that he can't enhance Zero's performance in the same way because he knows nothing about Zero's body structure and presumably cannot analyze it. This makes either Dr. Cain or the X-Hunters (most likely Serges) rebuilding Zero in X2 and Isoc's heavily implied hand in restoring Zero between X5 and X6 (as well as his intricate knowledge of Zero's internal systems) all the more impressive, since it should have been impossible to fully repair Zero, let alone improve upon his original design. Then again, the games hint Serges and Isoc's familiarity with Zero stem from the fact that they are Wily.
Black Box / int_ef8bd4a5	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_ef8bd4a5	featureConfidence	1.0
Mega Man (Franchise)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_ef8bd4a5
Black Box / int_f04b4111	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_f04b4111	comment	Metroid: Samus Aran's Power Suit has a ton of hidden properties the Chozo didn't have time to teach her about, but fortunately the suit is smart enough to make use of them anyway. Not only that, but the suit is actually capable of adapting non-Chozo technology to upgrade itself when Samus acquires some, which gets really strange when she picks up Luminoth, Space Pirate and human technology. The Metroid Prime Trilogy subseries involves the use of Phazon, a blue gooey substance that turns its users nigh-invulnerable and greatly amplifies their weapon strength, at the risk of corruption. By Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the Federation is able to develop a PED Suit that contains a "black box" that allows its wearer to safely utilize Phazon to improve their combat capabilities, but unfortunately Samus' variant gets damaged early in the game.
Black Box / int_f04b4111	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_f04b4111	featureConfidence	1.0
Metroid (Franchise)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_f04b4111
Black Box / int_f3d889f7	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_f3d889f7	comment	In Zack Snyder's Justice League, the eponymous League doesn't have much of an idea how the Mother Boxes work beyond using one to resurrect Superman with a big electrical impulse. Steppenwolf, meanwhile, uses them to teleport himself via Boom Tubes.
Black Box / int_f3d889f7	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_f3d889f7	featureConfidence	1.0
Zack Snyder's Justice League	hasFeature	Black Box / int_f3d889f7
Black Box / int_f59e607f	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_f59e607f	comment	Duke Nukem 3D: When 3D Realms sought to make a sequel to their Duke Nukem sidescrolling games, they shopped around for someone who could make a convincing pseudo-3D engine. Teenaged Ken Silverman sent in his hobby demo, which would later become the infamous BUILD engine, and got the job. He sent 3D Realms the executable file and a bevy of documentation to explain how to make levels with it, and let them build the actual game and its assets without knowing how it works internally. Turns out 3D Realms didn't know how good they had it: the code was eventually open sourced, and internet code analyst/Google software wizard Fabien Sanglard dove into it, only to find it one of the most dense, most obtuse, most esoteric pieces of code ever committed to computer memory. It was very obviously not meant to be intelligible to anyone whose name isn't Ken Silverman. Read all the gory details here (tellingly, Sanglard had to have Ken Silverman proofread/explain parts of the article).
Black Box / int_f59e607f	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_f59e607f	featureConfidence	1.0
Duke Nukem 3D (Video Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_f59e607f
Black Box / int_f74b5f80	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_f74b5f80	comment	Babylon 5 has a variety of Black Boxes, mostly leftover First One technology: Nobody knows who built the first jumpgates or what principle they operate on, and every spacefaring race in the universe simply produces replicas thereof without understanding how they work. Shadow devices that allow for remote control of ships. Like Sheridan says, the younger races don't understand them and can't build them, but are sure willing to use them.
Black Box / int_f74b5f80	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_f74b5f80	featureConfidence	1.0
Babylon 5	hasFeature	Black Box / int_f74b5f80
Black Box / int_f95a1dc9	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_f95a1dc9	comment	Space 1889: There are plenty of such phenomena where you know the input and the output but how no idea how it is achieved. It is not only the fictional Martian left-over technology from long ago but plenty of things we now know how it works that were a mystery to historical Victorians. For instance the sun seems to send out a lot of energy from nowhere, much more than any known type of fuel could possibly sustain for more very long — leading some people to believe the solar system cannot be more than a few thousands year old. You seem to inherit traits from your parents, but having no idea of DNA, the mechanism for this is a mystery to Victorians who sometimes think it is somehow literally "in the blood" or "with the mother's milk," but that makes it hard to explain how plants can inherit traits.
Black Box / int_f95a1dc9	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_f95a1dc9	featureConfidence	1.0
Space 1889 (Tabletop Game)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_f95a1dc9
Black Box / int_fb0c3aa4	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_fb0c3aa4	comment	In the American release of Voltron (which combined the separate series GoLion and Dairugger XV), it's established that the Vehicle Voltron was built as an imitation of the original Lion Voltron built by the late King Alfor of Arus. Since the original Voltron is semi-mystical in nature and the magic was not copyable, the duplicate can only stay unified in giant robot form for five minutes at a time.
Black Box / int_fb0c3aa4	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_fb0c3aa4	featureConfidence	1.0
Voltron	hasFeature	Black Box / int_fb0c3aa4
Black Box / int_fcf34eec	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_fcf34eec	comment	Full Metal Panic! has a bunch of 'Black Technology', created by the mysterious 'Whispered'. Many are simply extrapolations of existing technologies, which are mass-produced and change the world drastically — Whispered are explicitly not useless. Others, however, are perfect examples of the trope — Foremost among them is the 'Lambda Driver', a true Black Box which enables users to warp the laws of physics through sheer willpower.
Black Box / int_fcf34eec	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_fcf34eec	featureConfidence	1.0
Full Metal Panic!	hasFeature	Black Box / int_fcf34eec
Black Box / int_fe8ef766	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_fe8ef766	comment	Captain America's shield is essentially a Black Box in design; made of an unknown alloy of Vibranium, other metals and a mysterious bonding agent — which the creator doesn't know about, having fallen asleep during its production — which results in a shield that has properties unlike anything else in existence. Some say that agent was American Rightousness (as opposed to American self-righteousness), explaining why it seems to act as almost an Empathic Weapon to Cap.
Black Box / int_fe8ef766	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_fe8ef766	featureConfidence	1.0
Captain America (Comic Book)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_fe8ef766
Black Box / int_febb8460	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_febb8460	comment	In NausicaÃ¤ of the Valley of the Wind, nobody has the technology to build new airship engines anymore, so when an airship is downed, there's a scramble to salvage the irreplaceable engines.
Black Box / int_febb8460	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_febb8460	featureConfidence	1.0
NausicaÃ¤ of the Valley of the Wind (Manga)	hasFeature	Black Box / int_febb8460
Black Box / int_ff9ab17f	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_ff9ab17f	comment	In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data's positronic brain that makes him a Ridiculously Human Robot is a bit of an unknown factor. While Starfleet has a pretty good idea of how it is supposed to work, along with the rest of his body functions, how he is sentient is a complete mystery to them, especially since the genius inventor who built him is dead. While Data can be dismantled in general pieces, they are reluctant to really dive into the fine mechanics of his brain and his memory centers — after a particularly overzealous researcher takes the issue to court in "The Measure of a Man", Data gains the legal right to refuse such a dismantling anyway. His own attempt to replicate the technology seems to succeed when he builds a "daughter", Lal, in "The Offspring", but he ends up proving the problem as her mental capacities increase exponentially until the system collapses. Also, the risk of creating another Lore (Data's dangerously violent older brother) highlights the risks of succeeding at building a stable brain. In Star Trek: Picard, we learn that Bruce Maddox (who's been communicating with Data in order to figure out how to make more androids) was forced by Starfleet to develop the A500 series of androids. They were inferior to Data but were able to perform manual labor at the Utopia Planitia shipyards. Then they suddenly turned on their masters and destroyed the shipyards. The attack left tens of thousands dead and ignited the Martian atmosphere. Subsequently, a ban on synths was instituted. Maddox and Altan Inigo Soong, Data's creator's biological son, formed a small colony on Coppelius and began to use a radical new method to extrapolate Data's mind left in B4 into his "children." Some shared Data's gold complexion, while newer models were designed to pass for humans and even fool scans. After the events of season 1, the synth ban was lifted, and Coppelians were offered Federation membership. At the same time, Soong was also working on a special synth that could be used to transfer his consciousness into in order to cheat death. Agnes Jurati helped him perfect the synth and the mind transfer procedure. However, they ended up having to use the synth to save Picard, whose biological body was dying. Afterwards, Soong spent the rest of his (short) life working at a Section 31 facility on a new android that would combine Data, Lore, B4, and Lal.
Black Box / int_ff9ab17f	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_ff9ab17f	featureConfidence	1.0
Star Trek: The Next Generation	hasFeature	Black Box / int_ff9ab17f
Black Box / int_ffd1ab7f	type	Black Box
Black Box / int_ffd1ab7f	comment	In Starsnatcher, the effects of technologies created by vastly superhumanly intelligent A.I.s like Fountainhead are clear enough (e.g. wormholes allow interstellar travel, singularity stones uplift people, etc.). However, the characters have no hope of modifying or replicating them, even though the resources to create at least some of them are there.
Black Box / int_ffd1ab7f	featureApplicability	1.0
Black Box / int_ffd1ab7f	featureConfidence	1.0
Starsnatcher	hasFeature	Black Box / int_ffd1ab7f

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Black Box	processingCategory2	Box Tropes
Black Box	processingCategory2	Magic and Powers
Argevollen / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Betterman / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Digimon Tamers / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Eureka Seven AO / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Neon Genesis Evangelion / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Obsolete / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Sound of the Sky / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Yu-Gi-Oh! / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Zoids: New Century / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Spider-Geddon (Comic Book) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Star-Lord (Comic Book) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
The Mask (Comic Book) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
The Trigan Empire (Comic Book) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Brockton's Celestial Forge (Fanfic) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Game Theory (Lyrical Nanoha) (Fanfic) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
New World (Fanfic) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Not the intended use (Zantetsuken Reverse) (Fanfic) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
A Quiet Place Part II / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
America 3000 / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Autómata / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Captain America: The First Avenger / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Captain Marvel (2019) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Space Cowboys / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Spider-Man: No Way Home / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
The Scribbler / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Violent Night / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Shin Megami Tensei (Franchise) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Full Metal Panic! / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Heavy Object / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Aeon 14 / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Deathworld / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Firefight / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Foundation and Earth / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Full Metal Panic! / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Heavy Object / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Imperial Radch / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
InCryptid / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Infinite Stratos / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Light / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Machine of Death / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Magic 2.0 / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Magician's Academy / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Mission of Gravity / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Mortal Engines / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Overlord (2012) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Priests of Mars / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Rainbows End / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Reborn as a Space Mercenary: I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship! / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Redshirts / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Revelation Space Series / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Spiral Arm / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Steelheart / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Stray Cat Strut / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Super Minion / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
The Forever Watch / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
The League of Peoples 'Verse / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
The Night Land / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
The Peripheral / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
The Themis Files / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
The War of the Worlds (1898) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
The Wise Man's Fear / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Timeline / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Arpeggio of Blue Steel (Manga) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Knights of Sidonia (Manga) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Outlaw Star (Manga) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Tora Kiss – A School Odyssey (Manga) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Adventures in Odyssey (Radio) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Lost in Space (2018) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Power Rangers Samurai / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Warehouse 13 / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Genius Programming / Sugar Wiki / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Æon (Tabletop Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Bliss Stage (Tabletop Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Coriolis The Third Horizon (Tabletop Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Deadlands (Tabletop Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Eberron (Tabletop Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Genius: The Transgression (Tabletop Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
7th Sea (Tabletop Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Space 1889 (Tabletop Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Afterimage (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Armored Core (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Armored Core: Verdict Day (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Azur Lane (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Devil May Cry 5 (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Factorio (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Final Fantasy XVI (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
My Time at Portia (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Pinball Deluxe (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
PlanetSide (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Quantum Break (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
SIGNALIS (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Sins of a Solar Empire (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
StarFlight (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Starsector (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
The Planet Crafter (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Trails Series (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
X-COM (Video Game) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
CGP Grey (Web Video) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Super Mario 64: CLASSIFIED (Web Video) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Deep Rise (Webcomic) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Drive (Dave Kellett) (Webcomic) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Erfworld (Webcomic) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (Webcomic) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Spacetrawler (Webcomic) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Supernormal Step (Webcomic) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
The Far Side of Utopia (Webcomic) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Westward (Webcomic) / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Ben 10 / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Hazbin Hotel / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
Head / int_9c1d1e31	type	Black Box
blackbox	sameAs	Black Box

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