McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Science-Fiction: How 'real' must a technology be?
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Ulfgeir on June 11, 2013, 07:38:07 PM ---How hard the science has to be depends on what kind of story you write. If the rest of the setting is down-to earth gritty pigfarming then you can't very well have FTL-travel without having the mechanics of it worked out. Otherwise it would just be a miracle.
--- End quote ---
I'd actually be a little nitpickier here again. In that I am perfectly fine with SF that is doing "here is the One Thing we are making up out of whole cloth. let us work through the interesting consequences and ramifications of that One Thing" in which the specific One Thing itself is essentially a miracle, but the mechanics of everything else are realistic; I think that sort of exploration is one of the things SF does best.
Galvatron:
I would also caution againts worlds were normal things like pig farmers dont exist, unless you have a good reason why no one wants to eat bacon anymore.
Just because man can travel the stars doesnt mean we dont still want a bacon cheese burger.
And I would imagine pig farming could still be a down and dirty job, its always been that way and there is a good chance it always will be. It was gritty and dirty in the bronze age and its still dirty now, putting a man on the moon would have seemed a mircle to the Spartans, not so much a mircale to us, running a pig farm is still a gritty and dirty thing.
Everything doesnt need to change, of course you could come up with new ways to do things, thats up to you, and one of the reasons I enjoy writing science fiction more than any other genre =)
Ulfgeir:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on June 11, 2013, 07:47:00 PM ---I'd actually be a little nitpickier here again. In that I am perfectly fine with SF that is doing "here is the One Thing we are making up out of whole cloth. let us work through the interesting consequences and ramifications of that One Thing" in which the specific One Thing itself is essentially a miracle, but the mechanics of everything else are realistic; I think that sort of exploration is one of the things SF does best.
--- End quote ---
Ok, I give you that. That is of course totally valid, but then that takes a hell of a lot better writing than a lot of authors can do. Or are willing to make the effort.
For example take Star Trek, if you have so you can effectively teleport anyone or anything from anyplace, why then isn't it standard operating procedure for their ships to just beam the whole bridgecrew away from another ship before the combat even happens. Or just beam aboard a really powerful bomb. Especially if you have cloaking capability. The other guys won't know what hit them.
/Ulfgeir
Ulfgeir:
--- Quote from: Galvatron on June 11, 2013, 07:59:37 PM ---I would also caution againts worlds were normal things like pig farmers dont exist, unless you have a good reason why no one wants to eat bacon anymore.
Just because man can travel the stars doesnt mean we dont still want a bacon cheese burger.
And I would imagine pig farming could still be a down and dirty job, its always been that way and there is a good chance it always will be. It was gritty and dirty in the bronze age and its still dirty now, putting a man on the moon would have seemed a mircle to the Spartans, not so much a mircale to us, running a pig farm is still a gritty and dirty thing.
--- End quote ---
That is absolutely true. Maybe I should explain the term pigfarming. On a Swedish rpg-forum, they coined the phrase for settings that basically had very low levels of magic (if any), and that well the high-end stuff you played were maybe one village's cattleraid against another village. Basically the idea that everying back in mediaeval (or other such period) times were damp, grey, and just plain sucked, and that you would die from blood poisoning if you as much as scratched yourself. As opposed to stuff like D&D where you are expected to have a golf-bag of magical weapons and batman's utilitybelt of magical goodies (and if you don't well you won't stand a chance), yet noone reflects on how the abundance of such magic would affect the world.
/Ulfgeir
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Galvatron on June 11, 2013, 07:59:37 PM ---I would also caution againts worlds were normal things like pig farmers dont exist, unless you have a good reason why no one wants to eat bacon anymore.
Just because man can travel the stars doesnt mean we dont still want a bacon cheese burger.
--- End quote ---
Pigs aren't up there with the most efficient ways to generate food on a starship of finite size; even presuming people still wanting meat, I can see poultry, fish or guinea pigs as a sight more efficient.
(In my particular setting, cats are essentially extinct, after a couple of incidents where people realised that carnivores smart enough to track down all the weaknesses in your tightly managed ecosystem but not smart enough to realise why taking advantage of those weaknesses is anti-survival are a Very Bad Idea for starships or space stations. For values of "incidents" with five-figure-plus casualty counts.)
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