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, 08:06:25 PM ---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.
--- End quote ---
Agreed entirely.
--- Quote ---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.
--- End quote ---
Indeed. I don't believe I have ever defended Star Trek as good SF and there are reasons for that.
Galvatron:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on June 11, 2013, 08:47:40 PM ---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.)
--- End quote ---
Indeed, the only thing is I wasnt just talking about how life on a starship goes, more that there are things going on down on the planets and not just on the ships. Somewhat how firefly does it, lots of ships and all but also lots of people that just live on one world and dont travel around and live a fairly primitive/older life style.
Basiclly saying you can have the starships and space travel, but still have a fairly normal non advanced life on the ground at the same time.
If that makes sense lol
Galvatron:
--- Quote from: Ulfgeir on June 11, 2013, 08:15:17 PM ---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
--- End quote ---
lol got it, please excuse my hill billy ways, I thought you ment the actual farming of pigs
Ulfgeir:
--- Quote from: Galvatron on June 11, 2013, 09:26:46 PM ---lol got it, please excuse my hill billy ways, I thought you ment the actual farming of pigs
--- End quote ---
Heh. The term they used in Swedish was actually "grisodling", which is silly as "odling" is reserved for growing things. Like plants (or maybe as short for "bakterieodling", like you do in petri dishes). I should have explained it better the first time, I forgot that not everyone had the same reference-point I had. =^_^=
/Ulfgeir
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Galvatron on June 11, 2013, 09:23:25 PM ---Indeed, the only thing is I wasnt just talking about how life on a starship goes, more that there are things going on down on the planets and not just on the ships.
--- End quote ---
But anything with humans on a non-Earth planet has to have been brought there on a starship in the first place, no ?
--- Quote --- Somewhat how firefly does it, lots of ships and all but also lots of people that just live on one world and dont travel around and live a fairly primitive/older life style.
--- End quote ---
In most settings, that would be a plausibility-killer for me. In Firefly, complaining about that being a plausibility-killer is like compaining that you can;t scratch your itchy nose because someone just chopped both your arms off.
--- Quote ---Basiclly saying you can have the starships and space travel, but still have a fairly normal non advanced life on the ground at the same time.
--- End quote ---
"Normal" is exactly the point I am quibbling with; you want to make another planet's setting look a lot like here and now, you need to have solid active reasons to convince me.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version