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SciFi and Time
dafrca
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 4:47 pm 
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I find it interesting how many SciFi games that have come out want to place themselves thousands of years in the future and yet seem stuck in modern or resent past technology and weapons.

When one looks at the changes over the last 100 years, why would I, as a game designer, assume the next thousand would see almost no major changes in technology other then FTL ships?

What do you guys think?

dafrca

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MaksimSmelchak
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 4:53 pm 
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Hi Dafrca,

I don't think that placing sci-fi too far in the future will capture the public's imagination.

Nano-tech and micro-drones are kind of boring compared to the near future.

It's much more of a stretch to grasp the far future than the near future.

And that's even before we think up tactical and strategic changes...

What if we head to a new era of formalized warfare instead of total warfare?

Or just maybe, we human beings as a species figure out how to peaceably get along...

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dafrca
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 5:09 pm 
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Quote (MaksimSmelchak @ 15 April 2006 (08:53))
I don't think that placing sci-fi too far in the future will capture the public's imagination.

And yet we do it all the time.

"Year 2250 and dafrca shoots the Alien using his...... Colt .45?"

What I see is that most SciFi games *Are* set in the far future and then are selective what tech has evolved beyond 1980.

That is what I have found so funny of late. We somehow figure out how to make FTL ships but are still hacking each other with Katanas for example.

dafrca

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CyberShadow
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 9:42 pm 
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It allows the designer to pick exactly what elements will be used without fear of being 'wrong'. It gets rid of any of todays predjudices without having to remain 'logical' with todays events and does not worry about currentl events overturning that wonderful twist in 'history' that the game designer comes up with.

Personally, I find it a little flat when games are set so far in the future, since logical progression and consistancy can add flavour. That said, a science fiction game set only 30 years ahead really only allows for the potential of aliens landing. Anything else would be 'real world'.

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primarch
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 9:53 pm 
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Hi!

I agree with Maksim that perhaps making a setting where it is so alien to what we have now will not capture peoples attentions.

Imagine a medievil person living now. He would probably go insane from the noise level alone. He could not relate.

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Tas
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 12:31 am 
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Yes - but add another 38,000 years to 2006 (for 40k era) and look where that has us... :p

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dafrca
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 1:38 am 
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Quote (primarch @ 15 April 2006 (13:53))
I agree with Maksim that perhaps making a setting where it is so alien to what we have now will not capture peoples attentions.

I am not saying so Alien we can never understand it. I do not think such a thing could be done. The game designer does start from their own understanding.

Rather, I am thinking of the differance between a D&D world, say Ebron, and a pure historical world setting. The two would never be confussed with each other, yet there is some common points.

So to go SciFi, I am thinking abou tthe story I read where in order to go out to the furthest places and terra form, humans had their brains removed and stuck in cryo. Once the robotic ship arrived it awoke and started to build "bodies" for the brains. None of the bodies looked Human, rather they were more like Robots or construction equipment etc. Over time a cuture arrose where the "rich" had more bodies they could move between. Odd, yes, but boring? I did not think so.

Just a thought.

dafrca

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Legion 4
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 6:03 am 
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Look at tech in say Star Trek or Hammer's Slammers ... Two very different ideas of the future  ...  Power supplies, weapons tech, etc. ...

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Tas
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 7:22 am 
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That sounds an interesting read dafrca!

Of course some SciFi uses time dilation to mix the current and the future and explain the spanning of generations.  Im thinking particularly of Haldeman's "Forever War" but there are others

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vanvlak
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 8:44 am 
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There's a major real constrain incidentally - space travel - there is no one concept which is currently feasible which would get us beyond 15% of light speed; and just one which is only a little beyond current technological feasibility which could get us up to 20%, if my memory serves me right. The former is soar sail propulsion, the latter laser-sail propulsion. If to get to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star, takes 3.8years at light speed, you can imagine what it would take to cross a galaxy - let alone to another galaxy!
The technological limitation presented above has a physical counterpart: assuming we can find a means of nearing light speed, we would probably be (1) restricted by relativistic effects and (2) even light speed is too slow! The closest star with something which might be a planet is (again working from memory) around 10 light years away, and the detected planet is probably a gas giant (and therefore uninhabitable).(3) Our current physics prohibits travel at exactly the speed of light and (4) only makes vague suggestions of above-light speed (superluminal speed - tachyons are not restricted to Star Trek, i was pleased to find out).

And then, the biggest hurdle of all: no single country has the political will or economic clout (or rather, both) to start taking serious steps in this direction, other than the couple of solar sail experiments - the most notable supported by a public body, the Interplanetary Society, rather than a nation. This project is not doing too well, and is limited in scope. A laser sail would take a far greater investment, and no-one seems to be too keen or capable.
So unless there are major revolutionary breakthroughs in four major issues, or miracles in some of these: technology, physics, economics and politics -  we're going nowhere fast. unless ET turns up.

So however advanced technology might appear in 100 years, there is a major risk we'd still be stuck in our solar system. ???

What would change? Hologram technolgy; materials technology (partly based on nanotech); data and IT; energy sources and application, to name but a few. And inevitably, weapons technology, if supported by the market and politics. :O

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dafrca
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 9:10 am 
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Quote (vanvlak @ 16 April 2006 (00:44))
So however advanced technology might appear in 100 years, there is a major risk we'd still be stuck in our solar system. ???

What would change? Hologram technolgy; materials technology (partly based on nanotech); data and IT; energy sources and application, to name but a few. And inevitably, weapons technology, if supported by the market and politics. :O

Not to be too argumentative, but I can't help thinking about how Scientists 100 years ago said man could not travel at the speed of sound and live. That we would never be able to travel to space let alone the moon. Or any number of odd little quotes I could dig up, like the Patten Office Nut who said in the 1890's that everything that could be invented had already been invented. :laugh:

Then I look at how fast and furious things changed in the computer world from 1949 to 1999. I read a statement by one guy saying how only major governments or corporations would own computers. Now I have two in my house if you do not count the small ones in my TV or Microwave.  :laugh:

So what is my point, well it is that just because I can not see the break through today does not mean it does not exist and will not happen. I am less worried about the feasability that we will have FTL speed ships in 2525 then how will the rest of the world look. Why would or should I assume the military will look anything like it does now?

Anyway, I have been in an odd mood when it comes to my games/miniatures. Sorry if I am going off some deep end.  :blush:

dafrca

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The_Real_Chris
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 10:08 am 
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Have you ever read kryomechs setting?

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Tas
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 10:30 am 
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Then I look at how fast and furious things changed in the computer world from 1949 to 1999.


But thats exactly the point - if our grandparents couldnt recognise our modern world, how would we view it in 200 years? or a thousand? (or 38,000 years...).  You are right - what seems impossible now may be everyday then, but could we relate to routine activities ?

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CyberShadow
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 11:08 am 
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Quote (dafrca @ 16 April 2006 (01:38))
So to go SciFi, I am thinking abou tthe story I read where in order to go out to the furthest places and terra form, humans had their brains removed and stuck in cryo. Once the robotic ship arrived it awoke and started to build "bodies" for the brains. None of the bodies looked Human, rather they were more like Robots or construction equipment etc. Over time a cuture arrose where the "rich" had more bodies they could move between. Odd, yes, but boring? I did not think so.

This sounds like a story that I read by AA Attanassio. All of these people currently going into cryo now are woken up in one hundred years and put into construction equipment as slaves. Since a 'dead person' cannot claim ownership to anything, they could not even say that they owned their own brains, and so became property.

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MaksimSmelchak
 Post subject: SciFi and Time
PostPosted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 3:16 pm 
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Hi Dafrca,

Quote (dafrca @ 15 April 2006 (17:09))
Quote (MaksimSmelchak @ 15 April 2006 (08:53))
I don't think that placing sci-fi too far in the future will capture the public's imagination.


And yet we do it all the time.

"Year 2250 and dafrca shoots the Alien using his...... Colt .45?"


I don't know about that, Dafrca...

The thing is that the public imagination never seems to get much farther than we are in terms of technological or social
development...

- Go too far and your project is abherent...

- Go just a little ahead and your project is groundbreaking...

Look at TV sci-fi... it doesn't sell well if is really futuristic, but the many sci-fi shows with set stories and little imagination sell very well...

People are generally looking for dramas adn whatnot when it comes to media and not futuristic imagination.

In another example, look at how far Battletech has come from the 1980s...

Chag Sameach and Shalom,
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