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indigi posted:gently caress plumbing, I want a tiny wormhole at the exit of my butt that transports all poop away 
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Feb 25, 2021 02:29
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Royal Updog posted:Kirk is basically a Dragonrider of Pern WRT The Enterprise if you think on it So basically he kept getting horny because the Enterprise was? Mooey Cow posted:I think it would be foolish to make "wrong or improbable by current concensus" the criteria to make something one or the other. By that measure "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" was fantasy when it came out because giant squids were questionable, and then became sci-fi decades later when whole specimen were found. And then it becomes fantasy again when you read it in French because there it's an octopus, not a squid. Also plenty of sci-fi that used outdated science that I would be reluctant to suddenly consign to fantasy, like the stories that used to think Mercury didn't rotate and the like. indigi posted:we haven't observed anything with mass moving at or beyond light speed in a vacuum and it's incompatible with most physical theories of the universe. even workaround solutions to this limit don't function unless you find theoretical poo poo like exotic matter with negative mass, or they learn something about the casmir effect that allows it to fulfill the same role. I always heard it as "general relativity, causality, FTL: pick two" (I've seen people demonstrate the math that shows information spreading FTL fucks up cause and effect enough to believe it, but I couldn't explain it myself if I tried). Usually most FTL settings seem to take the "general relativity is wrong" approach, I wonder how many have tossed causality out the window instead and said "sure, it's time travel"?
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Feb 25, 2021 04:38
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You can't use supposed causality violations to time travel, that would be an equivocation. What happens in relativity with superluminal signals is that some observers will disagree on the ordering of events, ie. effects may appear to precede causes. Though it would be more accurate to say that the math breaks down and gives nonsense answers. You can't actually use the math to conclude an effect will precede its cause by a certain amount, it will at best come out as an imaginary number, and most crucially it will be different for different observers (and for an infinite number of them it could be a real and positive number, so events would be well ordered for these). So if this were equivalent to time travel no one would agree how far back it went. This is different to the kind of time travel that appears even in simple solutions in general relativity, where the time distance is well defined. Or at least it might be, I have not personally done that math. It could turn out there are different interpretations for that too which you don't often hear about.
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Feb 25, 2021 11:37
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Star Dates
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Feb 25, 2021 12:52
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Royal Updog posted:Star Dates Star Figs imo
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Feb 25, 2021 21:01
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Mooey Cow posted:You can't use supposed causality violations to time travel, that would be an equivocation. What happens in relativity with superluminal signals is that some observers will disagree on the ordering of events, ie. effects may appear to precede causes. Though it would be more accurate to say that the math breaks down and gives nonsense answers. You can't actually use the math to conclude an effect will precede its cause by a certain amount, it will at best come out as an imaginary number, and most crucially it will be different for different observers (and for an infinite number of them it could be a real and positive number, so events would be well ordered for these). So if this were equivalent to time travel no one would agree how far back it went. You can arrange things so that you observe effects from things you haven't done yet, decide not to do them, then ???? It has been a long time since that class in college, but I think the simplest setup was: - A1 and A2 are in one spot - B1 and B2 are in another far away spot - The 1 pair and the 2 pair have a large relative velocity to each other (but no acceleration so you can still use straightforward special relativity math instead of general) The adjacent people agree with each other about when now is. They disagree with each other about how far away/what the time is for the far away people. They see the one with relative motion as having a slower clock/contracted distances If you have FTL signaling, you can have them relay a message in a circle such that it ends up back at the initiator before they sent it.
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Feb 25, 2021 21:08
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Foxfire_ posted:You can arrange things so that you observe effects from things you haven't done yet, decide not to do them, then ???? Not if you don't change your frame of reference, and observers at different velocities or distances would not agree in what order those messages would arrive (ignoring here the more important point that no boosted observers could calculate when the signals would arrive, ie derive a proper time for a spacelike interval). So it would be equally valid in that case to say that the messages arrive in the order that frame from which the first message was sent would see, or way before the universe began, or in the distant future, depending on the observer. Seems more logical to conclude this theory cannot naively be used to predict how an ftl signal would behave.
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Feb 25, 2021 21:58
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Split the difference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stlfQNzKdbc
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Feb 26, 2021 00:24
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjToVZTqCbw
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Feb 26, 2021 00:29
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w3PzTl9REo
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Feb 26, 2021 00:37
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party down was so loving good, this is now the party down thread
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Feb 26, 2021 00:43
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Royal Updog posted:party down was so loving good, this is now the party down thread gently caress yeah
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Feb 26, 2021 03:30
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Mooey Cow posted:Not if you don't change your frame of reference, and observers at different velocities or distances would not agree in what order those messages would arrive (ignoring here the more important point that no boosted observers could calculate when the signals would arrive, ie derive a proper time for a spacelike interval). So it would be equally valid in that case to say that the messages arrive in the order that frame from which the first message was sent would see, or way before the universe began, or in the distant future, depending on the observer. Seems more logical to conclude this theory cannot naively be used to predict how an ftl signal would behave. There is no weird definitions of stuff. Everyone has simple "I receive signal X, I send it to Y" instructions. If you allow sending messages faster than light somehow & special relativity is correct, that is enough for current you to be receiving a signal sent by tomorrow you, relayed via something that is far away and has a large relative velocity. That's why it's "special relativity, causality, or FTL signaling, pick two". Either special relativity is wrong, causality can be violated, or superluminal signaling is impossible. And special relativity has a very good track record as far as making non-intuitive predictions that turn out to agree with experiments.
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Feb 26, 2021 04:47
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Foxfire_ posted:There is no weird definitions of stuff. Everyone has simple "I receive signal X, I send it to Y" instructions. If you allow sending messages faster than light somehow & special relativity is correct, that is enough for current you to be receiving a signal sent by tomorrow you, relayed via something that is far away and has a large relative velocity. It is easy to see that there are observers where causality is not violated, e.g. if you follow the chain of signals strictly in the frame of the original sender, the boosted senders would simply relay the messages a little later than instructed and the final message always appears in the future. It is equally easy to see that there are other observers that would disagree when the supposed back in time messages would appear, e.g. someone that is near a boosted sender but travels at a different speed. So it is simply the case that you can't make any definitive statements of what happens if you assign causal influence to a spacelike interval, it depends on the observer (which in itself breaks the postulates the theory is built on). Sure you can say you can choose either FTL or causality in this sense, but it should not be confused with time travel just because that too is said to violate causality. In order to time travel you ought to be able to make yourself appear in your own past lightcone in your own frame of reference. There is no way to make this happen in SR, but you can supposedly make it happen with closed timelike curves in GR. You can still use "FTL = time travel" in a sci-fi story though, it would just be wrong science, which is fine for a story.
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Feb 26, 2021 10:42
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Where do we stand on settings that are so anachronistic they are at once really high and really low tech and also there is magic stuff like He-Man or Thundercats? That way you can have indoor plumbing AND stab a wizard with a sword!
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Feb 28, 2021 07:20
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Sword and science An abomination unto the lord 
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Feb 28, 2021 10:00
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Thundarr the Barbarian is one of my favorite settings of all time so I stand with "It Rules" and "Death to all Wizards, Techno or Otherwise"
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Feb 28, 2021 17:20
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Royal Updog posted:Kirk is basically a Dragonrider of Pern WRT The Enterprise if you think on it I'm rewatching TOS and this is very, very true.
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Mar 1, 2021 16:29
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fantasy is better because you don't have to sort out an understanding of science, nor deal with every nerd's dogmatic interpretation of what science is, in order to write it
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Mar 2, 2021 00:04
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Mar 4, 2021 19:37
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Hodgepodge posted:fantasy is better because you don't have to sort out an understanding of science, nor deal with every nerd's dogmatic interpretation of what science is, in order to write it the dirty secret is you absolutely do not need this to write sci-fi
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Mar 6, 2021 15:11
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Caidin posted:Where do we stand on settings that are so anachronistic they are at once really high and really low tech and also there is magic stuff like He-Man or Thundercats? That way you can have indoor plumbing AND stab a wizard with a sword! Ulysses 31 stands above them all with it's hands on it's hips laughing derisively.
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Mar 7, 2021 22:15
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Usually people talk about the continuum between sci-fi and fantasy in terms of sci-fi stories being silly or mystical enough to count as fantasy, but what about the other end of things? What about fantasy that is complex enough and rigorously coherent with how the mystical elements work that it's basically a science? I think the Witcher series seems to have that kind of attitude where monsters are creatures that have been comprehensively studied to the point that fighting them is practically an engineering problem. There's also Fullmetal Alchemist, where a lot of work is done to frame alchemy as a science, even though it seems like magic. Kind of like steampunk since it's sort of it a earlier period, but it's borrowing from classic conceptions of alchemy instead. Paracelsus-punk.
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Mar 8, 2021 04:31
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SlothfulCobra posted:Usually people talk about the continuum between sci-fi and fantasy in terms of sci-fi stories being silly or mystical enough to count as fantasy, but what about the other end of things? What about fantasy that is complex enough and rigorously coherent with how the mystical elements work that it's basically a science? There's also fantasy that adopts the applications of science to ground its world and/or move it forward developmentally to a more advanced and scientific age. Warhammer Fantasy, Warcraft, Arcanum, Shadowrun, The Flight of Dragons, even... ug... Bright come to mind. I think there's an Amazon show about Fantasy Victorian London that I saw commercials for a year or so ago too.
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Mar 8, 2021 10:20
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there's a specific term for that actually, science fantasy: where the mystical and fantastical concepts of a universe are understood through a scientific lens by inhabitants in that universe despite violating the scientific laws of the real world. FMA's alchemy and the scientific approach of its alchemists is a good example, and Final Fantasy 7 with how the Shinra Corp is harnessing and exploring Mako energy is another good famous one.
Rimusutera fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Mar 9, 2021 |
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Mar 9, 2021 06:10
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Rimusutera posted:there's a specific term for that actually, science fantasy: where the mystical and fantastical concepts of a universe are understood through a scientific lens by inhabitants in that universe despite violating the scientific laws of the real world. FMA's alchemy and the scientific approach of its alchemists is a good example, and Final Fantasy 7 with how the Shinra Corp is harnessing and exploring Mako energy is another good famous one. I always thought Science Fantasy was the term for Star Wars-y type Scifi where you cross the line from "soft," into full-blow Space Magic for the tech and maybe even have a Force-like-power.
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Mar 9, 2021 06:20
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I think that would be space opera. FMA for example has a world where things advance and the magic is viewed and studied through the scientific method, whereas Star Wars is stagnant and basically runs on magic. The fact that it takes place in space is basically the only reason anyone thinks it's sci-fi. Nobody gives a poo poo about science in Star Wars and it has nothing to say about science. The exact same story could take place with actual WW2 planes and ships instead of x-wings and star destroyers.
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Mar 9, 2021 13:12
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Rimusutera posted:there's a specific term for that actually, science fantasy: where the mystical and fantastical concepts of a universe are understood through a scientific lens by inhabitants in that universe despite violating the scientific laws of the real world. FMA's alchemy and the scientific approach of its alchemists is a good example, and Final Fantasy 7 with how the Shinra Corp is harnessing and exploring Mako energy is another good famous one. I enjoy the book Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle for a science fantasy that’s also sort of a alternate history? It supposes world where Ptolemaic astronomy, the physics of Aristotle and ancient Chinese Taoist alchemy are all correct, and the Delian League endures, fighting a never ending war with the Middle Kingdom. So to end the war, the Greeks (along with a Native American trained by the Spartans) head out to capture a piece of the sun to use like a nuke (since it will never burn out). They have to work out the correct planetary materials to use for the net, since they all want to continue in their orbit (including the sun), so they have to be in the right balance)
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Mar 9, 2021 14:01
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Sanguinia posted:I think there's an Amazon show about Fantasy Victorian London that I saw commercials for a year or so ago too. Carnival Row. It's okay-ish to decent-ish?
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Mar 9, 2021 14:21
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:The exact same story could take place with actual WW2 planes and ships instead of x-wings and star destroyers. Or as I like to put it, what would change about the story if C3PO was a Golem. Sir DonkeyPunch posted:So to end the war, the Greeks (along with a Native American trained by the Spartans) head out to capture a piece of the sun to use like a nuke (since it will never burn out). They have to work out the correct planetary materials to use for the net, since they all want to continue in their orbit (including the sun), so they have to be in the right balance) That sounds wild and I love it.
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Mar 9, 2021 17:47
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The Final Fantasy series always referred to it as magitech; the general concept that some people can access this mystical force by the application of technology, some access it by communing with the spirits, some by their ancestry, and some by punching things hard.
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Mar 9, 2021 22:24
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Another thing fantasy has in its favor is that they don't get bogged down by futurism where they have entire stories based around exploring the implications of technology that will probably never be developed. Fantasy stories can lose track of relatable human elements in other ways, but at least they won't get sidetracked by obsessing over the idea of what will happens when the day inevitably comes that everybody has dragons that need to integrate into society.
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Mar 12, 2021 18:49
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Well, Pern did. But mostly you're right!
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Mar 12, 2021 18:52
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SlothfulCobra posted:Another thing fantasy has in its favor is that they don't get bogged down by futurism where they have entire stories based around exploring the implications of technology that will probably never be developed. 75% of robot tv shows/movies/games these days is "what if, here me out, we made artificial life that was similar enough to us that it was basically just another ethnic group" and that's like...less than halfway to where Frankenstein or (more to the point) R.U.R. got over a century ago and it's just so frustrating to see a genre get stuck in this rut repeatedly.
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Mar 12, 2021 19:47
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I'm probably always going to choose sci-fi or fantasy, but I really dig stories that merge both elements. I saw Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood mentioned as one example of this up-thread. Jemisin's The Broken Earth trilogy did it extremely well by creating a world where magic gave birth to technology that destroyed society and reduced civilization back to a pre-magical state of development. The surviving magic users are considered sub-human, experiencing wide spread hatred since they're believed to be somehow accountable for the current state of affairs by the general populace. The setting evolved through fantasy to sci-fi and then regressed due to unchecked application of science: kind of a two steps forward, four steps back progression. The evolution of the setting isn't a major through-line in the novels, but I found it compelling enough and a fresher spin on a post-climate change + social collapse sci-fi novel. Tulip posted:75% of robot tv shows/movies/games these days is "what if, here me out, we made artificial life that was similar enough to us that it was basically just another ethnic group" and that's like...less than halfway to where Frankenstein or (more to the point) R.U.R. got over a century ago and it's just so frustrating to see a genre get stuck in this rut repeatedly.
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Mar 13, 2021 15:32
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I'm re-reading Julian May's books, and apart from her weird fixation about genetics and eugenic manipulation, the focus of the books is on psychic powers which are described in sci-fi science terms but are pretty much just magic, especially in the series set in the Pleistocene where there are literally elves, dwarves, and Don't worry though, the elves and dwarves are aliens so that's okay.
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Mar 16, 2021 13:06
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SlothfulCobra posted:
yeah. i am more of sci-fi nerd but i like the witcher because of that. its like yeah magic exists and so do monsters but monsters also have full taxonomy and their were specially trained monster hunters to go out and kill them but now they are dying off because of lost secrets/paranoia and also because their job can be done by a couple dozen arbalests and men at arms. yeah they may do a shittier job(like the white orcherd griffen quest) but they can eventually do it. plus it has weird scifi elements. i do like other fantasy like tolken and game of thrones but it never clicked with my fully. i prefer space fantasy type poo poo like star wars and 40k.
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Mar 20, 2021 18:56
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I feel like sci-fi also has an easier time differentiating itself from other sci-fi than fantasy does differentiating itself from other fantasy. A lot of fantasy gets stuck in a hole of being just another LotR/D&D pastiche. Elves and dwarves you have to work uphill trying to differentiate from other elves and dwarves (and if you don't, they'll end up kinda flat), but the trappings of sci-fi were born out of genuinely speculating (or plausibly guessing) at the future of humanity, and it doesn't feel as much like a hack move to put in lasers and spaceships without explaining the speciifics. That's just casual realism, since most stories with cars don't feel the need to get into how internal combustion works.
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Mar 21, 2021 04:21
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I woke up one morning in my forties and realized that Gandalf will never shown up in a DeLorean to give me my father’s lightsaber so I can slay the Kraken. What in the gently caress have I done with my life?
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Mar 21, 2021 08:19
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SlothfulCobra posted:I feel like sci-fi also has an easier time differentiating itself from other sci-fi than fantasy does differentiating itself from other fantasy. This kinda seems like a weirdly specific Western literature and RPG thing, mind. Japanese stuff is glad to borrow the trappings and do their own thing with it, and only includes anything remotely recognisable if they feel like it, maybe because it's a cultural borrowing already, while western authors seem hung up on basically emulating what fantasy 'should' be and only begrudgingly include anything else besides a bog standard Tolkien ripoff.
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Mar 21, 2021 11:43
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