Shittiest piece of garbage tech in science fiction

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Sci-Fi Wi-Fi > Shittiest piece of garbage tech in science fiction

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

OtherworldlyInvader posted:

That's before you even wade into the quagmire of moral considerations. Most terraformed planets in sci-fi are depicted as having some sort of indigenous life, in which case terraforming is at best an unbelievably vast ecological disaster and at worst straight up systematic extermination.

Terraforming is the suburban lawn of sci-fi.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2020 21:18

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 01:35

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

General Battuta posted:

They routinely send MALP probes through first, don't worry.

The iris prevents the death plume from even forming, somehow? I guess? You'd think the iris would need to close right AFTER the death plume but...I dunno.

Presumably the death plume has some sort of weakness, something it can't just penetrate/destroy. Like, lead, which is a pretty lovely metal if you're trying to build armor, is pretty loving good at the specific task of stopping radiation. Maybe there's a metal that absorbs death plumes?

Alternatively, the gate has some sort of sensor that registers a blockage in front of it that prevents it from even attempting a connection, as a safety mechanism.The iris literally just convinces the gate that it's burried.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2020 21:02

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

galagazombie posted:

This is actually an issue in lots of post-apocalyptic settings, Eva included. What happens with all the nukes lying around. Sure you've got the nuclear war ones like Fallout where they were presumably all used to cause the aforementioned apocalypse, but what about all the ones caused by viruses, meteors, zombies, etc? That's a poo poo ton of nukes lying around with everyone supposed to be guarding them dead.

Tulip posted:

Fallout's definitely the least realistic treatment - nuclear weapons are intrinsically unstable and basically self-disarm over time. Most nuclear warheads today spend huge amounts of time in maintenance. The nuke in Megaton for example shouldn't be functional anymore, it should just be leaking poison into the drinking water.

Like a lot of SciFi, Fallout functions better if you ignore the IRL physics and treat it as magic being used for a literary end.

Yeah, as I understand it a nuke that's not maintained rapidly dials down its explosive yield before eventually turning into a dirty bomb and eventually just a big container of nuclear waste. Literally every part of the bomb deteriorates, some parts faster than usual because they're attached to a nuke, and it might become a dud within like a decade. They can be brought back to functionality again with the right materials and tech, but they're not just sitting there ready to blow for centuries.

And yeah, radiation in Fallout is literally just magic. If it was treated realistically the in-game world would look more like America in 1776 than anything else.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2020 14:40

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Defiance Industries posted:

The NCR is pretty explicitly an Old West-level society that has some scavenged high tech gear they can maintain, but not reproduce. But that's Obsidian, who actually get the series.

I meant not just in technology, but also the environment. Any Fallout game taking place east of the Mississippi should basically just be in a forest.

General Battuta posted:

I�m afraid that�s going to turn out to be extremely prophetic. Not that I expect unlimited technological post-scarcity any time soon but it really does seem as if we might burn through our biosphere right before we make it to the discoveries that could�ve saved us.

We already have. The problem isn't technological, it's ideological.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2020 17:09

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Foxfire_ posted:

Appleseed mechs have the most plausible seeming control scheme I've seen:

- Big chonky thighs to fit the pilot's legs and have space for them to move so the robot legs&feet can mirror it.
- Pilots arms go into human-scale gloves/vambraces and stick out the torso, then robot arms mimic the motion.
- All other controls are external, like a robot-size rifle has a robot-size trigger

The design of the torso armor literally deflects incoming fire unto the vulnerable arms, which are clearly far less armored than the rest. The mech would be disabled almost immediately as the pilot has an arm blown off and goes into shock. Feel like maybe going with the thigh idea and having the pilot lean back inside the torso so the arms stay inside makes more sense.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2021 06:34

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 01:35

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Foxfire_ posted:

Tanks: Getting a reliable radio signal on the ground when there's terrain and trees in the way is harder than in the air
Jet fighters: The air force is run by ex-fighter pilots who think piloted fighters are cool and somehow inherently better than drones

This is the actual reason:

https://i.imgur.com/Uqo1EkQ.mp4

# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 21:47

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Sci-Fi Wi-Fi > Shittiest piece of garbage tech in science fiction