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boo boo bear posted:drat right. drones are stupid looking and can't smile for the camera. sexy fighter pilots will sell a billion in warbonds and that's how you win wars. And that suddenly reminded me of Manly Guys Doing Manly Things having a Nonspecific Space Future (tm) where due to every power having MAD level firepower pointed at each other, wars are specifically fought for public opinion, complete with super-soldiers being genetically engineered and conditioned to be appealing to the masses. A lot of them, especially the protagonist, aren't happy about this. (His commanding officer says 'We made you to be Marcus Fenix and you turned into Hank Hill') Especially when they falsely tell him his family are dead to give him a traumatic backstory and he wants to talk to a therapist... and on the CO's reaction to that, a lawyer. It's not taken particularly seriously, but it's a scary thought.
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May 4, 2021 19:12
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Apparently, the B-1 Trade Federation Battle Droids got a reputation during and after the Clone Wars for being the cheapest crappiest droids ever made, with their only real upside being that they're pumped out by the hundreds of thousands and designed to be completely expendable. And of course, that was pretty sufficient to kill a lot of Jedi, Clones and Republic troopers. Apparently while they were given their own processors after the Battle of Naboo as a backup in case the central control ship goes down again, they're still the cheapest ones money can buy. Though probably doesn't help that the Separatist droids would gladly go around gunning down unarmed civilians, even children, as demonstrated in The Mandalorian. ...makes a lot of sense with the rise of the Empire there, especially since the Stormtroopers are the descendants of the strictly professional clones- at that point the Seperatists have to be galactic pariahs.
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May 11, 2021 10:46
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Cease to Hope posted:they were going to have the trolley run from the stadium to the neighborhood of make-believe but all the city planning sessions were derailed by lady elaine complaining about "unsavory elements" commuting in from the collective unconscious Where's the Phantom Thieves when you need em?
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Nov 20, 2021 09:43
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Nebakenezzer posted:My understanding is that one of the ambitions on Alien was to achieve the same lush, intelligent production design Star Wars did so well. I suspect this is a long story that others know better, but that ultra-weird production of Dune that French filmmaker wanted to do united quite a few people, and a few ideas that'd later be used in Alien. It explains a lot that they understood what made Star Wars so distinct and such a game-changer in sci-fi, and took ideas from it while making a quite different genre and tone of movie.
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Dec 27, 2021 03:53
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And that's on the lucky side of the spaceship, it's implied that the lifepods on the other side didn't deploy at all because that's where it got shot. Though it doesn't help that at that angle, the lifepods would likely have landed out in the open ocean; ie; hyperaggressive territorial Leviathan territory. Lifepod 5 was just the one lucky enough to land in the safest part of the map, with relatively minimal damage... and for its occupant to be knocked out long enough for everyone else to die, leaving examples of what not to do. Not to mention that while it could have been worse, the player's lifepod fabricator- and everything that the player builds by extension- is glitched to only have the bare minimum of its blueprints available, hence the need to go out and find more, often by scanning the various debris left all over the map of the stuff you want to build. The whole premise of Subnautica basically revolves around hyper-advanced yet still lovely tech, like the jokes about how your PDA AI hasn't really fully grasped your situation, or that you're being charged for use of company property via the salvage you're using desperately trying to survive. Not to mention it seems implied the abovementioned limited fabricator recipes might be because of flat out DRM. (though there is a lore bit mentioning that straight-up lethal weapons aren't available because of an incident where shipwreck survivors ended up using them on each other, possibly on the leadership) And then there's when you run into super-hyper advanced alien technology, which is implied to be basically a better version of what humans have, complete with similar lab equipment if you find an alien research laboratory. And the teleporting hellsquids that hunt you are cybernetic constructs enforcing a quarantine order. The 2000s Apple aesthetic is used for a lot of things, like the I, Robot movie and Portal, as a shorthand for 'sleek, modern, sinister'. Unfortunately prophetic given what the smartphone age has brought on, but I suppose it wasn't too hard to see that coming.
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Dec 28, 2021 13:41
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ThisIsJohnWayne posted:This was a fantastic read and I liked it a lot, and while I ultimately agree with your tragic tale of Terminator (poor SkyNet needs a hug and a "there, there") Reminds me of the original script for Terminator Salvation, where Skynet's HQ turns out to have humans being living in luxury with Terminators waiting on them hand and foot and mowing their lawns. Also ties in with how the T-1000 is apparently a dangerous prototype that Skynet doesn't fully trust because it can't control it, and sends it back as a desperation move because its back is against the wall.
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Jan 26, 2022 17:34
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Hillary 2024 posted:Event Horizon, Warhammer 40k: You can only go faster than light by travelling through Hell Orks: Yeeeah! In flight entertainment!
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Jan 27, 2022 10:11
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Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot is a mostly forgotten cartoon from the late 90s I probably ought to watch, seems to have some fun ideas. It's by the same studio that did Jackie Chan Adventures, MIB, Godzilla The Series, Extreme Ghostbusters, and a bunch of over stuff that was better than it had any right to be. More on topic, I read about the titular Rusty's prototype model, 'Earl', who isn't quite say, the Protoman to his Megaman, but an extremely flawed AI that for some reason they armed up and deployed anyway. One of his main problems being only able to interpret orders in a very literal fashion, and earlier orders supercede later ones, making it impossible for him to adapt to a changing situation as he won't begin on a new order until he's completed his current one. That really seems like something you'd think they'd have figured out in testing.
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Jan 28, 2022 04:48
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SlothfulCobra posted:I do have a theory that maybe Big Guy's failed AI system is still around as a voice filter to turn everything the pilot says into ridiculous Americana. Because so much of what Big Guy says is talking about Uncle Sam, apple pie, helping out taxpayers, Americana and propaganda, and sometimes they cut to the pilot inside saying things that Big Guy says, but the show never actually depicts Jim Hanks, the pilot, saying any of the ridiculous Americana stuff himself. Even a more simple verbal tic like Big Guy's tendency to say "for the love of Mike" as an expletive, Jim Hanks never says that himself. That would explain so much. Also sounds like Big Guy might have been the inspiration for Liberty Prime. (the whole premise sounds very Fallout timeline) Given how many child robot stories riff straight off of Astro Boy, I think that might actually bring up the implication that to have a stable human-equivalent AI, you might actually have to not take short cuts and start it out as a child going through the appropriate stages of emotional, mental and moral development. Because otherwise you end up with robots as the equivalent of stunted manchildren with a very dangerously limited view of the world and inability to communicate properly with humans who expect a robot to understand what they mean. My Life As A Teenage Robot takes a slightly different track, where a point's made early on that despite only being activated a few years ago (and as a result, she ends up sent to human kindergarten. It's not a serious show. But often a very funny one) XK-9, aka 'Jenny' was designed to be a teenager (conveniently the first blueprints were drawn up about 16 years before). They actually take a different tack when introducing her prototypes, XJ-1 through 8, who all look very different and are clearly functional testbeds for certain aspects that eventually were all put together in XJ-9. XJ-1 is literally a robot infant who mostly communicates through crying- about as obvious as you can get for a baseline experiment of a robot with emotions.
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Jan 29, 2022 16:59
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Trollologist posted:Literally the plot of the first Hitman game. This is a canon. Also the guys who contributed to 47's DNA. You'd think that'd about put an end to that plotline, but the most recent games play with that; focus less on the guys who cloned him and more on those who trained him. Including featuring an otherwise ordinary human who went through the same from-childhood horrific assassin training that 47 did. (Kinda makes sense from a scientific perspective; a control group)
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Jan 30, 2022 06:58
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DS9 has better holodeck eps because they actually explore the concepts of interactive fiction and how people use and react to it. Also they have a James Bond parody so good MGM threatened them.
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Jul 22, 2022 12:50
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Neelix, who managed to go mad with power as the cook.
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Sep 7, 2022 07:33
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I loosely recall Darth Maul's little seen ship being clearly styled on a TIE fighter. Apparently it has a cloaking device, mentioned but rarely seen (lol) in canon. The Trade Federation 'Vulture' droid starfighters are rarely mentioned, despite being actual Transformers. I'm guessing they likely had the issue of being lovely starfighters and lovely battle droids.
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Oct 20, 2022 12:31
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Though given the setting I wonder if that's almost as good as a cloaking device, especially if you barely need to actually expend any energy in a way sensors might pick up.
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Oct 20, 2022 12:46
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Worf posted:Putting your shield generators directly above your bridge so that no matter what you have either torpedoes or awings coming at your command area The last one just feels like an invitation for someone to go all A New Hope on your rear end.
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Oct 22, 2022 14:51
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There's one episode where a cloaked Romulan Bird of Prey has been near DS9 for ages and it takes time shenanigans for O'Brien(s) to figure it out and detect its singularity core before it destroys the station. Fun thing, technically from then on that's not the original O'Brien anymore, who died of radiation poisoning in an alternate timeline! A fairly consistent thing in Star Trek is that a cloak is an excellent way to hide from someone who doesn't know they should be looking for you.
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Oct 23, 2022 05:28
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Also remember that one of the big reveals in those episodes is that the Obsidian Order/Tal Shiar alliance is spearheaded by what turns out to be a Changeling disguised as the head of the Obsidian Order. That is, the Dominion already knows about it. Vaguely on topic, I read a bunch of EU books from a series about Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's history before Episode I, which I mostly vaguely remember- the Melida/Daan book was pretty on the nose as a clumsy allegory- but vaguely remember a bit where Obi-Wan is made to fight a duel with swords, and there's a little emphasis on how weird that is for someone who's trained for years with lightsabers, and how a blade with weight takes some getting used to before he can even begin to adapt the experience he has. Just one of those interesting bits putting some thought into a character experiencing a fantastic sci-fi weapon's real-world equivalent.
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Nov 14, 2022 17:02
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It's an extremely common thing in sci-fi and real life to pour tons of money and resources into a fuckoff big impractical superweapon that usually gets blown up after like a day operational but at least it looks cool on the posters. See also the Death Star.
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Dec 14, 2022 16:29
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Something to be said for diplomacy via sunk cost fallacy. And now I'm loosely reminded of Schlock Mercenary, and an arc that ends up with the characters realising 'they built a city into the barrel of a superweapon so it wouldn't be fired'. And yes, how bad an idea this is comes up and is a major plot element.
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Dec 23, 2022 08:28
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Feb 1, 2023 03:53
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I got reminded of that Deep Space Nine episode- In The Cards, thassit- where one plot point is that a crank scientist is developing some kind of 'cellular entertainment chamber' that he's convinced is the secret to halting ageing. It's not something you often see, but in-universe pseudoscience in a sci-fi setting is both really funny and incredibly fitting with a little thought, especially considering how much Star Trek especially has technology that's effectively magic, and ship components frequently pulling off ridiculous deus ex machinas that are never seen again.
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Mar 12, 2023 10:38
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Hey, we don't know that it doesn't work. I find it interesting that Weyoun of all people shows genuine interest in it enough to offer the guy a job. Weyoun already has access to a form of immortality. Albeit maybe interested in seeing how long he can keep that body going.
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Mar 12, 2023 13:11
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Splicer posted:We know that in star trek psychic powers are real and also various advanced space goobers keep saying humanity has "promise". All the best human engineers and doctors and such are pre-Q potentiates working off Warhammer Ork rules where half the stuff only works because they're subconsciously thumbing the scales. The Enterprise is the flagship so they get all the most successful people, so it's the ship with the most concentrated waaagh power which is why they pull off the most frequent and most obvious gibberish. I'm just reminded of the meme post where humans are all goddamn mad scientists and all standard Federation ships are overengineered insanity that's usually running at like 20% of full capacity and the Vulcans are quietly terrified of them. Nog learned from humans and ended up reanimating a corpse via remote control
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Mar 17, 2023 06:10
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A lot of headcanon and fluff and frankly canon comes down to humans being the manic pixie dream species to Vulcans.
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Mar 17, 2023 07:31
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IIRC the method they use literally only works with Klingon Birds of Prey of a particular model.
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Mar 17, 2023 09:07
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Weirdly enough, DS9's use of time travel is almost entirely through the Prophets and the Orbs, who it seems implied are a lot more able to manage it smoothly thanks to non-linear time being their whole thing. Even the Guardian of Forever hosed up that one time in TAS. Which is also fun because that establishes the Federation DOES use time travel for historical research, with the Guardian of Forever glad to enable them and even admit to and help fix mistakes.
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Mar 18, 2023 04:53
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Q also does a bit of that too actually, like in Picard's near-death experience episode. Of course, I feel a key thing is many of those time travel episodes are specifically about introspection, with characters exploring aspects of their life and how they percieve and relate to the world around them. The ones where characters including Garak, Odo and Kira go back to occupation-era Terok Nor gives them all an arc; Garak learning how horrible the Cardassian regime really was to Bajorans as individuals, Odo facing his past as being part of that regime, and Kira... learning Dukat wasn't lying about banging her mom. And whether Far Beyond The Stars counts as time travel is of course a fun question.
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Mar 18, 2023 06:46
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My Teacher Is An Alien has a massive spaceship that's called the New Jersey by humans because it's literally the size of said city, and it's apparently the smallest of the fleet. It's apparently said that their FTL technology requires ships of at least that size to have enough gravitational pull, and they end up building a ton of room and facilities for an entire city's worth of passengers of all kinds of species and cultures to live comfortably just to fill out the space. I had the idea of FTL travel that's effectively magical, and relies on basically convincing the eldritch entities of unfathomable scale and power that semi-exist in the void between the stars to give you a quick ride. Almost but not quite the same thing as 40k Warp travel, which of course is its own thing of taking shortcuts through Hell.
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Jun 30, 2023 05:57
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Actually comes to mind the GotG method of FTL is interesting, basically using a galactic portal network to go through random places til you finally arrive at your destination, and where reality starts falling apart around you if you go too fast. And given the kitchen-sink nature of the setting, of course it's just one of multiple methods of FTL that different entities and factions use, probably all having their own upsides, downsides and quirks.
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Jun 30, 2023 09:26
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I imagine it must be also pretty demoralising for a developer to have to start over again with an IP because they had the rights to their creations taken away from them. Reminds me of when the Sonic comics writers basically had to do that two or three times because of legal fuckery and Archie's bullshit.
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Jul 1, 2023 10:56
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Blew up the moon, if I remember correctly. Impact of debris all but obliterated civilization on Earth. I never really thought of Cowboy Bebop as a post-apocalyptic setting before, but in a very big way it would count. It's more post-post-apocalyptic as civilization has pretty much reformed around a terraformed Mars, but it does explain a lot about the frontier feel of the setting and relative lawlessness, as what would be the base of a centralised civilization is a turbofucked environmental catastrophe.
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Jul 2, 2023 18:35
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Defiance Industries posted:Yeah but can you blame them? Everything I've ever seen about it is like a distilled example of why the Sonic franchise is a joke Fair, but Sonic's mirror universe counterpart being an insecure edgelord who literally makes himself into a recolour OC is hilarious.
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Aug 3, 2023 10:21
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Roadie posted:It gets stupider: Ken Penders has made repeated attempts to license out the Scourge character for comics and whatever, and all of them failed because it turns out nobody's actually interested in paying for a series about a recolor Sonic OC with various recolor OC background characters. Also Penders didn't even create Scourge in any meaningful way besides the idea of 'evil mirror universe Sonic', and only won the lawsuit because iirc Sega literally didn't show up. I imagine any licensing deal at this point would probably have Sega actually pay attention now.
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Aug 4, 2023 06:48
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EVIL Gibson posted:I wish global warming would come quicker so the Sonic knowledge iceberg would die along with facts such as these Where do you think we are? Wapole Languray posted:And even THEN when they rebooted it with IDW, they just made Surge the Tenrec, who's Scourge but a Girl, and also has her own Evil Tails. Who are possibly thread examples as going with the long tradition of DBZ references in Sonic, they're basically Androids 17 and 18.
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Nov 26, 2023 08:36
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SpeakSlow posted:Phone watch. Dick Tracy WAY oversold the utility. I wonder if it tracked his sleep cycles too... Video phones are a fun one since they were such a staple for so long right up until they became viable, and then it turns out they're more edge cases than anything. That Simpsons future episode had probably some of the best video phone gags with Marge forgetting she's literally on camera.
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Apr 25, 2024 09:37
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