Technology overtaking ficitonal SciFi technology: (update the fiction?)

[Jericho]

So...

I love the Warhammer 40K universe. I love the way that mankind's only purpose is to survive and produce weapons, food, and cannon-fodder for the never ending war machine. Depending on the authors of the books, these tales can be very insightful, or just utter crap.

Because humanity has lost so much (or will lose so much over the next 38,000 years), mankind is basically stagnant with no advances in technology. They just repeatedly build the same things over and over based on the templates and blueprints that they already have. (Not strictly true, but generally speaking)

If any of you have read the Ciaphus Cain novels, they are something of a breath of fresh air. A more light-heated take on the universe, with Cain being a borderline Blackadder. Basically just wanting to survive and run away as much as possible, which always leads to his victory.


The point of this post

I'm just reading the 6th book in the series, and suddenly they are all using ipads. Sorry, 'data-slates'. He sends one of his cadets down a dark tunnel, and they are face-timing each other. The cadet is holding his ipad up so that Cain can see what he sees in the tunnel.

To me, this is a MASSIVE technological leap in the universe (because the universe was created in the early 1980's). I'm sure that those more versed in the mythos can provide 143 prior examples of this kind of thing happening. But it is the first time that I can recall the universe evolving.

I still remember Judge Dredd arresting a fellow judge. They caught him tipping off the bad guys from a payphone. They tracked all his calls from payphones all over the city. So in the future, payphones are coming back and cell-phones are a lost art. I've no idea if the Dredd universe has moved on to tablets and cellphones, as I've not read the stuff in a couple of decades.

One of the things I liked about The Force Awakens is that everything was still the same. The X-Wings had a slightly different design. The TieFighters had a tail gunner, but were essentially the same. Storm Troopers had the next marque of armor and weapons. It all made sense, with their fractional changes.


Go back and watch the first season of Star Trek TNG (It is horrible painful viewing) with their green-screen monitors/data displays which were already out of date by the time the show aired.


Should these fictional universes move on as our technology moves on? Or should they stay stuck in the past? With WH40K they kind of had the excuses that they just couldn't build new things (they can't even decode binary, that 'language' is reserved for the tech-priests).


(And, please, no talk about how Star Trek created cell-phones... They didn't. Although I accept that their communicators seemed to be about as reliable as the 3 network...)

[Antilogic]

(And, please, no talk about how Star Trek created cell-phones... They didn't. Although I accept that their communicators seemed to be about as reliable as the 3 network...)

They also invented tablets.

[brucewarren]

I would say leave them be. Trying to keep everything up to date is a mugs game.

Some of my favourite books are the Foundations series - the real ones not the appalling fan fic that came later. In them there are a lot of mistakes about what the future would be like but it doesn't matter. They remain classics. Try to update them and you'd not only be constantly having to do so every time the real world changed but you'd likely gut them in the process.

One of my favourite approaches to the problem was done in Red Dwarf. Someone must have complained about the use of tapes on the show. Kryten brilliantly explained why the older tech was still in use when he explained that no one ever managed to put a DVD back in the correct case and so they fell back on the larger tapes that could not be easily lost.

[Bishop149]

Star Trek kinda had an interesting version of this, which is probably my favourite bit of retconning ever. There are some DS9 episodes in which the crew time travel back to Kirk's time, and of course everything is 60's sci-fi aesthetic. The crew then make multiple references to how the fashions of that time were so daring and bold, as if the entire federation was basically going through space 60's at that point in history.

Basically the argument going is that we know they have all this futuristic technology and (warp drives, transporters etc etc) how it is presented (the aesthetic overlay so to speak) is merely a matter of the prevailing fashion.

I personally didn't notice but apparently they even tried to undo some of the accusations of sexism levelled a ToS by showing men in the background wearing the same design of skimpy uniforms as routinely worn the women, so it was just coincidence in ToS that we only ever saw the women wearing them. . . . .

They also make reference to the Klingons not looking like Klingons, to which all Worf says is "We do not discuss it with outsiders!"
Later on (earlier in canon) Enterprise expands on that. . . . .

[CBJ]

Sci-fi, by definition, has a moving target to hit. "The future" quickly becomes the present and the past. The older the sci-fi, the less plausible it is likely to be because of the number of things that have changed in between, making the fictional universe less like a forward step and more like a sideways one. Even the best-written stories do start to date eventually. For one-off books or completed series, all this means is that eventually they sell fewer copies and become curiosities for serious sci-fi buffs rather than good material for a wider audience. For a lucrative ongoing franchise, that's not such a good option. If you want to keep the bulk of your audience then you have to maintain the franchise's broad appeal, even if that means annoying a few purists who object to the lore being changed. Of course all the same things are true of non-sci-fi stories; it's just that being set in the "future" amplifies the effect, because instead of things just becoming "old fashioned" they become "old fashioned visions of the future".

[pjknibbs]

"The future" quickly becomes the present and the past. The older the sci-fi, the less plausible it is likely to be because of the number of things that have changed in between, making the fictional universe less like a forward step and more like a sideways one.

I remember reading an Edgar Allan Poe short story where he was writing about the far future, where people travelled the skies in enormous (unpowered, note) hot air balloons and where the ships were basically the same ones as his own time, but much bigger--so a four thousand ton sailing ship is referred to as a "barquentine". The idea of a ship or flying vessel that was somehow self-powered simply never occurred to him, and Lord knows how he would have reacted to the idea that ships of half a million tons can travel faster than even the fastest tea clippers of his own era!

[birdtable]

The best Sci Fi seeks to avoid tech,, they are usually alternate or future histories ..... I remember watching the film "Shape of things to come" where at the end after fighting the ignorant masses astronauts are shot into space with a giant gun on a one way mission ...it would have to be one way otherwise who would wipe up the smeary mess.

I wonder how may will read between the lines in CBJ's comments ...

The obvious future/alternate histories is about the events not the tech.... thought I had better edit that in before it gets pointed out.

[brucewarren]

Sometimes tech gets in the way, especially when the writers get the tech wrong.

The most grating example I can think of offhand is in a Voyager episode where there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about what a computer program is.

They send a copy of the Doc off to cure the real Zimmerman back on Earth. So far so good, but Voyager is left without one in the meantime.

Why? He's a program. He's data. There's no reason given why two copies of the same program can't run at the same time. Maybe if it consumed too many resources there would be some excuse but if he was going to be running on two separate computers each fully capable of running the program then the issue of system resources doesn't apply.

[Usenko]

The best Sci Fi seeks to avoid tech,, they are usually alternate or future histories ..... I remember watching the film "Shape of things to come" where at the end after fighting the ignorant masses astronauts are shot into space with a giant gun on a one way mission ...it would have to be one way otherwise who would wipe up the smeary mess.

I wonder how may will read between the lines in CBJ's comments ...

The obvious future/alternate histories is about the events not the tech.... thought I had better edit that in before it gets pointed out.

The real hard-core Sci-Fi analysts would perhaps argue that the Sci-Fi you describe is not really Sci-Fi!

(they tend to refer to Science fiction which doesn't actually refer to science and tech as "Science Fantasy". Most aficionados accept it, but call it "Soft" science fiction)

[Jericho]

Why? He's a program. He's data. There's no reason given why two copies of the same program can't run at the same time.

Yeah... I get why they can't have 2 doctors at the same time aboard ship (Processing power). But as to why they can't copy him and email him back?

I guess their answer is that he is sentient and it would be against the prime directive?


I'm old enough to remember in films and TV shows when somebody stole something or took pictures (guy cheating, or pictures of the new top secret prototype), they would always hold it to ransom, and then hand it over in exchange for a briefcase full of money "And the negatives to! Don't try to trick me!"

Then years later, they would hand over floppy disks, and then CDs, and then USB sticks... Why? How is giving the USB stick back the same as giving the negatives back? It was just writers substituting one for the other.

With Voyager, they had a strange relationship with Dark Matter, including flying through a dark matter asteroid belt, where they had to dodge the dark matter asteroids. Hmmm......

[brucewarren]

@Usenko

Not sure I'd agree with that definition of what hard scifi is.

I think it was Dr Asimov who said that hard science fiction isn't about gadgets at all but about science. So both Star Trek and Star Wars are fantasy. Most of the "tech" on the Enterprise is thinly disguised magic.

Something like "West of Eden" on the other hand is science fiction. While it does have tech, it's a side matter. The true point of the story is that it asks the question "What would the world be like if the dinosaurs had not been wiped out?"

[Usenko]

@Usenko

Not sure I'd agree with that.

I think it was Dr Asimov who said that hard science fiction isn't about gadgets at all but about science. So both Star Trek and Star Wars are fantasy. Most of the "tech" on the Enterprise is thinly disguised magic.

Something like "West of Eden" on the other hand is science fiction. While it does have tech, it's a side matter. The true point of the story is that it asks the question "What would the world be like if the dinosaurs had not been wiped out?"

I'd say that Trek TRIES to be true Science Fiction, in that mostly the gadgets on the Enterprise operate on a consistent (if sometimes unrealistic) set of "Scientific" rules. At least it is closer to true Science Fiction than Star Wars, for which the closest you get to any kind of scientific concept is "This one goes here, that one goes there!"

[pjknibbs]

Sometimes tech gets in the way, especially when the writers get the tech wrong.

It doesn't have to just be the tech they get wrong. For example, Star Trek: Generations is littered with examples of the writers just not understanding distances in space--like the bad guy launches a missile from a habitable planet toward the sun, and it not only gets there in seconds despite not having any obvious warp drive, but the people on the planet's surface see an immediate change in the sun's light when the missile hits it. I wouldn't have a problem if they were viewing all that through the ship's sensors because I can assume they can operate at FTL velocities, but I can't make the same assumption about the Mk 1 Eyeball!

[Antilogic]

Sometimes tech gets in the way, especially when the writers get the tech wrong.

It doesn't have to just be the tech they get wrong. For example, Star Trek: Generations is littered with examples of the writers just not understanding distances in space--like the bad guy launches a missile from a habitable planet toward the sun, and it not only gets there in seconds despite not having any obvious warp drive, but the people on the planet's surface see an immediate change in the sun's light when the missile hits it. I wouldn't have a problem if they were viewing all that through the ship's sensors because I can assume they can operate at FTL velocities, but I can't make the same assumption about the Mk 1 Eyeball!

Balance to be struck between the reality and what is acceptable, understandable and just plain interesting for their target audience.

[Morkonan]

...Should these fictional universes move on as our technology moves on? ...

No.

Science Fiction isn't meant to have predictive value. At least, not in terms of real science or technology.

What science fiction does is demonstrate the social impacts of science and technology. The science or tech it uses in its stories does not have to be "realistic" in its specifics, but is meant to present the reader with a "what if" scientific discovery or technological advancement and then explore how mankind might deal with it.

Does anyone think that that excrement from giant worms that live on a planet that has no water precipitation could possibly allow human beings to warp space and time in order to travel instantaneously from one place to another?

No. It's ridiculous. But, "Dune" deals with many of the social implications of fanciful tech. We see an entire empire fueled by this technology and how power is truly maintained. We see the result of an "A.I." war in that humans have replaced complex computers. And, if one group of people controlled the technology necessary to move humans from place to place here on Earth, today, how many wars would be fought over it? ....

Science fiction is big on social commentary because that is truly its main subject matter. The specific sorts of technology that it writes about don't have to be "realistic" in order for it to accomplish its purpose. They also don't have to have predictive value inasmuch as the specific sort of scientific advancements they represent. However, there are few of the even more fanciful technologies in science fiction that can't be used as allegories for developing technology in the "real world."

[CBJ]

The science or tech it uses in its stories does not have to be "realistic" in its specifics, but is meant to present the reader with a "what if" scientific discovery or technological advancement and then explore how mankind might deal with it.

But that only works if the world it describes is to some degree both believable and engaging. Without believability (note that this is not necessarily equivalent to realism) you are performing a "what if" that very few people will be interested in reading about or watching. Failure to be engaging has the same result, and generally people are engaged by things they can relate to. If you present as "future tech" something that looks silly and old fashioned, because what you thought would be future tech 50 years ago has long since been surpassed but in a different direction, then people struggle to relate to it.

[birdtable]

@ Morkonan ... I think you will find that the spice did not allow the warping of space but gave the Space Navigating Guild the ability to carry out accelerated/complex calculations (instead of computers) to enable the Hollzman Engine to effect travel safely, avoiding any gravitational anomalies etc etc, and I am not to sure about the worm poo theory either ....

[Morkonan]

But that only works if the world it describes is to some degree both believable and engaging. Without believability (note that this is not necessarily equivalent to realism) you are performing a "what if" that very few people will be interested in reading about or watching. Failure to be engaging has the same result, and generally people are engaged by things they can relate to. If you present as "future tech" something that looks silly and old fashioned, because what you thought would be future tech 50 years ago has long since been surpassed but in a different direction, then people struggle to relate to it.

(Skip to the TLDR if you wish)

Steampunk...

I hate Steampunk. All you have to do is add leather and brass to something and it's Steampunk. Oh, and steam, with some sort of handwavy excuse for why electricity doesn't work. (I don't hate anything that has a good story in it, though. ) It's certainly not realistic, not believable in the least, doesn't even try to justify much of its tech or science, but people line up at the shelves for it and it's one of the most rapidly growing genres of... whatever it is.

Anime/Manga/Tentacleporn...

I don't really have much good to say about these things. But, I don't read 'em, can't get into them, and I think they're silly, shallow, and exploitative. But, people line up, etc..

Fantasy/Horror..

I have never once had a ghost fetch me a glass of water from the kitchen. It's not that far, not a heavy job, and I'd certainly be pleased. But nothing... nada. C'Thulu won't even return my calls. And, just to let you guys know, dragons are communists. It's true! Do not engage them in dialectics, though. They have a unique way of making a strong argument. But, people lay awake at night afraid of them and kids glue tinfoil to cardboard and spend their days rescuing damsels from them.

None of the technology, science, magic, evil forces or any of that makes any significant difference at all in a "good story."

In the end, it's about a believable character who makes choices in a setting where the character's actions, beliefs, values and relationships with others are consistent and rational given the circumstances they're faced with. No amount of creative magic in developing a setting, political intrigue, social struggle, etc, is going to create "a good story." It's all about the characters.

"Alice in Wonderland"

There is nothing at all rational about the setting. The characters that Alice meets are nigh-on incomprehensible. There is no attempt to explain anything at all about how they got there, why they do what they do or even what they are. But, it's one the most beloved stories in the history of "literature" and certainly in the annals of "fantasy." We are Alice, surrounded by uncertainty and in a place where we have no idea of what might happen next. And, because of that believable Alice, it becomes a great story. (The summary- Young girl encounters weird stuff, is changed. )

Suspension of disbelief - That's the key, isn't it? A reader is fully willing to suspend their disbelief, just as long as the writer doesn't continually try to pound a nail into their head by... doing what? Being inconsistent, of course. As long as the characters are believable and their motivations are understandable, no matter how fanciful they are, then there's no threat to that suspension of disbelief, right? Maybe...

(TLDR)

BUT, and this finally deals directly with what your addressing- Suspension of disbelief can be broken when something appears that isn't rational or isn't consistent internally, given what is written. And, unfortunately, while the success of the story relies heavily on the character, this breaking of the reader's attention can be caused by anything in the story. Anything at all! How greatly it effects the story depends on just how inconsistent or unbelievable it is in the opinion of the reader, no matter how fanciful or science-fictiony its origins are.

When we see something in a science fiction story that has a real-world analogue, whether due to the passage of time and real tech advancement or not, we have certain expectations on what is consistent and believable about it that may not have been realized by the writer. Many older television shows and movies often end up getting that part "wrong" if we compare these bits to the modern world. But, that doesn't mean that the stories, themselves, are made less because of that. It only takes the further willingness of the reader to overlook these newly created faults in order for them to be laid aside.

The Lensmen series, Flash Gordon, John Carter of Mars... Wells, Verne, Heinlein, Burroughs, Bradbury... These are all still great stories and authors, despite the newly discovered faults in their prognostications about science and technology. Why?

What makes people "relate" to a story even if it's full of gobbity-gook tech that has long been understood and surpassed? It all boils down to believable characters, no matter how fanciful they are, in an internally consistent setting, no matter how that world compares with reality.

The only true TLDR that is applicable, here

The only thing the writer has to do is to keep the reader reading. Nothing else matters.

[pjknibbs]

Balance to be struck between the reality and what is acceptable, understandable and just plain interesting for their target audience.

So have the bad guy view the sun changing through a screen on his launch site, and put warp nacelles on the missile. Both are in-universe appropriate and would make the scene work pretty much the same.

[Mightysword]

Sometimes tech gets in the way, especially when the writers get the tech wrong.

The most grating example I can think of offhand is in a Voyager episode where there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about what a computer program is.

They send a copy of the Doc off to cure the real Zimmerman back on Earth. So far so good, but Voyager is left without one in the meantime.

Why? He's a program. He's data. There's no reason given why two copies of the same program can't run at the same time. Maybe if it consumed too many resources there would be some excuse but if he was going to be running on two separate computers each fully capable of running the program then the issue of system resources doesn't apply.

If you had wached the anime series Zegapain it comes up with reason to explain that. Note that I'm not an expert so I have no idea how feasible it is, just mention the fact that they do come up with one, better than nothing I guess.

The premise is that a decease wiped out the human population, so in its dying hours human transfer their consciousness into several super computer hub which simulate the daily life. So think something like Matrix, but unlike Matrix where there is actually a living person driving the program, everyone exist purely as data. So in-order to accurately simulate everyone's life (to the believable decree like the Doc), each person have only one single copy stored in Quantum bits, each time the data have to be projected or transferred it's always the whole original in whole, no backup, or copy. Each time it happens the data degrade a bit until a point it becomes too corrupt and the data "dies".