"His midichlorians were off the scale"

[jackfaire]

Are you talking Skyward?

Your companion throughout the game is an artificial intelligence. I get that it's from eons ago. It just heavily implies that at one point this was either a futuristic world or had alien technology which doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the games.

It's implying reverse development like Pern.

At some point we had high levels of technology and now we don't.

I can't help but read more into that even if they never go there again.

[Ginger Tea]

At some point we had high levels of technology and now we don't.
I can't help but read more into that even if they never go there again.

The tail end of babylon 5 had an episode where the future had tried rewriting Sheridan and the gang as evil alien executors and the Sim of Garibaldi realised he was a sim and hacked his way into the system and got the base nuked.
This act or the continuing war that was going on drove earth back into the dark ages, all sky scrapers leveled and it was like being on set of Robin Hood or some other period piece.

[Kheldarson]

Your companion throughout the game is an artificial intelligence. I get that it's from eons ago. It just heavily implies that at one point this was either a futuristic world or had alien technology which doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the games.

It's implying reverse development like Pern.

At some point we had high levels of technology and now we don't.

I can't help but read more into that even if they never go there again.

Reading more into it is okay, but it's not truly jumping the shark. The technology was developed at some point in the past before a major cataclysmic event which uprooted all of society and essentially destroyed the basis for the technological advances in the first place (the presence of the goddess). It's more like Greek myth. If you look at the creation myths, some reference the fact that the gods created man several times in gold, silver, and then clay. Gold and silver achieved great things but apparently overstepped boundaries and were destroyed along with their works. Same kind of premise here.

Plus it kind of establishes why we have so many similar dungeons...they're the remnants of the earlier time and therefore quite a bit sturdier

[mikoyan29]

One of the things that bugs me about Star Trek is that everything has an explanation and everyone is able to give an explanation. There comes a point when a technology is old enough that noone really cares how it works, it just works. That is why in Star Wars, you only hear about hyperdrive motivators when the damn thing doesn't work....and someone is trying to fix it. I do not think that Lucas needed a technobabble explanation for the Force and in providing one he ruined it.....

[jackfaire]

I do not think that Lucas needed a technobabble explanation for the Force and in providing one he ruined it.....

That is the difference between Sci Fi and Fantasy.

In Science Fiction you need to be able to explain the scientific whys of how something works. Heinlein would have entire pages to this.


In Fantasy you just assume something works and don't worry about why or how.

The Force needed a scientific explanation if Lucas was going to have it classed as Sci Fi. Otherwise it was fantasy and the Force is that Galaxy's word for Magic.

[mikoyan29]

That is the difference between Sci Fi and Fantasy.

In Science Fiction you need to be able to explain the scientific whys of how something works. Heinlein would have entire pages to this.

To some extent. I think it depends on how mature the technology is. Take the computer for instance. If you were writing a story in the 40's, the people that are using the computer are also more than likely the people building the computer. Therefore, they would be intimately knowledgeable and would be able to converse about the inner workings of that computer. Move that story to the 70's, depending on how you set it....the characters may or may not know how the computers work. Now if its a story of the computers going haywire, chances are your story is about a tech and he would know and could converse about the inner workings of that computer...but if the story is about one of the operators...maybe not. Move that story to now.....you are less likely to run into someone that can converse about the inner workings of that computer. You're average person would just know that it works....

So getting back to Star Wars, I think Star Wars represents a group of people that have been travelling the stars for a very long time. So a Star Destoyer to them is like a car to us. they don't need know about how the thing propels or whatever...and more than likely don't care...they just know it works.

[lordlundar]

At some point we had high levels of technology and now we don't.

I can't help but read more into that even if they never go there again.

It's not an uncommon theme and one that has some basis on reality. A lot of advances during the Greece-roman era, Chinese and Japanese dynasties, and various other time periods of several centuries have been lost for hundreds and thousands of years. Some have been rediscovered but others are still lost or just haven't been explored.

[Kheldarson]

That is the difference between Sci Fi and Fantasy.

In Science Fiction you need to be able to explain the scientific whys of how something works. Heinlein would have entire pages to this.


In Fantasy you just assume something works and don't worry about why or how.

The Force needed a scientific explanation if Lucas was going to have it classed as Sci Fi. Otherwise it was fantasy and the Force is that Galaxy's word for Magic.

Actually, there's a whole realm of soft sci-fi that blends the two. Pern comes to mind. Lots of technology (maybe not advanced) places a role, but the colonists don't know how some of it quite works until AVIS. Is it a fantasy series or sci-fi?

Or Darkover. Especially during the periods where the Empire and the Darkovans are trying to co-exist. Lots of psychic abilities and lots of space travel. Sci-fi or fantasy?

I read somewhere (think a writing book I was skimming) that you've now got science fiction, sci-fi, and fantasy. Fantasy is your average magical setting. Science Fiction is your hard science novels where the ins and outs of the workings of the science are highly relevant. And then you have sci-fi which relies on science and tech, but may forgo the full technical explanations or may have some more magical type elements. Lucas always struck me as being in the sci-fi region.

[Ginger Tea]

Not all Sci-Fi should explain the tech used, yes Star Trek does explain more than Star Wars, way more, but I don't want a Royal Institute Christmas Lecture in the middle of my entertainment.

I think the science came into fore for TNG,
Warp Drives, someone had to work out the physics and theory.
They could have just said, look its the year 2500, you think we still use fuck off sized booster rockets to get into space?

Teleporters, ToS probably had little to say on the tech, not watched ToS since the late 80's.
TNG and spin offs used it as a plot device and had to explain its inner workings, thankfully there was enough of a PC analogy to explain it to the casual viewer.

Why is there another Ryker?
Well, the trasporter saves you to a pattern buffer, something went wrong and instead of deleting the information, the transporters 'saved' his life by beaming him back, even though he was safe aboard.

The doctor who fell down an elevator shaft in LA Law.
She had a fear of them breaking so only ever shuttled down, she got a disease that aged her was cured by beaming her up and over writing her genes with a copy on file from one time when she did use the teleporter.

So to explain both, humans were akin to a text file being moved from one drive to another, the data is not deleted on C: till it is safe on D:.
Doctor was find "old" replace with "new".

ToS, its the future fuckers, deal with it.

[Greenday]

Say what you will about Star Wars. The Force originally being a mystical power and not one based in Science makes the original Series fantasy not Science Fiction.

Yes, feel free to ignore the whole space travel, guns that shoot lasers, swords of light that cut just about everything. Even the Force itself is kind of scientifically explained. Droids, cars that float. That's a lot more science fiction than it is fantasy.

[Ginger Tea]

One of the post Jedi pre Phantom Expanded Universe books told of tech that was used to sence Force enabled people, possibly during the purge, but as Phantom showed it was available to jedi for quick testing.
Same book also had Luke mind probe people, Force enabled gave him a shock those without did not. The bigger the jolt the more potential to become powerful.

Phantom, if reshot with Christian as a late teen twenty something, whatever his age would have been when the film was filmed might have been better, the kid just really made it shite
I'm gonna grow up to be darf vaber durr.

Also it could have ignighted the sexual chemistry with him and pandabear or WTF her name was, she was how older than him? and he had not seen her since sometime after phantom and his "i see you every day, in my dreams" fap fap fap went mr stalker.

Damn most of this should be in the lucas hating thread whoopsie

[jackfaire]

Even the Force itself is kind of scientifically explained.

In the prequels it was in the original it was described as a "mystical power that surrounds us" It was not given any scientific basis in the beginning.

I believe that the incarnations of immortality series is both Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Magic is magic an science is science. Many scientific things don't need a detailed explanation because we either have analogs or they have been explained already in previous stories.

Most fans know what FTL is but if your going to have it do something that other forms of FTL don't do then explaining the physics behind it becomes necessary.

Having something like the Force in a time when the only other explanations for things like that are "it's magic" makes it lean more towards fantasy.

Plus light sabers when the movies first came out had no scientific basis for working. The only light swords seen previously were all magic based.

If your going to do something in universe that is "scientific" and never has been in any other universe then you need to explain it to make it plausible or my mind is going to slot in "Okay it's magic"

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

I think it really depends on how well the writers deal with the shark jump that determines the answer. Case in point: Dragonriders of Pern.

In your example (and I have read the series) there is one important element that lends itself to the final additional of the mini-industrial revolution.

That being that when they covered the landing, you knew that everyone got there by space ship, that everyone had agreed upon using only the minimum technology needed for society (and going for only that which could be sustained by the Parallel Earth, Resources Negligible (P.E.R.N).

So when you did have the Avias system enter the story and the rediscovery of technologies that were lost when they had to beat a hasty retreat to the northern continent and leave everything behind...

It didn't seem that odd to me.

But when you talk about Star Wars, they had established what the force was in "A New Hope" and in "Empire Strikes Back" That it was...

The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.

and...

Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.

Then later by making it some bacteria in your bloodstream you invalidate much of it. How can a dead person manifest themselves through the force if they don't have them in their body anymore? Hell in Vader's case his ass was roasted on a pyre so he didn't even have a body anymore.

For that matter how could there be a connection between the ship and the land as the ship is not living?

Besides I'm more pissed off at Han shooting first.

And that's not just be being pissy about it or joining the mindless sheeple who are on the "Han shot first" bandwagon. To me that was a massive mistake since you took away something from the character. You took away some of his character development from being a pirate only looking after himself into someone who became an active participant in the rebellion because he was looking after the people he later considered his friends.

Making Greedo shoot first took some of that development away.

Plus honestly. How much of a cross-eyed fuck did Greedo have to be to miss at that range. Sit at a table across from one of your friends or family members. Make a gun with your fingers and point it at them without aiming.

Odds are when you look down to see where you are hitting you are not going to be shooting a foot over and a foot and a half beyond their left shoulder.

[mikoyan29]

I never had a problem with Han shooting first and I don't understand why Lucas had a problem with it. It is not like Greedo was sitting down for tea and crumpets. Greedo had a blaster pointed at Han and was therefore a threat. Han decided to take care of that threat. And by having Greedo shoot first, it made Han look more ruthless because Greedo was obviously disabled to have missed at that range.

As for the other part of the discussion......I think it was Heinlein who said, "The greater the difference in tech levels, the more high tech looks like magic".

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

As for the other part of the discussion......I think it was Heinlein who said, "The greater the difference in tech levels, the more high tech looks like magic".

Close. It was Arthur C. Clark who said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."