What If?

[alex_greene]

So, based on this article, NASA could develop warp drive in some form or another. The core idea behind Traveller - that people could one day find a home for themselves, and a life full of meaning, by leaving all that rat race grind behind, getting into a ship and blasting off to the stars - just came a step closer.

But that is not really what this post is about. The post is basically about by far the most important core point of Traveller.

What if?

What if FTL were possible, never mind whether the drive resembles the Alcubierre drive, the Cochrane warp drive or the Miller J-Drive, and that humans would eventually consider travel between the stars to be a matter of as little difficulty as we consider riding a bus today? How would that affect a society's viewpoint - the ordinary woman, who might not think it a problem if she cannot find employment for her skills on one world, because all she needs to do is to just hop onto a free trader or passenger liner and find someone on some other world who will take her on and pay her well?

What if the science fiction means of travel between star systems were not the only means of transport? What if current experiments in teleportation meant that future science could develop systems that enable people to travel interplanetary and even interstellar distances, with as little technological involvement as opening a door and walking through?

What if one natural development of the Alcubierre drive was grav propulsion and even grav suspension - the M-drive?

What if it isn't fusion that gets us to the stars, but antimatter?

And what if we, as a species, are not the evolutionary fixed point that we thought we were, but that the last two hundred generations have resulted in us being more mutable and more evolvable than we could imagine - to the point that we may be evolving quicker than natural selection can cope, even to the point of developing evolutionary adaptations that we would consider impossible today such as, oh I dunno, psionics?

And not just us - what if scientists' efforts to build artificial intelligence allow them to generate fully functional virtual artificial brains within computers that become full AI? What if you have a future where, as long as you've got a smartphone, and as long as you can keep it charged, you'll never be alone?

And what if scientists found that the structure of our brains, as well as the things brains design - cities, social networks, the internet - echoes the structure of the universe? And that it might not be us doing the thinking, but the universe itself?

All that science fiction has been about, since the first fumbling scrawls of H G Wells (alien invasions, serums that render people invisible, machines permitting time travel, nuclear war), has been the exploration not of what we know is possible today, but of the things which we know to be impossible today. It is that sense of "what if?" that drove people to pen the episodes of The Outer Limits and for Rod Serling to write his stories for The Twilight Zone. It was "what if?" which gave us the Doctor and his TARDIS, 49 years ago, and sent Captain James T Kirk out into the void with his trusty crew, following in the footsteps of Commander J J Adams of the C57-D and the crew of AE van Vogt's Space Beagle, not knowing what they would find out there.

As someone said in some movie, once:-

"Gentlemen, congratulations. You're everything we've come to expect from years of government training."

No, sorry, wrong MiB. Here:-

"Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

I think we need more "what if?" in Traveller. Don't you?

 

[F33D]

In every age, men think they know what is possible in the future. They are always, in hindsight, not even close.

However, the problem with psionics (at least for many of the "skills") is that our bodies don't have built in power plants of the needed energy levels.

 

[alex_greene]

In every age, men think they know what is possible in the future. They are always, in hindsight, not even close.

However, the problem with psionics (at least for many of the "skills") is that our bodies don't have built in power plants of the needed energy levels.

And there is not a power plant in the universe to power a machine that can reverse time, because that would contravene the laws of thermodynamics. Nor can we think of teleporting a man any distance, despite the apparent advance in being able to teleport one atom; nor, despite being able to create a virtual brain in a computer, create an AI that talks back to us with a chronic stutter indicative of a critical riming fault inherent in its coding and insisting we call this talking head "Max."

And yet, you see, what it?

What if some strange interaction on a quantum level could create a macroscopic Casimir effect in an object, enabling a mass to be manipulated telekinetically, or the teep could use his body, particularly his spinal column, as an antenna of sorts to listen to the information field generated by living things, humans most of all?

How else do you think the producers of Star Trek Voyager got the viewers to suspend their disbelief for three solid seasons, except by flooding the airwaves with random technobabble about bouncing the graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish until Jeri Ryan's gravity-defying boobs came along to distract everybody instead?

 

[F33D]

What if some strange interaction on a quantum level could create a macroscopic Casimir effect in an object, enabling a mass to be manipulated telekinetically, or the teep could use his body, particularly his spinal column, as an antenna of sorts to listen to the information field generated by living things, humans most of all?

Receiving low energy "thought waves" is not a problem for me. Low power stuff has biological possibilities a la Electric eels and the like. So telepathy is possible. Heck, certain training routines for some gov operatives train one how to not "broadcast" so as to be able to remain concealed.

But, "quantum" level stuff does nothing to mitigate the power requirements. So, that aspect has to remain in the realm of Fantasy rather than "fictional science".

How else do you think the producers of Star Trek Voyager got the viewers to suspend their disbelief for three solid seasons, except by flooding the airwaves with random technobabble about bouncing the graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish until Jeri Ryan's gravity-defying boobs came along to distract everybody instead?

:lol: But seriously my belief wasn't suspended until Jeri came along.

 

[alex_greene]

Well, you see if you can accept a universe where there's a planet that's all desert, except that it's inhabited by massive sandworms whose bile secretions are a poisonous liquid that enables grossly mutated humans to fold space and permit ships to travel faster than light without moving ...

Or that a man can dress up as a six foot bat and terrify am entire city's criminal underworld ...

Or indeed that a human can mate with a humanoid, logical alien with copper-based blood from another desert planet and produce a pointy-eared science officer who's cooler than his Captain ...

Or that a man can live for 900 years and cheat death by turning into a succession of other people while having endless adventures on board a blue time-travelling ship that looks like a wooden box about yea high on the outside, but which is bigger on the inside ...

... why can't you accept a man who can read minds?

Edit: 75% of the above list can also read minds.

 

[F33D]

Well, you see if you can accept a universe where there's a planet that's all desert, except that it's inhabited by massive sandworms whose bile secretions are a poisonous liquid that enables grossly mutated humans to fold space and permit ships to travel faster than light without moving ...

But, I don't accept those things. Those are writings of fantasy not fictional science. But, mind reading could be possible. I know of one person that is regularly used by the FBI because of certain talents in that area. I'm strictly talking about psionics that require power/energy levels that aren't possible using the human body..

There is a line between fictional science & fantasy. That being said, it could allow for beings that are not organic based but, energy based that could perform along different lines.

 

[alex_greene]

But, I don't accept those things. Those are writings of fantasy not fictional science.

A good chunk of what passed for science fiction at the dawn of that era would be derided as fantasy nowadays. Nobody today really believes that, in the last years of the Nineteenth Century, there were minds on Mars regarding this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, drawing their plans against us. And we still wouldn't know how to go about inventing a serum that turns a man invisible, nor indeed a machine that can travel through time.

We would even dismiss the idea that someone can stitch together random body parts, removed from cadavers and the whole fashioned into a human being, then bring such a pitiful creature to life with a couple of well-placed bolts of lightning.

And yet, I'll bet good money you'd sit and watch Frankenstein and almost any given iteration of The Invisible Man and The Time Machine (though not the pitiful reboot with Samantha Mumba), and even sing along with Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds.

But, mind reading could be possible. I know of one person that is regularly used by the FBI because of certain talents in that area. I'm strictly talking about psionics that require power/energy levels that aren't possible using the human body..

There is a line between fictional science & fantasy. That being said, it could allow for beings that are not organic based but, energy based that could perform along different lines.

Ah. Energy-based beings. The ultimate pinnacle of human evolution, a concept beloved of sf fans and producers alike.

That's not actually from science fiction. That's actually Theosophy. A pseudoscience, with close ties to the old nazi party and eugenics.

While I have my own thoughts about what is actually possible, and sadly they do veer towards the skeptical particularly when money is concerned (I don't believe in homeopathy, pyramids or the medicinal benefits of sitting in sweat lodges choking on smoke from burning sage, drumming to the sound of whale song), when I write about science fiction I have to write about things that are "a little way past the limits of the possible, into the impossible," to paraphrase the late Sir Arthur C Clarke, and make it sound not only possible, but even plausible.

And also, in accord with his unwritten fourth law - I do my research first.

 

[F33D]

Ah. Energy-based beings. The ultimate pinnacle of human evolution, a concept beloved of sf fans and producers alike.

Actually, I'm not talking about human evolution. There's no evolutionary path to energy being. I'm talking about a different thing altogether.

On the Frankenstein line, you're mistaking factual science for fictional science. Fictional science simply puts out possible end results that aren't achievable with current scientific knowledge and fills in the "how" with "current" day nomenclature (electricity) in that example, so that it communicates to an audience.

Again, fantasy is a different genre and doesn't attempt to explain fiction science of the items because it isn't really thought by the author that it is possible at all, at any time int he future.

 

[alex_greene]

I'm talking about a different thing altogether.

That's the thing - this idea of energy beings began with Theosophy; according to their belief structure we began as disembodied energy beings, "souls" as it were, that separated from God, then condensed alchemically somehow through five or six different iterations until we became human - and our next evolutionary step is back to being energy, in the next class of species after us.

On the Frankenstein line, you're mistaking factual science for fictional science.

Or scientific fiction. Or science fiction.

Fictional science simply puts out possible end results that aren't achievable with current scientific knowledge and fills in the "how" with "current" day nomenclature (electricity) in that example, so that it communicates to an audience.

Again, fantasy is a different genre and doesn't attempt to explain fiction science of the items because it isn't really thought by the author that it is possible at all, at any time in the future.

Frankenstein was based on Galvani's experiments with frog cadavers. Mary Shelley had just lost a child, and thought about whether Galvani's experiments could be taken to the conclusion that a deceased human could be brought to life with a carefully-applied jolt of electricity.

William Gibson thought about the computers of his day, and envisioned a connected future - which vision reality has so far surpassed that he's had to reinvent himself twice already.

Science fiction authors think not of what is impossible, but what would happen if something was. Even Arthur C Clarke, at the end of Rendezvous With Rama, broke out of the hard SF mould that he had been so keen to preserve throughout that time, by having Rama suddenly turn on its reactionless space drive, prompting the commander of the human exploratory vessel to comment "Well, there goes Newton's Third Law." And if you won't point out how 2001: A Space Odyssey was a comment on the dangers of forced evolution and on interdimensional navigation while sober, I won't either.

 

[AdrianH]

One of the other "what if" questions was about artificial intelligence. Perhaps you've watched the likes of the "Terminator" films or "Battlestar Galactica" and taken comfort from the fact that these are just science fiction and that the artificial intelligence we create won't really turn against us.

Others aren't so certain. Cambridge University is doing serious research into the threats posed by mankind against himself:
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/humanitys-last-invention-and-our-uncertain-future/

They're setting up the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk:
http://cser.org/

And there's an article here about the risk of increasing AI:
http://theconversation.edu.au/artificial-intelligence-can-we-keep-it-in-the-box-8541

Which means, in answer to...

And not just us - what if scientists' efforts to build artificial intelligence allow them to generate fully functional virtual artificial brains within computers that become full AI? What if you have a future where, as long as you've got a smartphone, and as long as you can keep it charged, you'll never be alone?

... the answer is that if we do succeed in building a full AI as intelligent as humans, it won't remain that unintelligent for very long. Now go and watch the "Terminator" films again. :twisted:

 

[alex_greene]

One of the other "what if" questions was about artificial intelligence. Perhaps you've watched the likes of the "Terminator" films or "Battlestar Galactica" and taken comfort from the fact that these are just science fiction and that the artificial intelligence we create won't really turn against us.

Others aren't so certain. Cambridge University is doing serious research into the threats posed by mankind against himself:
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/humanitys-last-invention-and-our-uncertain-future/

They're setting up the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk:
http://cser.org/

And there's an article here about the risk of increasing AI:
http://theconversation.edu.au/artificial-intelligence-can-we-keep-it-in-the-box-8541

Which means, in answer to...

And not just us - what if scientists' efforts to build artificial intelligence allow them to generate fully functional virtual artificial brains within computers that become full AI? What if you have a future where, as long as you've got a smartphone, and as long as you can keep it charged, you'll never be alone?

... the answer is that if we do succeed in building a full AI as intelligent as humans, it won't remain that unintelligent for very long. Now go and watch the "Terminator" films again. :twisted:

It might not think like a human. But then again, it might not think like a human.
Think about it - if a computer gets to be smarter than us, and realises how destructive and exploitative we are, yet also how dependent it is on us, why do humans think it will want to respond to the threat of human beings by responding like a human being - to subjugate an army of mindless servants to wait upon the machine's every whim, a god-machine with its cult of worshippers; or to destroy, to lash out like the savage child race that is humanity?

Oh. Of course. They can't imagine a mind smarter than theirs. And they think the worst things that such a smart being can do is the thing they themselves fear - subjugation, exploitation and the threat of destruction and extinction.

 

[F33D]

Science fiction authors think not of what is impossible, but what would happen if something was. Even Arthur C Clarke, at the end of Rendezvous With Rama, broke out of the hard SF mould that he had been so keen to preserve throughout that time, by having Rama suddenly turn on its reactionless space drive, prompting the commander of the human exploratory vessel to comment "Well, there goes Newton's Third Law."

"Hard sci-fi" is a newer and different genre than science fiction in the original sense. [It is actually misnamed and is just a work of Fiction that relies on a scientific backdrop] A drive not requiring reaction mass could be possible. IF, it is not propelling the object by ejecting material. Anti-grav or grav drives could indeed do this without violating Newton's 3rd law. So, Clarke stayed well within classic science fiction...

 

[alex_greene]

Science fiction authors think not of what is impossible, but what would happen if something was. Even Arthur C Clarke, at the end of Rendezvous With Rama, broke out of the hard SF mould that he had been so keen to preserve throughout that time, by having Rama suddenly turn on its reactionless space drive, prompting the commander of the human exploratory vessel to comment "Well, there goes Newton's Third Law."

"Hard sci-fi" is a newer and different genre than science fiction in the original sense. [It is actually misnamed and is just a work of Fiction that relies on a scientific backdrop] A drive not requiring reaction mass could be possible. IF, it is not propelling the object by ejecting material. Anti-grav or grav drives could indeed do this without violating Newton's 3rd law. So, Clarke stayed well within classic science fiction...

He didn't know what we know now.

Actually, he still doesn't know - and never will.

 

[F33D]

He didn't know what we know now.

On the grav thing, sure he did. That's been postulated for a long time. But, that's not the point. The point is the genre. There is Fantasy, Science Fiction and, Fiction stories with a science setting [now renamed "Hard Sci-Fi"].

I tend to game either in a Fantasy or, Sci-fi setting. They don't mix well. Or, it is more difficult to mix them well. I think that is where psionics meets resistance with many Trav players & GM's. It does need a better treatment. I can see what drives you to improve it.

 

[alex_greene]

Here's the shocker. Traveller is Science FANTASY. We call it science fiction, in the same way as we call Star Trek, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica and Perry Rhodan science fiction - because they have the trappings which identify them as science fiction to the markets: spaceships, robots, rayguns, bug-eyed aliens.

The stories by the likes of Stephen Baxter, Pat Cadigan, John Shirley, Clifford Simak, Charles Stross, Iain M Banks, Kim Stanley Robinson and the like - those are science fiction.

Traveller is based on genres by the likes of Poul Anderson et al., and technically they can only be classed as science fantasy. Any sf snob would look at a Traveller adventure set in the 3I and dismiss it as a hokey space opera at best.

 

[alex_greene]

That's the thing about Traveller. The game skips past grav deckplates and the function of grav belts, Air/Rafts and the reactionless propulsion systems of starships and the like, so it might as well be that if you lifted up the plating underfoot, you'd see that their "grav plates" are in fact bags of Cavorite.

Traveller is not just a science fantasy: it is, in fact, a Space Opera. And if it isn't, what's The Pirates of Drinax about? It's like running a scenario based on Dune: certain things, you have to accept as a given within the setting - FTL, the humanoid sophonts, the Ancients, grav, a girl who becomes a Duchess aged 16, wins a war at 17 and is an Empress at 18 ... and psionics.

I know you can't accept telepathy. But if you know biology doesn't work that way, you have to airbrush out the Vargr, too, because biology doesn't work that way either, not without "MAGIC" (aka Ancient Handwavium Technology).

Traveller is made of handwavium all the way through. That is its appeal. And that includes psionics.

 

[LimeyDragon]

Ok, Now I wonder...

What if the Traveller Universe was affected by the X-gene. AKA X-men..

 

[alex_greene]

What if the Traveller Universe was affected by the X-gene. AKA X-men..

What trouble could arise from a Cyclops turning up, or an Emma Frost or a Storm?

Or a Magneto?

 

[alex_greene]

There are a number of levels of realism in science fiction games, running in kind of a continuum from one extreme to the other.

At the one end - total verisimilitude. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson; James Michener's SPACE; William Gibson's Pattern Recognition / Spook Country / Zero History.

A little bit higher, and you get gritty realism. Rooted in reality, kind of like a police procedural or a series based on science, but with something a little bit weird. The series Outcasts and Defying Gravity; the pseudo-documentary Space Odyssey (the one with a ship called Pegasus doing a grand tour of the solar system which was the inspiration for Defying Gravity, and contained a lot less handwavium than the latter), and maybe Firefly.

Just a bit further, and you get a series or book where the weird and the mundane kind of balance one another out. Alphas has the idea of mutated superbeings living alingside normal humans - but the powers in season 1 were all rooted in normal physics, even if that physics was stretched just about to the breaking point. No capes. No Spandex. Rendezvous With Rama by Clarke comes in here, as does the middle of 2001 - the Discovery mission, before they reach the outer system Monolith.

From this point onwards, the weird outweighs the realism. Star Trek, Babylon 5, Heinlein's Starship Troopers, The Stainless Steel Rat series, Larry Niven's Known Space, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, Doctor Who, the James H Schmitz stories, the Lensmen, the Family d'Alembert, most space operas ... and of course, Traveller. I'd say this is between 65% and 85% weirdness. A lot of cyberpunk and pretty much all steampunk fits in this category, too. Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog, and most other 2000 AD stories, fit here too. The first few seasons of Savage, telling the story of Bill Savage's resistance to the Volgan invasion of Britain, were pretty low on this scale, practically at the bottom rung of total verisimilitude, before the ABC Warriors crossover appeared and it crept up here over the course of three episodes a year or two back.

Between this and the top category, hovering on the cusp, fluttering like the pixels on a digital TV channel in a bad reception area, you get anthology stories such as The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, and 2000 AD series like The Low Life and The Simping Detective.

Then you come up to the very highest peak of Mt. Gonzo, where you might as well forget looking for the mundane stuff - you kissed bye bye to reality when you dropped that first tab of acid. Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus trilogy, the world of Philip Jose Farmer, the science fiction of HP Lovecraft, some of the John Shirley short stories and the writings of Philip K. Dick. The sort of science fiction that makes Mage: the Awakening play like, well, Coronation Street.

When writing stories and ideas for Traveller games, it always pays to read your audience and figure out their level of tolerance for weirdness. Then consider how much weird to dial into your games accordingly, giving them a level of weirdness just slightly above what they're probably used to, so as to challenge them.

 

[dragoner]

Red Mars is hard? huh