When does a high tech world appear primitive?

[Tom Kalbfus]

Peter F Hamilton - "Fallen Dragon". Mega-corp invades a slightly lower tech world to asset strip it and finds itself being defeated by a small guerrilla operation using more advanced tech. Got some very relevant sections in it, but more concerned with genetic engineering than advanced hardware.

Not so different from the movie Avatar when you think about it, that movie also had a resident planetary goddess, in the form of trees linked by roots. I like this goddess better, more relatable, excellent modern interpretation instead of the usual naked women in the classical paintings, I just reinterpreted the meaning of that painting for my own story purposes

 

[CosmicGamer]

Think of it this way, why do people walk when they have a car? Why are their people jogging in Manhattan when their are cars, trains, and buses that can take them faster than their feet can walk or run?

I can't say why, too many possibilities.
Why do people spend money on stair master technology instead of just going for a walk?
Why do people walk for exercise then want a remote for everything so they don't have to get up off the couch?
Why do people text on a phone?
Why do people jump out of perfectly good airplanes?
What does this have to do with tech levels?

Some people walk everywhere, eat from gardens or farms planted and harvested the old ways and build log cabins and live in isolation with no electricity or plumbing or technology. If everything is done the low tech way then there is no high tech.

As I keep saying, where does the food come from? I get no answer? How is it stored, prepared? Does hot food and cold drinks just magically appear on their table? Does nobody eat?

Does nobody poop? Where does their poop go? Outhouses or something unexplainable?

How are homes lit at night? Candles or some unexplainable illumination?

Are the home heated or cooled? If so, how? Magic?

The absence of all evidence of how anything is done does not = low tech.
Things happening in an unexplainable manner does not = low tech to me.

If I were the scout, I'd mark the TL as "Inconclusive. Requires further study."

 

[Reynard]

Obviously I haven't make it clear. High tech devices and processes should be easily transparent within the products and production. We're so used to making high tech equate with large and unnatural.

I notice how often people on these forums complain that starship tech is 1960s and 70s retro while no one mentions how higher tech worlds are depicted in the styles of the future imagined during the Buck Rogers of the 1930 through the 1960s. It's huge, bulky, industrial, shiny, bright, loud and very conspicuous. Urban planning based on spending the most on the simplest project.

Why is it so impossible for advances to allow planning around clean, simpler living with technological achievements blending in rather than standing out? I can see worlds preserved and/or terraformed to a natural state and the residents having all the conveniences of modern life.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Why is it so impossible for advances to allow planning around clean, simpler living with technological achievements blending in rather than standing out?

Who said it was impossible?

 

[Reynard]

When was the last time you saw in stories descriptors and imagery of high tech as anything but chrome and high rises?

 

[AdrianH]

When was the last time you saw in stories descriptors and imagery of high tech as anything but chrome and high rises?

The Nox in "Stargate: SG-1".

Or the Gungans in "Star Wars".

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

When was the last time you saw in stories descriptors and imagery of high tech as anything but chrome and high rises?

The Nox in "Stargate: SG-1".

Or the Gungans in "Star Wars".

The Gungans are strange, they fired high tech energy balls out of catapults! They had a portable energy shields mounted on the backs or beasts. The Battledroids they were fighting cooperating by fighting them Roman Style, they dismounted from their spaceships and formed ranks like the Roman Legion and they advanced on the Gungans penetrating their energy shields and then firing on them with their laser rifles!

 

[CosmicGamer]

Why is it so impossible for advances to allow planning around clean, simpler living with technological achievements blending in rather than standing out?

Who said it was impossible?

When was the last time you saw in stories descriptors and imagery of high tech as anything but chrome and high rises?

Sorry, thought you were referencing a post from this thread.

 

[GypsyComet]

When was the last time you saw in stories descriptors and imagery of high tech as anything but chrome and high rises?

A lot of Star Wars is grungy tech, but even there the centers of civilization tend to be big and shiny.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

When was the last time you saw in stories descriptors and imagery of high tech as anything but chrome and high rises?

A lot of Star Wars is grungy tech, but even there the centers of civilization tend to be big and shiny.

Some of the combinations are really strange, such as a repulsorlift vehicle (the equivalent of a Traveller grav vehicle) being pulled by a beast into an arena, the whole idea of a laser sword is rather ridiculous High tech energy balls thrown by catapults, and force field generators on the backs or beasts. You know Star Wars shares a lot in common with the Flintstones when you think about it!