Science fiction vs. science purism

And that blurb right there was far more clear than the numerous pages of pointless back-and-forth about technical terms.

And my little Dr. Who post was merely to emphasize the point I made in my previous post; Less is more. When building a fictional world, you do not need to give every little detail about every little technology, whether it be generic or exact, because then you end up writing yourself into a hole. The only technologies that need explanation are the ones that play an important role in the story.

In a videogame, these detailed explanations are even less critical. We don't need the details about the railgun in Quake. We see that it's named "railgun," so we can make the assumption that it works like standard railguns today. We don't need to know how it's powered, how they made it so portable, its muzzle velocity, etc. That doesn't affect the game.

Similarly, in a game like TA, we can say that the tanks shoot some kind of plasma-based shells, and there doesn't need to be any room for argument over it, because it sounds damaging enough, and the tech is futuristic enough that any qualms we have about its implementation can be glossed over with "future tech, don't worry about it."

However, it is VERY important to maintain scientific correctness in order to ensure believability. As I mentioned earlier, the portrayal of hacking in the media tends to be "genericized" and as a result, it tends to ruin the believability of the material.
As an example, can anyone say that this is a good representation of computer hacking?

Bringing it back to physics, if you "genericize" such details, you'll end up having the same issue, and the world you built will end up seeming unrealistic, rather than just vague on details.

This is why the best solution is not only to stay within the exact bounds delineated by science, rather than casually tossing out cool terms, but to also be vague enough that you don't write yourself into a corner, surrounded by tons of unnecessary scientific facts.

... I think I'll stop wall-of-texting now, this is growing out of proportions.

For the actual subject of the thread, sylvesterink pretty much summed up my opinion on it. The hacking scene made me think about this remarkably faithful hollywood hacking simulator, though.


But...

This was quite funny.
Sorry, couldn't resist.

We never said we disliked the topic. I cannot speak for everyone but what I see titled is “Science fiction vs. science purism”. To me this indicates that this is a discussion of what level of detail is appropriate for the sci fi tech in Planetary Annihilation. This is what people are discussing in a succinct manner with clear examples. Peoples issues with the “omnislashing” (check it out sylvesterink I used hip internet slang! xD) is not off topic. It is attempting to keep the thread under control and accessible to users wishing to contribute to the discussion.

If this is the core of the discussion in a nut shell there is no way it should be encompassing so much space, it just shouts everyone out and makes it hard for other people to contribute in a meaningful manner.

Sylvesterink above makes a good summary so I wont repeat it all but I agree. The level of explaination should be sufficent that people understand the basic concept (like railgun uses magnetic force to propel a projectile at high velocities). There should not be an in depth explaination of the specific mechanics involved in a game like PA because there is too high a risk of backing yourself into a corner over the physics and it will break immersion in the subject matter.

Additionally the capacity of the tech should make sense in the context of the fictional universe in order to maintain the suspension of disbelief (I.e dont break the fictional world's physics, it can be hugely over the top! so long as it is within the boundries of the world that it is set in).

Of course, you are right, but point of internet philosophical argues is not about proving truth (there is no truth), but to clarify opponent position. This "blurb" is product of all this walls of text.

I suggest you to choose what you're doing first - building a world, for further use, of making a story? For story, you are absolutely right. A lot of plot-irrelevant details would be just extremely boring. If you're building a world for many further uses - that's a completely different thing.

I'm building my own universe since 5 years ago and there still much ground to cover. And I don't have any stories, only milestones for them.

Have you ever heard someone buying license to build up a story in Quake universe? Or, maybe, quake is so famous for it's plot? Or, maybe, just in case, Doom? And now compare that with Forgotten Realms or Fallout (less than FR, but still).

In case of above - yes. If you have good (i.e. logical) explanation - you don't need scientific correctness. You may base your theory on crazy foundation and get crazy results, but who cares. It would be called "surrealism".

For most of people, yes - that's correct representation, cause they don't know any other. And now go and try to make game (or movie) about "real hacking". At least, try to describe it. (Actually, that's representation of hacking is much better than general with 'ls -la' as password breaker)

And now that's the point. For me realistic worlds are boring. IMO, it's more fun to build a seemingly realistic general physics from different axioms and then expand possible consequences in non-general physics. Only question is about "general physics". I would say - you shouldn't have elephants flying and that would be already good enough for most of people.

You care about scientific correctness in only realistic sci-fi. In any other sub-genre or deliverable trying to avoid correctness or you just don't care. And yes, again - writing a story and buliding a world is different things.

Yes. This reminded me of an unintentionally brilliant thread on the GPG forums, entitled does the monky lord run on coal?.

Yeah, and it adds up.

Yes

I'm curious of weather we are going to see electrical interactions between the planets and asteroids like we see in space today. For example, the copper probe launched at comet Temple 1 experienced a electrical discharge from the surface to the probe just before impact causing dust to be launched spaceward on a scale previously unexpected by the modern comet model but predicted by the electrical universe model. Even if it isn't initially a feature in the game, having some underlying coding that could achieve this through a mod would be incredible.
I would love to send a positively charged asteroid at a negatively charged planet and have the arcs of energy transfer rake the surfaces of the worlds changing them indefinitely with the lovely side effect of destroying the units on said world.

Re: Future science discussion thread

Can we rename this the future science discussion thread?

Uh, gauss cannons exist now... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjMTffRav-I

Occam's razor applies here. If it becomes cheap and effective to manufacture tools which can magnetically accelerate projectiles, then you bet they'll be common. And honestly, the only real reason you don't see a lot of gauss weaponry is because barely any effort has been applied to making them a viable form of gun, compared to the hundreds and hundreds of years spent perfecting explosive projectile weapons.

I think It will be safe to include some metal world handwavium technology.

Handwavium would be pretty funny as a resource.

There's been plenty of discussion on resources, try those threads.

I'm pretty sure it was a joke.

I thank you for your most helpful and informative direction. My life has been changed.
Truly, you are both a gentleman and a scholar.

There's plenty of idiots that would actually like to have it.

Anyone who thinks reality is boring doesn't know jack about reality.

I'll have to keep this one.

This just in: people are idiots for having an opinion!

It's the opposite way, reality is boring because we've observed so much and it's neither novel nor (in most cases that are relevant) satisfying to implement and use.