 November 21, 2011 - 1:50pm | Shadowrun updates its setting into the future with each new edition so that what has gone on before becomes history. I've often thought this was a good way to deal with discontinuity issues in a timeline. But then you start to get into tech that is well advanced beyond slightly above today's tech if you did that in Star Frontiers. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 24, 2011 - 8:18pm | Not if you curb the expectations to something more realistic than "the best the future has to offer, in the next [supposed] Golden Age" ... While many of the items thought to be available by 2000 during the time of the "Golden Age Of Sci-Fi" have been late, many were early... but what of any has been exactly as expected? ... not even one! There is nothing that Dick Tracey could do, that cant be done today... not a one... everything in those early predictions have come true... technically... but still we do not live in a Dick Tracey World. I see the likelihood to be the same for Shadowrun or even Cyberpunk, and certainly Star Frontiers and Buck Rogers... By the time we Chronologicly catch up with Star-Trek there will be no mystery to the realities of Teleportation and Replicators... but I seriously doubt that the average person will have access on every street corner... even if it fits in a pocket... Why? Because if we would go ahead and build them, everyone could already be flying-personal solar-powered cars at mach 1... the tech is available and the many diverse prototypes have hardly been secrets for several decades... some people have built theirs in their own garages already, so it ain't cost of production it's just lack of production... and any item that suffers a lack of production is just a superfluous-tech advancement and not a real "game-breaker"... but yes... if you advance the Common Tech Environment beyond a point that keeps the Setting Specific Environment believable... then... game is called on account of breakage. Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
November 25, 2011 - 6:50am | @ SpiritC: I think what we are moving toward is godhood. Let me explain. Traditional Judeo-Christian attributes of God are Omni-presence, Omniscience, omnipotence, and a few others. Now we have the beginnings of Omniscience for humanity in the form of the internet. With the internet you can get any piece of information. With smart phones you can get it right now without going home to fire up the computer. Its not a perfect comparison but compared to the knowledge available to a single man 500, 1000, 2000 years ago it becomes god like. Now the quest for power? Right now there are an unknown number of people working on inventions that are designed to generate electricity from gravity. My uncle has been building prototypes for 20 years and my Dad had an insight to his work a few years ago and we've come close to getting it to work. Imagine a world with gravity engines or generators producing free electricity without the cost of fuel, without the downside of wind and solar (namely that they are not always "on") because gravity is always on and it doesn't harm the environment. Sounds crazy but I've worked on 2 proto types and I truly believe this will work that someone will eventually solve the engineering problems (I just hope it my family as I really could use the money). But with back to the point, with the advent of this technology, energy to do anything will be limitless, man with begin to have access to "all power" Yes its not really all power like Gods all power but it comes close to mimicing it from a certain perspective. Serious experiments are going on with beamed energy, entangled particles and eventual teleporation. should that technology come about you will have the ability to be anywhere you want, (not quite omnipresence but begins to mimic it. Very true that not every single human being will have these god like abilities available to them but many will. And those with god like powers will view those without in what way? In Genesis 10:6 "The Lord Said, "Behold the people is one, and have one language, and now nothing will be restrained from them that they have imagined to do." In Genesis 3:5 "And the Serpent said, You shall not surely die, for God knows that in the day that you eat it your eyes will be openned and you shall be AS gods, knowling good from evil." If I can be play theologian for a minute, to a certain extent man has overthrown God's will in the case of the Tower of Babel. The world is coming back to having one language or perhaps not one language but the ability to communicate as if it has one language. And as we develop technologies that confirm on us godhood or a state that is sufficient to mimic godhood some of the human race will eventually become like gods, though without the wisdom of God which is actually scary. If you wonder what a world would be like with gods clothed in human morals, wisdom, and failings would be like then I direct your attention to the Greek gods: rape, murder, eating your children and all that good stuff. The gods we will create will have no restraint and will recreate the earth in their own image. And those who lack the god like abilities will discover hell on earth. Whoa! Which pessimistic Science writer from the past did I just channel? I believe that the earth is headed for something, the explosive development of technology and whole new technologies will continue to provide individuals with more and more power in their hands and that this process will lead to the old saying, "power corrupts" because human nature is what it is. Whats coming? Gama World, The Apocalypse, the Seconding Coming of John Frum, or the Day of the Lord? Well I have ideas about that but perhaps they're more appropriate for on a forum for discussing Christianity and religion... I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 26, 2011 - 3:13pm | I have no question that philosophy and religiosity are due for a new renaissance, and with it will likely come a new wave of unexpected science, technology, and cultural restructuring... Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 December 12, 2011 - 4:04pm | Never mind, I was ranting or something..... |
December 12, 2011 - 4:56pm |  sometimes that has to be done.Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
