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Science/Speculative Fiction of Eclipse Phase

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Fri, 2012-12-14 02:38

prototyper prototyper's picture

Science/Speculative Fiction of Eclipse Phase

A simple query: what do you think are prevalent ideas/concepts/premises present in the science/speculative fiction of the egos of the Eclipse Phase setting?

Fri, 2012-12-14 13:43

Erenthia

This is a really interesting

This is a really interesting question, and one I don't have an answer to. Actually it's a question I've asked myself with regards to many future settings. What will people in the future think about their future. What is their science fiction about? What technologies are on their horizon? I suppose, one way to do it would be to push beyond the bounds of what's already been done. Say for instance, what effect would really cheap qbits (for QE comms) have on the setting? Or universal FTL communication? The people of EP might dream of a day when they can send their minds from one end of the system to the other instantly and with no lack...when they can jump from a body on Luna into a puppet-sock controlled morph on Titan without a seconds delay...or perhaps they simply dream of a future with no Indentures, where all the Egos in cold storage are out and participating in the real world again. Maybe they dream about what it would be like to reclaim Earth - what technologies might be wrested from the hands of the Titans... And I'm fairly certain the Space Opera is still around, though less with the human-like aliens and more with the Lovecraftian horrors.

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The end really is coming. What comes after that is anyone's guess.

Fri, 2012-12-14 14:57

Lorsa

I had some trouble

I had some trouble understanding the simple question unfortunately. Is the interpretation Erenthia made correct and you want to know what people in Eclipse Phase thinks is science fiction or do you want to know something else?

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Lorsa is a Forum moderator [color=red]Red text is for moderator stuff[/color]

Sat, 2012-12-15 19:33

prototyper prototyper's picture

What people in Eclipse Phase think is science fiction?

Nope, Erenthia was right on the money. That is exactly what I was asking about. Sorry if I caused any confusion. :-)

Sat, 2012-12-22 00:39

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

today science fiction is just

today science fiction is just barely peeking into post singularity worlds because it's so difficult to speculate past the singularity. So we get transhuman and far transhuman fiction now. People In EP are past their singularity so they'll have posthuman fiction. I'm not erudite enough to give specific examples but one way to speculate on the future speculations of our future (Ha!) is to think about which hard problems we have today and which hard problems the people of EP have or have not been able to solve. For instance I could see anything writen by Greg Egan, (who writes good fiction about hard maths), being just as relevant in a post singulairty world. How ever, David Brin's uplift stories will seem cute and quaint the way that Edgar Rice Burroughs stories seem today. Nano tech will receive a much more critical treatment (depending on where one is located in the solar system). Because it seems from the setting that scientists in EP are still chasing Unified Field Theory, I think that to them femtotech will be like nanotech to us, harnessing zero point energy will be a golden apple to them like fusion is to us. Another thing that will inform sci-fy in the future is the common experience of the consumer. I suspect that whooshing, dogfighting, swashbuckling space opera like starwars and BSG will not exist because it will be common knowledge of many people who actually travel in space, that type of action is complete BS. However, true artificial gravity and inertia control, hyperspace/subspace, wormhole travel, and [url=http://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/2011/8/10/75841287-98de-4854-a6bd-146e... alien alcohol[/url] will still be common tropes because they'll seem that much closer to becoming reality. Riffing off Erenthia's ideas about Q-bits-- the setting as written thus far indicates that; A, the peoples of EP have solved the causality issues of FTL comms or B, Causality issues caused by FTL comms are part of every day life and the peoples of EP have found found a way to have a stable economy and society despite the fact. In the case of B it may be that one of the most horrible and hackneyed tropes of future fiction, time travel, is actually compelling and interesting based on less fanciful science.

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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Sat, 2012-12-22 07:40

King Shere King Shere's picture

Even today fiction and

Even today fiction and fashion cycle, and today some remergence is tied to the copyright length. So works that are without copyright or risk loosing it, is sent out again into a "new" audience. With the Fall certainly a load of works was partly forgotten, scattered or lost. So a nostaligic creator might produce their version of a lost classic, based on the few fragments of memory that remains. I tend to look for comparative "ages" and use those for inspiration and twist given examples. I have picked 18th century with the taming of the wild west, and the fence cutting wars as Eclipse Phase age comparison. Then I use that age and its content as a template for the general themes of Fictive works, fashion & theories.

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[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/tc_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/exh_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/argo_userbar.jpg[/img] [i]"To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult."[/i] Plutarch

Sat, 2012-12-22 09:41

Rags

Good points OneTrikPony. I'd

Good points OneTrikPony. I'd imagine that Warhammeresque science fiction to be popular in the Jovian republic and other bioconservative habitats. With the anti technology angle, anti alien angle and fascism their quite alike. No doubt defeating the TITANS and reclaiming Earth is a popular theme, not just in the Republic.