03-18-2019, 02:01 PM | #31 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
|
Re: Tech Level Question
I think this might be splitting hairs a little. I think it's fair to reserve the superscience label for anything based on counterfactual principles, whether they're the laws of physics or of anatomy. If the setting sees it as a science, then it's a science for the sake of that setting, even if something similar like Esoteric Medicine would be considered supernatural.
__________________
Collaborative Settings: Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting! |
03-18-2019, 04:19 PM | #32 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
|
Re: Tech Level Question
Quote:
Take FTL for example. There are ways to make it work under our physics but they require exotic substances that only mathematically exist. Hence it is superscience. In a reality where Newtonian physics is the order of the day then FTL is much easier to achieve though at 1 G it would take just over 353 days to go pass the speed of light. Last edited by maximara; 03-18-2019 at 04:23 PM. |
|
03-18-2019, 04:38 PM | #33 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
|
Re: Tech Level Question
|
03-18-2019, 04:52 PM | #34 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
|
Re: Tech Level Question
The superscience label is there so that you know that it doesn't fit in a 'hard science' setting, not that it doesn't get treated as scientific within that setting. It's applied to things that are as far as we know impossible (we could be wrong).
|
03-18-2019, 06:55 PM | #35 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
|
Re: Tech Level Question
Quote:
There is surprisingly very little "true" hard science fiction out there (not counting stuff in the solar system like Transhuman Space) - there is always a trip into fantasy land even if it is just the done to death and will never freaking die 'aliens that look like funny humans' trope. This is due to practical story reasons - hard science interstellar travel is from a story stand point is boring unless there is some kind of personal drama going on with the crew. |
|
03-18-2019, 06:59 PM | #36 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
|
Re: Tech Level Question
"Possible with a sufficient quantity of unobtanium which we have no evidence actually exists" isn't really possible (the alcubierre metric actually has quite a few problems beyond the unobtanium requirement, but things like stable transversible wormholes are less problematic, we just have no reason to think the requirements actually exist).
Last edited by Anthony; 03-18-2019 at 07:02 PM. |
03-19-2019, 02:45 AM | #37 | |
☣
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
|
Re: Tech Level Question
Quote:
__________________
RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
|
03-19-2019, 07:04 AM | #38 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
|
Re: Tech Level Question
Quote:
If faster speeds were possible, light would travel at them. As should anything else massless in the absence of some other sort of resistance to motion - which is also what connects FTL to "negative mass", and the reason why stable wormholes aren't as problematic - as long as they don't form faster than light, they aren't actually FTL, because once you open them light can travel through them too.
__________________
-- MA Lloyd |
|
03-19-2019, 07:35 AM | #39 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Re: Tech Level Question
Quote:
__________________
Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
|
03-19-2019, 10:23 AM | #40 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
|
Re: Tech Level Question
Quote:
|
|
|
|