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Old 04-21-2018, 11:17 AM   #21
Daigoro
 
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* That a GURPS book classifies the Nautilus as "superscience" is a device for reconciling the novel's account of its capabilities with the restrictions of standard GURPS on things like battery power, which leaves a big gap that has to be filled somehow. But it's not a statement about the novel itself. It's a later fiction made up about an element of the novel to fit it into a different fictional universe. It's exactly as if, having noticed that cowboys or cops in a movie seem able to go on shooting without reloading (because the writers don't bother with "how many bullets do they have?"), you gave them guns with a superscience bullet materializing device in the grip.
My image of how the Nautilus works comes more from the 1954 movie than from the novel, having read it but forgotten the details, and in that it seemed fairly superscience-y. It's possible that Steampunk Conveyances was inadvertently likewise influenced.
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Old 04-21-2018, 11:51 AM   #22
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My image of how the Nautilus works comes more from the 1954 movie than from the novel, having read it but forgotten the details, and in that it seemed fairly superscience-y. It's possible that Steampunk Conveyances was inadvertently likewise influenced.
It's important which version of the novel you've read. The Naval Institute Press's translation gives details on the batteries, and also a history of previous translations, which omitted significant parts of Verne's text and distorted other parts. I suspect that Phil was careful to read a good translation (unless his French is good enough to cope with the original).

It's mostly hard to assess the technological realism of movies; you can't present the crucial details without a lot of talking heads.
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Old 04-21-2018, 12:02 PM   #23
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It's important which version of the novel you've read. The Naval Institute Press's translation gives details on the batteries, and also a history of previous translations, which omitted significant parts of Verne's text and distorted other parts. I suspect that Phil was careful to read a good translation (unless his French is good enough to cope with the original).
Whichever version it was, I've long forgotten any technical details. But actually, from maximara's comment, I was under the impression that the Nautilus was only mentioned in passing. Checking the preview, it's actually given a full write-up, so indeed I expect it's based fairly closely on the original novel and not any subsequent versions.
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Old 04-21-2018, 12:28 PM   #24
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The Naval Institute Press's translation gives details on the batteries, and also a history of previous translations ...
Thanks for that; just bought it.
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Old 04-21-2018, 12:38 PM   #25
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* I don't think that it actually is intended as "superscience." Verne carefully ties it to the science and technology of his own time, just as he ties his oceanography to Matthew Maury's pioneering textbook on the subject, trying in both cases to produce the strongest possible sense of "this is something that you might read about in next year's news." In fact Verne was proud of doing this; he had a passage where he contrasted his firing men into space in a shell from a gun with Wells sending them into space with cavorite, which he dismissed as Wells just making stuff up. Of course Verne was wrong about what was technologically possible, but he had no intention of making up arbitrary miracles.

p.
I'm not sure Verne's intentions are relevant. The super science categorization is about whether things are impossible, not about whether the author thinks they're impossible. What's more it's about whether the things are impossible now. "Super science" is a a handwave. No, Leonardo Da Vinci can't build a functional flying machine, Edison can't build a device which allows ghosts to talks, Tesla can't build a death ray, the Mechanical Turk can't play chess without a human and the Dean Drive doesn't work. But you shrug, label it super science and move on.

And really I don't get why it's important.
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Old 04-21-2018, 01:44 PM   #26
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I'm not sure Verne's intentions are relevant. The super science categorization is about whether things are impossible, not about whether the author thinks they're impossible. What's more it's about whether the things are impossible now. "Super science" is a a handwave. No, Leonardo Da Vinci can't build a functional flying machine, Edison can't build a device which allows ghosts to talks, Tesla can't build a death ray, the Mechanical Turk can't play chess without a human and the Dean Drive doesn't work. But you shrug, label it super science and move on.

And really I don't get why it's important.
One of these things seems not like the others. (Maybe two, it's not like UT isn't full of non-superscience death rays.) You certainly can make a computer play chess without a human, and you can build a mechanical computer. A true mechanical chess-playing computer would be ahistorical and implausibly advanced for the 18th century when the fake was made, but is something that could exist.

Anachronistic technology isn't superscience.
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Old 04-21-2018, 01:59 PM   #27
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My image of how the Nautilus works comes more from the 1954 movie than from the novel, having read it but forgotten the details, and in that it seemed fairly superscience-y. It's possible that Steampunk Conveyances was inadvertently likewise influenced.
There are transcripts of this film about:

"We went to the very heart of the vessel, the propulsion unit. It was apparent that Captain Nemo had discovered what mankind has always sought, the veritable dynamic power of the universe.

Much later Nemo talks about how that power can lift mankind to the heavens or destroy it heavily implying that it is atomic power. Though it is never said what that power was.

In the dimly remambered The Return of Captain Nemo series the Nautilus' power source is clearly identified as a nuclear reactor.

On a side note the Turtle makes an appearance as drawing under Advanced Submarine in Steampunk and under Nautilus in Steamtech. This is different from the Nautilus Andrew Campbell and James Ash built in 1886 which was driven by electric motors powered by a storage battery.

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One of these things seems not like the others. (Maybe two, it's not like UT isn't full of non-superscience death rays.) You certainly can make a computer play chess without a human, and you can build a mechanical computer. A true mechanical chess-playing computer would be ahistorical and implausibly advanced for the 18th century when the fake was made, but is something that could exist.

Anachronistic technology isn't superscience.
In of itself no. But the method by which it is achieved can be. Britannica-5's TL5^ anti-matter bombs (normally TL10) seems to be one such example. Devices that didn't work in our world but would work in another would be superscience.

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Old 04-21-2018, 02:28 PM   #28
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Thanks for that; just bought it.
I think there's a very good chance you'll enjoy it. I found it a great pleasure: the technical exposition is good, there's some real depth of character interaction, and above all there's a strong sense of theme in the story. And the prose is quite satisfactory.
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Old 04-21-2018, 02:35 PM   #29
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I'm not sure Verne's intentions are relevant. The super science categorization is about whether things are impossible, not about whether the author thinks they're impossible. What's more it's about whether the things are impossible now. "Super science" is a a handwave. No, Leonardo Da Vinci can't build a functional flying machine, Edison can't build a device which allows ghosts to talks, Tesla can't build a death ray, the Mechanical Turk can't play chess without a human and the Dean Drive doesn't work. But you shrug, label it super science and move on.
I think they're relevant. "Superscience" is "here is an invention that lets us do things our current science supposes are impossible, thanks to the discovery of new principles." The classic SF example would be FTL. It's intended to mimic the transformation of imaginative possibilities that came about with the first synthesis of organic molecules, or the first radio transmission, or the first nuclear reaction, perhaps. And you can make up such a thing, and put it into a story, and explore its implications; a lot of SF does that.

But it's different if you write a story that intends to be exploring the possibilities of current technology, or of a modest improvement in current technology. And that's clearly what Verne was doing. His theme was "real technology can potentially do this amazing stuff, wow!" Consider, for example, that Nelly Bly's career got a big boost from her actually circumnavigating the world in 80 days.

Of course, if we know more about technology than Verne did, we can say, "Well, that wouldn't work," and then we can make up a new scientific principle that lets it work. But no such principle was present in Vern'e story. And then we have to choose either NOT to explore the other implications of the principle (if Captain Nemo had atomic power, why didn't he do more with it than build one submarine?) or to explore it and tell a radically different story. Whereas if you just set aside the whole issue and accept that the Nautilus's batteries have the necessary high power output, you can explore Verne's theme and situation.
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Old 04-21-2018, 03:05 PM   #30
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Interesting that you are defining current to mean current to the period in the story/setting, while most of us define it as the literal present.
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