Things TLs 7-9 would be interesting to see WITHOUT

[sjard]

Pre GUI I don't think there was a typical user. Everyone had their own personal preferences as to which dos commands to use for example. Or how to set up their machines or system files.

For example, I was one of only a handful of people locally who seemed to even know about the dir/p command when everyone else seemed to just stick with either dir or dir/w.

One guy I knew had hugely complex autoexec.bat files to work around the 640k barrier. It involved about 80 lines of code telling the machine to load, run, and then unload the various TSR programs.

My preferred method was to add more than 640k of onboard memory to the motherboard (most boards before the 486dx2 had half a dozen chip slots for this).

The number of people using computers jumped dramatically when programs like Xtree showed up. That program used a GUI directory tree that is very similar to what is still used today.

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

....
Here's one I've been considering for an alien race: the presence of nuclear power, but not nuclear weapons. I'm not sure how plausible that is, though. Any thoughts?

Energy = Weaponry. I cant think of any situation where that is not the case.

Mechanical - Melee
Chemical - Bullet
Atomic/Nuclear - Nuke
Optic - Laser
Thermal - Steamships
Electrical - Taser


Solar could be and exception. I cant think of a single weapon in history that has been solar powered.....

That could be endemic to the human tendency to provide their own competition.

Nymdok

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

Energy = Weaponry. I cant think of any situation where that is not the case.

Mechanical - Melee
Chemical - Bullet
Atomic/Nuclear - Nuke
Optic - Laser
Thermal - Steamships
Electrical - Taser


Solar could be and exception. I cant think of a single weapon in history that has been solar powered.....

That could be endemic to the human tendency to provide their own competition.

Nymdok

But people didn't start off with lasers, steamships or tasers. They used the technology for other things first, and then said "Hey! I bet we can use this as a weapon!"

Our first real nuclear technology was a weapon, and only later did we apply it to peaceful ends. Isn't it possible to do it the other way around, to create a nuclear technology for power, and only later go "Heeeyyy, I bet we can use this as a weapon."

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

Solar could be and exception. I cant think of a single weapon in history that has been solar powered.....

Archimedes is said to have set Roman ships afire with a battery of mirrors during the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Here's one I've been considering for an alien race: the presence of nuclear power, but not nuclear weapons. I'm not sure how plausible that is, though. Any thoughts?

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head would be for nuclear power to have developed from radiothermal power by engineering experimentation rather than being developed from physical principles... a nuclear reactor and a bomb are very different beasts and whilst you might know from experience that you get a hell of a mess if you lose control of your core the idea that you could turn that into a practicable weapon might not be inutitive if you don't know the physics.

[Ragitsu]

Democracy.

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Archimedes is said to have set Roman ships afire with a battery of mirrors during the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC.

That counts as weaponized in my book. ANy other NON weaponzied energy type/sources?

Nymdok

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head would be for nuclear power to have developed from radiothermal power by engineering experimentation rather than being developed from physical principles... a nuclear reactor and a bomb are very different beasts and whilst you might know from experience that you get a hell of a mess if you lose control of your core the idea that you could turn that into a practicable weapon might not be inutitive if you don't know the physics.

That was my idea. The aliens figured out, hey, these rocks are a bit on the warm side. If you bring them together, they get warmer. I bet if you brought alot of them together and dunked them in some water, you'd get even better steam power than you get with coal.

Or something like that.

It was only later, as they understood the principles involved (to better engineer their super steam-engines), that they realized they could make a weapon out of them. As a very warlike species, they're grudgingly admiring of humans for figuring out the super-weapon first and then "reverse" engineering the power aspect. I figure it's one of those "in hindsight, that's really obvious" kind of things, but I'm not sure if it's so obvious as to be absurd, hence why I'm asking.

It's easy to devise alternate Low Tech, because some a plethora of real-world examples exist. It's easy to devise alternate Ultra-Tech, because sci-fi is loaded to the gills with interesting ideas. It's hard to devise alternate High Tech, because most discussions of TL 5-8 consist of things that really happened, rather than neat ideas some TL 4 guy had. You have a few examples of alternate-tech (zeppelins, steam-tech, and the difference engine), but it'd be nice if we had some more.

[thulben]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Here's one I've been considering for an alien race: the presence of nuclear power, but not nuclear weapons. I'm not sure how plausible that is, though. Any thoughts?

If you're willing to consider "alternative physics", perhaps the nuclear reaction produces the same amount of energy, but over a much longer time. The difference between something that explodes and something that burns is merely the rate of the reaction. I don't, however, know what implications such alternative physics has...

[Tema69]

Originally Posted by Ragitsu

Democracy.

Good one. It doesn't necessarily involve fascism (that's already used quite a lot in sci-fi and alternate history fiction). It could be feudalism? How would a TL9 Feudal world be?
Or Greek-style democracy (only landowning free (male) citizens may vote)? That would be interesting, especially around TL6-7 IMHO.