[Ultra-Tech] How to decide what tech to allow?

[Michael Cule]

In ECLIPSE PHASE the robots are people too (at least where technology and the law allows them to be) and some of them used to be born-of-woman human people too. Talk of robots 'replacing' people seems to miss the point.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Michael Cule

In ECLIPSE PHASE the robots are people too (at least where technology and the law allows them to be) and some of them used to be born-of-woman human people too. Talk of robots 'replacing' people seems to miss the point.

Really. What is the point?

I mean obviously there's no point in playing an organic when machines are superior. But there's also no point in using a robot who is a person when a limited AI will do the dangerous job perfectly adequately.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Some questions I would ask:

SNIP

This is the correct approach, and about the only additional observation I'd make is that you seem inclined to think that maybe the technology will drive the stories.

That's kinda bass-ackwards. The technology in a sci-fi setting should facilitate the story, but not drive the story. The actions of the PCs should drive the story.

For example, when he made Star Wars, George Lucas wanted a setting with cool visuals and action easily understood by the audience, but at the same time make a Joseph Campbell, "hero's journey" the central plot.

So, he made large spacecraft operate almost the same as ocean-going ships; he limited the technology in such a way that human pilots in small spacecraft that operated like WWII fighters could play a pivotal role; and he gave living things access to a magical "force" that made them effective, even against the (deliberately crippled) technology available.

Let's be clear: a modern F-35 stealth fighter armed with air-to-air missiles with ranges of 20-30 miles (or more) would absolutely slaughter an X-wing or TIE fighter operating inside the atmosphere.

Even with the defense shields (yet more magic), the blast, shock and fragments from a missile would slip through the parallel shield-planes and do enough damage to cripple or kill the Star Wars "space-fighter."

Moreover, the F-35 could make multiple attempts from far, far outside the range of the blasters on the X-Wing or TIE, with a fair confidence of success.

The problem is that, even the technology of the 1970s had already rendered warfare utterly dehumanizing, with little room for an heroic effort that might change the course of even a single battle (much less a major conflict). The recently-concluded conflict in Vietnam had demonstrated that reality to everybody.

That's, of course, why Lucas skipped the whole thing. Star Wars isn't so much sci-fi as a fantasy hero's journey (complete with wizards and magical swords), in a simplified WWII setting disguised as science fiction.

While you don't have to come up with solution nearly so "hand-wavey" as George's, you should start out in a similar way:
-Define the type of story you want to tell; the type of campaign you want to run
-Define the stories you don't want to tell
-Then pick the technology to facilitate the stories you want and avoid those you don't
-Communicate those goals and choices to the players, to help make sure the campaign you want to run matches the game they want to play.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

That's, of course, why Lucas skipped the whole thing. Star Wars isn't so much sci-fi as a fantasy hero's journey (complete with wizards and magical swords), in a simplified WWII setting disguised as science fiction.

While it might look like a re-skinned WWII setting in terms of spaceship combat, it's not even that, and the differences are why Star Wars' military spaceships make very little sense.

[RogerBW]

Thinking of healing in particular, even super-advanced healing that takes a noticeable time doesn't distort things too much. On the one hand, you took a tank shell to the head and you'll be back for next week's adventure. On the other, you still miss the rest of this week's.

Generally in ultra-tech settings I take the approach that if you're still alive at the end of the fight and you get medical attention you'll probably be OK, whether that's what we'd recognise as trauma surgery or slicing off your head, throwing it in an Esky, and growing a new body to go with it.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

This is the correct approach, and about the only additional observation I'd make is that you seem inclined to think that maybe the technology will drive the stories.

That's kinda bass-ackwards. The technology in a sci-fi setting should facilitate the story, but not drive the story. The actions of the PCs should drive the story.

Yes, but in a hard SF story, the technology offers options for the actions of the PCs (it provides what a psychologist would call "affordances"), and limits those options.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is famous for having scripts with "<insert technobabble here>." But in Wellsian science fiction, there is no "technobabble." You make your impossible assumption, and the events of the story emerge from it with strict logic based on known facts about the universe.

Or, as Marx put it, "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they choose."

That is, the logical sequence is not, "I decide on the story I'm going to tell, and then I adjust the technology to fit that story." The structure is, "I come up with an interesting premise, and I confront characters with it who have relevant competences and goals, and then I see what story emerges from their actions." The writer's essential gift is a reliable ability to hit on premises from which interesting stories will emerge.

This isn't the only way to write SF. But it's certainly a way.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That is, the logical sequence is not, "I decide on the story I'm going to tell, and then I adjust the technology to fit that story." The structure is, "I come up with an interesting premise, and I confront characters with it who have relevant competences and goals, and then I see what story emerges from their actions." The writer's essential gift is a reliable ability to hit on premises from which interesting stories will emerge.

An excellent example of this: George O. Smith's Venus Equilateral stories. We have an inhabited solar system; sometimes the Sun will be between Earth and Venus; therefore we need a radio relay station. With great big vacuum tubes! (Yes, they rapidly move into blatant TL^, but even that kit behaves in reproducible ways.)

[Mark Caliber]

Five days later . . .

I dunno. Maybe TL 9 and TL 10 is too advanced for the type of Cyberpunk campaign that I want.

Studying the tech, maybe I should look at a TL 8 with elements of TL 9 as my 'advanced' tech.

I definitely want tons of TL 7 tech available, especially for the beginning of my lower strata PC's.


How will the players respond to the existence of lasers in this game world? I'll have to ask them.


My point with this post, is that it often takes time and careful consideration as you research as you lay out your campaign.

You might want to make notes as you make decisions as well so that you can present your players with available options and stay consistent. That and writing things down helps you organize your thoughts. Often a concept that's rattling around in the cerebral cortex won't make any sense when written down. If that's the case, it's a bad idea! Ergo it should be discarded or refined until its a good idea.

(And tons of great advice from the other posters. I'm definitely taking it all into account as I prep my own Sci Fi campaign. Thanks)!

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That is, the logical sequence is not, "I decide on the story I'm going to tell, and then I adjust the technology to fit that story." The structure is, "I come up with an interesting premise, and I confront characters with it who have relevant competences and goals, and then I see what story emerges from their actions." The writer's essential gift is a reliable ability to hit on premises from which interesting stories will emerge.

That's true in forcing a story in one direction vs another however, in terms of world building, I do think you need to decide how you want the world to feel before deciding on tech. (If you want people to have to actually travel around, don't include Star Trek transporters.)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Tinman

That's true in forcing a story in one direction vs another however, in terms of world building, I do think you need to decide how you want the world to feel before deciding on tech. (If you want people to have to actually travel around, don't include Star Trek transporters.)

Hmmm. I'd say yes and no. That is, on one hand, when I'm looking for a technological or scientific premise that seems interesting, I do take into account what sort of stories it will enable, at least intuitively assessed. But on the other, I don't say, "Okay, I want a world with feature X, so what are all the technological premises that will give me that feature?" Rather, I think of possible premises, and explore their implications a bit.

So, for example, when I was setting up my current fantasy campaign, Tapestry, I started out with (a) I want to have multiple humanoid intelligent races, but (b) I don't want to categorize them as Good races and Bad races (something Tolkien had an increasingly bad conscience about in his later years, and rightly so). And that led me to the idea of races that were naturally adapted to different terrains as defined in GURPS, and to thinking about what sort of societies each race would be likely to create . . .