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Old 10-08-2011, 06:49 PM   #31
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: Alternate Lensemen

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Originally Posted by Refplace View Post
Thier daughters :)
The Unit was 3 women and a man right?
4, 2 pairs of twins. One sister to mirror the mental qualities of each of the L2s with Christopher to meld the best quaities of both his parents.

Also, the point wasn't that women weren't able to bear the Lensman's Load. It was that they weren't able to synchronize with Mentor to eradicate the Eddorians. That was ultimately the purpose of the entire Lensman corps. Everything else was a nice side benefit.

Doc Smith did believe that women were inherently _different_ from men in terms of fundamental psychology. I don't know that this is true myself but I don't know that it's wrong either.
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Old 10-08-2011, 06:54 PM   #32
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Alternate Lensemen

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
4, 2 pairs of twins. One sister to mirror the mental qualities of each of the L2s with Christopher to meld the best quaities of both his parents.

Also, the point wasn't that women weren't able to bear the Lensman's Load. It was that they weren't able to synchronize with Mentor to eradicate the Eddorians. That was ultimately the purpose of the entire Lensman corps. Everything else was a nice side benefit.

Doc Smith did believe that women were inherently _different_ from men in terms of fundamental psychology..
Yes, he believed they were more different from men than Palainians or Rigellians. As with White this makes perfect nonsense.
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Old 10-08-2011, 07:00 PM   #33
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Alternate Lensemen

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Yes, he believed they were more different from men than Palainians or Rigellians. As with White this makes perfect nonsense.
False. He believed that women were inherently incompatible with full linkage with a disembodied Arisian.
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Old 10-08-2011, 07:06 PM   #34
quarkstomper
 
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Default Re: Alternate Lensemen

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Originally Posted by robkelk View Post
The original writers say the resemblance was coincidental. ...
Considering that Julie Schwartz, who edited the Great Revamps of the Silver Age, was a member of Science Fiction's First Fandom, I sincerely doubt it.
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Old 10-08-2011, 07:10 PM   #35
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Alternate Lensemen

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False. He believed that women were inherently incompatible with full linkage with a disembodied Arisian.
But Palainians and Rigellians? No prob. Unless of course they happened to be _female_ Palainians and Rigellians...
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Old 10-08-2011, 07:35 PM   #36
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Alternate Lensemen

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But Palainians and Rigellians? No prob. Unless of course they happened to be _female_ Palainians and Rigellians...
Where are you getting your data about the sexes of the radically non-mammalian Rigellians and Palainians? Do they even have females as we understand them and are they excluded from being Lensmen?

I know the Gurps book addresses these points but as far as i can tell they just made their material up.
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Old 10-09-2011, 01:00 AM   #37
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Default Re: Alternate Lensemen

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Okay, yes, I have never read the original Lensmen novels. If I can find them at a nearby bookstore, I'll give them a try.

That being said, as much as I know it's going to annoy the Book Purists, I still want to know if it's possible to take the Themes and Distinct elements of the Lensman series (Arisia, Eddore, the Lens Wars, the Lensmen, etc) and transcribe them into a technologically modern or post-modern setting.

...And yes, I do realize I'm now subconsciously making references to the much-maligned Lensman Anime series, but my point remains that I don't see what doing a Tech Update to the Lensman universe would take away from it, aside from removing the "Pre-Transistor Pulp Sci-Fi" feel.
You could probably make current-day tech compatible with the themes of the novels, but anything much more sophisticated, especially high-grade AI or anything approximating such a thing, and some forms of automated weaponry, will simply scramble things.

(Genetic engineering is just as bad or worse, BTW.)

The story requires that people go places and do things, not send robots or remote-controlled intelligent machines to go places and do things. They make some use of very limited automata, they have what we would consider relatively crude automatic controls for certain things, and they can make bionic prosthetics superior to anything we know how to build...but they can't build spacecraft that operate without crews, or combat robots that take the place of men on the battlefield.

Things like flying microbots carrying poison stings, or mass automation of the economy, just simply would transform Civilization into a different place.
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Old 10-09-2011, 01:05 AM   #38
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My bad, they got the right to vote in 1920, I thought it was in the 40s after WW2.
As for the chauvinist I was looking for a less severe term then misogynist which I think all his books prove he wasn't that.
Women were not equal in the Lensman series, at least until the lensman kids showed up. And Clarissa was I think able to have a Lens based on ability but if I recall correctly was passed on by mentor. Or was that her choice?
Darn on the one hand its cool I remember as much of these books as i do but sad that I forgot so much at the same time. read these things in the early 70s
Mentor told the Lensman that there would be, in the whole history of the human race, one human female Lensman. This was actually a plot point in the precise wording of the statement.

There are many women who have the ability to be Lensman, though fewer women than men have the specific personality traits associated with it.
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Old 10-09-2011, 01:07 AM   #39
Johnny1A.2
 
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Default Re: Alternate Lensemen

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Thier daughters :)
The Unit was 3 women and a man right?
Four females and one male...but they don't count, because Mentor said specifically that there would be only one human female Lensman.
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Old 10-09-2011, 01:12 AM   #40
Johnny1A.2
 
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Default Re: Alternate Lensemen

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3) Also, one reasons for this alternate tech was to prevent cyberware - there are two characters in the book with prosthetic limbs good enough to fool a highly-trained nurse!
But those were not augmentative. They simply took the place of the lost natural limbs, and they didn't turn the character into a more-than-human entity in terms of ability, and they most certainly didn't interact with or alter the thought processes, which is the key issue.

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4) One of Civilisations advantages in later battles was a giant automated fleet control system (with a nifty user interface) (Kim thought up this one).
It was not automated, that was the whole point. It was a system that enabled human Lensmen to guide and manipulate the fleet. Taken the Lensmen out of the system and everything stops, the machinery can not do anything on its own.

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5) The super computers from Masters of the Vortex have already been mentioned.
By our standards today, those aren't all that 'super'.
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