Parasky

Science Fiction

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Science Fiction

from Sins Forums

Hello all, I am obviously new here and, because I cannot find any kind of introduction thread or area, I have decided to introduce myself in this topic.

 

I am very interested in science fiction (as I imagine most people who like Sins of a Solar Empire are), I happen to do some science fiction artwork (mostly spacescapes but I also write some stories). I was just wondering, what is your favorite thing about science fiction? The prospect of a better future for humanity? The mysteries of the unknown? The cool gadgets?

Personally, I like to think of history as the greatest story ever told. And while the various conquests and pursuits of mankind may be interesting, the future will inevitably become the most fascinating part of history. To reach out from our own world, to spread out across the stars, to see what is out there, to test the limits not only of ourselves but of nature itself. And on top of that, I ask you another question; what do you think the human world will be like in, oh say, a thousand years?

My own vision for mankind one thousand years from now is not what most people expect. A thousand years seems like a long time, but it really isn't. I envision that we as humans will have spread out across the solar system and will have taken the first hesitant steps out of our own star system. I think that interstellar travel will still be relatively difficult, but far easier than it would be now. I don't think mankind will be united, I imagine that, while the nations of Earth may have finally united into an uneasy union, the people on various worlds will still be disagreeing and fighting as humans generally do. I don't think it's a long shot to say we will have colonized Mars by the Twenty Thrid Century (if not before) and that it will slowly but surely be terraformed by its inhabitants. Such a process, however, would take centuries and so I imagine that Mars would only just be becoming a densely populated, Earth-like world by 3009. I also believe we will have done the same thing with the Jovian moons (the moons around Jupiter, if you didn't know), in particular the Gallilean moons (especially Ganymede). Their smaller size would allow for faster terraforming, perhaps only a couple hundred years rather than several centuries (well, Ganymede anyways). I also believe we will have found some fairly complex multi-cellular lifeforms under the great ices of Europa and perhaps some hydrogen-methane based lifeforms on Saturn's moon Titan.

But enough of my babbling, I want to hear about your interest in science fiction and your vision of the future.

off-topic
139,731 views 40 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top

I like the fact that i could actually see it become reality. I am never going to be a wizard or fight dragons but i could become cybernetic or a starship captain.

Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I have to agree with Seth. The world will go down in a handbasket and mankind will forever be stuck on this planet fighting each other's ass off, either with weapons or without.

 

The only chance of ever getting farther than our solar system would be a stargateueske scenario or a form of alien intervention.

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

or a form of alien intervention.

Coming right up!

;)

Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting AncientEmperor, reply 25
i think every one here can not comprehend the human races technological capabilities. look at us 2,000 yrs ago, we were nothing but primitive people who were just beginning to understand civil life. the next 1,000 yrs we conquered civil life, sea farring, the earth itself, and we began to dream of flight. in the last 1,000 yrs we had a major boom in technological advancement, mastering: mechanics, electricity, industry, flight, the auto mobile, space flight, the computer, the micro chip, voice amplification, communication networks, 3 dimensional imagery, sound, sight, the atom, government, etc. hell the majority of these all happened within the last 100 yrs. and in fact and opinion in order  for us to be able to create a stellar or galactic government we must first bring peace to all the nations of earth and educate everyone to the highest level of technology at that time, but this is almost impossible because of our greed, competitiveness, and jealousy. and  before we could even be able to consider a united earth the world would be consumed in war, with each nation claiming they are the ones to bring peace and that other nations are only trying to prevent peace thus resulting in multiple world wars and possibly a nuclear winter, a time of technological setback, and after we are done scarring the earth with bombs and destroying nations out of the ashes a world of anarchy will set in for a period of time while different factions attempt to bring the world back to it's former glory, new nations will rise and new boundaries will be drawn and another world war will persue to unite the world resulting in the rise of technological advancement once again then we will master space flight and colonization, where then our war will be moved to the space between earth and mars due to our competitive nature and each nations desperate need to be the victor, also resulting in a unbelievable leap in technology. only once a person or group looks at what is best for the human race and realizes something needs to be done and steps in and finally unites the world can we be at peace, now that the world is finally at peace we will focus our thoughts and research on bettering life and technology resulting in our first exploration of other worlds outside our own solar system. with a world now at peace, the war machine will be abandoned and we will greatly focus on advancing exploration and transportation technology, basically we will become like the T.E.C., without the need to build new weapons, we will be technologically inferior to any violent alien race that we encounter. as for finding life out there, we will and it won't be simple and primitive. we are one planet of nine in one solar system among thousands upon thousands of other stars in a galaxy among several million other galaxies in a proclaimed infinate universe, to think we are the only intelligent lifeforms out there is purely ignorant, simply put we are way to damn full of ourselves

AncientEmperor

 

2000 years ago it was 9 AD. Beginning to understand civil life? The Roman Empire was at its peak! And the Romans are anything but primitive.

Reply #30 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

be a wizard or fight dragons

I could arange either of these, if you like.O:)

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Parasky, reply 4


2000 years ago it was 9 AD. Beginning to understand civil life? The Roman Empire was at its peak! And the Romans are anything but primitive.

Yes, the problem with western history is we did fall into a dark age. The world essentially fell apart around 300-400 CE with the fall of Rome and really did not begin to progress again for 1000 years. If you really look at things, progress didn't really start to be made again until the renaissance, at which point they were (in some aspects at least) reaching up to the point of technology available during the Roman period. If not for the dark ages, we would probably already have Mars terraformed by now and would be at the very least experimenting with theorized FTL travel.

If one looks back through history to compare technology, one must really start after the fall of Rome to get an accurate picture of how technology has progressed up the present. After the fall of Rome, we essentially fell back from a technologically advanced civilization to an agriculturally based primative society.

This is probably the thing I fear the most about the future, the possibility of another dark age. Falling back to a primative society is probably one of the worst options, the third worst as far as I can think of. It is topped only by the possibilities of the extinction of humans, and the absolute worst, the extinction of life on earth. Or as the famous saying goes: "It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."

The only thing more important than the acquisition of knowledge is making sure the knowledge we have obtained is passed down to future generations.

Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top

sorry i was drinking last night and went into a drunken rant

Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top

I think we fell into the second dark ages once we started using CE and BCE instead of AD and BC. :P Our Dark Ages have only just begun people think the middle ages were bad wait until PC police become a government agency. Technology, especially networking, makes centralization of power easier not harder. I think society and technology will radically change in the future so science fiction beyond the next 30 or so years is completely speculative.

Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top

If humanity ever obtained the level of technology necessary for interstellar travel, it would simply exploit that knowledge to destroy itself. 

The only society I can see being stable enough for any kind of interplanetary imperialism is one founded on the principles of "Ingsoc".  And in such a society, interplanetary travel would do more harm than good: it might raise the quality of life, and if you have read Emmanuel Goldstein's Book, you know just how dangerous to Ingsoc that can be...

Reply #35 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting weissengel86, reply 8
I think we fell into the second dark ages once we started using CE and BCE instead of AD and BC. Our Dark Ages have only just begun people think the middle ages were bad wait until PC police become a government agency. Technology, especially networking, makes centralization of power easier not harder. I think society and technology will radically change in the future so science fiction beyond the next 30 or so years is completely speculative.

The final sentence I agree with. Sci-fi has always been purely speculation, as any predictions of the future should be.

The third sentence is a false claim. The entire thinking behind the internet is the decentralization of knowledge. If you think having knowledge stored in only museums and books (most of which are only found in museums or great libraries) is more decentralized than having that same knowledge distributed across various web servers all around the world in tens if not hundreds of countries and available to anyone with access to a computer, I am sorry but that is just flat out wrong. For one, look at China. Despite all attempts to ban political opposition as well as pornagraphy on all computers in China, they have failed to be able to stop it. Quiet it down, sure, but not nearly as easily as if it were in the real world rather than the virtual. Networking makes centralization of power easier only if the network was built with that purpose specifically in mind.

I am not entirely sure what you mean by saying we are in a dark age now. We most certainly are not. Technology is increasing at a rate faster than ever (exponential growth), standards of living are rising, life span is rising, litteracy is rising. Tell me how you came to the conclusion we are in a dark age? And what does changing the naming system of years have to do with anything? Heck, even if there were 'PC police' I for one would really like that much more than facing starvation on a daily basis like the peasants of medieval Europe.

Information itself is a counter to autoritarian governments. Take the Soviet Union for example. Quoted from the wiki page 'Fall of Soviet Union:
"Relaxation under glasnost resulted in the Communist Party losing its absolute grip on the media. Before long, and much to the embarrassment of the authorities, the media began to expose severe social and economic problems the Soviet government had long denied and actively concealed. Problems receiving increased attention included poor housing, alcoholism, drug abuse, pollution, outdated Stalin-era factories, and petty to large−scale corruption, all of which the official media had ignored. Media reports also exposed crimes committed by Stalin and the Soviet regime, such as the gulags, his treaty with Adolf Hitler, and the Great Purges, which had been ignored by the official media. Moreover, the ongoing war in Afghanistan, and the mishandling of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which Gorbachev tried to cover up, further damaged the credibility of the Soviet government at a time when dissatisfaction was increasing."
When a population find out they have been spoon fed lies, the reaction often leads to the collapse of the government which has power over them.

Reply #36 from Sins Forums Top

Pshh, Wikipedia, teachers hate when students use that lol so I stay away from it haha. 

Reply #37 from Elemental Forums Top

The only reason they hate it is it has a tendancy to change more rapidly and a previous version of a page is not easily accessable. Which means you could be plagarizing for all they know. As far as accuracy, a study done by Nature 4 years ago came to the conclusion it was really no less accurate than Encyclopedia Britanica.

Oh, and happy Pi Day!
3.14159265358979323846264338

Reply #38 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Oh, and happy Pi Day!

I want a  piece of the Birthday Pi! :grin:

Reply #39 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting alway, reply 10


The third sentence is a false claim. The entire thinking behind the internet is the decentralization of knowledge. If you think having knowledge stored in only museums and books (most of which are only found in museums or great libraries) is more decentralized than having that same knowledge distributed across various web servers all around the world in tens if not hundreds of countries and available to anyone with access to a computer, I am sorry but that is just flat out wrong. For one, look at China. Despite all attempts to ban political opposition as well as pornagraphy on all computers in China, they have failed to be able to stop it. Quiet it down, sure, but not nearly as easily as if it were in the real world rather than the virtual. Networking makes centralization of power easier only if the network was built with that purpose specifically in mind.
If only that were true. Networking helps power and information become easily centralized. I could explain but here is not the appropriate place. The people who say are people who dont actually understand how this technology works or how it can be used. Netwqorking allows people in the know or who are in charge to keep watch and manipulate people far easier then it has ever been possible. The supposed "decentralization" is a fools ideal and perfect for making people think they have control or knowledge when they actually dont.

You dont seem to realize that networking and the internet was designed by DARPA and the Department of Defense. You also miss the technologies and development being done that centralize power and give greater regulation over what goes on. Ive seen it first hand because telecommunications is what im studying right now. I am a student in networking and security so ive seen enough and read enough to know that "freedom" derived from the internet or networking is an illusion and a good deception at that.

Reply #40 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

“I stand on the shoulders of those who went before me.” — Sir Isaac Newton.

 

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." — Alan Kay

 

Most if not all inventions are but the next step.  The knowledge is already there and it only takes one person to just take it to the next level.  Education now more than ever plays a large part in enabling people to grasp and comprehend those before us.  Technology is constantly advancing forward.  Even though the dark ages in our past slowed that advancement down it did not erase the overall achievement of our civilization. 

I think we will continue to advance as a people after all the sky is the limit it just depends on whose sky you’re reaching for.