Awesum mind powerz!!!
Gary Thompson
Okay, so I've never been all that fond of psionics in my science
fiction. I've often wondered what the landscape would have looked like
without a certain tinfoil-wearing editor's preoccupation with the
subject. But rather than look at the good that would have come of it,
what of the bad? What stories would never have been written had
psionics not been considered appropriate for mainstream science
fiction? In many cases, you could easily replace psionics with some
other Deus Ex Machina, but some plots just wouldn't work without it.
Let me give two examples to show just what I mean:
The Demolished Man - This is probably the readiest example. Take away
the ability to read minds, and you take away the entire premise of the
novel.
Star Wars - Despite what you may think at first, Star Wars would
probably have turned out ok without the force as an actual mystical
energy. Turn the Jedi into religious genetically-modified warriors a
la Dune, for example.
So what other great stories or novels could not have been written had
early science fiction abandoned the concept as unscientific?
--
Gary Thompson
Works of E.R. Eddison: http://mysite.verizon.net/quuxa/Eddison/
Ballantine Adult Fantasy: http://mysite.verizon.net/quuxa/BAF/
chuck c.
A few that come to mind immediately, besides the Bester:
DYING INSIDE (Silverburg)
THREE TO CONQUER (Russell)
SLAN (v.Vogt)
Best,
CC
Konrad Gaertner
> Okay, so I've never been all that fond of psionics in my science
> fiction. I've often wondered what the landscape would have looked like
> without a certain tinfoil-wearing editor's preoccupation with the
> subject. But rather than look at the good that would have come of it,
> what of the bad? What stories would never have been written had
> psionics not been considered appropriate for mainstream science
> fiction? In many cases, you could easily replace psionics with some
> other Deus Ex Machina, but some plots just wouldn't work without it.
>
> early science fiction abandoned the concept as unscientific?
_Foundation_ didn't have any psi, right? I'd like to see how [if]
Asimov would continue the series without the Mule or 2nd Foundation.
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: gae...@aol.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
-- James Nicoll
Mike Schilling
"Gary Thompson" <quu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1139501808.8...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> So what other great stories or novels could not have been written had
> early science fiction abandoned the concept as unscientific?
>
a
The Lensmen? Without selecting for vast mental powers, there's no point to
the Arisian breeding program.
Mark_R...@hotmail.com
> So what other great stories or novels could not have been written had
> early science fiction abandoned the concept as unscientific?
I don't know whether anybody considers it great anymore, but it was
certainly long: Julian May's 8 book saga, including the 4 book Sage of
the Pliocene Exiles, Galactic Milieu trilogy and connecting book
Intervention.
Wayne Throop
: The Lensmen? Without selecting for vast mental powers, there's no point to
: the Arisian breeding program.
Well. Red hair. Mighty thews. That sort of thing.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Peter D. Tillman
"Gary Thompson" <quu...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Star Wars - Despite what you may think at first, Star Wars would
> probably have turned out ok without the force as an actual mystical
> energy.
Beter, I think. Or, to quote Hans Solo: "Hokey religions and ancient
weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
> Turn the Jedi into religious genetically-modified warriors a
> la Dune, for example.
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
David Cowie
> So what other great stories or novels could not have been written had
> early science fiction abandoned the concept as unscientific?
_World of Ptavvs_ by Niven. The Slavers' mind control powers are a major
part of the plot. And then we have Gil The Arm, in various shorts, with
his telekinetic arm.
_Childhood's End_ by Clarke. Nowadays we could have the children joining
the galactic overmind via some sort of mass upload, but how would we
explain the Overlords' inability to join in?
--
David Cowie
Containment Failure + 19634:22
Nancy Lebovitz
>early science fiction abandoned the concept as unscientific?
I'm not sure about _Dune_--I think the premise that you needed spice-
enhanced clairvoyance to navigate hyperspace is Way Cool, but spice-
enhanced supercalculation might substitute. Would the rest of the novel
survive without claivoyance and shared memory?
I'm very fond of Blish's _Jack of Eagles_, and it's a psi story.
_The Stars My Destination_ by Bester is absolutely dependent on
teleportation, and I don't think there'd be any way to make it
machine-driven teleportation and have the story survive.
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".
Mike Schilling
"Wayne Throop" <thr...@sheol.org> wrote in message
news:11395...@sheol.org...
>: "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com>
> : The Lensmen? Without selecting for vast mental powers, there's no point
> to
> : the Arisian breeding program.
>
> Well. Red hair. Mighty thews. That sort of thing.
Neither would do much against the Eddorians, at least without some major
retcons.
Mike Schilling
"David Cowie" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2006.02.09....@privacy.net...
The Overlords are EBCDIC.
Wayne Throop
: _Childhood's End_ by Clarke. Nowadays we could have the children joining
: the galactic overmind via some sort of mass upload, but how would we
: explain the Overlords' inability to join in?
Chaos theory and quantum entanglement. The Overlord nervous systems
have too many butterfly-effect sensitivities inextricably tied into
hidden quantum states so that readout is impossible for them.
Add more hip funky fresh pop-sci jargon to taste.
"I, Technus, am hip, and funky fresh!"
--- Technus, master of technology
Nancy Lebovitz
Different brain structure--no one has figured out the technical details
of uploading an Overlord. Alternatively, you could tone down the wistfulness
by saying it takes a long time to figure out how to upload new species,
and the Overlords are one of a long history of servant races who've
joined the Overmind eventually.
Wayne Throop
:: Star Wars - Despite what you may think at first, Star Wars would
:: probably have turned out ok without the force as an actual mystical
:: energy.
Would have been better off without the WWII flying aces in space, neither.
: "Peter D. Tillman" <Til...@toast.net_DIESPAMMERSDIE>
: Beter, I think. Or, to quote Hans Solo: "Hokey religions and ancient
: weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
Heh! Tell that to the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
Or, less fancifully, Francis Sandow.
: Turn the Jedi into religious genetically-modified warriors a la Dune,
: for example.
Zen would be better. Zen with some left-brained underpinnings.
Or overpinnings. Or something. Poul Anderson's "The Sensitive Man".
And the clone wars would be the Sensitive Man vs the UN Man.
Damien Sullivan
>Gary Thompson wrote:
>> Okay, so I've never been all that fond of psionics in my science
>> fiction. I've often wondered what the landscape would have looked like
>> without a certain tinfoil-wearing editor's preoccupation with the
>> subject. But rather than look at the good that would have come of it,
>> what of the bad? What stories would never have been written had
>> psionics not been considered appropriate for mainstream science
>> fiction? In many cases, you could easily replace psionics with some
>> other Deus Ex Machina, but some plots just wouldn't work without it.
>>
>> So what other great stories or novels could not have been written had
>> early science fiction abandoned the concept as unscientific?
>
>_Foundation_ didn't have any psi, right? I'd like to see how [if]
>Asimov would continue the series without the Mule or 2nd Foundation.
_Psychohistorical Crisis_ retconned the mentalist stuff into having a more
plausible materialist basis. (Asimov himself had mumbled about sensitive EM
fields but some neural machinery helps plausibility a lot.)
Vinge's _The Witling_ is I think all about mental teleportation skills, though
it's probably not considered Great.
Do the Liaden books need their over the top psi stuff?
Niven, yeah. And without his Slavers, no Star Control II.
-xx- Damien X-)
Sea Wasp
> Okay, so I've never been all that fond of psionics in my science
> fiction. I've often wondered what the landscape would have looked like
> without a certain tinfoil-wearing editor's preoccupation with the
> subject. But rather than look at the good that would have come of it,
> what of the bad? What stories would never have been written had
> psionics not been considered appropriate for mainstream science
> fiction? In many cases, you could easily replace psionics with some
> other Deus Ex Machina, but some plots just wouldn't work without it.
> Let me give two examples to show just what I mean:
>
> The Demolished Man - This is probably the readiest example. Take away
> the ability to read minds, and you take away the entire premise of the
> novel.
>
> Star Wars - Despite what you may think at first, Star Wars would
> probably have turned out ok without the force as an actual mystical
> energy. Turn the Jedi into religious genetically-modified warriors a
> la Dune, for example.
A La DUNE? Which has all SORTS of mystical mumbo-jumbo Kewl Powerz D00dZ?
You fail to convince.
Dune would not have been written without the psi.
James Schmitz' Hub stories -- Telzey and Trigger -- would never have
been written.
Many of RAH's stories would have been different -- possibly never
written.
Foundation would have lacked The Mule and, I think, been far poorer
for it.
How far back do you want to go? The entire Lensman series would be
gone. And without Doc Smith's work, a lot of other people's work goes
PFFFFt. Larry Niven loses a great deal from Known Space -- Gil the ARM
is impossible, "Plateau Eyes" don't work, both crucial to their
respective stories.
And of course my masterwork Digital Knight and other material to
follow would not have been written either.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
CleV
<seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
> Dune would not have been written without the psi.
And how about Dune's bastard son: David Zindell's Neverness.
Mike Schilling
"Sea Wasp" <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote in message
news:43EBD29...@obvioussgeinc.com...
>
> Dune would not have been written without the psi.
And without psi _Leave it to Psmith_ would be _Leave it to mth_. Yuck.
Konrad Gaertner
> Niven, yeah. And without his Slavers, no Star Control II.
Is this a guess? Losing SC2 really would be tragic (speaking as someone
who just downloaded the new version of the open source port:
http://sc2.sourceforge.net/
).
Konrad Gaertner
> In article <1139501808.8...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> Gary Thompson <quu...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> So what other great stories or novels could not have been written had
>> early science fiction abandoned the concept as unscientific?
>
> I'm not sure about _Dune_--I think the premise that you needed spice-
> enhanced clairvoyance to navigate hyperspace is Way Cool, but spice-
> enhanced supercalculation might substitute. Would the rest of the novel
> survive without claivoyance and shared memory?
I think _Dune_ would survive (though the ending may need tweaking), but
the sequels wouldn't.
Gary Thompson
Sea Wasp wrote:
> Gary Thompson wrote:
> >
> > Star Wars - Despite what you may think at first, Star Wars would
> > probably have turned out ok without the force as an actual mystical
> > energy. Turn the Jedi into religious genetically-modified warriors a
> > la Dune, for example.
>
> A La DUNE? Which has all SORTS of mystical mumbo-jumbo Kewl Powerz D00dZ?
Oh, no. I simply meant the breeding program to produce Paul, not his
specific powers. I'm not sure on Dune. It certainly would have
been...different without psi, as Nancy mentioned upthread.
> You fail to convince.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything--or
really, if anyone, me. We all have pet peeves when it comes to genre
tropes, and this is simply an exploration for me of what could never
have been without one of mine. We could do the same thing for FTL or
time travel (neither of which I happen to mind) I suppose, but I
thought psi would make for a much more interesting discussion.
Howard Brazee
Heinlein made use of psi to demonstrate a hard science idea in _Time
for the Stars_.
Wayne Throop
: Heinlein made use of psi to demonstrate a hard science idea in _Time
: for the Stars_.
Which idea? If you mean time dilation, he did a poor job, imo.
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>: Heinlein made use of psi to demonstrate a hard science idea in _Time
>: for the Stars_.
>
>Which idea? If you mean time dilation, he did a poor job, imo.
I agree - but it is a hard science idea nevertheless, and it did get
kids like me interested in the concept.
Damien Sullivan
>Damien Sullivan wrote:
>
>> Niven, yeah. And without his Slavers, no Star Control II.
>
>Is this a guess? Losing SC2 really would be tragic (speaking as someone
>who just downloaded the new version of the open source port:
>http://sc2.sourceforge.net/
Well yes, a guess, but Niven-parallels have a key role in the game's
backstory.
-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Sullivan
> Foundation would have lacked The Mule and, I think, been far poorer
>for it.
Have you read Kingsbury's _Psychohistorical Crisis_?
-xx- Damien X-)
Wayne Throop
:: Which idea? If you mean time dilation, he did a poor job, imo.
: I agree - but it is a hard science idea nevertheless, and it did get
: kids like me interested in the concept.
That's true, I suppose. Hm. I wonder how many stories present
hard-science ideas that you later have to unlearn when you get
really into the actual science? I wonder if "All the Myriad Ways"
counts, or Heechee use of black holes? Probably lots-n-lots, I'd guess.
Johnny1a
based on the assumption that the world _isn't_ totally materialist.
While that's a popular mindset in hard-core SF fans, it's a very
unpopular world view with the general population.
Shermanlee
Johnny1a
Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
> In article <1139501808.8...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> Gary Thompson <quu...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >So what other great stories or novels could not have been written had
> >early science fiction abandoned the concept as unscientific?
>
> I'm not sure about _Dune_--I think the premise that you needed spice-
> enhanced clairvoyance to navigate hyperspace is Way Cool, but spice-
> enhanced supercalculation might substitute. Would the rest of the novel
> survive without claivoyance and shared memory?
Not with a total, front-to-back rewrite. If calculation alone could do
what the Bene Gesserits wanted, then the Mentats could do it, the only
breeding program needed would be for a better Mentat. Also, the entire
background theme of the repetitive Jihads as the species' collective
reflex to create hybrid vigor would fall apart, as would Herbert's
point about the dangers of prescience. You'd be left with a need for a
whole other explanation for the power of the BG without the racial
memories, too, and an explanation as to how their breeding program
stayed on track over thousands of years without it.
Shermanlee
Johnny1a
Shermanlee
Peter D. Tillman
wrote:
> :: "Gary Thompson" <quu...@yahoo.com>
> :: Star Wars - Despite what you may think at first, Star Wars would
> :: probably have turned out ok without the force as an actual mystical
> :: energy.
>
> Would have been better off without the WWII flying aces in space, neither.
Hey! That was the *good* stuff!
[cut to the scene where Spielberg was pitching the Star Wars
film-concept, using old WW2-movie dogfight clips and (iirc) puzzling the
hell out of his audience]
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
John H
"CleV" <clJU...@balcab.ch> wrote in message
news:uulnu1985vm913nef...@4ax.com...
I don't remember psi in Neverness.
john
Sea Wasp
No.
Sea Wasp
You come from that alternate universe in which George Lucas made
Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, right?
Matt McIrvin
> That's true, I suppose. Hm. I wonder how many stories present
> hard-science ideas that you later have to unlearn when you get
> really into the actual science? I wonder if "All the Myriad Ways"
> counts, or Heechee use of black holes? Probably lots-n-lots, I'd guess.
When people justify even cheesy science fiction on the grounds that it
gets kids interested in science and technology, I sometimes wonder how
many kids are actually put off when they discover how much of it was
false advertising.
--
Matt McIrvin http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/
Wayne Throop
:: have to unlearn when you get really into the actual science?
: Matt McIrvin <mmci...@world.std.com>
: When people justify even cheesy science fiction on the grounds that it
: gets kids interested in science and technology, I sometimes wonder how
: many kids are actually put off when they discover how much of it was
: false advertising.
That's true. But I wasn't thinking of cheezy stuff that's so
far out it's not even wrong; I more mean things along the lines
of Time for the Stars per upthread, where there's some violence
done to the theory, but not too terribly bad. One way of looking
at it, is that TftS was misleading for what it didn't say, rather
than for what it did. Similar things about Heechee black holes.
Sort of similar anyways.
Matt McIrvin
> _World of Ptavvs_ by Niven. The Slavers' mind control powers are a major
> part of the plot. And then we have Gil The Arm, in various shorts, with
> his telekinetic arm.
> _Childhood's End_ by Clarke. Nowadays we could have the children joining
> the galactic overmind via some sort of mass upload, but how would we
> explain the Overlords' inability to join in?
The Overlords are robots, created by the Overmind to serve its
purposes, and their minds are DRMed crippleware that is disallowed
from uploading.
Gene Ward Smith
The " " is silent.
Kurt Busiek
> Peter D. Tillman wrote:
>> [cut to the scene where Spielberg was pitching the Star Wars
>> film-concept, using old WW2-movie dogfight clips and (iirc) puzzling
>> the hell out of his audience]
>
> You come from that alternate universe in which George Lucas made
> Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, right?
And they ROCKED!
kdb
David Librik
> But rather than look at the good that would have come of it,
>what of the bad? What stories would never have been written had
>psionics not been considered appropriate for mainstream science
>fiction?
The idea that aliens and advanced species will all have telepathy
is a nice way to finesse the "language problem" in SF. It's allowed
many first contact short stories to get on their way quickly.
A lot of what readers and writers want to do with SF is to explore
alien cultures and talk to really different people. You can do
this in fantasy, of course, and meet the raft-dwellers of the far
western sea who just happen to speak a dialect of the Common Tongue.
But often you want to be a little more rigorous in your extrapolation,
so you need to get the regular earthmen talking uncomplicatedly to
the BEMs. "We aliens can communicate with you by thinking" is used
so the English-speaking writer can just fall back on English
conversation.
There are three approaches you can take to the language problem
in SF, I think:
(1) The protagonist really grapples with the fantastically
difficult task of learning an alien culture's language, and
that's a central feature of the story. This is linguistic SF,
and it's often a lot of fun, but there are only so many palato-
alveolar affricates and radial linguistic concept-structures
any adventure-loving SF reader is going to put up with.
(2) Handwaving the language learning. "After a week, Jones found
himself becoming fluent in Q'xlzk." Soon any problems of poor
interpretation are left by the side of the road, and the aliens
speak funny-sounding English. In reality, after a few months
Jones would be able to say "Tek me to yer leader, chop chop!"
but the communication the author really wants to show -- subtle
poetry or man-to-man plain speech -- would still be pretty nebulous.
(3) Psi! Everybody can talk to each other with their brains.
Because this is supposed to be a substitute for speech, the
more difficult issues of mindreading are typically ignored.
"Jones heard the voice inside his head: 'Do not be afraid. We
will take you to the Zf'grbl ceremony tomorrow.'" Like (2)
this sometimes becomes a case of the aliens apparently speaking
a stilted, poetic kind of English.
There are other possibilities, of course, but they tend to put
limits on the stories you can tell. "We've been learning your
language by watching your television broadcasts from space, Mr.
Jones. Now we can speak it zestfully clean. Live long and
prosper after this commercial break!"
So there you have it: one useful thing John Campbell did by
making psi powers an exploitable cliche.
- David Librik
lib...@panix.com
Paul Colquhoun
(2a) Handwaving "magic" computer translation software.
Niven did this a lot in Known Space. Just let your computer
listen to the aliens for a while. Have it ask some clarifying
questions, etc. Then, suddenly (and amazingly quickly) the
computer can be a UN simultaneous translator for you.
This also leave the author with the "Oh My God, the computer
has broken! What do we do now!" option, which Niven also used
at least once, IIRC.
| (3) Psi! Everybody can talk to each other with their brains.
| Because this is supposed to be a substitute for speech, the
| more difficult issues of mindreading are typically ignored.
| "Jones heard the voice inside his head: 'Do not be afraid. We
| will take you to the Zf'grbl ceremony tomorrow.'" Like (2)
| this sometimes becomes a case of the aliens apparently speaking
| a stilted, poetic kind of English.
|
| There are other possibilities, of course, but they tend to put
| limits on the stories you can tell. "We've been learning your
| language by watching your television broadcasts from space, Mr.
| Jones. Now we can speak it zestfully clean. Live long and
| prosper after this commercial break!"
|
| So there you have it: one useful thing John Campbell did by
| making psi powers an exploitable cliche.
|
| - David Librik
| lib...@panix.com
--
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC. http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
Asking for technical help in newsgroups? Read this first:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro
lal_truckee
>
> I think _Dune_ would survive (though the ending may need tweaking), but
> the sequels wouldn't.
Why, I didn't realize how much horror and tragedy psi inflicted until
this very moment.
lal_truckee
>
> Many of RAH's stories would have been different -- possibly never
> written.
Which RAH stories depend on psi? Waldo, Magic Inc, and Hoag certainly.
What else?
Wayne Throop
: Which RAH stories depend on psi?
: Waldo, Magic Inc, and Hoag certainly. What else?
Depends on what you mean by "depend". Possible psi appearances range
from the gratuitous telepathy in Gulf to the "that's what you think" sign
(iirc) in The Rolling Stones, or the "computer one of your creatures,
Bog?" in tMiaHM. Things like Time for the Stars, or Lost Legacy, or
Stranger in a Strange Land it's more central. Things like Red Planet,
Methuselah's Children, and Beyond this Horizon (or alternatively,
fUtL) less so. There are some entirely without, for example most of
the juveniles, and many of the shorter future history stories. But by
the time you get to I Will Fear No Evil, it's pretty much in everything,
and I'd have to say, off the top of my head, and on balance, that it's
present in a noticeable fraction of his work, and a significant number
"depend" on it, in the sense that the story would be entirely different
without it.
( Um, I'm assuming we include novels as "stories"? )
( And I suppose it depends on what you mean by "psi" also,
but I'd say the above cases all qualify as psi. Well, except for
Rolling Stones and tMiaHM I suppose. )
Sea Wasp
Yeah, but that doesn't explain why someone can't just hack a patch
for their crippleware. Unless the assumption is that the Overmind is
cruel and sadistic and LIKES leaving the Overlords out of it.
Chris Kuan
> Star Wars - Despite what you may think at first, Star Wars would
> probably have turned out ok without the force as an actual mystical
> energy. Turn the Jedi into religious genetically-modified warriors a
> la Dune, for example.
They should have had the work being done by a heap of microscopic blood-
borne non-critters! Yeah!
--
Chris
Concatenate for email: mrgazpacho @ hotmail . com
Rob Kerr
news:1139501808.8...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> So what other great stories or novels could not have been written had
> early science fiction abandoned the concept as unscientific?
I don't think MZB's Darkover could exist without the Comyn's psi
abilities.
Alan Dean Foster's Flinx series would be much shorter (though one could
argue about its greatness anyway).
If one consider's McCaffrey's Pern to be the skiffy side of SF, her
dragons would not be nearly so useful without psi.
Rob Kerr
westprog
"lal_truckee" <lal_t...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:bFWGf.19593$_S7....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
Waldo, yes. Magic Inc involves magic. Hoag involves some strange stuff
beyond psi powers.
Psi implies an SF story, rather than fantasy.
> What else?
J/
Nancy Lebovitz
>: lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com>
>: Which RAH stories depend on psi?
>: Waldo, Magic Inc, and Hoag certainly. What else?
Is there any psi in Hoag?
>
>Depends on what you mean by "depend". Possible psi appearances range
>from the gratuitous telepathy in Gulf to the "that's what you think" sign
>(iirc) in The Rolling Stones, or the "computer one of your creatures,
>Bog?" in tMiaHM. Things like Time for the Stars, or Lost Legacy, or
>Stranger in a Strange Land it's more central. Things like Red Planet,
There's psi in _Starship Troopers_. I don't know if there would have
been any other plausible way of mapping the Bug tunnels, or if it's
mostly there to have something which would ordinarily have been
counted as extremely cool in most science fiction, but is just
background detail because M.I. is even cooler.
>Methuselah's Children, and Beyond this Horizon (or alternatively,
>fUtL) less so. There are some entirely without, for example most of
>the juveniles, and many of the shorter future history stories. But by
>the time you get to I Will Fear No Evil, it's pretty much in everything,
>and I'd have to say, off the top of my head, and on balance, that it's
>present in a noticeable fraction of his work, and a significant number
>"depend" on it, in the sense that the story would be entirely different
>without it.
>
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>Depends on what you mean by "depend". Possible psi appearances range
>from the gratuitous telepathy in Gulf to the "that's what you think" sign
>(iirc) in The Rolling Stones, or the "computer one of your creatures,
>Bog?" in tMiaHM. Things like Time for the Stars, or Lost Legacy, or
>Stranger in a Strange Land it's more central.
Hmm. Do stories with Angels and God qualify?
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>Waldo, yes. Magic Inc involves magic. Hoag involves some strange stuff
>beyond psi powers.
>
>Psi implies an SF story, rather than fantasy.
It implies that. Psi is magic in a technological environment, or at
least an environment where the author does not have magic.
Phyllis Eisenstein says _Born to Exile_ is SF, as it has teleportion.
But it is in a medieval environment so lots of fans call it fantasy.
In our world teleportation is fantasy.
Howard Brazee
<lib...@panix.com> wrote:
>The idea that aliens and advanced species will all have telepathy
>is a nice way to finesse the "language problem" in SF. It's allowed
>many first contact short stories to get on their way quickly.
It doesn't work. Their telepathy is in English.
The magic of Star Trek's universal translator doesn't translate every
Klingon word. Aliens mouths move in synchronization with their
translated words. Complicated ideas translate exactly to American
English without having to have supporting material. Nobody moves
his mouth for 5 minutes for a 10 word translated sentence or visa
versa.
What we need is such a universal translator to translate between
husband and wife, or teacher and student.
Howard Brazee
<postm...@andor.dropbear.id.au> wrote:
> (2a) Handwaving "magic" computer translation software.
> Niven did this a lot in Known Space. Just let your computer
> listen to the aliens for a while. Have it ask some clarifying
> questions, etc. Then, suddenly (and amazingly quickly) the
> computer can be a UN simultaneous translator for you.
>
> This also leave the author with the "Oh My God, the computer
> has broken! What do we do now!" option, which Niven also used
> at least once, IIRC.
So did Star Trek. At least Star Trek had the excuse of having
different authors.
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>If one consider's McCaffrey's Pern to be the skiffy side of SF, her
>dragons would not be nearly so useful without psi.
They would be absolutely worthless without magic. (or if you call it
science fiction, call it psi).
Peter D. Tillman
Sea Wasp <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
> Peter D. Tillman wrote:
> > In article <11395...@sheol.org>, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
> >>:: "Gary Thompson" <quu...@yahoo.com>
> >>:: Star Wars - Despite what you may think at first, Star Wars would
> >>:: probably have turned out ok without the force as an actual mystical
> >>:: energy.
> >>
> >>Would have been better off without the WWII flying aces in space, neither.
> >
> >
> > Hey! That was the *good* stuff!
> >
> > [cut to the scene where Spielberg was pitching the Star Wars
> > film-concept, using old WW2-movie dogfight clips and (iirc) puzzling the
> > hell out of his audience]
>
> You come from that alternate universe in which George Lucas made
> Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, right?
Yup. And they used light-*cutlasses*. Scimitars, really, for that cool
curve-look....
Cheers -- Pete-73
Rob Kerr
news:tr6pu1t648pf9kalj...@4ax.com...>>If one considers McCaffrey's Pern to be the skiffy side of SF, her
>>dragons would not be nearly so useful without psi.
>
> They would be absolutely worthless without magic. (or if you call it
> science fiction, call it psi).
Well, I can go either way, depending on the particular book in question.
While Dragonquest has that prelude which explicitly sets the series on the
science side of SF, there are certainly books which are more thematically
fantasy (Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums, etc.) All The Weyrs Of
Pern returns to science, and certainly the colonisation novels have lots
of first contact / space exploration tropes. They're not hard SF, but
I wouldn't call them fantasy.
Rob Kerr
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>> They would be absolutely worthless without magic. (or if you call it
>> science fiction, call it psi).
>
>Well, I can go either way, depending on the particular book in question.
>While Dragonquest has that prelude which explicitly sets the series on the
>science side of SF, there are certainly books which are more thematically
>fantasy (Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums, etc.) All The Weyrs Of
>Pern returns to science, and certainly the colonisation novels have lots
>of first contact / space exploration tropes. They're not hard SF, but
>I wouldn't call them fantasy.
If you call it fantasy, then the dragons use magic. If you call it
science fiction, then what the dragons use is psi. But there is no
difference in what they use - only with what we call it.
Because psi is magic.
r.r...@thevine.net
wrote:
>"Gary Thompson" <quu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
A huge amount of Andre Norton's work would vanish.
Rebecca
Taki Kogoma
allegedly declared to rec.arts.sf.written...
Considering how many Trekkies go into the sciences, one wonders just
how far from the Real Universe(pat. pend) one needs to go to get the
above reaction.
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.
Mike Schilling
> You come from that alternate universe in which George Lucas made Jurassic
> Park and Schindler's List, right?
George Lucas's "Schindler's List"...
You and Brenda have to start on that one right away.
Mike Schilling
"Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1139544542....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
As in ' ' and .
Mike Schilling
"Wayne Throop" <thr...@sheol.org> wrote in message
news:11395...@sheol.org...
>: lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com>
> : Which RAH stories depend on psi?
> : Waldo, Magic Inc, and Hoag certainly. What else?
>
> Depends on what you mean by "depend". Possible psi appearances range
> from the gratuitous telepathy in Gulf
In Gult, telepathy is both unimportant and a key to defeating the Bad Gal.
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
> On Thu, 09 Feb 2006 08:16:48 -0800, Gary Thompson wrote:
>
> > So what other great stories or novels could not have been written had
> > early science fiction abandoned the concept as unscientific?
>
> _World of Ptavvs_ by Niven. The Slavers' mind control powers are a major
> part of the plot. And then we have Gil The Arm, in various shorts, with
> his telekinetic arm.
> _Childhood's End_ by Clarke. Nowadays we could have the children joining
> the galactic overmind via some sort of mass upload, but how would we
> explain the Overlords' inability to join in?
The Overlords evolved a monarch-butterfly type defense to the
overmind - their minds taste awful and the upload is rejected.
Someone must have mentioned this years ago, but there is
also the possibility that the Overlords *really* are
overlords, wiping out competing species with this "overmind"
they have constructed and control.
I'm not sure if that can be made consistent with those parts
of the book where we see overlords talking to each other,
via the authorial point of view.
--
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University
Wayne Throop
: Hmm. Do stories with Angels and God qualify?
You mean SiaSL? It's also got quasi-psi-capable martians and humans.
I'd say it qualifies on grounds entirely separate from its angels-n-gods.
Wayne Throop
: In Gult, telepathy is both unimportant and a key to defeating the Bad Gal.
I wouldn't say it was "key"... sure, it was used to transfer information
in real-time, but there's no particular reason it couldn't have been
radio, naict/iirc. And in that sense, was gratuitous, since it was
an isolated story element, and not a significant part of
the general background.
Wayne Throop
: Someone must have mentioned this years ago, but there is also the
: possibility that the Overlords *really* are overlords, wiping out
: competing species with this "overmind" they have constructed and
: control.
: I'm not sure if that can be made consistent with those parts of the
: book where we see overlords talking to each other, via the authorial
: point of view.
Well, maybe they were trying to fool the author.
CleV
wrote:
>
>"CleV" <clJU...@balcab.ch> wrote in message
>news:uulnu1985vm913nef...@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 09 Feb 2006 23:39:03 GMT, Sea Wasp
>> <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dune would not have been written without the psi.
>>
>> And how about Dune's bastard son: David Zindell's Neverness.
>
>I don't remember psi in Neverness.
I was referring to Awesum mind powerz :-)
David Johnston
Lebovitz) wrote:
>In article <11395...@sheol.org>, Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>>: lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com>
>>: Which RAH stories depend on psi?
>>: Waldo, Magic Inc, and Hoag certainly. What else?
>
>Is there any psi in Hoag?
>>
>>Depends on what you mean by "depend". Possible psi appearances range
>>from the gratuitous telepathy in Gulf to the "that's what you think" sign
>>(iirc) in The Rolling Stones, or the "computer one of your creatures,
>>Bog?" in tMiaHM. Things like Time for the Stars, or Lost Legacy, or
>>Stranger in a Strange Land it's more central. Things like Red Planet,
>
>There's psi in _Starship Troopers_. I don't know if there would have
>been any other plausible way of mapping the Bug tunnels,
Sure. Set of one of those little nukes and do some seismic mapping.
David Johnston
wrote:
>On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 05:16:08 +0000 (UTC), David Librik
><lib...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>>The idea that aliens and advanced species will all have telepathy
>>is a nice way to finesse the "language problem" in SF. It's allowed
>>many first contact short stories to get on their way quickly.
>
>It doesn't work. Their telepathy is in English.
>
>The magic of Star Trek's universal translator doesn't translate every
>Klingon word.
That's because since it requires mind reading it work it knows when
the person speaking doesn't _want_ to be translated.
Aliens mouths move in synchronization with their
>translated words.
That's because since it requires mind reading, it actually tells the
person the meaning of the alien speech and can tell the person how to
speak the alien speech themselves as well.
David Johnston
wrote:
>"Gary Thompson" <quu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
Not really necessary though. They would have just had to learn how to
anticipate thread fall well in advance, or just have a colony of
dragon-riders near every important agricultural area. And of course
dragons would have to be able to talk.
Mike Schilling
<wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu> wrote in message
news:yv7zoe1f...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu...
> Someone must have mentioned this years ago, but there is
> also the possibility that the Overlords *really* are
> overlords, wiping out competing species with this "overmind"
> they have constructed and control.
Devilishly clever.
Mike Schilling
> : In Gult, telepathy is both unimportant and a key to defeating the Bad
> Gal.
>
> I wouldn't say it was "key"... sure, it was used to transfer information
> in real-time, but there's no particular reason it couldn't have been
> radio, naict/iirc.
But it wasn't, and Greene/wosshername seem to have been picked for their
telepathic bond, rather than their ability to, say, open boxes with
wrenches.
Wayne Throop
: But it wasn't, and Greene/wosshername seem to have been picked for their
: wrenches.
My conclusion is based on how much of the story would have to change to
get rid of it. And the answer seems to be, almost nothing. Periphral
issues at best (as you say, "seem to have been"; the seeming isn't that
strong, and its absense would change nothing much). Compared to, say,
Time for the Stars, where several integral story elements would have to
change in order to make it be an "ordinary" FTL radio (and you'd have to
come up with entirely different reasons to have naive newbies on initial
interstellar expeditions, and different reasons for their interactions
with people back home.
YMMV, but to me, it seemed gratuitous in Gulf, but not in TftS.
Craig Richardson
Did they use them on the raptors, or on the Nazis?
--Craig
--
Craig Richardson (crichar...@worldnet.att.net)
"Then I heard the whirring of the motorized snowmen, sound[ing] like the
death rattle of very small robot lizards, and I left the seasonal aisle"
-- James Lileks, "The Bleat", 2005/10/10
Craig Richardson
Lebovitz) wrote:
>In article <11395...@sheol.org>, Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>>: lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com>
>>: Which RAH stories depend on psi?
>>: Waldo, Magic Inc, and Hoag certainly. What else?
>
>Is there any psi in Hoag?
No. "Hoag" is a fantasy story. There are effects that look like psi,
but, given the ending, it's pretty clear that they were "more" than
that.
Justin Fang
Craig Richardson <crichar...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 07:52:31 -0700, "Peter D. Tillman"
><Til...@toast.net_DIESPAMMERSDIE> wrote:
>>In article <43EC0AC3...@obvioussgeinc.com>,
>> Sea Wasp <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
>>> You come from that alternate universe in which George Lucas made
>>> Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, right?
>>Yup. And they used light-*cutlasses*. Scimitars, really, for that cool
>>curve-look....
>Did they use them on the raptors, or on the Nazis?
Yes.
("For over a hundred million years the dinosaurs were the guardians of the
old ecosystem. Before the dark times. Before the asteroid...")
--
Justin Fang (jus...@panix.com)
Randy Money
[...]
> So what other great stories or novels could not have been written had
> early science fiction abandoned the concept as unscientific?
>
"It's a GOOD Life" by Jerome Bixby
Damien Sullivan
>>If one consider's McCaffrey's Pern to be the skiffy side of SF, her
>>dragons would not be nearly so useful without psi.
>
>Not really necessary though. They would have just had to learn how to
>anticipate thread fall well in advance, or just have a colony of
>dragon-riders near every important agricultural area. And of course
>dragons would have to be able to talk.
There's the whole flying thing...
I liked a line in Jo Walton's _Tooth and Claw_. "Of course there's magic.
How else could we fly, as big as we are?"
-xx- Damien X-)
Konrad Gaertner
> What aspect of it did you dislike most/find least plausible?
The complete lack of context?
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: gae...@aol.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
-- James Nicoll
Nancy Lebovitz
What are the smallest features which can be picked up by seismic
mapping?
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".
DougL
> Sea Wasp <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
>
> > Foundation would have lacked The Mule and, I think, been far poorer
> >for it.
>
> Have you read Kingsbury's _Psychohistorical Crisis_?
I have. I recall deciding at some point in the book that it wasn't
really compatible with Foundation and had to be a closely related
universe, but I don't recall what convinced me of that.
All Kingsbury must be read just in case he manages something as good as
Courtship Rite again.
DougL
Sea Wasp
> In article <43EC0AC3...@obvioussgeinc.com>,
> Sea Wasp <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>>In article <11395...@sheol.org>, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
>>>
>>>>:: "Gary Thompson" <quu...@yahoo.com>
>>>>:: Star Wars - Despite what you may think at first, Star Wars would
>>>>:: probably have turned out ok without the force as an actual mystical
>>>>:: energy.
>>>>
>>>>Would have been better off without the WWII flying aces in space, neither.
>>>
>>>
>>>Hey! That was the *good* stuff!
>>>
>>>[cut to the scene where Spielberg was pitching the Star Wars
>>>film-concept, using old WW2-movie dogfight clips and (iirc) puzzling the
>>>hell out of his audience]
>>
>> You come from that alternate universe in which George Lucas made
>>Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, right?
>
>
> Yup. And they used light-*cutlasses*. Scimitars, really, for that cool
> curve-look....
No, that's the Jerry Bruckheimer "Star Wars" alternity.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Sea Wasp
> In article <43eca338...@news.telusplanet.net>,
> David Johnston <rgo...@block.net> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 12:42:27 +0000 (UTC), nan...@panix.com (Nancy
>>Lebovitz) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>There's psi in _Starship Troopers_. I don't know if there would have
>>>been any other plausible way of mapping the Bug tunnels,
>>
>>Sure. Set of one of those little nukes and do some seismic mapping.
>
>
> What are the smallest features which can be picked up by seismic
> mapping?
>
>
General rule in signal processing of that sort; generally you can get
features roughly on the scale of the wavelength you're using. You
might get up to an order of magnitude smaller if you've got really
good processing. More than that requires a lot of fancy tricks which
would have complicated the story.
Wayne Throop
: The complete lack of context?
Heh. Yes, well, restoring the context:
:::: Heinlein made use of psi to demonstrate a hard science idea in
:::: _Time for the Stars_.
::: Which idea? If you mean time dilation, he did a poor job, imo.
:: What aspect of it did you dislike most/find least plausible?
The fact that he didn't mention the central and most interesting
issue, namely, that time dilation is reciprocal, and that relativity of
simultaneity is what makes it work reciprocally. That may seem like no
problem, but it ends up he presented it in a completely non-relativistic
manner, with no attempt to portray anybody in-story with any understanding
of it.
A small thing, but a pet peeve of mine.
FWIW, he did a slightly better job in Methuselah's Children.
Gene Ward Smith
Wayne Throop wrote:
> : wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
> : Someone must have mentioned this years ago, but there is also the
> : possibility that the Overlords *really* are overlords, wiping out
> : competing species with this "overmind" they have constructed and
> : control.
> : I'm not sure if that can be made consistent with those parts of the
> : book where we see overlords talking to each other, via the authorial
> : point of view.
>
> Well, maybe they were trying to fool the author.
He left off the final scene, involving a sneering, horned entity
laughing his sinister laugh. Mephistopheles in Gounod's Faust.
Matt McIrvin
wrote:
>
> :::: Heinlein made use of psi to demonstrate a hard science idea in
> :::: _Time for the Stars_.
>
> ::: Which idea? If you mean time dilation, he did a poor job, imo.
>
> :: What aspect of it did you dislike most/find least plausible?
>
> The fact that he didn't mention the central and most interesting
> issue, namely, that time dilation is reciprocal, and that relativity of
> simultaneity is what makes it work reciprocally. That may seem like no
> problem, but it ends up he presented it in a completely non-relativistic
> manner, with no attempt to portray anybody in-story with any understanding
> of it.
Well, I haven't read _Time for the Stars_, but if some sort of
faster-than-light psi power existed in my story, I'd probably just have
it work along some set of preferred spacelike surfaces, in which case
people communicating this way wouldn't experience reciprocal time
dilation at all, but a less baffling non-reciprocal dilation determined
by their movement relative to the rest frames defined by these
surfaces. This would, of course, strictly speaking violate relativity,
but in a way that could be mashed into an otherwise relativistic world
more or less consistently.
It wouldn't be a very good demonstration of the interesting relativity
idea, though; I'll give you that.
> A small thing, but a pet peeve of mine.
> FWIW, he did a slightly better job in Methuselah's Children.
Though he also made some mistakes with relativity there, or at least
Lazarus Long did. (There's a scene, if I recall correctly, in which
Long is thinking about the magical inertialess drive and calculates the
kinetic energy of the ship--but uses the Newtonian formula even though
it's strongly relativistic. If he'd done it the right way he'd be even
more shocked.)
--
Matt McIrvin http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/
Wayne Throop
: Well, I haven't read _Time for the Stars_, but if some sort of
: it work along some set of preferred spacelike surfaces, in which case
: people communicating this way wouldn't experience reciprocal time
: dilation at all, but a less baffling non-reciprocal dilation determined
: by their movement relative to the rest frames defined by these
: surfaces.
Right, and that's what he did, and it's not a horrid choice.
But he portrayed it as "yes, that's what you'd expect from
relativity", rather than "gosh that's odd". Yes, he has the
FTL craft at the end being developed because those silly old
scientists had been kicked in their keesters by the discovery
of FTL telepathy. But the issue of *why* they were kicked in
their keesters, was treated... poorly. IMO.
Matt McIrvin
nan...@panix.com (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:
> There's psi in _Starship Troopers_. I don't know if there would have
> been any other plausible way of mapping the Bug tunnels, or if it's
> mostly there to have something which would ordinarily have been
> counted as extremely cool in most science fiction, but is just
> background detail because M.I. is even cooler.
There's psi as a detail in _If This Goes On_/_Revolt in 2100_ (the
rebels use it as a communication device IIRC), though the story
wouldn't be all that different without it.
Matt McIrvin
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu wrote:
> Someone must have mentioned this years ago, but there is
> also the possibility that the Overlords *really* are
> overlords, wiping out competing species with this "overmind"
> they have constructed and control.
It's all a lie concocted by the tnuctipun, I tell you!
Thomas Schoene
Also maybe ground-penetrating radar, depending on how deep you need to get.
--
Tom Schoene tasc...@earthlink.invalid
To email me, replace "invalid" with "net"
Damien Sullivan
>Damien Sullivan wrote:
>> Sea Wasp <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Foundation would have lacked The Mule and, I think, been far poorer
>> >for it.
>>
>> Have you read Kingsbury's _Psychohistorical Crisis_?
>
>I have. I recall deciding at some point in the book that it wasn't
>really compatible with Foundation and had to be a closely related
>universe, but I don't recall what convinced me of that.
Well, there were various differences, which I thought were mostly
improvements. Deeper time than Foundation -- 80,000 years -- with
semi-speciation due to genetic engineering, though it took a long time for
that to be clear; Earth still inhabited and located and even considered
probably the origin planet; the Mule story more or less had happened, but
using ubiquitous brain interfaces somehow, rather than pure-meat telepathy. I
think hyperspace was still plain old hyperspace. But I took it all as
"Foundation with the names changes and many details made more sensible."
-xx- Damien X-)
David Johnston
wrote:
>:: What aspect of it did you dislike most/find least plausible?
>
>: The complete lack of context?
>
>Heh. Yes, well, restoring the context:
>
>:::: Heinlein made use of psi to demonstrate a hard science idea in
>:::: _Time for the Stars_.
>
>::: Which idea? If you mean time dilation, he did a poor job, imo.
>
>:: What aspect of it did you dislike most/find least plausible?
>
>The fact that he didn't mention the central and most interesting
>issue, namely, that time dilation is reciprocal, and that relativity of
>simultaneity is what makes it work reciprocally. That may seem like no
>problem, but it ends up he presented it in a completely non-relativistic
>manner, with no attempt to portray anybody in-story with any understanding
>of it.
So what he should have done is have the twins age at the same rate as
long as the torch ships are going away, but lose synchronisation as
soon as they start coming back?
Wayne Throop
: So what he should have done is have the twins age at the same rate as
: long as the torch ships are going away, but lose synchronisation as
: soon as they start coming back?
The rate would be affected by the decleration after turnover. But
if he wanted to preserve relativity, and show how it interacts with FTL,
he should have exploited the fact that, at high enough velocity, each
twin's reply would get back before the original message was sent.
That would be nifty.
If (as seems to be the case) he wanted to have relativity overturned,
but still present relativistic time dilation as a concept, he should
have inserted quite different "as you know Bob" sequences than
those he actually did insert, to justify the God's Eye View of
simultaneity taken in the book.
IMO, IMO. It isn't as bad as all that. It just isn't as good as
all that, either. Specificially because it gives an impression that,
having read it, you understand a bit (just a bit) about relativistic
time dilation, and this impression is quite misleading. Because it
omits completely the key to relativistic time dilation, and how it can
be symmetric, and what makes the returning twin's situation not-symmetric,
which is the issue of relativity of simultaneity
Gene Ward Smith
David Johnston wrote:
> So what he should have done is have the twins age at the same rate as
> long as the torch ships are going away, but lose synchronisation as
> soon as they start coming back?
That wouldn't have made much sense.
What he should have done is have the scientists say that experiments
inside the solar system suggested that psi could go faster than light,
that this baffled scientists, and that one thing they wanted to find
out is if there was a preferred reference frame, and if so, what it was.
Wayne Throop
: What he should have done is have the scientists say that experiments
: inside the solar system suggested that psi could go faster than light,
: that this baffled scientists, and that one thing they wanted to find
: out is if there was a preferred reference frame, and if so, what it was.
And you can imagine that that's what's going on in the background. We are
shown that some of their comm schedule is taken up sending and receiving
scientific data; and the guys in the FTL ship at the end say something
about the long-baseline testing done on the torchships was instrumental
in arriving at their FTL tech (that's the way I remember it anyways.
They could have been probing how simultaneity works in detail; we aren't
told what they were up to. Leaving all that so far in the background
ends up being misleading; he "should" have done his as-you-know-Bobs
somewhat differently. Nothing much else needed to change.
Mind you, leaving the issue in the far background as he did isn't bad
in and of itself. But if he was trying to get across how time dilation
works, backgrounding it was misleading.
Xref: the throwaway reference at the end of The Witling.
Mike Schilling
"Matt McIrvin" <mmci...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:mmcirvin-08ED40.19403710022006@localhost...
>
>> A small thing, but a pet peeve of mine.
>> FWIW, he did a slightly better job in Methuselah's Children.
>
> Though he also made some mistakes with relativity there, or at least
> Lazarus Long did. (There's a scene, if I recall correctly, in which
> Long is thinking about the magical inertialess drive and calculates the
> kinetic energy of the ship--but uses the Newtonian formula even though
> it's strongly relativistic. If he'd done it the right way he'd be even
> more shocked.)
RAH also had the Captain say something like "We're crusing along at .9c. If
we didnlt have women and children aboard, I'd be tempted to see what would
happen if we accelerated past c."
Wayne Throop
: RAH also had the Captain say something like "We're crusing along at .9c. If
: happen if we accelerated past c."
There is also a vaguely similar scene in Farmer in the Sky.
David Dyer-Bennet
> : "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com>
> : RAH also had the Captain say something like "We're crusing along at .9c. If
> : we didnlt have women and children aboard, I'd be tempted to see what would
> : happen if we accelerated past c."
>
> There is also a vaguely similar scene in Farmer in the Sky.
With, in both cases, a very clear indication that what he wants to
find out is what happens if he tries; not that he thinks he can
casually exceed c.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
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Wayne Throop
::: .9c. If we didnlt have women and children aboard, I'd be tempted to
::: see what would happen if we accelerated past c."
:: There is also a vaguely similar scene in Farmer in the Sky.
: David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
: With, in both cases, a very clear indication that what he wants to
: find out is what happens if he tries; not that he thinks he can
: casually exceed c.
The puzzling thing in both cases being why there's any particular
doubt about what would happen. After all, I find out what would
happen if I punch the accelerator when at .999c every time
I drive my car.
Not that it *couldn't* be the case that there's something special
about "wrt the sun" vs "wrt some particle or other whizzing by", but the
phraseology is, IMO, not what I'd expect for such a speculation
from somebody "in the biz" so to speak.
But not prohibitively bad. Just a bit... puzzling.
David Dyer-Bennet
> ::: RAH also had the Captain say something like "We're crusing along at
> ::: .9c. If we didnlt have women and children aboard, I'd be tempted to
> ::: see what would happen if we accelerated past c."
>
> :: There is also a vaguely similar scene in Farmer in the Sky.
>
> : David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net>
> : With, in both cases, a very clear indication that what he wants to
> : find out is what happens if he tries; not that he thinks he can
> : casually exceed c.
>
> The puzzling thing in both cases being why there's any particular
> doubt about what would happen. After all, I find out what would
> happen if I punch the accelerator when at .999c every time
> I drive my car.
Yes, I agree it seemed silly that they didn't know. When I read those
books *I* knew.