News:

Not just a bunch of "Trotskyist, car-hating, Hugo Chavez idolising, newt-fancying hypocrites and bendy bus fetishists."

Main Menu

Doing some research for a sci-fi story

Started by Chelagoras The Boulder, December 30, 2013, 03:20:36 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Chelagoras The Boulder

I've been sitting on a concept for a sci-fi novel for a while now, but in order to do it as fully as i want to, i think i'd hafta do some research on some topics i'm a little fuzzy on. to wit:

  • How would time travel work from a many-worlds interpretation of  quantum physics?
  • I want one of my characters to be asexual and/or transhumanist. How do i portray that without looking like a schmuck?
  • I want to have a diverse cast of characters with a very different set of story experiences. At what point is this tokenism?
  • How much is too much research? At what point should i just Shut Up and Write?
"It isn't who you know, it's who you know, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do."

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on December 30, 2013, 03:20:36 AM
I've been sitting on a concept for a sci-fi novel for a while now, but in order to do it as fully as i want to, i think i'd hafta do some research on some topics i'm a little fuzzy on. to wit:

  • How would time travel work from a many-worlds interpretation of  quantum physics?
  • I want one of my characters to be asexual and/or transhumanist. How do i portray that without looking like a schmuck?
  • I want to have a diverse cast of characters with a very different set of story experiences. At what point is this tokenism?
  • How much is too much research? At what point should i just Shut Up and Write?

1.  The moment you go back, another universe would have to be created.  And you can never get back to your "original" universe.
2.  By not making a huge deal out of it.
3.  When you make a big deal out of the "diversity", or when the "diverse" folks are either way better/smarter or worse/dumber than whitey.
4.  Now.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

Dammit, Roger. Stop saying the incredibly cool shit I was going to say.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Chelagoras The Boulder

Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on December 30, 2013, 03:50:21 AM
Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on December 30, 2013, 03:20:36 AM
I've been sitting on a concept for a sci-fi novel for a while now, but in order to do it as fully as i want to, i think i'd hafta do some research on some topics i'm a little fuzzy on. to wit:

  • How would time travel work from a many-worlds interpretation of  quantum physics?
  • I want one of my characters to be asexual and/or transhumanist. How do i portray that without looking like a schmuck?
  • I want to have a diverse cast of characters with a very different set of story experiences. At what point is this tokenism?
  • How much is too much research? At what point should i just Shut Up and Write?

1.  The moment you go back, another universe would have to be created.  And you can never get back to your "original" universe.
2.  By not making a huge deal out of it.
3.  When you make a big deal out of the "diversity", or when the "diverse" folks are either way better/smarter or worse/dumber than whitey.
4.  Now.

1. I'm planning on taking liberties with the "you can't go back" thing, mainly because the premise of the settng is, "what would people do if time travel had minimal consequences" ie. The uncaring universe doesn't care how many velociraptors you went back to hunt, since they were all gonna get wiped out by asteroids anyway
2-3. So basically, as long as its not the main overriding aspect of their personality and they are not constantly waving their arms and screaming "LOOK AT ME I AM GAY/ETHNIC/ASEXUAL/TRANSHUMANIST."
4. I am typing out a bit of a prologue, just to explain a bit of the setting and how the world got to the point it is now.
"It isn't who you know, it's who you know, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do."

minuspace

The first and only point, according to popular interpretation, is that time travel requires crossing parallel worlds, but not vice versa.  So, technically, you can travel back to this timeline, but only via other related "primes", primarily.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on December 30, 2013, 06:44:20 AM
1. I'm planning on taking liberties with the "you can't go back" thing, mainly because the premise of the settng is, "what would people do if time travel had minimal consequences" ie. The uncaring universe doesn't care how many velociraptors you went back to hunt, since they were all gonna get wiped out by asteroids anyway
2-3. So basically, as long as its not the main overriding aspect of their personality and they are not constantly waving their arms and screaming "LOOK AT ME I AM GAY/ETHNIC/ASEXUAL/TRANSHUMANIST."
4. I am typing out a bit of a prologue, just to explain a bit of the setting and how the world got to the point it is now.

1.  Then it's not science fiction, it's fantasy.  You can just go ahead and add the telepathic cats now.
2-3.  Yes.  For an example of how NOT to do it, look at The Authority by Warren Ellis and anything ever written by Anne McCaffrey.

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: LuciferX on December 30, 2013, 08:51:57 AM
The first and only point, according to popular interpretation, is that time travel requires crossing parallel worlds, but not vice versa.  So, technically, you can travel back to this timeline, but only via other related "primes", primarily.

WRONG.

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.  SHUT UP.

And you can't, it seems, turn back time by flying around the Earth so fast its rotation changes, or go back in time by flying The Enterprise around the sun.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

What about using Plattnerite and one of these?


The Good Reverend Roger

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

Well, he did in order to get back, right?

The Good Reverend Roger

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

Wait, what?  I thought he went forward until the sun dies, and then he goes back to the dinner party.

LMNO

Hey, it's in the public domain!

Quote'I looked about me to see if any traces of animal life remained. A certain indefinable apprehension still kept me in the saddle of the machine. But I saw nothing moving, in earth or sky or sea. The green slime on the rocks alone testified that life was not extinct. A shallow sandbank had appeared in the sea and the water had receded from the beach. I fancied I saw some black object flopping about upon this bank, but it became motionless as I looked at it, and I judged that my eye had been deceived, and that the black object was merely a rock. The stars in the sky were intensely bright and seemed to me to twinkle very little.    9
  'Suddenly I noticed that the circular westward outline of the sun had changed; that a concavity, a bay, had appeared in the curve. I saw this grow larger. For a minute perhaps I stared aghast at this blackness that was creeping over the day, and then I realized that an eclipse was beginning. Either the moon or the planet Mercury was passing across the sun's disk. Naturally, at first I took it to be the moon, but there is much to incline me to believe that what I really saw was the transit of an inner planet passing very near to the earth.   10
  'The darkness grew apace; a cold wind began to blow in freshening gusts from the east, and the showering white flakes in the air increased in number. From the edge of the sea came a ripple and whisper. Beyond these lifeless sounds the world was silent. Silent? It would be hard to convey the stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives—all that was over. As the darkness thickened, the eddying flakes grew more abundant, dancing before my eyes; and the cold of the air more intense. At last, one by one, swiftly, one after the other, the white peaks of the distant hills vanished into blackness. The breeze rose to a moaning wind. I saw the black central shadow of the eclipse sweeping towards me. In another moment the pale stars alone were visible. All else was rayless obscurity. The sky was absolutely black.   11
  'A horror of this great darkness came on me. The cold, that smote to my marrow, and the pain I felt in breathing, overcame me. I shivered, and a deadly nausea seized me. Then like a red-hot bow in the sky appeared the edge of the sun. I got off the machine to recover myself. I felt giddy and incapable of facing the return journey. As I stood sick and confused I saw again the moving thing upon the shoal—there was no mistake now that it was a moving thing—against the red water of the sea. It was a round thing, the size of a football perhaps, or, it may be, bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the weltering blood-red water, and it was hopping fitfully about. Then I felt I was fainting. But a terrible dread of lying helpless in that remote and awful twilight sustained me while I clambered upon the saddle.

Chapter XII.
 
'SO I came back. For a long time I must have been insensible upon the machine. The blinking succession of the days and nights was resumed, the sun got golden again, the sky blue. I breathed with greater freedom. The fluctuating contours of the land ebbed and flowed. The hands spun backward upon the dials. At last I saw again the dim shadows of houses, the evidences of decadent humanity. These, too, changed and passed, and others came. Presently, when the million dial was at zero, I slackened speed. I began to recognize our own petty and familiar architecture, the thousands hand ran back to the starting-point, the night and day flapped slower and slower. Then the old walls of the laboratory came round me. Very gently, now, I slowed the mechanism down.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on December 30, 2013, 03:10:30 PM
Wait, what?  I thought he went forward until the sun dies, and then he goes back to the dinner party.

I better re-read the end.  Because I was under the impression that he sort of "replayed" the universe, stopping where he had originally left.

In any case, "multiverse" theory wasn't around when Wells wrote that, so it's still science fiction.  Same as Frankenstien is still science fiction, even though we NOW know that you can't animate dead tissue with electricity.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.