Yes, but 1850s science and engineering still work. We sent humans to the Moon using 17th-century physics; on the scales involved, Newton is close enough.

I have no trouble at all with science and tech that go completely beyond anything we know, "Hardness", for me, is about consistency of extrapolation. Just for example, high-endurance, high-g reactionless drives are not consistent with physics as we understand them, but they help move stories along so I'm happy to have them. But once you let them in, you have to explain why 0.9c lifeboats aren't an existential threat to every populated world in the Imperium.

Grav-focused lasers are another great example. If you do the math, you quickly realize that the coherent traveling gravitic anomaly you need to "herd" the light is itself vastly more dangerous than the light itself. So why isn't everyone using grav weapons (and calling them that)?

On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 4:59 PM, Kurt Feltenberger <xxxxxx@thepaw.org> wrote:
On 10/25/2015 7:38 PM, Robert wrote:
Kurt Feltenberger wrote:
I like the sci-fi aspect where things we don't know today, or
don't even conceive of today, are possible tomorrow using concepts that
to us are what a 747 or SSN would be to someone from 1000AD.

I get tired of this variation of the argument from ignorance.

Pi doesn't stop being pi in the Far Future.
Gold will still have an atomic number of 79.
Light will always be a particle and a wave.
Etc.

Knowledge is additive.
What we know now doesn't go away because it's the day after tomorrow.
Its importance will change.

Technology will change. But it will have limits and will be internally consistent.

I don't mind 'magic' technology either. Thought needs to be put into it, though, to prevent stupid consequences.

"Guns made of marshmallows and candy sprinkles with infinite ammunition capacity" give me the shits.
They do nothing for my 'sensawunda' and really detract from my enjoyment of a game or story.

Just another gamer's thoughts.

 Ignorance, Robert?  I never said constants would change, just that applying what we know today and saying that something can't work because science as we know it today can't make it happen is the problem.  We just don't know what we don't know.

What we *knew* was possible even in 1850 would generally state that the technology we have today is impossible, that it would be magic, and yet as time progressed our efficiency and knowledge improved.

We're all entitled to our opinions, but let's leave the intentional absurdity and insults out of it.



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Kurt Feltenberger
xxxxxx@thepaw.org/xxxxxx@yahoo.com
“Before today, I was scared to live, after today, I'm scared I'm not living enough." - Me
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Craig Berry (http://google.com/+CraigBerry)
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