Technology

[fuzzydude]

So, I thought I'd open up some discussion (or receive Word of God from Jai) about something that's been both confusing me and kind of bugging me a little. Up until recently, I've been controlling the only human character. Because I didn't feel comfortable dictating RPG canon just because I was the only one around at the time, I've mostly been assuming the human tech is similar to what we saw in the movie because that's the only standard I could find.

However, this is the equivalent of me getting sent to explore Mars today with nothing but a horse and buggy and the solar system's longest telegraph line. Anyone who sent me out there like that would have to be intentionally trying to kill me when we have gee wiz gagets like cars and radio communication.

In less than a human lifetime, we've gone from just discovering how to make airplanes to flying to the moon in giant rockets. Technology seems to only increase faster and faster. By the time of the RPG after the movie, 150 years later, they should be flying around in the Enterprise or something. 150 years is a LONG time. The only reason their technology would remain completely stagnant, even with limited resources, is if there was some sort of dark age with some inquisition running around, which seems unlikely. Corps are still going to try to make money if nothing else, and R&D would make sense - especially since finding ways to use the few resources more efficiently would be a big deal!

So... the question is how should we treat tech? Handwave the issue for simplicity and make it the same as the movie? Make up whatever we want as plot demands? Make up everything ahead of time?

Handwaving it seems the easiest. Also, it's pretty easy to excuse having schizo tech because it's a combination of what they can jury-rig from old stuff and the new stuff they brought with them. Of course, then you're going under the possibility that between all future players, something coherent will eventually emerge instead of Sir Joreth of Castle Tau Ceti charging at a T-1000 on horseback. Coming up with canon ahead of time ourselves would be a lot of work and require that much more homework for new players.

Anyway, was just hoping to eventually arrive at some sort of consensus on the thing.

[Jai'byrd]

Personally I think this is something that we should make up as plot demands.

What I had in mind was that, yes, the Human's technology is advanced from the movie significantly in that in the movie they had to be in cryosleep for 5 to 6 years (which is astonishing considering) while they traveled to Pandora - then by that logic they had to have had faster ships by then thus the trip might be shorter. Maybe a year or two in cryosleep now? Or maybe they just stay awake like you said as they should have Enterprises whooshing around and a year or two can't be all bad on a huge starship and maybe some of them choose cryosleep and others didn't. What think you guys and gals?

Other than that, they should have better and newer weapons due to all the wars that broke out on Earth before the evacuation, plus Horus mentioned something interesting, that those huge exosuits/gundam things they were in should be shrunk down by now like something like the lifter from Aliens, but more suped up - maybe like the exosuits from the cartoon Exo-squad maybe (with those nifty mental interfaces? In something like that you wouldn't need many Avatars, but then that would kill the joy of people who want to play Avatar drivers - as that is a draw with this type of RP. So maybe there are only a enough for a squad and certain people have the training required to run them...?

Also, I personally believe that many medical advancements have been made, while others disagree with me (*cough* Horus *cough* ), medicine actually makes huge leaps and bounds during wars - especially during the two world wars we had. Thus, with all the wars on Earth over energy, plus the disease, I'm thinking cloning has been perfected to the nth degree (but no cloning of entire humans, just body parts) and thus making Avatars would be subsequently easier and quicker to do. However, having the resources to make them may not be there, and like the exosuit idea, may be a limited thing. I mean, they may be a stress on the colony's resources to feed two bodies instead of one, but then all vehicles use fuel, they have too...

Plus again, to limit Avatars would kill a draw people have for playing on these kinds of sites.

What say you all? I is curious to hear....

[fuzzydude]

I'd actually argue that the technology ought to be completely different. "Like today, only more so," is a common flaw in speculative fiction. Someone 150 years ago from today would be using messengers when they wanted to communicate with someone in another city. That person might imagine that someday, we'd use internal combustion engines, like they had just invented, only they'd be so powerful they'd go really, really fast and you could send messages to someone in just a few days! While this happens to be a fair representation as far as mail delivery goes, most of our mail is just junk mail now and the postal service is having trouble staying afloat. Also, this is obviously not how I'm communicating to you right now. We now have internet and cell phones which communicate with objects orbiting our entire planet and can practically instantaneously allow us to communicate with someone on the opposite side of the globe. This is nothing like anything they had at the time, or even what would have been imagined as remotely possible, and the idea of me having someone drive really fast to your house to deliver this post is ridiculous.

However, what you said, besides being very practical for RPing, also makes sense after I thought about it. Imagine that all of us were suddenly transported to an island somewhere where the only sign of civilization was a recently abandoned Amnish settlement. Sure we might know generally how a car works and even be able to design one if that happened to be your field, but the fact is you have plenty of horses and buggies, and the only way you're going to be able to get a hold of a motor is if something else they used happened to have one and you rigged the entire thing to turn wheels, and even in the unlikely event that you managed to do all that or somehow Macgyver an engine yourself, it'd be a far cry from the car you're driving today. You simply don't have the infrastructure needed to make use of your future knowledge except in specific cases and the most practical thing is to start using whatever structures and tools laying around. So until you can move up again - which will take a while given their level of technology - you're pretty much stuck with that (to you) ridiculous horse and buggy. A few people might have brought along iPods and figured out how to charge them using windmills, copper coils and magnets, but these would be far and few between and when it breaks, your warranty isn't going to do much. Not only would a good deal of things you brought now be worthless without an outlet to plug it into, but a lot of your skills would be equally worthless as well. A computer scientist who knows how to program and design computer chips is completely worthless without the infrastructure required to manufacture a computer chip. The best you're going to get are some pretty big, awkward chips that turn on a light bulb or something because that's all you're going to be able to do at first. And that's assuming you have someone who knows how to make a light bulb.

I'd imagine the same thing has pretty much happened to the colony, which has found itself on another planet with some of their technology, but a limited amount, and all they have around them is ancient primitive, mostly broken down stuff from over a century ago to work with. Most of them probably don't even know HOW to use a lot of the stuff laying around anymore since they stopped using it ages ago, and a good deal of them are now finding that their knowledge has absolutely no use and the only way they can help the colony to survive is trying to learn how to plant stuff or carve chopsticks. Until then, they're unskilled labour with knowledge in theoretical physics, and they probably have a LOT of unskilled labour they're trying to support with primitive technology that they're really hoping comes with a manual. This completely explains why their tech apparently hasn't advanced at all except when something more futuristic is nice for the plot.

[HorusRe/Bila'reu]

Contra-argument to "technology advances beyond the levels of outdated tech being relevant".

The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress was introduced into the USAF in 1955 and is still being updated and flown in 2011. The USAF intends to continue to keep the venerable aircraft in service until 2040. It has outlived the Rockwell B1B and is in greater demand as a conventional bomber than the Lockheed B2, it is also technologically easier to mass produce and cheaper to maintain a fleet of the aircraft.

And that is a product of a major innovator in military technological development, and military development always trickles down into the civilian sector.

The Rockwell B1B was intended to replace the B-52, it was leagues more advanced in systems and design than the WWII design of the B-52... and for all its advancement was a complete failure.

The B2 was also purported to replace the B-52, but that will never happen as a country can build around three B-52's for the cost of a single B2. Which leaves the B2 in a very specialized role where as the B-52 can be considered a generalized platform, able to perform a variety of roles with only minimal conversion.

Now, consider third world nations. What do they use? Lets scale down and consider infantry warfare, or civilian/rebel defense principles. The Kalashnikov AK-47 is still is use around the world, in several locally manufactured variants, and was first put into service in 1946. It will continue to be used for at least another 50 to 60 years easily, probably longer. Why? Because it works, it works well, and it has a greater mass production than associated technologies. It is also simple to manufacture, service, maintain, and utilize.

In a world such as Pandora-style Earth, where the social disparity between the haves and have-not's has turned into an insurmountable chasm, and violence is certainly the rule and not the exception, what would be the order of the day? Who would have the resources to the best technologies? Who would have availability to those technologies?

What would everybody ELSE be using? The newest and best tech, or things that were in use from decades/centuries before?

Technological development goes hand in hand with society, the strongest societies/nations make the leaps and bounds, as a result of conflicts with other societies/nations. When society collapses the ability of a strong nation to continue development likewise collapses, and the industry of that nation invariably stagnates. Leaving the population to use devices that are well behind the curve, as the general populace doesn't know or trust the "new technologies", while the government and society falls like a flan in a cupboard.

When a world is on the brink of dying, with all natural resources virtually exhausted, overpopulation placing an extreme demand on the few resources that remain, no nation should have the capacity to enforce anything other than a token authority over the masses... as there simply are more of the proletariat than the bourgeoisie. Thus one could concievably view the crux of the global population as existing in a "third world" state of society, and exposed only to the technologies that have proven themselves sustainable in an environment when "disposable" no longer has any viability. Meaning technologies that can be used easily, repaired readily, and replaced quickly should it break down. Technologies that have been so grossly mass produced that they are everywhere, are so generalized they can serve multiple functions or in multiple roles, and are so simplistic in design that even lacking skill in that device virtually anyone (from a child to an adult that has never seen such a machine before) can use one effectively.

Ergo, what has been outdated by the power of technological development surely does not indicate a general inability to use those technologies properly.

If a pilot can fly a jumpship from Earth to an orbital station he/she can certainly fly a B-52 without crashing it into a mountain.

If an engineer can pop open a fusion reactor and reboot an AI system he/she can jump start a combustion powered automobile and use a 21st century computer.

As to the lay man... even tribals from the deserts of North Africa can figure out how to drive a Toyota truck, when up to the recent past they rode camels or walked. They used percussion cap rifles up until the 1930's and now they carry AK's.

When you are planning an expedition to a world, where you will spend the rest of your life with (presumably) no contact with the place of your birth (Earth), will you bring along specialists that cannot work without access to the tools of the modern era, or will you tap generalists that can make the best out of any possible environment? Will you load up with technologies that require specific parts, only manufactured at expense and from resources that are difficult to obtain, or will you stock your holds with the most rugged and simplistic tools... or (most likely) will you pack up with whatever you can find that is dependable and cheap, and plan on making due with what your destination provides?

The colony will have its specialists, tis true, as specialists have money and such an expedition cannot happen without plenty of funding... which I'd hazard to say the federal government wouldn't have a whole lot of (considering the US is already in debt to China - and obviously the colony on Pandora was not a Chinese establishment). So some Corperation, or private interest, would foot the bill for the exodus to Pandora... or a national conglomerate, which is just as likely but we shall see what the ethnic demographic looks like after people start making characters. Either way, there will be specialists, and tools that are every bit the cutting edge. HOWEVER the majority would have to be generalists, with the majority of the supplies and technologies being generalist in design and construction.

This means analogs to common technologies that would be fairly commonplace 50 to 100 years prior. This excludes technologies that would never be common (such as the ship that carried the colonists) and technologies that by nature must be specialized (such as atmospheric scrubbers for the colony environmental system), but transport and tools, and especially weapons systems, would not really have changed much I'd say.

The knife has not changed in thousands of years, and all military groups still train in knife combat.

Bottom line, done fix what isn't broken.

Offshoot argument...

We have seen the movie, it establishes certain world principles (Na'vi = native Americans, RDA = evil corporate mongers, Mercenary military = violent jugheads in power suits), and to deviate too much from the acceptable means rewriting the world setting. At which point why not just make an original RP and forget about trying to associate with the product of the mind of some other author?

AMP suits are cool to look at, and we can always pop on the DVD and watch it to get an idea of how they move and what they are capable of. Sure, after 150 years humanity would have better, but why reinvent the wheel when the AMP we have been given works and works well? Some minimal variation on the theme should be acceptable as being the common workhorse of the colonists... with individual players adding their own limited flavor to the mix (with their own devices or transportation/tools).

The tilt-rotor Sampsons, very cool to look at. Probably existed in a variety of civilian versions on Earth. Again, pop in the DVD and you can see how they fly. Simple design, looks fairly open so simple to repair and service, might as well go with what works... and what is readily familiar to a fan of the movie, and keep them in place as the standard lift vehicle of the RP.

Compare them to the JEEP, a workhorse concept that is still in service since WWII (the Hummer is just a souped up JEEP really), and the Bell UH-1 Iroquois Huey-Helicoper (from 1959 folks, and STILL going strong). Some things, no matter how old they get, still get used.

Truth be told, even though I have no idea how to hitch an oxen to a plow, there ARE plenty of people that do.

Would I get tapped to head out to the stars and try and replant the human species on a new world? HELLS NO! Would my cousin, the blacksmith/farmer/hunter/inventor? Damn skippy he would. Along with a majority of the people that live along the same mountain area I'd guess. Generalists, the whole lot of 'em.

heh

The prosecution rests.

*ponders*

What the hell was my point anyway? LOL

[fuzzydude]

Good points, actually. A lot of this is dictated by a combination of economics and practicality. Unless you're Jack Churchill (look him up - he's awesome), nobody goes to war with a longbow anymore. It takes a lifetime to learn to use a longbow. It takes a fraction of the time to become even more deadly with a rifle. However, once you reach a certain point, the advancement slows or stops because it doesn't make sense to advance further. Sure they're specialized guns that might be better in many ways, but the AK is pretty much the best you can have if you want an effective, extremely reliable, cheap weapon. Until we come up with particle weapons that can be produced for a few bucks, it's going to stick around. Same with the fork, which is more or less the same as when it was first invented because while you could make an ergonomic, electric fork, nobody's going to bother.

On the other hand, anyone born in the last few decades won't even know how to use a slide rule (if they even know what one is). This is because, if you actually look it up, basic calculators are now cheaper than slide rules. Also, they're much easier and faster to use, have more functionality, and pretty much are superior in every aspect. A calculator is just as easy to make in our current infrastructure than slide rules. (Although if you ended up having trouble making computer chips, you might shift back eventually). Also, while landline phones may be unknown in some third world countries, they'll still have tons of cell phones because those are cheap and don't require a bunch of expensive lines all over the place and you can carry them around.

It can pretty much go both ways.

Same with the skill set. I'm sure they'd be more prepared than I gave them credit for. However, due to politics, you'd also end up with lots of useless people who happened to be rich... although I do wonder if the economic system would survive the move, but that's not the point of the RPG so it's easy to ignore.

Thankfully, because things can reasonably be interpreted either way, we can just do whatever we feel like to tell a good story. Whee.

On a side note, as a real world example, I actually can program an AI. However, I wouldn't know the first thing about fixing an engine, much less making one, and I don't have a clue how to use a punch card, which was what they were using just a few decades ago to program computers. Computer technology advances REALLY fast to the point that everything you know is regularly obsolete every half decade in the field. It's pretty annoying, actually. I'd imagine specialization would be even more extreme with more advanced technology and a 21st century computer would probably be completely incomprehensible to someone from hundreds of years later. Yes, they could learn, but it wouldn't be easy. They'd probably spend the first few minutes trying to talk into the mouse.

[Jai'byrd]

Fuzz wins for best obscure reference!!

(That and appeasing the raging Trekkie who runs this board )

lol,

Anyway, you both raise good points, although I'm thinking by that time everyone's got computers implanted in their brains. Much like in the comic Quantum Vibe. I mean, that has to be the next evolution of computers and cells since they just keep getting smaller and smaller. Of course we'd still have smaller hand-held computers for more specialized things one would think...

But still, maybe play this one by ear as plot demands, I mean, if we need some super nifty tech, we can make it up, and for the rest of the time the colonists are re-learning how to use earlier technologies or cannibalize what was left from the original base and re-use that. Have a mix of both, so that we can lead to interesting situations where they are forced to use 'ancient' technologies and hijinks can ensue from there. Yes?

[fuzzydude]

Haha! I didn't think anyone would catch the reference. It's always fun throwing out lots of those for when someone does get it, though.

Trekkies unite.