Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

transparent aluminum

For the record, that movie stirred a quiet shit storm. Aluminium oxynitride was in development, but highly classified when that movie came out. Remember it was 1986 and the cold war was still on with the USSR at the time.

While it also did have Russians and Asians, it didn't have Middle-Easterners because ... it's the future. :)

ST was written for an American audience in the 1960's. That culture, at that time, had exposure to both Russian and Asian cultures that could be easily, if stereotypically, understood by the audience. Not so much middle eastern until the mid to late 70's.

It also referenced Nazi, American Indian and late 60s counter cultures, which could also be understood by the audience. Or misunderstood, since they were blatant stereotypes.

Never got into them. Never really watched them. I assume they were just blindly following Rodenberry's original work. That seems like standard pulp TV fair.

Gene passed away, so it ended up with Rick Berman to guide things after that.

Not entirely true, Gene's daughter had much influence on the way those series and some of the movies progressed. I believe she was trying to keep her father's legacy intact.

Not entirely true, Gene's daughter had much influence on the way those series and some of the movies progressed. I believe she was trying to keep her father's legacy intact.

By daughter, you mean his 2nd Wife Majel Barrett, and his son by said wife? AFAIK, they have had very minimal involvement in the operations of Star Trek aside from guest appearance in Majel's case(or recurring voice-over work for her), and her son didn't even watch Star Trek until after his father passed away while he was 17. While he's ostensibly one of the first people credited as an Executive Producer for ST:Discovery, and he "approved" of the first Trek reboot movie. I doubt he could have done much to stop it regardless.

Majel Barrett did give us Andromeda and Earth: Final Conflict though, and apparently turned over that production company to their Son.

Speaking of deloreans, back to the future went forward to 2015.

I thought Back to the Future came out in 1985 and traveled 30 years into the past - 1955. I believe the sequel, Back to the Future II, went forward 30 years from 1985 to 2015.

About the only timeless tech sci-fi without humans meeting ... aliens who are humanoid ... I can think of off the top of my head is 2001 A Space Odyssey. And just look at the year in the title...

Space 1999? I've never seen it, but I'm aware of its existence at the least.

I've found a lot of programs haven't aged well at all in my book. While others have surprised me with how well they've seemingly aged. Which puts the ball back in the court of "it depends on the skill of the story teller."

Generally speaking, it seems the "pulpier" stuff tends to not age as well, but as with most things, there are exceptions that will be found. Or maybe they happened to have gifted storytellers in their midst that were "slumming it" by churning out pulp.

bout the only timeless tech sci-fi without humans meeting ... aliens who are humanoid ... I can think of off the top of my head is 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Battlestar Galactica?

IIRC, no aliens humanoid or otherwise.

References to a long destroyed alien civilization is not humans meeting aliens.

As I said, it depends on your definition, but the Cylons were neither human, nor human constructed.

Human constructed or not, they are machines, not aliens.

And how would you classify Commander Data? Is he a toaster?

He is neither human nor alien, but then in a sci-fi setting with aliens, not being human doesn't make him not a person. He is a machine, but he's a good deal more advanced than a toaster.

And how would you classify Commander Data? Is he a toaster?

Or R. Daneel Olivaw?

HM.

YES! Another Asimov fan!

Human constructed or not, they are machines, not aliens.

Divinely constructed or not, when you get down to the atoms, humans are machines. ;)

Saberhagen's Berserkers were probably the Cylon prototype, the first book was published around the time Larson started working on Battlestar Galactica.

Saberhagen's idea of humans willing to fight where other races would lack the needed agression was also re-used in John Ringo's Posleen universe and the Swarm series here on SOL, which is effectively Posleen fan fiction.

As Saberhagen made a good living writing Bram Stoker fan fiction I doubt he would complain if still alive.

Just reading the wiki page on BSG, its actually Mormons in Space!

Thanks! So I have read some Mormon theology outside of the works of John Moses Browning (Pbuh).. :p

Thanks! So I have read some Mormon theology outside of the works of John Moses Browning (Pbuh).. :p

Galaxy Quest has some Mormon fingerprints on it as well.

Saberhagen's idea of humans willing to fight where other races would lack the needed agression was also re-used in John Ringo's Posleen universe and the Swarm series here on SOL, which is effectively Posleen fan fiction.

The Damned Trilogy by Alan Dean Foster also has a similar basis of aliens who have eliminated violence from their abilities to a great degree finding a need to fight for their survival and then finding humans to do it for them.

Just reading the wiki page on BSG, its actually Mormons in Space!

Not quite Mormon's in space, but it(OG BSG, not the reboot) certainly is Mormon theology writ with a different skew on it.

It isn't even entirely Mormon specific in many regards.

You have the 12 Tribes which have been changed into Colonies. The promised land becomes the mythical 13th tribe(for the reboot at least). Which leaves Adama basically being a Moses-type figure leading the 12 Tribes, I mean Colonies, through the wilderness as they journey towards the promised land.

Now I understand the creator for BSG slipped in a bunch of other more discrete Mormon-specific references into the show(he was a Mormon himself). But the core concept for it is lifted from the Bible.

Edit: Well, that and a healthy helping of the entirely Mormon "As Man is, God once was. As God is, Man may become" which kind of leads us into "It has happened before, it can happen again."

About the only timeless tech sci-fi without humans meeting ... aliens who are humanoid ... I can think of off the top of my head is 2001 A Space Odyssey

How about Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth?
Not enough tech? The 'Tar-Aiym Krang' should have enough alien tech beyond the knowledge of both Thranx and Humans.

HM.

Star Trek has warp drive and photon torpedoes and transparent aluminum etc but it also has a universe filled with humanoid life forms who wear 60s clothing and talk English.

Of course you hear English, one of the cornerstones of Federation technology is the Universal Translator, the aliens hear their language, and you hear yours. It is an even more basic part of their tech base than the communicator or the replicator.

Of course you hear English, one of the cornerstones of Federation technology is the Universal Translator, the aliens hear their language, and you hear yours. It is an even more basic part of their tech base than the communicator or the replicator.

Then we have The Doctor. The TARDIS telepathic circuit allows you to converse with just about any life form.

Then we have The Doctor. The TARDIS telepathic circuit allows you to converse with just about any life form.

... and the Babel Fish

Don't mock the Trash 80 (TRS-80) It was my first computer, it was the one I used to learn to program in basic. It had tape storage and 4k of RAM. I had to hard wire additional memory to bring it up to 64k.

Those were the days. A 5 Megabyte hard drive weighed in the neighborhood of 5 lbs. the disc drive had to have a controller card.

Programs were limited to 64k.

Yep, good times (LOL)

A 5 Megabyte hard drive weighed in the neighborhood of 5 lbs. the disc drive had to have a controller card.

In 1956 a 5mb hard drive took a forklift to move.

Bother me? Not for technology. There are some times when datedness bothers me. This usually has to do with popular culture references. Throwbacks work better, setting the time and place and reaching back to it. Work better than contemporary references at the very least. References that burn out once the story has been out for 3 years, or sometimes less, are the kind of dating I dislike.

This covers it very well. A lot of content was produced to appeal to the viewer of that time, and often relied upon contextual information later viewers are likely to miss entirely(Airplane is an interesting example. Younger audiences can and do still enjoy it, but a lot of the references and jokes it makes are going to be missed by the younger viewer).

The programs that "age better" tend to supply more of the context with the show rather than simply assuming you already have it.

This covers it very well. A lot of content was produced to appeal to the viewer of that time, and often relied upon contextual information later viewers are likely to miss entirely(Airplane is an interesting example. Younger audiences can and do still enjoy it, but a lot of the references and jokes it makes are going to be missed by the younger viewer).

Exactly this. I do miss a few references in Airplane, not as much as the younger people I have forced it on, and it's still my favorite comedy.

Nope. If the story is good, then the story is good.
Jerry Pournelles's A Spaceship for the King is a prime example.
Haven is newly rediscovered by the reconstituted Empire of Man and about to be strip mined of resources as a slave planet. Lacking space flight they are considered no better than wogs to be colonised.
By accident the Havenites find out about this, along with the existence of an ancient First Empire library on the fallen to barbarism planet of Makassar. They buy passage for a 'trade mission' to Makassar, hoping to find the secrets of space flight in the librar

What just struck me was that the method of propulsion they wound up using is basically a low-tech, non-nuclear version of a means of propulsion that was actually studied in the 60s, and that appeared in another one of Jerry's stories about an alien invasion.

Jerry worked on Apollo & Minuteman. Ben Bova was the editor of Analog and had worked on the Vanguard rocket program. Plenty of potential for brainstorming of different possibilities.

Project Orion was the nucear bomb powered spaceship used in Footfall.

What would bother me is a story set in the 70's that referenced DVD's and iPads.

Even the reference of CD's and 3.5" floppy disks in a story set in the 70's would bother me, both weren't in use before 1982.

I admit I could tolerate the reference if it was in passing, but not if their features were needed for the plot.

HM.

What would bother me is a story set in the 70's that referenced DVD's and iPads.

Such a story would necessarily be an alternative timeline story. If it were intended to be based on reality, it would bother anyone I'd think.

What would bother me is a story set in the 70's that referenced DVD's and iPads.

For me, it would depend on the nature of the story. If it's retro-science-fiction or an alternate history, then reference / use of generic technologies (DVD, tablet computer) before their real world invention wouldn't bother me at all.

On the other hand, if the story was supposed to be a historical romance, it would.

In either case, the use of RW brand names (iPad) early would be an issue for me.

Didn't Shakespeare mention a clock in a time period before they were invented?

Yep. https://www.quora.com/In-Shakespeares-Julius-Caesar-theres-an-anachronism-about-a-clock-Act-II-lines-193-195-However-there-were-no-mechanical-clocks-in-44-BC-What-does-the-clock-in-the-play-refer-to

Or Shakespeare simply screwed up and the intellectuals are giving him more credit than he deserves.

Shakespeare was a Mason. Perhaps he had Secret Knowledge of the Antikythera Mechanism. :)

Harry Turtledove also mentioned a clockwork device on pre-christian earth in his first Videssos book, published in 1987. He has a degree in Byzantine History, so he may of been aware of the Mechanism in those pre-internet days.

Harry Turtledove also mentioned a clockwork device on pre-christian earth in his first Videssos book, published in 1987.

There are a number well know ancient "clockwork" devices. Clockwork in that they are geared machines driven by water, controlled decent of weights or spring tension.

However, the important thing, for this conversation, about those ancient clockwork devices is that none of them are actual clocks, none of them functioned as timekeeping devices.

What would bother me is a story set in the 70's that referenced DVD's and iPads.

If the person making the reference is from the 2010s I have no problem with that. I agree it would bother me if there was no alternate history/ time travel involved.

Ok, so sinking to your level, a dated story isn't as good as a one about a sultana. Unless it is too long and needs to be pruned...

ps

Is spirited wine made from the grapes of wraith...?

But I don't think anyone of the opposite sex, or even the same sex, takes them out on a date.

I would date you, Richard. We could hit a movie, dinner, and a bar and ogle women. Too bad joy probably couldn't be there.

Oh, and the fact I can't seem to do anything outside of the house other force myself to go to work because of the pain.

Getting old sucks.

Getting old sucks.

I don't disagree, but not getting older tends to involve being dead.

Getting old sucks.

Especially the inherent trust issues that come with getting old.

His use of ethnic nomenclature caused me to stop reading. I know he was a man of his time but his usage was off putting none the less.

And yet for a western set anywhen in the 19th century, not using that nomenclature would be completely implausible.

However, the two books accompanying Grey were by Max Brand and Louis L'Amour. Neither used the n word or spic.

And yet for a western set anywhen in the 19th century, not using that nomenclature would be completely implausible.

Neither used the n word or spic

Well, I wouldn't expect spic in a western set in the 19th century. From what I can find on-line, the oldest known use of spic would be from 1910.

As to the n word, people used it in that era (19th century).

Of course there is the issue with Max Brand and Louis L'Amour of whether or not they even had any black characters in their books. If they did, I stand by my comment that avoiding it is implausible/inauthentic.

Louis L'Amour of whether or not they even had any black characters in their books. If they did, I stand by my comment that avoiding it is implausible/inauthentic.

He had one I think, which is even more implausible, as roughly half of the old west cowboys were black. It was hard, dangerous work, for low pay, and who would want to be stuck riding drag (riding behind the herd in all the dust)?

Mel Brooks I can take. You know he's knowingly going for a laugh when he has Yiddish speaking Indians. Grey on the other hand was casual about it.

Then I suggest you never watch 'Blazing Saddles'.

Acquired a Zane Grey western in a Kindle bundle. His use of ethnic nomenclature caused me to stop reading. I know he was a man of his time but his usage was off putting none the less.

The Charlie Chan novels were a little hard to read for the same reason. As with the Philo Vance novels. The 1920's police in the story were not kind to a guy from Egypt.

But not Get Smart's shoe.

Half of his gadgets didn't work right anyway.

Half of his gadgets didn't work right anyway.

I think the only one Maxwell Smart's gadgets that consistently worked on the original series was his shoe phone.

I loved the Cone of Silence

But nobody today is sending a selfie regularly while carrying on a conversation,

Facetime

Marco-Polo is popular with a fair bit of my family, I don't use it, but I know my mother, three of my sisters, a sister-in-law, a brother-in-law, and a few of my nieces are using it. But their use seems to be more an interactive video-blog kind of thing that can happen in non-realtime, although I have seen it used realtime as well, that's rare.

Perhaps he misunderstood your offer, thinking you meant a date palm? Or a date with his palm...?

When the first 20 meg hard drive came out for $2,000 it was thought no one could ever fill it.

I had one of those. It was more expensive than the complete computer including the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I had no problem at all filling it up :D

It would depend on where you were, as well. In Ohio, the age of consent was 16, so 18/16 (or 38/16) would have been legal. In the early 80s, if the girl was 15 and the guy college age or younger, it was generally ignored, or plead out as misdemeanor 'contributing to the delinquency of a minor'.

When makes a bigger difference. From what I've read, in the late 19th Century US, the median age of consent was 10.

However, the most important consideration is not where the story is set, or when, but when and where it is being published.

When posting stories on-line involving under-age sex, you need to be aware of where the site's servers are (SOL is in Canada) and what the law is there. If the country where the servers are located decides to bring charges against the author, they aren't going to care what the age of consent was when/where the story was set.

Among Western Democracies, the US is unique in virtual child porn being legal.

And in the US, some writers of child porn stories have been prosecuted not under child porn laws, but generic obscenity laws. Though, in all the cases of successful prosecutions I am aware of the stories were alleged to have included not just under age sex, but violent rape and torture of prepubescent children.

It's that pesky thing we call the First Amendment.

Yep.

Originally the US Supreme Court created an First Amendment exception for child pornography entirely on the basis of the harm done to the children used to produce it.

in the mid to late 1990s, the US Congress passed a law banning virtual child porn. In 2001 or 2002, one of the first prosecutions under the new law came up before the Supreme Court and they very emphatically refused to extend the child porn exception to cover virtual child porn.

Actually, it likely that the age of consent would be lower in 1980 than now. At that time several states had ages 13-15 in their statutes. The ages have gradually increased to the 16 (in about half the states,) 17 (notably Texas and NY) or 18 (mostly in the west.) Most states also have Romeo and Juliet laws that would negate guilt in the situation you mention.

When and where I grew up, the age of consent was 16, but sex between adults and minors was in any case illegal. This left my ten-months-younger girlfriend and me in the odd situation where we were legal for a little over a year — from her 16th birthday to my 18th — then were not legal for ten months ­— from my 18th birthday to hers — and then were legal again after she turned 18. (Though by that time we were broken up because I'd gone away to college.)

I have kicking around here somewhere a complete Linux distro on about thirty 3.5" floppies. I made it to put on an old 386 laptop that had no means of connecting a CD-ROM drive, no built-in Ethernet, and no PCMCIA slots. And its serial port, for reasons I never figured out, didn't work. I ended up connecting it to the network through its parallel port, but in order to do that, I had to get the Linux distro, with a custom kernel, onto it first...

The ones I read before I gave up on the lot not only were poorly written but they went on and on about pubic hair and never a word about there being anything behind that hair, as if they were written by someone who had not seen a real live woman in person much less actually been with one.

I've encountered a couple where the author apparently believed that "clit" was a term for "vagina". Or something that one could insert a penis into, at any rate.

I've encountered a couple where the author apparently believed that "clit" was a term for "vagina". Or something that one could insert a penis into, at any rate.

Can't say I've encountered anything like that, but I have encountered some that involved stretching the urethra enough to allow penetrative sex.

I've also seen drawn hentai porn involving penetration of the nipples.

I have encountered some that involved stretching the urethra enough to allow penetrative sex.

I saw that in a porn video. I can't understand why anyone would do that! The health risk alone should be enough to veto it.

AJ

I can't understand why anyone would do that!

I don't either. At a bare minimum the victim would suffer permanent urinary incontinence.

I have encountered some that involved stretching the urethra enough to allow penetrative sex.

I have seen a report by a nurse of a young couple (raised in very sheltered religious households) who actually thought that was where his penis was meant to enter.

I have seen a report by a nurse of a young couple (raised in very sheltered religious households) who actually thought that was where his penis was meant to enter.

A long time ago I read the same somewhere else but that was because the couple couldn't get pregnant because they thought anal was the normal way to do that.