SF Annoyances

[cdybedahl]

Few things are worse for un-suspending disbelief than technology that's supposed to be a hundred years more advanced than what we have today, yet is less capable than stuff I use at work.

Comments

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

One problem I commonly come up with in B7: I have to assume that lots of what we have now was wiped out in the Atomic Wars or whatever and they had to start all over again. So the cool stuff I want to give them has to follow the same lines as what we see in the series rather than extrapolating forwards from what we have in 2003.

Cyberpunk Travis is coming along nicely though and I'm resisting the temptation to borrow too heavily from either the Borg or Andromeda in terms of which extras he's gained and what he can do with them.

Gina

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Do you think that you find it harder to suspend disbelief because this is an area that you know a lot about, or because it is bound up with the way you make a living, or something else? I bet there are other implausibilities that don't bother you at all.

I posted a little bit on my blog about the suspension of disbelief and the enjoyment of SF (on the 6th May) I'd like to understand the relationship between suspension of disbelief and personality, but so far I haven't made any progress: I just can't seem to intuit it.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

Definitely because I know a lot about it. It's very difficult to believe the text when it states that something I have personally done more than once is impossible to do with technology that is century more advanced than that which I use. There probably are similar howlers in other areas, but since I don't know about those areas a I don't see the problems.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

And, that makes me think of something obvious that I should have considered before. If the implausibility is central to the plot (such and such a thing is impossible) rather than just background decoration, then it spoils the fun much more.

[cdybedahl.livejournal.com]

Yes. In this case it was something from SJGames _Transhuman Space_ roleplaying setting, where it's stated that when AIs transfer from one computer to another they must be unconscious during the whole transfer since the data must be static while it's being copied -- but copying of live data without service interruption is off-the-shelf technology today.