A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
To be brutally honest, I had a bad experience with with Elder Scrolls fans that pushed me even further away from fantasy then I was at the time.
They kept saying ES was just the same as Fallout, that sci-fi and fantasy are the same thing, so I should enjoy it just as much. I didn't agree, because I believe they are seperate genres, asked that they respect my opinion and it just went downhill from there.
To be fair, some of them did, but the majority just went to war because they weren't getting their way in converting me to their way of thinking. In the end, I think it was more about forcing me to play ES/become an ES fan then it was actually caring about the debate.
Which is another reason why I phrased the question here very specifically to exclude that discussion, I was attempting to avoid the same scenario developing here. So if you want to discuss that possibility, please, let's keep it civil and no attacking each other.
To be truthful, I have no data as to what motivates a fantasy fan.
What do they enjoy? What gets them invested?
Alternatively, what pushes them away? What don't they like?
If I knew the answers to those questions, I might be able to make a better comparison re: Star Trek-Sea Trek-whatever you'd call the fantasy version.
I assume just having money isn't enough to construct a Ferengi analogue,
That you need a nation/landmass, shipyards, lumber, steel, borders to defend etc.
Even a fleet of pirate ships or civilian vessels couldn't stand up to the might of the British empire in the Age of Sail, especially if they were going after a flagship, like they did in some episodes.
You'd have to find a culture that believed that getting wealthy was all that mattered and had the resources to back that up, since it's doubtful anyone would want to support an enemy fleet who was theiving/pirating from them all the time.
I do enjoy some fantasy, but my standards are very high/specific when it comes to this genre, most franchises/productions simply don't reach the height of that bar.
I'm even stricter when it comes to computer games, especially mmos, even if they only have a little fantasy in them.
But I think that's a discussion we shouldn't go into here, as it would be derailing.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
To be brutally honest, I had a bad experience with with Elder Scrolls fans that pushed me even further away from fantasy then I was at the time.
They kept saying ES was just the same as Fallout, that sci-fi and fantasy are the same thing, so I should enjoy it just as much. I didn't agree, because I believe they are seperate genres, asked that they respect my opinion and it just went downhill from there.
To be fair, some of them did, but the majority just went to war because they weren't getting their way in converting me to their way of thinking. In the end, I think it was more about forcing me to play ES/become an ES fan then it was actually caring about the debate.
Which is another reason why I phrased the question here very specifically to exclude that discussion, I was attempting to avoid the same scenario developing here. So if you want to discuss that possibility, please, let's keep it civil and no attacking each other.
To be truthful, I have no data as to what motivates a fantasy fan.
What do they enjoy? What gets them invested?
Alternatively, what pushes them away? What don't they like?
If I knew the answers to those questions, I might be able to make a better comparison re: Star Trek-Sea Trek-whatever you'd call the fantasy version.
I assume just having money isn't enough to construct a Ferengi analogue,
That you need a nation/landmass, shipyards, lumber, steel, borders to defend etc.
Even a fleet of pirate ships or civilian vessels couldn't stand up to the might of the British empire in the Age of Sail, especially if they were going after a flagship.
You'd have to find a culture that believed that getting wealthy was all that mattered and had the resources to back that up, since it's doubtful anyone would want to support an enemy fleet who was theiving/pirating from them all the time.
I love sci-fi, I hate fantasy... (I can deal with the levels in Harry Potter, but stuff like Lord of the Rings leaves me as cold as an Andorian winter...) I love how Grand Theft Auto IV and V mention a spoof/satire called 'Loot and W@nk'' ( ) I think that pretty much covers the first boldened point
With regards the second, insert the Israeli Navy*, and Jewish-stereotypes...
*I know, no such thing as 'Israel' in the Age of Sail, but a little Creative License isn't the same as wandering into the realms of Fantasy
To be brutally honest, I had a bad experience with with Elder Scrolls fans that pushed me even further away from fantasy then I was at the time.
They kept saying ES was just the same as Fallout, that sci-fi and fantasy are the same thing, so I should enjoy it just as much. I didn't agree, because I believe they are seperate genres, asked that they respect my opinion and it just went downhill from there.
To be fair, some of them did, but the majority just went to war because they weren't getting their way in converting me to their way of thinking. In the end, I think it was more about forcing me to play ES/become an ES fan then it was actually caring about the debate.
Which is another reason why I phrased the question here very specifically to exclude that discussion, I was attempting to avoid the same scenario developing here. So if you want to discuss that possibility, please, let's keep it civil and no attacking each other.
To be truthful, I have no data as to what motivates a fantasy fan.
What do they enjoy? What gets them invested?
Alternatively, what pushes them away? What don't they like?
If I knew the answers to those questions, I might be able to make a better comparison re: Star Trek-Sea Trek-whatever you'd call the fantasy version.
I assume just having money isn't enough to construct a Ferengi analogue,
That you need a nation/landmass, shipyards, lumber, steel, borders to defend etc.
Even a fleet of pirate ships or civilian vessels couldn't stand up to the might of the British empire in the Age of Sail, especially if they were going after a flagship.
You'd have to find a culture that believed that getting wealthy was all that mattered and had the resources to back that up, since it's doubtful anyone would want to support an enemy fleet who was theiving/pirating from them all the time.
I love sci-fi, I hate fantasy... (I can deal with the levels in Harry Potter, but stuff like Lord of the Rings leaves me as cold as an Andorian winter...) I love how Grand Theft Auto IV and V mention a spoof/satire called 'Loot and W@nk'' ( ) I think that pretty much covers the first boldened point
With regards the second, insert the Israeli Navy*, and Jewish-stereotypes...
*I know, no such thing as 'Israel' in the Age of Sail, but a little Creative License isn't the same as wandering into the realms of Fantasy
Honestly, I really do think the EIC is a much better analogue for the Ferengi. The EIC had it's own private military, would go to any lengths to make a profit (see, Opium Wars) and operated all across the world, not just India. They were a monopoly on all trade coming out of British-ruled India (and later British trade with China). And yes, EIC merchants did indulge in many illicit acts (including piracy, smuggling, etc.), it's just that they didn't do it openly.
Also, treating Jewish traders like the Ferengi has the one major flaw of motivation. Jewish merchant families pursued wealth for very different reasons than the Ferengi, mainly because in most European countries, they were barred from owning land. I'm going to leave it there, because I don't wish to derail this thread, but suffice it to say that the Jewish stereotype is not applicable to the Ferengi.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
To be brutally honest, I had a bad experience with with Elder Scrolls fans that pushed me even further away from fantasy then I was at the time.
They kept saying ES was just the same as Fallout, that sci-fi and fantasy are the same thing, so I should enjoy it just as much. I didn't agree, because I believe they are seperate genres, asked that they respect my opinion and it just went downhill from there.
To be fair, some of them did, but the majority just went to war because they weren't getting their way in converting me to their way of thinking. In the end, I think it was more about forcing me to play ES/become an ES fan then it was actually caring about the debate.
Which is another reason why I phrased the question here very specifically to exclude that discussion, I was attempting to avoid the same scenario developing here. So if you want to discuss that possibility, please, let's keep it civil and no attacking each other.
To be truthful, I have no data as to what motivates a fantasy fan.
What do they enjoy? What gets them invested?
Alternatively, what pushes them away? What don't they like?
If I knew the answers to those questions, I might be able to make a better comparison re: Star Trek-Sea Trek-whatever you'd call the fantasy version.
I assume just having money isn't enough to construct a Ferengi analogue,
That you need a nation/landmass, shipyards, lumber, steel, borders to defend etc.
Even a fleet of pirate ships or civilian vessels couldn't stand up to the might of the British empire in the Age of Sail, especially if they were going after a flagship.
You'd have to find a culture that believed that getting wealthy was all that mattered and had the resources to back that up, since it's doubtful anyone would want to support an enemy fleet who was theiving/pirating from them all the time.
I love sci-fi, I hate fantasy... (I can deal with the levels in Harry Potter, but stuff like Lord of the Rings leaves me as cold as an Andorian winter...) I love how Grand Theft Auto IV and V mention a spoof/satire called 'Loot and W@nk'' ( ) I think that pretty much covers the first boldened point
With regards the second, insert the Israeli Navy*, and Jewish-stereotypes...
*I know, no such thing as 'Israel' in the Age of Sail, but a little Creative License isn't the same as wandering into the realms of Fantasy
Honestly, I really do think the EIC is a much better analogue for the Ferengi. The EIC had it's own private military, would go to any lengths to make a profit (see, Opium Wars) and operated all across the world, not just India. They were a monopoly on all trade coming out of British-ruled India (and later British trade with China). And yes, EIC merchants did indulge in many illicit acts (including piracy, smuggling, etc.), it's just that they didn't do it openly.
Yes, but they were not a fixed nation which a captain may find himself upon the shores of...
Also, treating Jewish traders like the Ferengi has the one major flaw of motivation. Jewish merchant families pursued wealth for very different reasons than the Ferengi, mainly because in most European countries, they were barred from owning land. I'm going to leave it there, because I don't wish to derail this thread, but suffice it to say that the Jewish stereotype is not applicable to the Ferengi.
I'm very sad to say, but you're very wrong about that... :-\
"In the spring of '93, however, Jewish fans of the series took special umbrage at a group of aliens figuring prominently in the Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine. As originally conceived by Roddenberry, the Ferengi were squat, deformed and venal creatures, lecherous, miserly and greedy, bearing huge, misshapen ear, severely notched noses and, according to Roddenberry's Writers' Bible, prodigious personal packages. The editor of Film Score Monthly, at the time, a student at Amherst College, called the alarm, attesting that “There was no denying the anti-Semitic attributes of the Ferengi.”
Paramount denied it. But writer/producer Brannon Bragga, who was not Jewish, told me he had in fact protested to Berman and Piller that the Ferengi represented malicious Medieval representations of Jews as profit-crazed merchants lusting for Christian damsels. But when he warned that such stereotypes still had the potential to wreak havoc in the late 20th Century, they dismissed his concerns. Meanwhile, word went out about my pursuit of this issue within the walls of Paramount. Smack in the middle of an interview with Ferengi majordomo Armin Shimmerman, himself a Jewish actor with admitted misgivings over the role, a call came in from Paramount's publicity department instructing him to cease and desist all contacts with me forthwith."
To be brutally honest, I had a bad experience with with Elder Scrolls fans that pushed me even further away from fantasy then I was at the time.
They kept saying ES was just the same as Fallout, that sci-fi and fantasy are the same thing, so I should enjoy it just as much. I didn't agree, because I believe they are seperate genres, asked that they respect my opinion and it just went downhill from there.
To be fair, some of them did, but the majority just went to war because they weren't getting their way in converting me to their way of thinking. In the end, I think it was more about forcing me to play ES/become an ES fan then it was actually caring about the debate.
Which is another reason why I phrased the question here very specifically to exclude that discussion, I was attempting to avoid the same scenario developing here. So if you want to discuss that possibility, please, let's keep it civil and no attacking each other.
To be truthful, I have no data as to what motivates a fantasy fan.
What do they enjoy? What gets them invested?
Alternatively, what pushes them away? What don't they like?
If I knew the answers to those questions, I might be able to make a better comparison re: Star Trek-Sea Trek-whatever you'd call the fantasy version.
I assume just having money isn't enough to construct a Ferengi analogue,
That you need a nation/landmass, shipyards, lumber, steel, borders to defend etc.
Even a fleet of pirate ships or civilian vessels couldn't stand up to the might of the British empire in the Age of Sail, especially if they were going after a flagship.
You'd have to find a culture that believed that getting wealthy was all that mattered and had the resources to back that up, since it's doubtful anyone would want to support an enemy fleet who was theiving/pirating from them all the time.
I love sci-fi, I hate fantasy... (I can deal with the levels in Harry Potter, but stuff like Lord of the Rings leaves me as cold as an Andorian winter...) I love how Grand Theft Auto IV and V mention a spoof/satire called 'Loot and W@nk'' ( ) I think that pretty much covers the first boldened point
With regards the second, insert the Israeli Navy*, and Jewish-stereotypes...
*I know, no such thing as 'Israel' in the Age of Sail, but a little Creative License isn't the same as wandering into the realms of Fantasy
Honestly, I really do think the EIC is a much better analogue for the Ferengi. The EIC had it's own private military, would go to any lengths to make a profit (see, Opium Wars) and operated all across the world, not just India. They were a monopoly on all trade coming out of British-ruled India (and later British trade with China). And yes, EIC merchants did indulge in many illicit acts (including piracy, smuggling, etc.), it's just that they didn't do it openly.
Yes, but they were not a fixed nation which a captain may find himself upon the shores of...
Officially, no, but in all practicality they ruled India themselves with little regard to the wills of the Crown. They went to war on their own terms, fielded their own military, collected their own taxes... They were effectively a proxy state which continued until the government finally had enough of it and had the Rajas swear fealty to Victoria as their Empress so the company could be disbanded.
Also, treating Jewish traders like the Ferengi has the one major flaw of motivation. Jewish merchant families pursued wealth for very different reasons than the Ferengi, mainly because in most European countries, they were barred from owning land. I'm going to leave it there, because I don't wish to derail this thread, but suffice it to say that the Jewish stereotype is not applicable to the Ferengi.
I'm very sad to say, but you're very wrong about that... :-\
"In the spring of '93, however, Jewish fans of the series took special umbrage at a group of aliens figuring prominently in the Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine. As originally conceived by Roddenberry, the Ferengi were squat, deformed and venal creatures, lecherous, miserly and greedy, bearing huge, misshapen ear, severely notched noses and, according to Roddenberry's Writers' Bible, prodigious personal packages. The editor of Film Score Monthly, at the time, a student at Amherst College, called the alarm, attesting that “There was no denying the anti-Semitic attributes of the Ferengi.”
Paramount denied it. But writer/producer Brannon Bragga, who was not Jewish, told me he had in fact protested to Berman and Piller that the Ferengi represented malicious Medieval representations of Jews as profit-crazed merchants lusting for Christian damsels. But when he warned that such stereotypes still had the potential to wreak havoc in the late 20th Century, they dismissed his concerns. Meanwhile, word went out about my pursuit of this issue within the walls of Paramount. Smack in the middle of an interview with Ferengi majordomo Armin Shimmerman, himself a Jewish actor with admitted misgivings over the role, a call came in from Paramount's publicity department instructing him to cease and desist all contacts with me forthwith."
Being based on a medieval stereotype of Jews =/= being a valid analogue to Jews. I could make a sure where there was a species which were self-absorbed, fiercely independent, drank nothing but a specific leaf-based drink and had a fanatical devotion to their monarch, but that wouldn't be a fair analogue to the British, would it?
To be brutally honest, I had a bad experience with with Elder Scrolls fans that pushed me even further away from fantasy then I was at the time.
They kept saying ES was just the same as Fallout, that sci-fi and fantasy are the same thing, so I should enjoy it just as much. I didn't agree, because I believe they are seperate genres, asked that they respect my opinion and it just went downhill from there.
To be fair, some of them did, but the majority just went to war because they weren't getting their way in converting me to their way of thinking. In the end, I think it was more about forcing me to play ES/become an ES fan then it was actually caring about the debate.
Which is another reason why I phrased the question here very specifically to exclude that discussion, I was attempting to avoid the same scenario developing here. So if you want to discuss that possibility, please, let's keep it civil and no attacking each other.
To be truthful, I have no data as to what motivates a fantasy fan.
What do they enjoy? What gets them invested?
Alternatively, what pushes them away? What don't they like?
If I knew the answers to those questions, I might be able to make a better comparison re: Star Trek-Sea Trek-whatever you'd call the fantasy version.
I assume just having money isn't enough to construct a Ferengi analogue,
That you need a nation/landmass, shipyards, lumber, steel, borders to defend etc.
Even a fleet of pirate ships or civilian vessels couldn't stand up to the might of the British empire in the Age of Sail, especially if they were going after a flagship.
You'd have to find a culture that believed that getting wealthy was all that mattered and had the resources to back that up, since it's doubtful anyone would want to support an enemy fleet who was theiving/pirating from them all the time.
I love sci-fi, I hate fantasy... (I can deal with the levels in Harry Potter, but stuff like Lord of the Rings leaves me as cold as an Andorian winter...) I love how Grand Theft Auto IV and V mention a spoof/satire called 'Loot and W@nk'' ( ) I think that pretty much covers the first boldened point
With regards the second, insert the Israeli Navy*, and Jewish-stereotypes...
*I know, no such thing as 'Israel' in the Age of Sail, but a little Creative License isn't the same as wandering into the realms of Fantasy
Honestly, I really do think the EIC is a much better analogue for the Ferengi. The EIC had it's own private military, would go to any lengths to make a profit (see, Opium Wars) and operated all across the world, not just India. They were a monopoly on all trade coming out of British-ruled India (and later British trade with China). And yes, EIC merchants did indulge in many illicit acts (including piracy, smuggling, etc.), it's just that they didn't do it openly.
Yes, but they were not a fixed nation which a captain may find himself upon the shores of...
Officially, no, but in all practicality they ruled India themselves with little regard to the wills of the Crown. They went to war on their own terms, fielded their own military, collected their own taxes... They were effectively a proxy state which continued until the government finally had enough of it and had the Rajas swear fealty to Victoria as their Empress so the company could be disbanded.
Also, treating Jewish traders like the Ferengi has the one major flaw of motivation. Jewish merchant families pursued wealth for very different reasons than the Ferengi, mainly because in most European countries, they were barred from owning land. I'm going to leave it there, because I don't wish to derail this thread, but suffice it to say that the Jewish stereotype is not applicable to the Ferengi.
I'm very sad to say, but you're very wrong about that... :-\
"In the spring of '93, however, Jewish fans of the series took special umbrage at a group of aliens figuring prominently in the Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine. As originally conceived by Roddenberry, the Ferengi were squat, deformed and venal creatures, lecherous, miserly and greedy, bearing huge, misshapen ear, severely notched noses and, according to Roddenberry's Writers' Bible, prodigious personal packages. The editor of Film Score Monthly, at the time, a student at Amherst College, called the alarm, attesting that “There was no denying the anti-Semitic attributes of the Ferengi.”
Paramount denied it. But writer/producer Brannon Bragga, who was not Jewish, told me he had in fact protested to Berman and Piller that the Ferengi represented malicious Medieval representations of Jews as profit-crazed merchants lusting for Christian damsels. But when he warned that such stereotypes still had the potential to wreak havoc in the late 20th Century, they dismissed his concerns. Meanwhile, word went out about my pursuit of this issue within the walls of Paramount. Smack in the middle of an interview with Ferengi majordomo Armin Shimmerman, himself a Jewish actor with admitted misgivings over the role, a call came in from Paramount's publicity department instructing him to cease and desist all contacts with me forthwith."
Being based on a medieval stereotype of Jews =/= being a valid analogue to Jews. I could make a sure where there was a species which were self-absorbed, fiercely independent, drank nothing but a specific leaf-based drink and had a fanatical devotion to their monarch, but that wouldn't be a fair analogue to the British, would it?
Of course not. I despise the monarchy. I do like tea though.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
To be brutally honest, I had a bad experience with with Elder Scrolls fans that pushed me even further away from fantasy then I was at the time.
They kept saying ES was just the same as Fallout, that sci-fi and fantasy are the same thing, so I should enjoy it just as much. I didn't agree, because I believe they are seperate genres, asked that they respect my opinion and it just went downhill from there.
To be fair, some of them did, but the majority just went to war because they weren't getting their way in converting me to their way of thinking. In the end, I think it was more about forcing me to play ES/become an ES fan then it was actually caring about the debate.
Which is another reason why I phrased the question here very specifically to exclude that discussion, I was attempting to avoid the same scenario developing here. So if you want to discuss that possibility, please, let's keep it civil and no attacking each other.
To be truthful, I have no data as to what motivates a fantasy fan.
What do they enjoy? What gets them invested?
Alternatively, what pushes them away? What don't they like?
If I knew the answers to those questions, I might be able to make a better comparison re: Star Trek-Sea Trek-whatever you'd call the fantasy version.
I assume just having money isn't enough to construct a Ferengi analogue,
That you need a nation/landmass, shipyards, lumber, steel, borders to defend etc.
Even a fleet of pirate ships or civilian vessels couldn't stand up to the might of the British empire in the Age of Sail, especially if they were going after a flagship.
You'd have to find a culture that believed that getting wealthy was all that mattered and had the resources to back that up, since it's doubtful anyone would want to support an enemy fleet who was theiving/pirating from them all the time.
I love sci-fi, I hate fantasy... (I can deal with the levels in Harry Potter, but stuff like Lord of the Rings leaves me as cold as an Andorian winter...) I love how Grand Theft Auto IV and V mention a spoof/satire called 'Loot and W@nk'' ( ) I think that pretty much covers the first boldened point
With regards the second, insert the Israeli Navy*, and Jewish-stereotypes...
*I know, no such thing as 'Israel' in the Age of Sail, but a little Creative License isn't the same as wandering into the realms of Fantasy
Honestly, I really do think the EIC is a much better analogue for the Ferengi. The EIC had it's own private military, would go to any lengths to make a profit (see, Opium Wars) and operated all across the world, not just India. They were a monopoly on all trade coming out of British-ruled India (and later British trade with China). And yes, EIC merchants did indulge in many illicit acts (including piracy, smuggling, etc.), it's just that they didn't do it openly.
Yes, but they were not a fixed nation which a captain may find himself upon the shores of...
Officially, no, but in all practicality they ruled India themselves with little regard to the wills of the Crown. They went to war on their own terms, fielded their own military, collected their own taxes... They were effectively a proxy state which continued until the government finally had enough of it and had the Rajas swear fealty to Victoria as their Empress so the company could be disbanded.
Being based on a medieval stereotype of Jews =/= being a valid analogue to Jews. I could make a sure where there was a species which were self-absorbed, fiercely independent, drank nothing but a specific leaf-based drink and had a fanatical devotion to their monarch, but that wouldn't be a fair analogue to the British, would it?
Strawman... It literally doesn't matter that you could make sure there was a British-analogue... The fact is, Gene was an anti-Semite, and the Ferengi were created based along the lines of the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes. Hence why telling The Ferengi Tales with Jewish characters, would only be met with mass accusations of anti-Semitism... I can't tell you just how much that saddens me for that to be the case, but sadly it's the truth...
To be brutally honest, I had a bad experience with with Elder Scrolls fans that pushed me even further away from fantasy then I was at the time.
They kept saying ES was just the same as Fallout, that sci-fi and fantasy are the same thing, so I should enjoy it just as much. I didn't agree, because I believe they are seperate genres, asked that they respect my opinion and it just went downhill from there.
To be fair, some of them did, but the majority just went to war because they weren't getting their way in converting me to their way of thinking. In the end, I think it was more about forcing me to play ES/become an ES fan then it was actually caring about the debate.
Which is another reason why I phrased the question here very specifically to exclude that discussion, I was attempting to avoid the same scenario developing here. So if you want to discuss that possibility, please, let's keep it civil and no attacking each other.
To be truthful, I have no data as to what motivates a fantasy fan.
What do they enjoy? What gets them invested?
Alternatively, what pushes them away? What don't they like?
If I knew the answers to those questions, I might be able to make a better comparison re: Star Trek-Sea Trek-whatever you'd call the fantasy version.
I assume just having money isn't enough to construct a Ferengi analogue,
That you need a nation/landmass, shipyards, lumber, steel, borders to defend etc.
Even a fleet of pirate ships or civilian vessels couldn't stand up to the might of the British empire in the Age of Sail, especially if they were going after a flagship.
You'd have to find a culture that believed that getting wealthy was all that mattered and had the resources to back that up, since it's doubtful anyone would want to support an enemy fleet who was theiving/pirating from them all the time.
I love sci-fi, I hate fantasy... (I can deal with the levels in Harry Potter, but stuff like Lord of the Rings leaves me as cold as an Andorian winter...) I love how Grand Theft Auto IV and V mention a spoof/satire called 'Loot and W@nk'' ( ) I think that pretty much covers the first boldened point
With regards the second, insert the Israeli Navy*, and Jewish-stereotypes...
*I know, no such thing as 'Israel' in the Age of Sail, but a little Creative License isn't the same as wandering into the realms of Fantasy
Honestly, I really do think the EIC is a much better analogue for the Ferengi. The EIC had it's own private military, would go to any lengths to make a profit (see, Opium Wars) and operated all across the world, not just India. They were a monopoly on all trade coming out of British-ruled India (and later British trade with China). And yes, EIC merchants did indulge in many illicit acts (including piracy, smuggling, etc.), it's just that they didn't do it openly.
Yes, but they were not a fixed nation which a captain may find himself upon the shores of...
Officially, no, but in all practicality they ruled India themselves with little regard to the wills of the Crown. They went to war on their own terms, fielded their own military, collected their own taxes... They were effectively a proxy state which continued until the government finally had enough of it and had the Rajas swear fealty to Victoria as their Empress so the company could be disbanded.
Being based on a medieval stereotype of Jews =/= being a valid analogue to Jews. I could make a sure where there was a species which were self-absorbed, fiercely independent, drank nothing but a specific leaf-based drink and had a fanatical devotion to their monarch, but that wouldn't be a fair analogue to the British, would it?
Strawman... It literally doesn't matter that you could make sure there was a British-analogue... The fact is, Gene was an anti-Semite, and the Ferengi were created based along the lines of the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes. Hence why telling The Ferengi Tales with Jewish characters, would only be met with mass accusations of anti-Semitism... I can't tell you just how much that saddens me for that to be the case, but sadly it's the truth...
So don't tell them with Jewish characters.
For instance, the East India Company deliberately facilitated the smuggling of Opium into China, causing most of the populous to become addicted, intentionally violating Chinese law, just so they could sell tea at a profit (at the time, Britain spent 80% of its GDP on the tea trade). That is a very Ferengi thing to do.
To be brutally honest, I had a bad experience with with Elder Scrolls fans that pushed me even further away from fantasy then I was at the time.
They kept saying ES was just the same as Fallout, that sci-fi and fantasy are the same thing, so I should enjoy it just as much. I didn't agree, because I believe they are seperate genres, asked that they respect my opinion and it just went downhill from there.
To be fair, some of them did, but the majority just went to war because they weren't getting their way in converting me to their way of thinking. In the end, I think it was more about forcing me to play ES/become an ES fan then it was actually caring about the debate.
Which is another reason why I phrased the question here very specifically to exclude that discussion, I was attempting to avoid the same scenario developing here. So if you want to discuss that possibility, please, let's keep it civil and no attacking each other.
To be truthful, I have no data as to what motivates a fantasy fan.
What do they enjoy? What gets them invested?
Alternatively, what pushes them away? What don't they like?
If I knew the answers to those questions, I might be able to make a better comparison re: Star Trek-Sea Trek-whatever you'd call the fantasy version.
I assume just having money isn't enough to construct a Ferengi analogue,
That you need a nation/landmass, shipyards, lumber, steel, borders to defend etc.
Even a fleet of pirate ships or civilian vessels couldn't stand up to the might of the British empire in the Age of Sail, especially if they were going after a flagship.
You'd have to find a culture that believed that getting wealthy was all that mattered and had the resources to back that up, since it's doubtful anyone would want to support an enemy fleet who was theiving/pirating from them all the time.
I love sci-fi, I hate fantasy... (I can deal with the levels in Harry Potter, but stuff like Lord of the Rings leaves me as cold as an Andorian winter...) I love how Grand Theft Auto IV and V mention a spoof/satire called 'Loot and W@nk'' ( ) I think that pretty much covers the first boldened point
With regards the second, insert the Israeli Navy*, and Jewish-stereotypes...
*I know, no such thing as 'Israel' in the Age of Sail, but a little Creative License isn't the same as wandering into the realms of Fantasy
Honestly, I really do think the EIC is a much better analogue for the Ferengi. The EIC had it's own private military, would go to any lengths to make a profit (see, Opium Wars) and operated all across the world, not just India. They were a monopoly on all trade coming out of British-ruled India (and later British trade with China). And yes, EIC merchants did indulge in many illicit acts (including piracy, smuggling, etc.), it's just that they didn't do it openly.
Yes, but they were not a fixed nation which a captain may find himself upon the shores of...
Officially, no, but in all practicality they ruled India themselves with little regard to the wills of the Crown. They went to war on their own terms, fielded their own military, collected their own taxes... They were effectively a proxy state which continued until the government finally had enough of it and had the Rajas swear fealty to Victoria as their Empress so the company could be disbanded.
Being based on a medieval stereotype of Jews =/= being a valid analogue to Jews. I could make a sure where there was a species which were self-absorbed, fiercely independent, drank nothing but a specific leaf-based drink and had a fanatical devotion to their monarch, but that wouldn't be a fair analogue to the British, would it?
Strawman... It literally doesn't matter that you could make sure there was a British-analogue... The fact is, Gene was an anti-Semite, and the Ferengi were created based along the lines of the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes. Hence why telling The Ferengi Tales with Jewish characters, would only be met with mass accusations of anti-Semitism... I can't tell you just how much that saddens me for that to be the case, but sadly it's the truth...
So don't tell them with Jewish characters.
For instance, the East India Company deliberately facilitated the smuggling of Opium into China, causing most of the populous to become addicted, intentionally violating Chinese law, just so they could sell tea at a profit (at the time, Britain spent 80% of its GDP on the tea trade). That is a very Ferengi thing to do.
That's absolutely fine, the stories doesn't necessarily have to be told with Jewish characters, I was simply pointing out, that the Jewish mercantiles would be the easiest (if not direct) analogue in any Ferengi-related stories transitioned to the Age of Sail, but that the behaviours shown Back in the Day, which Captain Hero and his crew would be dealing with, would almost certainly now be accused of beinganti-Semitic...
To be brutally honest, I had a bad experience with with Elder Scrolls fans that pushed me even further away from fantasy then I was at the time.
They kept saying ES was just the same as Fallout, that sci-fi and fantasy are the same thing, so I should enjoy it just as much. I didn't agree, because I believe they are seperate genres, asked that they respect my opinion and it just went downhill from there.
To be fair, some of them did, but the majority just went to war because they weren't getting their way in converting me to their way of thinking. In the end, I think it was more about forcing me to play ES/become an ES fan then it was actually caring about the debate.
<snip>
To be truthful, I have no data as to what motivates a fantasy fan.
What do they enjoy? What gets them invested?
Alternatively, what pushes them away? What don't they like?
If I knew the answers to those questions, I might be able to make a better comparison re: Star Trek-Sea Trek-whatever you'd call the fantasy version.
Interestingly enough, sometimes you need to be a little... careful... with "fantasy" fans. Because there is, in a way, three "different" enough styles that get lumped together in the "fantasy" umbrella.
There's "no magic" fantasy - where none of the "regulars" have access to magic, it's something that's in the monsters of old and ancient artifacts. If anyone's getting magic "now", it's through a deal with a demon of some sorts or other "evil" source.
There's "low magic" fantasy - Conan, Knights of the Round Table, etc. There's a few mages, magic's actually around, but it takes massive rituals or potion brewing or other long-term things to produce "relatively minor" magical effects.
Then there's "high magic" fantasy - Dungeons & Dragons, Everquest, Warcraft, to a point Once Upon a Time (ABC TV) levels - magic on demand, pretty much, to do whatever is allowed/neccessary.
Sounds like those guys, and in a way me, "track" these distinctions and call the "high magic" Skyrim (because your magic power is pretty much "on demand" like sword swinging, and there's a lot of different spells) almost as "science fiction" as Fallout was. Why would we do that?
Since we're talking Star Trek, let's see what we could do within the basis of "high magic" to get ourselves some "Science Fiction", specifically Star Trek, tools:
Phaser? Enchant a wand with "heat object", "sleep", "death ray", "disintegrate".
Tricorder? Clairvoyance (to see far), detect life (to see if there's life there), Identify (to determine composition), etc. If item must be involved, crystal ball.
Force Field Generator? Barrier spell.
Deflector screens/shields? Same magic that creates the Dungeons & Dragons item "Bracers of Defense" / spell "Mage Armor" but on a larger scale.
Viewscreen? Magic mirror or scrying pool.
And this is but a taste. Basically, when you're tossing enough "magic" in your setting to be considered "High" Fantasy, anything you can dream up a technobabble device to make the impossible happen with can be done by "magic", whether you need a doohickey or spell to do so.
That is, to me, why I consider the two genres (High Fantasy and Science Fiction) indistinguishable. Anything you want to have done, can - the only difference is the explanation (our fancy science / magic) and the looks (stick or box/pistol. Ball or box).
Which is another reason why I phrased the question here very specifically to exclude that discussion, I was attempting to avoid the same scenario developing here. So if you want to discuss that possibility, please, let's keep it civil and no attacking each other.
I've been working steadfastly on the basis of my belief, spelled out above. Others in this thread are acting like "since it's different words, it's different".
For those in this thread who know where this is aimed at - answer me this. The only genre, as I posted above, that is "disqualified" from any attempts to convince me that Star Trek can survive, fairly intact, is "high fantasy". You can go "low magic" to "no magic" fantasy if you want - because you can't just whip out 430 "phaser wands" to arm your 430 person crew - or magno-babble your way through a technobabble issue - those fantasy levels don't have that much magic.
Explain to me your conversion process and reasons why it can pull off the concept of this thread - Star Trek without Sci-Fi.
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
It is kind of odd how fantasy tends to get subdivided into high and low subdivisions, while sci-fi gets subdivided into hard and soft subdivisions. The hardness and softness in question referring to how accurate the science is in the so called science fiction. Star Trek has always leaned very much into soft sci-fi, with its science being largely in name only.
In reality the biggest contribution the series scientific advisors had was providing a list of technical words to the writers who then just randomly plugged them into blank spots in the script. This in essence is why Star Trek would translate so well into a high fantasy setting, as the science was just a mask for commonly used fantasy tropes.
Either way you view it, if you strip out the compatible sci-fantasy elements from Star Trek you really don't have much left to work with. The fantasy elements are part of Star Trek's strength, not its weakness.
Others in this thread are acting like "since it's different words, it's different".
Words yes, technology, not so much.
I'll choose an example, my favorite trek weapon, the TR-116.
It's got a microtransporter attached below the barrel, a targeting scope that can scan through physical matter.
I couldn't find any more data about the internal construction, but during the scene, Ezri snaps on a seperate module, which either might be the ammo cartridge or the gunpowder store, possibly both.
And then we have tricorders, which have an array of data chips, a holographic display screen, a scanning device (optional direction module available) and a power cell.
That's why I made the distinction,a magical object is nothing but a lump of wood or whatever with special properties imbued.
Can you imagine any Trek engineer having one of the famed technobabble discussions about an object that has nothing at all inside it?
Like if a warp core was just a giant crystal, a view screen was just a scrying pool, etc.
And that's my primary reason for making the distinction, I understand the tech just fine, like it's logical, has a reason to work the way it does.
A component can fail, pull it out, repair it or replace it.
Reconfigure the internal components if you want it to do something other then what it was intended.
Computer problems, rewrite the source code to apply an emergency bugfix.
Case in point, there is a sci-fi show that had a device called a plasma card.
The shown functions are a holographic datastore, a phaseshifter, manipulating energy distortions and as a remote control unit for their technology.
When asked how it works, if there's any circuitry, the owner replies "It's a little more complicated then that", but doesn't elaborate.
In this scene, you can see there's a hexagonal grid on it, overlaid on a bulky section.
Now with all of this information, I theorised about how it might work, given that the owners are stated to interact with "energy", it would most likely contain an energy matrix that their unique energy fields can interact with.
And then we get to the interesting part, the most used function is an electrical siphon, used to artificially simulate an environmental condition from their homeworld that doesn't exist on our planet, high levels of ambient electricity (they absorb it through the skin on their arms, it's vital to sustaining their life energy).
Which is one of the properties of Omega particles in some sci-fi stories, it has an effect on electrical power sources.
Yes, that's right, a technology both the Borg and the Federation have failed to master, they've turned it into a portable computer!
And I worked all of that out with barely any information supplied at all!
If I was listening to someone babble on about how they needed more of the magic potion to restart the crystal's teleporting power and the only place to get more is from the enchanted lakes of BlahBlah, guarded by the fearsome Orcs of Bloodbath, I find all of that boring, because I just don't understand it. It's like the metaphorical equivalent of watching a non-english language movie without subtitles, I don't know what the heck is going on and thus, tune it all out.
Which means I'm not really watching it at all, just waiting for the scene where somebody does something I do understand.
Even an Age of Sail version would at least have to follow some fairly realistic principles, like oiling the wood to keep it from rotting, coiling the rope so it flows out smoothly when someone pulls on the loose end, making sure the tackle block is smoothed neatly so that the rope doesn't jam when it slides through it or any one of a 100 tasks you need to do in order to keep a ship seaworthy.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
You know, Marcus, you keep banging that "SJW" hammer as if it means something. But if so-called "SJWs" had a problem with using the "greedy Jew" stereotype in place of Ferengi because it's anti-Semitic, they'd be right to say so. The stereotype was created by anti-Semitism.
Back in the day, Jews were legally barred in a lot of Christian countries from pursuing any occupation other than shopkeepers, bankers, moneylenders, etc. So they did those jobs because they had to live, and then got accused of being greedy for daring to try to actually be good at the only thing anti-Semites allowed them to do.
This is quite a bit different from a species created to be a strawman of laissez-faire capitalism for Roddenberry to stack his socialist Federation against. And Star Trek uses the strawman completely unironically. If you tried to do the same with Jewish financiers you WOULD be being anti-Semitic!
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
You know, Marcus, you keep banging that "SJW" hammer as if it means something. But if so-called "SJWs" had a problem with using the "greedy Jew" stereotype in place of Ferengi because it's anti-Semitic, they'd be right to say so. The stereotype was created by anti-Semitism.
Back in the day, Jews were legally barred in a lot of Christian countries from pursuing any occupation other than shopkeepers, bankers, moneylenders, etc. So they did those jobs because they had to live, and then got accused of being greedy for daring to try to actually be good at the only thing anti-Semites allowed them to do.
This is quite a bit different from a species created to be a strawman of laissez-faire capitalism for Roddenberry to stack his socialist Federation against. And Star Trek uses the strawman completely unironically. If you tried to do the same with Jewish financiers you WOULD be being anti-Semitic!
Oh it does mean something... SJWs are a cancer on society who insist on everyone else complying with their demands... Who insist on censoring free-speech and literature which they consider 'problematic'... I'm not going to debate if a stereotype is created by a group or by those who take objection to it, but I do object to censorship of creativity and freedom of speech. People should be free to say/create any work they feel inspired to do. Others have the right to dislike it. They have the right to say that they dislike it. They do not, however, have the right, to the arrogance to presume that if they 'raise an objection', that it will be met and complied with. Orwellian intellectual fascism at its peak. Look at the comments on patrickngo's recent piece of speculative Klingon history, where someone tried to insist that he remove the implied threat of state-mandated procreation... It utterly sickens me that people like this are going to be tomorrow's world leaders and heads of business and industry. Absolutely sickens me to the core.
#LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ. For ALL, not just the self-proclaimed 'socially conscious'...
[Edit to add] No! Historical (or contemporary) accuracy is not anti-Semitic! For example: Objecting to Isreal on a political level is not anti-Semitism. Some may claim that it is, but it is not... Hating on Jewish people because they're Jewish, that is anti-Semitism, something I will have no part of.
Honestly, you both bring up valid points. You also make some non-trivial mistakes, namely dismissing those exact points and attacking whatever's left afterwards.
(In other words, you're both right and should take note of that instead of saying the other is wrong. )
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
And that's my primary reason for making the distinction, I understand the tech just fine, like it's logical, has a reason to work the way it does.
For example, Star Trek "works" within a given "ruleset", that predefines what the technological innovations can and cannot do within the milieu. Both you and I are fairly, if not intimately, familiar with this particular "ruleset", which differs from the "ruleset" of what Star Wars, or Battlestar Galactica, or Buck Rodgers, or Orson Wells' Martians, used. Even though, in all these cases, nearly identical fantastical effects can be generated from a "technological" source.
Magic is much the same way. Skyrim uses a different magic system than Everquest, which are both different than Dungeons and Dragons. However, in all these cases, nearly identical fantastical effects can be generated from a "magical" source.
The "issue" at this point is that, for whatever reason, you haven't necessarily taken the time to become as "intimately familiar" with the workings of even one magic system, while I have worked with Dungeons and Dragons' system enough to become an adroit mage player and Dungeon Master over some fairly magical campaigns. (Note, this is not a knock on you, it took me till high school to really become interested enough in role playing to bother to learn the D&D magic ruleset as I did, while I was trying to figure out Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica at 5-6 years old...)
Case in point, there is a sci-fi show that had a device called a plasma card.
The shown functions are a holographic datastore, a phaseshifter, manipulating energy distortions and as a remote control unit for their technology.
When asked how it works, if there's any circuitry, the owner replies "It's a little more complicated then that", but doesn't elaborate.
In this scene, you can see there's a hexagonal grid on it, overlaid on a bulky section.
Now with all of this information, I theorised about how it might work, given that the owners are stated to interact with "energy", it would most likely contain an energy matrix that their unique energy fields can interact with. And then we get to the interesting part, the most used function is an electrical siphon, used to artificially simulate an environmental condition from their homeworld that doesn't exist on our planet, high levels of ambient electricity (they absorb it through the skin on their arms, it's vital to sustaining their life energy).
Which is one of the properties of Omega particles in some sci-fi stories, it has an effect on electrical power sources.
Yes, that's right, a technology both the Borg and the Federation have failed to master, they've turned it into a portable computer!
And I worked all of that out with barely any information supplied at all!
Okay, sounds alright when you attempt to compare this milieu's technological ruleset to the "Star Trek" Omega Molecule "ruleset", but "on it's own", I'd say the bolded subcomponent of this multi-function tool is a weather generator or straight up power generator.
Reason I go weather generator? Isn't the scientific principle behind lightning explained more-or-less as "an area of ambient electrical charge is generated through the interactions between different thermal regions of atmosphere, and as this "packet of charge" passes by a grounded area that "lacks" sufficient charge, the electricity overcomes standard atmospheric resistance and arcs from the area of charge to the area lacking charge as 'lightning'"?
And modern electrical power generators are based off this same principle, generate "areas of ambient electrical charge" that can then be corralled through highly conductive wiring instead of having to "arc" dangerously...
Viewpoints. Rulesets. Grounds of Comparison. All "key" things to help us relate these "fantastical" stories into something that our minds can understand and comprehend.
As I said earlier, in the D&D Magic ruleset, one can enchant a rod (like a King's Scepter) or wand (like Harry Potter's) to contain what the milieu calls "Finger of Death" (kill setting), "Disintegrate" (obvious), "Sleep" (stun), and "Heat Metal (or object)" (for the "let's warm up a rock" scene") spells and thereby create a pseudo-phaser, that has about "300 levels" of shots (equivalent of powerpack) before needing to be "recharged" through the magical item recharge process - and through the spell level system this would limit the "weapon" to say 50 "kill" shots and allow the tracking of proportional amounts of energy use when mixing the "stun/sleep" and "kill/disintegrate" functions.
Here's two more "conversions" of some Star Trek stuffs to "magic" - and I'm gonna be a big "vague" on the exact ruleset behind the magic uses of each one, but you can probably get the picture...
"Hello, I'm Mage Eurthyr. Today, I'd like to present to you, Ms. Ezri, this repeating crossbow I've termed the TR-116. As you might notice, I've added a mirror here, on the stock. Like many other "fantasy" mirrors, this one is the focus of a special "detection" enchantment, when you verbally name a target, the detection enchantment looks straight ahead in the direction that the crossbow is pointed to find you that target, if it is within range of the magics, and despite whatever materials may be in the way between you and it. Once you find that target, the detection spell coordinates with the mini portable gateway spell at the front of the bow, placing the other end of the gate right on top of your desired target, so that when you shoot the bolt it enters the gate as it leaves the bow, exiting the gate immediately adjacent to the target's skin doing "appropriate" damage.
Scene Setup: "Healer McCoy" became crazed from some yet unknown influence, and jumped through a magic portal that sped him through both time and space to a period of the dark ages, in the ancient fiefdom of Kinshire - where the noble that would eventually give rise to King Arnuki lived. Somehow, history rewrote itself leaving Knight Kirk and his elven-featured Mage Spock unaffected due to their proximity to the magics of the portal. They elect to find their wayward compatriot, and hopefully return history to it's proper course...
A few days into their adventure, Knight Kirk returns to their cave with a handful of specifically shaped shells and a fortunately found raw sapphire, and Mage Spock finishes up some incantations. "How goes the rituals, Spock?" "These ancient materials do not focus my divinations in the exact manner I am accustomed to. I spend my days varying the innotations and pacings of my invocations in an effort to find the exact combination that will work with these particular foci. I see you have found me a sapphire. I will study it to see if it can be cut and used as a better focus with these other materials. Soon, we will know the location of not only the healer, but where he will interact with the one person who needs to die in a stampede instead of distracting the assassin of King Arnuki's ancestor".
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
@dareau
Unfortunately, this is always going to be my mental stumbling block, no matter how much it is explained to me, magic just doesn't make sense to me. Never has, never will.
And I know this from experience, having played Guild Wars 1. I know I was always double checking the spell to find out what it did, because I could never remember!
Often 5 times in the middle of battle, that's not very practical.
In the end, I just gave up, if the rules weren't making sense to me, then that is a fairly firm indication fantasy style entertainment isn't my cup of cocoa (I don't like tea or coffee ).
Plus, there is another factor I haven't addressed here, but will share, just in case it makes my point of view more understandable.
NCSoft cancelled my first sci-fi mmo as part of an intentional policy to force all of those customers to play a fantasy mmo they had just created. I learned that this was their plan all along, that they had no intention of supporting Tabula Rasa long term as they hated sci-fi, but loved fantasy.
This is not my supposition, it is known fact, because both Richard Garriot and the creators of Blackstar sued NCSoft independently over this issue. And won their court cases.
That is why I began to resent fantasy, because I felt it was diminishing sci-fi by the very fact of it's existence.
And my disatisfaction just grew from there, as I keep seeing more fantasy entertainment, but very little sci-fi come out to balance it.
The plasma card was not a weather generator or a power source, both those points were confirmed onscreen by the operators.
It was a plot point several times that it could only use existing electrical energy, either from a lightning storm or nearby electrical systems, it couldn't create the power itself.
This is shown when the operators set the power level to 200% and the entire town goes dark, they drained too much energy from every electrical device that was currently operating at the time.
In one episode, it caused a severe problem because it was pulling a major electrical storm around like a magnet!
So it had to have Omega particles in it's energy matrix, because it was stated elsewhere that Omega particles have an effect on electricity.
The primary example given (not in this show) was an experimental Omega particle generator had accidentally been set to overload and then stolen, it had to be located and shutdown before it generated a planetwide particle event which would prevent any electrical energy from being generated permanently, thereby bringing about the end of technology forever.
And as one additional point to support this theory, when one of the operators is asked why she's so concerned with protecting the plasma card, she answers enigmatically "it's the key to everything".
Since both attempts by the Borg and Starfleet caused a massive spatial rift, this could be taken as evidence, if you knew how to control Omega particles perfectly, it might well allow you to do "anything", the "everything" referenced by the operator.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
what was here before is below, wound up quoting myself instead of editing...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Unfortunately, this is always going to be my mental stumbling block, no matter how much it is explained to me, magic just doesn't make sense to me. Never has, never will.
And I know this from experience, having played Guild Wars 1. I know I was always double checking the spell to find out what it did, because I could never remember!
Often 5 times in the middle of battle, that's not very practical.
In the end, I just gave up, if the rules weren't making sense to me, then that is a fairly firm indication fantasy style entertainment isn't my cup of cocoa (I don't like tea or coffee ).
Plus, there is another factor I haven't addressed here, but will share, just in case it makes my point of view more understandable.
NCSoft cancelled my first sci-fi mmo as part of an intentional policy to force all of those customers to play a fantasy mmo they had just created. I learned that this was their plan all along, that they had no intention of supporting Tabula Rasa long term as they hated sci-fi, but loved fantasy.
This is not my supposition, it is known fact, because both Richard Garriot and the creators of Blackstar sued NCSoft independently over this issue. And won their court cases.
That is why I began to resent fantasy, because I felt it was diminishing sci-fi by the very fact of it's existence.
And my disatisfaction just grew from there, as I keep seeing more fantasy entertainment, but very little sci-fi come out to balance it.
Perfectly understandable. I hope that you're taking my posts more as an attempt at "education" and not a "you must come to accept this"...
And for the record, learning a magic system fully is, like learning any other "system/ruleset", gonna take "referencing" things. You wouldn't believe how many times I glanced into Wizardry's, Ultima's or Final Fantasy's manuals to make sure that that the fancy spell-name that I was picking was going to provide the effect I wanted...
And so, one last comparison:
Star Wars Jedi/Sith are, if I had to pick one, the "most appropriate" Science Fictional analogue to the Magic User in many (not all, but many) Fantasy settings...
Both "types" of character accesses some sort of "universal power source" that may or may not be directly accessible by the masses, honed through intense amounts of training, practice, and apprenticeship, to perform feats outside of "mortal ken", in accordance with the "ruleset" ascribed to the power source.
Whether it's the "light and dark sides of the force" or "magical fields"... One can say Lucas attempted to "science fictionify" the "segregation" that occurs between "magic users" and "non magic users" in certain fantasy milieus through the concept of "midi chloridans" - "having" them was the "scientific" reason the Jedi/Sith could tap into the Force, instead of the always generic "you have a natural affinity to magic, you should become a mage"...
And on the plasma card, since I never saw the series, it was a quick stab at it. However, if I'm reading your secondary explanations better, could you perhaps compare the "energy suck" of this plasma card to, say, a Breen Energy Syphon? Another way of sucking power without access to Omega Tech?
As a kid, I vaguely remember a few "superhero" shows where the star had access to lots of electrical control, and in at least one instance said "star" needed so much electricity for his stunt that he blacked out all of LA. Hazy memories makes me think it was Automan (some dude who had a computerized "cursor" blip that did a lot of the farther-out things...) Mentioned because he did the same thing as your plasma card wielder, blacked out a city because of tremendous power drain...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
And that's my primary reason for making the distinction, I understand the tech just fine, like it's logical, has a reason to work the way it does.
For example, Star Trek "works" within a given "ruleset", that predefines what the technological innovations can and cannot do within the milieu. Both you and I are fairly, if not intimately, familiar with this particular "ruleset", which differs from the "ruleset" of what Star Wars, or Battlestar Galactica, or Buck Rodgers, or Orson Wells' Martians, used. Even though, in all these cases, nearly identical fantastical effects can be generated from a "technological" source.
Magic is much the same way. Skyrim uses a different magic system than Everquest, which are both different than Dungeons and Dragons. However, in all these cases, nearly identical fantastical effects can be generated from a "magical" source.
The "issue" at this point is that, for whatever reason, you haven't necessarily taken the time to become as "intimately familiar" with the workings of even one magic system, while I have worked with Dungeons and Dragons' system enough to become an adroit mage player and Dungeon Master over some fairly magical campaigns. (Note, this is not a knock on you, it took me till high school to really become interested enough in role playing to bother to learn the D&D magic ruleset as I did, while I was trying to figure out Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica at 5-6 years old...)
Pfft. Anybody who thinks Star Trek has "rules" about technology must not have watched much of it. The only rule it abides by is how many nonsense words you need to string together to explain it this week, and even that's inconsistent.
You want sci-fi with consistent rules? Stargate "wormhole physics" are thataway.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
^Yeah, but silliness isn't the point. That the rules are often silly doesn't take away from the fact that they're set in stone and consistently applied and explored.
- You need seven symbols to go to another gate inside the galaxy, eight to go to another galaxy (another "area code"). Nine dials a specific gate by its "serial number". - You need power of some kind to run a gate, usually electric, but strong heat sources work too. Energy consumption is proportional to distance traveled. - Black holes and solar flares are bad news. - Mass that is caught in the initial blast wave of an opening gate, or that tries to travel back through an incoming gate, is disintegrated.
Et cetera. They sometimes, often, add new rules, but they don't break ones that have previously been established and often further explore the implications of the rules.
Or take Element Zero in Mass Effect. It is silly and impossible, but the ability to apply a negative charge and generate a negative mass zone or a positive charge for a positive mass zone underpins virtually technology in the setting, from FTL to holograms. The rules are laid out, they're consistent, the implications lead to new plot elements.
But Treknobabble is just gibberish that rarely works the same way twice. It doesn't mean a damn thing.
Post edited by starswordc on
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
@dareau
I did try to read your theorised magic TR-116 post, but each time I did so, all that was running through my mind was "silly magic stuff and nonsense".
Please don't interpret that as maligning your writing abilities, just as further evidence I don't understand magic.
For example, I can come up with 10 different sci-fi concepts, but not one single magic one.
Ultimately I think this just proves that no matter how hard I try, fantasy/magic will never something I can ever appreciate as much as scif-fi.
And now, let's apply that principle to Fantasy Trek (still can't think of a better name!)
Suppose that's what had been on tv, my instinctive reaction would be "oh no, not another one" and instantly start looking for another show to watch.
Which is what I think each time I see a new fantasy franchise, it's just another one of several that already exist, they're just not original/creative enough.
Is the above how viewers at the time would have reacted?
That is wasn't unique enough and so, it didn't win the fans.
I don't actually know what was on tv at the time (besides the B&W Classic Who episodes), so I don't have enough data yet to run that speculative analysis.
As regards the Plasma card having some other kind of internal power source, I honestly it could use anything but Omega molecules, because of the vast amount of energy it uses when switched to maximum power output.
One of the plot points was using it to send a message to their home planet.
What is shown here is the first two attempts.
The first one used 1000 orbital satellites as an aggregate transmitter to give the plasma card the necessary range to send the signal.
When the first attempt failed, they used a displacement field and a nearby electrical storm to give the signal more power.
To give you an idea of how far the signal is going, the receiving planet is several galaxies away!
You'd need a lot of power to make that happen, especially considering the first attempt wasn't using any external power at all, just the plasma card's energy.
Also, given that it used to create spatial distortions for it's phaseshifting function and it does this during the second attempt, I connected that to a controlled version of the omega particle rift generation that resulted from both failures in Star Trek.
Yes, I think it was Automan.
The energy required to project his physical form and holographic devices required so much energy from the power grid, he could only do so when the grid was at it's moment of least consumption, 11:00pm to 6:00am I think, when everyone was sleeping and not using their electrical powered devices.
There was a line of dialogue in one episode where he says "I can feel everything turning on, alarm clocks, televisions, toasters" as he fades away due to the fact he stayed active longer then he should have, going back into standby mode as the power grid can't sustain his projection with power consumption spiking back to normal.
As regards Star Wars, I have always been highly dubious as to whether it is true sci-fi.
I hold it up as the one example that could be translated to fantasy very easily, because it is already most of the way there.
I bought a technical book hoping it would tell me more about the design of a Star Destroyer and all I got was an incomplete map.
Not even a full map and definitely not anything describing the tech, that about sums up Star Wars for me, it's wizards and sorceresses in space.
Now if you want a good example of how science and magic can blend, Will Vandom.
She is imbued with magical power, but since that power gives her control over energy, she's a "best of both worlds" girl.
Use a magic spell on her, she'll absorb the energy.
Use a taser or a laser beam, she'll absorb that too.
If it uses energy, no matter the source, she can control that energy and make it do whatever she wants.
Sometimes she even makes forcefields and a few times, non-solid holograms.
Post edited by tilarta on
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
@tilarta Star Wars is basically as much sci-fi as StarCraft or any other setting that uses high amounts of psionic capability (WH40k, from what I've heard, is also a good comparison?). They both go equally far off the deep end (compare Abeloth, the Celestials or various other high-tier Force users to the likes of Amon, the Keystone or Kerrigan) when powerful psionics are in the area.
That being said, while starship schematics do seem to be hard to come by, basic operating principles for technologies like blasters, lightsabers and various starship components have been explored well enough that Wookieepedia can do what your tech manual can't.
^Yeah, but silliness isn't the point. That the rules are often silly doesn't take away from the fact that they're set in stone and consistently applied and explored.
- You need seven symbols to go to another gate inside the galaxy, eight to go to another galaxy (another "area code"). Nine dials a specific gate by its "serial number".
- You need power of some kind to run a gate, usually electric, but strong heat sources work too. Energy consumption is proportional to distance traveled.
- Black holes and solar flares are bad news.
- Mass that is caught in the initial blast wave of an opening gate, or that tries to travel back through an incoming gate, is disintegrated.
Et cetera. They sometimes, often, add new rules, but they don't break ones that have previously been established and often further explore the implications of the rules.
That's not technically correct. Mostly correct, yes, but there have been exceptions where they either ignored something or broke/bent previous rules. These are just the ones I can remember offhand:
Stargate transmits matter in discrete packets (SGA: Thirty-Eight Minutes) - except when it transmits one part and cuts off the other (SG-1: The Torment of Tantalus). Bending was definitely taking place here.
Unstable vortex disintegrates anything... but they never think to use it on an Ori Supergate.
Point of origin symbol is unique to each stargate (just about every time they mention it) - except the one on Earth's Alpha gate is somehow present on every gate in the Milky Way (SGU).
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
the earth POI being on every gate isn't the show's fault - they cannot create a different gate prop EVERY time they want to create a new world - the cost would be beyond measure
though, i don't understand why, to avoid that, they didn't just design the prop so the glyphs could be detached - then they could've just used that single gate prop and swap out points of origin as needed for the scene
or just make it a pure CGI creation - that would've been an even better solution
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
the earth POI being on every gate isn't the show's fault - they cannot create a different gate prop EVERY time they want to create a new world - the cost would be beyond measure
though, i don't understand why, to avoid that, they didn't just design the prop so the glyphs could be detached - then they could've just used that single gate prop and swap out points of origin as needed for the scene
or just make it a pure CGI creation - that would've been an even better solution
The prop may have been made for the original Stagate movie, so they may not have been expecting to use it again for a television show. This was in the mid-90s. For reference, go see Babylon 5's CGI in 'The Gathering'. CGI wasn't really up to replacing whole parts of a live-action set yet. It's why Star Trek still used models with CGI enhancements until Enterprise.
I did try to read your theorised magic TR-116 post, but each time I did so, all that was running through my mind was "silly magic stuff and nonsense".
Please don't interpret that as maligning your writing abilities, just as further evidence I don't understand magic.
For example, I can come up with 10 different sci-fi concepts, but not one single magic one.
Ultimately I think this just proves that no matter how hard I try, fantasy/magic will never something I can ever appreciate as much as scif-fi.
No offense taken. This can be quite the... interesting... concept to explain, especially on a forum, to someone who's lacking the comparative sources to make this infinitely easier...
Did you at least comprehend that I replaced "micro transporter", aka "science fictional cheat to get bullet immediately from weapon to target" with "gateway magical cheat to get bolt immediately from weapon to target"?
Did you at least get that the "magical mirror with super-awesome see through anything "detect" spell cheat" is the targeting screen that can cheat and see through solid matter?
Did you notice that I picked a specific type of crossbow just so that Ezri could have her "lock and load" moment?
If so, then you might be starting to get my point, even though you can't exactly "replicate" it.
Remember, my ultimate point is that any "nigh impossible to exist" concept that needs a science-fictional explanation to exist can be explained with "magic" instead.
It'll look different, sure. In some cases, like my little scene where "Magical Spock" is having a hard time casting the detection spell that will tell him what he got out of the Tricorder during "City on the Edge of Forever", it'll "play out" different. But, can someone who's got enough grounding in both Magical and Science Fictional systems, find enough ways to convert, plot point for plot point, scene for scene, Star Trek from it's Sci-Fi to Sea Trek and Magic? 100% absolutely.
Which brings us back to the concept of this thread. I contend that, because said "conversion" is nothing but a facelift, there is no "fundamental" change to the show. At which point, one can presume that based on the acting, strength of scripts, etc., other than losing the audience that "loves sci-fi but can't stomach fantasy" for whatever reason (distaste of visuals, distaste of using "magic" as the cheat - even though Sci-Fi "promises" an at least semi-consistent ruleset as to what the technologies can and can't do, Star Trek really didn't deliver, etc.) and possibly gaining the inverse - as an entertainment property, "(Fantastical) Sea Trek" would work exactly as what we have now. As to cultural impact, obviously not. (what reason would we have to name the test shuttle "Enterprise" without rabid Sci-Fi fans wanting the first "reusable spacecraft" of the Earth named after the "famous" spaceship? Would someone cite "Sea Trek" as the inspiration behind flip-open cellular phones?)
And I then continue that without either "cheat system" in place (ie, pull anything science fictional or a "cheap" magical replacement) - as the thread title spells out (and at least, to me, implies) - "Star Trek" wouldn't exist at all.
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Comments
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
They kept saying ES was just the same as Fallout, that sci-fi and fantasy are the same thing, so I should enjoy it just as much. I didn't agree, because I believe they are seperate genres, asked that they respect my opinion and it just went downhill from there.
To be fair, some of them did, but the majority just went to war because they weren't getting their way in converting me to their way of thinking. In the end, I think it was more about forcing me to play ES/become an ES fan then it was actually caring about the debate.
Which is another reason why I phrased the question here very specifically to exclude that discussion, I was attempting to avoid the same scenario developing here. So if you want to discuss that possibility, please, let's keep it civil and no attacking each other.
To be truthful, I have no data as to what motivates a fantasy fan.
What do they enjoy? What gets them invested?
Alternatively, what pushes them away? What don't they like?
If I knew the answers to those questions, I might be able to make a better comparison re: Star Trek-Sea Trek-whatever you'd call the fantasy version.
I assume just having money isn't enough to construct a Ferengi analogue,
That you need a nation/landmass, shipyards, lumber, steel, borders to defend etc.
Even a fleet of pirate ships or civilian vessels couldn't stand up to the might of the British empire in the Age of Sail, especially if they were going after a flagship, like they did in some episodes.
You'd have to find a culture that believed that getting wealthy was all that mattered and had the resources to back that up, since it's doubtful anyone would want to support an enemy fleet who was theiving/pirating from them all the time.
And just for pure awesomeness, using chainshot to knock a dragon out of the sky.
I do enjoy some fantasy, but my standards are very high/specific when it comes to this genre, most franchises/productions simply don't reach the height of that bar.
I'm even stricter when it comes to computer games, especially mmos, even if they only have a little fantasy in them.
But I think that's a discussion we shouldn't go into here, as it would be derailing.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
I love sci-fi, I hate fantasy... (I can deal with the levels in Harry Potter, but stuff like Lord of the Rings leaves me as cold as an Andorian winter...) I love how Grand Theft Auto IV and V mention a spoof/satire called 'Loot and W@nk'' (
With regards the second, insert the Israeli Navy*, and Jewish-stereotypes...
*I know, no such thing as 'Israel' in the Age of Sail, but a little Creative License isn't the same as wandering into the realms of Fantasy
Honestly, I really do think the EIC is a much better analogue for the Ferengi. The EIC had it's own private military, would go to any lengths to make a profit (see, Opium Wars) and operated all across the world, not just India. They were a monopoly on all trade coming out of British-ruled India (and later British trade with China). And yes, EIC merchants did indulge in many illicit acts (including piracy, smuggling, etc.), it's just that they didn't do it openly.
Also, treating Jewish traders like the Ferengi has the one major flaw of motivation. Jewish merchant families pursued wealth for very different reasons than the Ferengi, mainly because in most European countries, they were barred from owning land. I'm going to leave it there, because I don't wish to derail this thread, but suffice it to say that the Jewish stereotype is not applicable to the Ferengi.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I'm very sad to say, but you're very wrong about that... :-\
Source.
Hence my above comments on the matter...
Officially, no, but in all practicality they ruled India themselves with little regard to the wills of the Crown. They went to war on their own terms, fielded their own military, collected their own taxes... They were effectively a proxy state which continued until the government finally had enough of it and had the Rajas swear fealty to Victoria as their Empress so the company could be disbanded.
Being based on a medieval stereotype of Jews =/= being a valid analogue to Jews. I could make a sure where there was a species which were self-absorbed, fiercely independent, drank nothing but a specific leaf-based drink and had a fanatical devotion to their monarch, but that wouldn't be a fair analogue to the British, would it?
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
Of course not. I despise the monarchy. I do like tea though.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Strawman... It literally doesn't matter that you could make sure there was a British-analogue... The fact is, Gene was an anti-Semite, and the Ferengi were created based along the lines of the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes. Hence why telling The Ferengi Tales with Jewish characters, would only be met with mass accusations of anti-Semitism... I can't tell you just how much that saddens me for that to be the case, but sadly it's the truth...
So don't tell them with Jewish characters.
For instance, the East India Company deliberately facilitated the smuggling of Opium into China, causing most of the populous to become addicted, intentionally violating Chinese law, just so they could sell tea at a profit (at the time, Britain spent 80% of its GDP on the tea trade). That is a very Ferengi thing to do.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
Interestingly enough, sometimes you need to be a little... careful... with "fantasy" fans. Because there is, in a way, three "different" enough styles that get lumped together in the "fantasy" umbrella.
There's "no magic" fantasy - where none of the "regulars" have access to magic, it's something that's in the monsters of old and ancient artifacts. If anyone's getting magic "now", it's through a deal with a demon of some sorts or other "evil" source.
There's "low magic" fantasy - Conan, Knights of the Round Table, etc. There's a few mages, magic's actually around, but it takes massive rituals or potion brewing or other long-term things to produce "relatively minor" magical effects.
Then there's "high magic" fantasy - Dungeons & Dragons, Everquest, Warcraft, to a point Once Upon a Time (ABC TV) levels - magic on demand, pretty much, to do whatever is allowed/neccessary.
Sounds like those guys, and in a way me, "track" these distinctions and call the "high magic" Skyrim (because your magic power is pretty much "on demand" like sword swinging, and there's a lot of different spells) almost as "science fiction" as Fallout was. Why would we do that?
Since we're talking Star Trek, let's see what we could do within the basis of "high magic" to get ourselves some "Science Fiction", specifically Star Trek, tools:
Phaser? Enchant a wand with "heat object", "sleep", "death ray", "disintegrate".
Tricorder? Clairvoyance (to see far), detect life (to see if there's life there), Identify (to determine composition), etc. If item must be involved, crystal ball.
Force Field Generator? Barrier spell.
Deflector screens/shields? Same magic that creates the Dungeons & Dragons item "Bracers of Defense" / spell "Mage Armor" but on a larger scale.
Viewscreen? Magic mirror or scrying pool.
And this is but a taste. Basically, when you're tossing enough "magic" in your setting to be considered "High" Fantasy, anything you can dream up a technobabble device to make the impossible happen with can be done by "magic", whether you need a doohickey or spell to do so.
That is, to me, why I consider the two genres (High Fantasy and Science Fiction) indistinguishable. Anything you want to have done, can - the only difference is the explanation (our fancy science / magic) and the looks (stick or box/pistol. Ball or box).
I've been working steadfastly on the basis of my belief, spelled out above. Others in this thread are acting like "since it's different words, it's different".
For those in this thread who know where this is aimed at - answer me this. The only genre, as I posted above, that is "disqualified" from any attempts to convince me that Star Trek can survive, fairly intact, is "high fantasy". You can go "low magic" to "no magic" fantasy if you want - because you can't just whip out 430 "phaser wands" to arm your 430 person crew - or magno-babble your way through a technobabble issue - those fantasy levels don't have that much magic.
Explain to me your conversion process and reasons why it can pull off the concept of this thread - Star Trek without Sci-Fi.
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
In reality the biggest contribution the series scientific advisors had was providing a list of technical words to the writers who then just randomly plugged them into blank spots in the script. This in essence is why Star Trek would translate so well into a high fantasy setting, as the science was just a mask for commonly used fantasy tropes.
Either way you view it, if you strip out the compatible sci-fantasy elements from Star Trek you really don't have much left to work with. The fantasy elements are part of Star Trek's strength, not its weakness.
Words yes, technology, not so much.
I'll choose an example, my favorite trek weapon, the TR-116.
It's got a microtransporter attached below the barrel, a targeting scope that can scan through physical matter.
I couldn't find any more data about the internal construction, but during the scene, Ezri snaps on a seperate module, which either might be the ammo cartridge or the gunpowder store, possibly both.
And then we have tricorders, which have an array of data chips, a holographic display screen, a scanning device (optional direction module available) and a power cell.
That's why I made the distinction,a magical object is nothing but a lump of wood or whatever with special properties imbued.
Can you imagine any Trek engineer having one of the famed technobabble discussions about an object that has nothing at all inside it?
Like if a warp core was just a giant crystal, a view screen was just a scrying pool, etc.
And that's my primary reason for making the distinction, I understand the tech just fine, like it's logical, has a reason to work the way it does.
A component can fail, pull it out, repair it or replace it.
Reconfigure the internal components if you want it to do something other then what it was intended.
Computer problems, rewrite the source code to apply an emergency bugfix.
Case in point, there is a sci-fi show that had a device called a plasma card.
The shown functions are a holographic datastore, a phaseshifter, manipulating energy distortions and as a remote control unit for their technology.
When asked how it works, if there's any circuitry, the owner replies "It's a little more complicated then that", but doesn't elaborate.
In this scene, you can see there's a hexagonal grid on it, overlaid on a bulky section.
Now with all of this information, I theorised about how it might work, given that the owners are stated to interact with "energy", it would most likely contain an energy matrix that their unique energy fields can interact with.
And then we get to the interesting part, the most used function is an electrical siphon, used to artificially simulate an environmental condition from their homeworld that doesn't exist on our planet, high levels of ambient electricity (they absorb it through the skin on their arms, it's vital to sustaining their life energy).
Which is one of the properties of Omega particles in some sci-fi stories, it has an effect on electrical power sources.
Yes, that's right, a technology both the Borg and the Federation have failed to master, they've turned it into a portable computer!
And I worked all of that out with barely any information supplied at all!
If I was listening to someone babble on about how they needed more of the magic potion to restart the crystal's teleporting power and the only place to get more is from the enchanted lakes of BlahBlah, guarded by the fearsome Orcs of Bloodbath, I find all of that boring, because I just don't understand it. It's like the metaphorical equivalent of watching a non-english language movie without subtitles, I don't know what the heck is going on and thus, tune it all out.
Which means I'm not really watching it at all, just waiting for the scene where somebody does something I do understand.
Even an Age of Sail version would at least have to follow some fairly realistic principles, like oiling the wood to keep it from rotting, coiling the rope so it flows out smoothly when someone pulls on the loose end, making sure the tackle block is smoothed neatly so that the rope doesn't jam when it slides through it or any one of a 100 tasks you need to do in order to keep a ship seaworthy.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Back in the day, Jews were legally barred in a lot of Christian countries from pursuing any occupation other than shopkeepers, bankers, moneylenders, etc. So they did those jobs because they had to live, and then got accused of being greedy for daring to try to actually be good at the only thing anti-Semites allowed them to do.
This is quite a bit different from a species created to be a strawman of laissez-faire capitalism for Roddenberry to stack his socialist Federation against. And Star Trek uses the strawman completely unironically. If you tried to do the same with Jewish financiers you WOULD be being anti-Semitic!
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
#LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ. For ALL, not just the self-proclaimed 'socially conscious'...
[Edit to add] No! Historical (or contemporary) accuracy is not anti-Semitic! For example: Objecting to Isreal on a political level is not anti-Semitism. Some may claim that it is, but it is not... Hating on Jewish people because they're Jewish, that is anti-Semitism, something I will have no part of.
(In other words, you're both right and should take note of that instead of saying the other is wrong.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
For example, Star Trek "works" within a given "ruleset", that predefines what the technological innovations can and cannot do within the milieu. Both you and I are fairly, if not intimately, familiar with this particular "ruleset", which differs from the "ruleset" of what Star Wars, or Battlestar Galactica, or Buck Rodgers, or Orson Wells' Martians, used. Even though, in all these cases, nearly identical fantastical effects can be generated from a "technological" source.
Magic is much the same way. Skyrim uses a different magic system than Everquest, which are both different than Dungeons and Dragons. However, in all these cases, nearly identical fantastical effects can be generated from a "magical" source.
The "issue" at this point is that, for whatever reason, you haven't necessarily taken the time to become as "intimately familiar" with the workings of even one magic system, while I have worked with Dungeons and Dragons' system enough to become an adroit mage player and Dungeon Master over some fairly magical campaigns. (Note, this is not a knock on you, it took me till high school to really become interested enough in role playing to bother to learn the D&D magic ruleset as I did, while I was trying to figure out Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica at 5-6 years old...)
Okay, sounds alright when you attempt to compare this milieu's technological ruleset to the "Star Trek" Omega Molecule "ruleset", but "on it's own", I'd say the bolded subcomponent of this multi-function tool is a weather generator or straight up power generator.
Reason I go weather generator? Isn't the scientific principle behind lightning explained more-or-less as "an area of ambient electrical charge is generated through the interactions between different thermal regions of atmosphere, and as this "packet of charge" passes by a grounded area that "lacks" sufficient charge, the electricity overcomes standard atmospheric resistance and arcs from the area of charge to the area lacking charge as 'lightning'"?
And modern electrical power generators are based off this same principle, generate "areas of ambient electrical charge" that can then be corralled through highly conductive wiring instead of having to "arc" dangerously...
Viewpoints. Rulesets. Grounds of Comparison. All "key" things to help us relate these "fantastical" stories into something that our minds can understand and comprehend.
As I said earlier, in the D&D Magic ruleset, one can enchant a rod (like a King's Scepter) or wand (like Harry Potter's) to contain what the milieu calls "Finger of Death" (kill setting), "Disintegrate" (obvious), "Sleep" (stun), and "Heat Metal (or object)" (for the "let's warm up a rock" scene") spells and thereby create a pseudo-phaser, that has about "300 levels" of shots (equivalent of powerpack) before needing to be "recharged" through the magical item recharge process - and through the spell level system this would limit the "weapon" to say 50 "kill" shots and allow the tracking of proportional amounts of energy use when mixing the "stun/sleep" and "kill/disintegrate" functions.
Here's two more "conversions" of some Star Trek stuffs to "magic" - and I'm gonna be a big "vague" on the exact ruleset behind the magic uses of each one, but you can probably get the picture...
"Hello, I'm Mage Eurthyr. Today, I'd like to present to you, Ms. Ezri, this repeating crossbow I've termed the TR-116. As you might notice, I've added a mirror here, on the stock. Like many other "fantasy" mirrors, this one is the focus of a special "detection" enchantment, when you verbally name a target, the detection enchantment looks straight ahead in the direction that the crossbow is pointed to find you that target, if it is within range of the magics, and despite whatever materials may be in the way between you and it. Once you find that target, the detection spell coordinates with the mini portable gateway spell at the front of the bow, placing the other end of the gate right on top of your desired target, so that when you shoot the bolt it enters the gate as it leaves the bow, exiting the gate immediately adjacent to the target's skin doing "appropriate" damage.
Scene Setup: "Healer McCoy" became crazed from some yet unknown influence, and jumped through a magic portal that sped him through both time and space to a period of the dark ages, in the ancient fiefdom of Kinshire - where the noble that would eventually give rise to King Arnuki lived. Somehow, history rewrote itself leaving Knight Kirk and his elven-featured Mage Spock unaffected due to their proximity to the magics of the portal. They elect to find their wayward compatriot, and hopefully return history to it's proper course...
A few days into their adventure, Knight Kirk returns to their cave with a handful of specifically shaped shells and a fortunately found raw sapphire, and Mage Spock finishes up some incantations. "How goes the rituals, Spock?" "These ancient materials do not focus my divinations in the exact manner I am accustomed to. I spend my days varying the innotations and pacings of my invocations in an effort to find the exact combination that will work with these particular foci. I see you have found me a sapphire. I will study it to see if it can be cut and used as a better focus with these other materials. Soon, we will know the location of not only the healer, but where he will interact with the one person who needs to die in a stampede instead of distracting the assassin of King Arnuki's ancestor".
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Unfortunately, this is always going to be my mental stumbling block, no matter how much it is explained to me, magic just doesn't make sense to me. Never has, never will.
And I know this from experience, having played Guild Wars 1. I know I was always double checking the spell to find out what it did, because I could never remember!
Often 5 times in the middle of battle, that's not very practical.
In the end, I just gave up, if the rules weren't making sense to me, then that is a fairly firm indication fantasy style entertainment isn't my cup of cocoa (I don't like tea or coffee
Plus, there is another factor I haven't addressed here, but will share, just in case it makes my point of view more understandable.
NCSoft cancelled my first sci-fi mmo as part of an intentional policy to force all of those customers to play a fantasy mmo they had just created. I learned that this was their plan all along, that they had no intention of supporting Tabula Rasa long term as they hated sci-fi, but loved fantasy.
This is not my supposition, it is known fact, because both Richard Garriot and the creators of Blackstar sued NCSoft independently over this issue. And won their court cases.
That is why I began to resent fantasy, because I felt it was diminishing sci-fi by the very fact of it's existence.
And my disatisfaction just grew from there, as I keep seeing more fantasy entertainment, but very little sci-fi come out to balance it.
The plasma card was not a weather generator or a power source, both those points were confirmed onscreen by the operators.
It was a plot point several times that it could only use existing electrical energy, either from a lightning storm or nearby electrical systems, it couldn't create the power itself.
This is shown when the operators set the power level to 200% and the entire town goes dark, they drained too much energy from every electrical device that was currently operating at the time.
In one episode, it caused a severe problem because it was pulling a major electrical storm around like a magnet!
So it had to have Omega particles in it's energy matrix, because it was stated elsewhere that Omega particles have an effect on electricity.
The primary example given (not in this show) was an experimental Omega particle generator had accidentally been set to overload and then stolen, it had to be located and shutdown before it generated a planetwide particle event which would prevent any electrical energy from being generated permanently, thereby bringing about the end of technology forever.
And as one additional point to support this theory, when one of the operators is asked why she's so concerned with protecting the plasma card, she answers enigmatically "it's the key to everything".
Since both attempts by the Borg and Starfleet caused a massive spatial rift, this could be taken as evidence, if you knew how to control Omega particles perfectly, it might well allow you to do "anything", the "everything" referenced by the operator.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Perfectly understandable. I hope that you're taking my posts more as an attempt at "education" and not a "you must come to accept this"...
And for the record, learning a magic system fully is, like learning any other "system/ruleset", gonna take "referencing" things. You wouldn't believe how many times I glanced into Wizardry's, Ultima's or Final Fantasy's manuals to make sure that that the fancy spell-name that I was picking was going to provide the effect I wanted...
And so, one last comparison:
Star Wars Jedi/Sith are, if I had to pick one, the "most appropriate" Science Fictional analogue to the Magic User in many (not all, but many) Fantasy settings...
Both "types" of character accesses some sort of "universal power source" that may or may not be directly accessible by the masses, honed through intense amounts of training, practice, and apprenticeship, to perform feats outside of "mortal ken", in accordance with the "ruleset" ascribed to the power source.
Whether it's the "light and dark sides of the force" or "magical fields"... One can say Lucas attempted to "science fictionify" the "segregation" that occurs between "magic users" and "non magic users" in certain fantasy milieus through the concept of "midi chloridans" - "having" them was the "scientific" reason the Jedi/Sith could tap into the Force, instead of the always generic "you have a natural affinity to magic, you should become a mage"...
And on the plasma card, since I never saw the series, it was a quick stab at it. However, if I'm reading your secondary explanations better, could you perhaps compare the "energy suck" of this plasma card to, say, a Breen Energy Syphon? Another way of sucking power without access to Omega Tech?
As a kid, I vaguely remember a few "superhero" shows where the star had access to lots of electrical control, and in at least one instance said "star" needed so much electricity for his stunt that he blacked out all of LA. Hazy memories makes me think it was Automan (some dude who had a computerized "cursor" blip that did a lot of the farther-out things...) Mentioned because he did the same thing as your plasma card wielder, blacked out a city because of tremendous power drain...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Pfft. Anybody who thinks Star Trek has "rules" about technology must not have watched much of it. The only rule it abides by is how many nonsense words you need to string together to explain it this week, and even that's inconsistent.
You want sci-fi with consistent rules? Stargate "wormhole physics" are thataway.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
- You need seven symbols to go to another gate inside the galaxy, eight to go to another galaxy (another "area code"). Nine dials a specific gate by its "serial number".
- You need power of some kind to run a gate, usually electric, but strong heat sources work too. Energy consumption is proportional to distance traveled.
- Black holes and solar flares are bad news.
- Mass that is caught in the initial blast wave of an opening gate, or that tries to travel back through an incoming gate, is disintegrated.
Et cetera. They sometimes, often, add new rules, but they don't break ones that have previously been established and often further explore the implications of the rules.
Or take Element Zero in Mass Effect. It is silly and impossible, but the ability to apply a negative charge and generate a negative mass zone or a positive charge for a positive mass zone underpins virtually technology in the setting, from FTL to holograms. The rules are laid out, they're consistent, the implications lead to new plot elements.
But Treknobabble is just gibberish that rarely works the same way twice. It doesn't mean a damn thing.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
I did try to read your theorised magic TR-116 post, but each time I did so, all that was running through my mind was "silly magic stuff and nonsense".
Please don't interpret that as maligning your writing abilities, just as further evidence I don't understand magic.
For example, I can come up with 10 different sci-fi concepts, but not one single magic one.
Ultimately I think this just proves that no matter how hard I try, fantasy/magic will never something I can ever appreciate as much as scif-fi.
And now, let's apply that principle to Fantasy Trek (still can't think of a better name!)
Suppose that's what had been on tv, my instinctive reaction would be "oh no, not another one" and instantly start looking for another show to watch.
Which is what I think each time I see a new fantasy franchise, it's just another one of several that already exist, they're just not original/creative enough.
Is the above how viewers at the time would have reacted?
That is wasn't unique enough and so, it didn't win the fans.
I don't actually know what was on tv at the time (besides the B&W Classic Who episodes), so I don't have enough data yet to run that speculative analysis.
As regards the Plasma card having some other kind of internal power source, I honestly it could use anything but Omega molecules, because of the vast amount of energy it uses when switched to maximum power output.
One of the plot points was using it to send a message to their home planet.
What is shown here is the first two attempts.
The first one used 1000 orbital satellites as an aggregate transmitter to give the plasma card the necessary range to send the signal.
When the first attempt failed, they used a displacement field and a nearby electrical storm to give the signal more power.
To give you an idea of how far the signal is going, the receiving planet is several galaxies away!
You'd need a lot of power to make that happen, especially considering the first attempt wasn't using any external power at all, just the plasma card's energy.
Also, given that it used to create spatial distortions for it's phaseshifting function and it does this during the second attempt, I connected that to a controlled version of the omega particle rift generation that resulted from both failures in Star Trek.
Yes, I think it was Automan.
The energy required to project his physical form and holographic devices required so much energy from the power grid, he could only do so when the grid was at it's moment of least consumption, 11:00pm to 6:00am I think, when everyone was sleeping and not using their electrical powered devices.
There was a line of dialogue in one episode where he says "I can feel everything turning on, alarm clocks, televisions, toasters" as he fades away due to the fact he stayed active longer then he should have, going back into standby mode as the power grid can't sustain his projection with power consumption spiking back to normal.
As regards Star Wars, I have always been highly dubious as to whether it is true sci-fi.
I hold it up as the one example that could be translated to fantasy very easily, because it is already most of the way there.
I bought a technical book hoping it would tell me more about the design of a Star Destroyer and all I got was an incomplete map.
Not even a full map and definitely not anything describing the tech, that about sums up Star Wars for me, it's wizards and sorceresses in space.
Now if you want a good example of how science and magic can blend, Will Vandom.
She is imbued with magical power, but since that power gives her control over energy, she's a "best of both worlds" girl.
Use a magic spell on her, she'll absorb the energy.
Use a taser or a laser beam, she'll absorb that too.
If it uses energy, no matter the source, she can control that energy and make it do whatever she wants.
Sometimes she even makes forcefields and a few times, non-solid holograms.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
That being said, while starship schematics do seem to be hard to come by, basic operating principles for technologies like blasters, lightsabers and various starship components have been explored well enough that Wookieepedia can do what your tech manual can't.
That's not technically correct. Mostly correct, yes, but there have been exceptions where they either ignored something or broke/bent previous rules. These are just the ones I can remember offhand:
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
though, i don't understand why, to avoid that, they didn't just design the prop so the glyphs could be detached - then they could've just used that single gate prop and swap out points of origin as needed for the scene
or just make it a pure CGI creation - that would've been an even better solution
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
The prop may have been made for the original Stagate movie, so they may not have been expecting to use it again for a television show. This was in the mid-90s. For reference, go see Babylon 5's CGI in 'The Gathering'. CGI wasn't really up to replacing whole parts of a live-action set yet. It's why Star Trek still used models with CGI enhancements until Enterprise.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
No offense taken. This can be quite the... interesting... concept to explain, especially on a forum, to someone who's lacking the comparative sources to make this infinitely easier...
Did you at least comprehend that I replaced "micro transporter", aka "science fictional cheat to get bullet immediately from weapon to target" with "gateway magical cheat to get bolt immediately from weapon to target"?
Did you at least get that the "magical mirror with super-awesome see through anything "detect" spell cheat" is the targeting screen that can cheat and see through solid matter?
Did you notice that I picked a specific type of crossbow just so that Ezri could have her "lock and load" moment?
If so, then you might be starting to get my point, even though you can't exactly "replicate" it.
Remember, my ultimate point is that any "nigh impossible to exist" concept that needs a science-fictional explanation to exist can be explained with "magic" instead.
It'll look different, sure. In some cases, like my little scene where "Magical Spock" is having a hard time casting the detection spell that will tell him what he got out of the Tricorder during "City on the Edge of Forever", it'll "play out" different. But, can someone who's got enough grounding in both Magical and Science Fictional systems, find enough ways to convert, plot point for plot point, scene for scene, Star Trek from it's Sci-Fi to Sea Trek and Magic? 100% absolutely.
Which brings us back to the concept of this thread. I contend that, because said "conversion" is nothing but a facelift, there is no "fundamental" change to the show. At which point, one can presume that based on the acting, strength of scripts, etc., other than losing the audience that "loves sci-fi but can't stomach fantasy" for whatever reason (distaste of visuals, distaste of using "magic" as the cheat - even though Sci-Fi "promises" an at least semi-consistent ruleset as to what the technologies can and can't do, Star Trek really didn't deliver, etc.) and possibly gaining the inverse - as an entertainment property, "(Fantastical) Sea Trek" would work exactly as what we have now. As to cultural impact, obviously not. (what reason would we have to name the test shuttle "Enterprise" without rabid Sci-Fi fans wanting the first "reusable spacecraft" of the Earth named after the "famous" spaceship? Would someone cite "Sea Trek" as the inspiration behind flip-open cellular phones?)
And I then continue that without either "cheat system" in place (ie, pull anything science fictional or a "cheap" magical replacement) - as the thread title spells out (and at least, to me, implies) - "Star Trek" wouldn't exist at all.
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]