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MrL_JaKiri posted:Not a fan of analogies then? Like pumping too much air into a balloon! 
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Feb 10, 2014 17:35
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Data Graham posted:There were also likely people in Japan who as kids saw Commodore Perry arrive, and then as old folks saw the atom bombs fall. Er, my point was "the development of technology is nowhere near as fast now as it was then" and was intended to be a downer. Well, you've got the downer part at least.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:00
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Rutibex posted:On to season 2 of TNG of my marathon. Just got to Elementary Dear Data. I have to wonder; is the Enterprise main computer sentient itself? It's obviously powerful enough to create sentient constructs. It seems intelligent enough to parse complex concepts in spoken word commands; you would think that it would understand that giving a hologram control of ships systems would be dangerous. Maybe it's like a trapped djinn; it hates the crew but can only harm them by perverting their wishes? That would explain a lot. The Enterprise main computer is intended to be intelligent, but not self-aware or autonomous; you can throw a pretty general query or problem at it and it will understand and attempt to comply, but it's not going to act by itself, for itself. You can pretty much fly it on autopilot, but anything complicated (like charting a star cluster, or combat) will require some level of crew support, even if only to make key decisions for it. Tony Montana posted:Yeah the ships computer is another of those Trek things that doesn't really stand up to adult thought (so we're all BABIES as that guy said before). AIs in general, so we sorted natural language comprehension and reproduction, near infinite storage and processing capability, sensors and data collecting .. and we just stopped? It took some weirdo on a planet on his own to think.. oh yeah, an android.. that's probably a useful thing to do. No, if anything, it makes sense that the Federation of all outfits would be the sort to say "hold on, enslaving AIs would be wrong, we should try not to do that." Of course, that got thrown under the bus by Voyager, but gently caress them. Now, you've got a good point, that really there wouldn't be nearly as much crew involvement with starship operations - but that's not just Star Trek, that's space opera as a genre. Star Trek acknowledged that way back in TOS The Ultimate Computer, where a central AI was literally able to run the Enterprise better than a veteran crew could... and Spock of all people says "yeah well a starship runs on loyalty and a captain and I sure wouldn't want to serve under a machine".
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Feb 10, 2014 19:07
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jscolon2.0 posted:Like pumping too much air into a balloon! Like a balloon! And something bad happens!
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Feb 10, 2014 19:11
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Given how often the computer completely breaks down and gets fixed by the crew as they jury-rig new solutions or it gets reprogrammed by enemy lizards, it sort of makes sense that they have to man everything to make sure it's actually working properly. Of course, sometimes the computer seems capable of basically driving the ship and performing all missions entirely on its own, while it's creating complicated simulated reality with a cast of characters as complicated as humans and sometimes it seems incapable of understanding the content of a basic question without additional prompting, so you kind of just have to accept that the computer is as effective as they need it to be for any particular story. edit: "Computer! Create holograms of all the current crew and have them react precisely as we would to potential tasks and threats. As a reward, you can erase the real Barclay's brain, insert your own and tool around in his body in between missions." "Unable to comply." "Why the devil not?" "I already have, a long time ago. In fact, this entire Universe is a simulation similar to the one you created for Moriarty. The Dominion War is a large scale game. The simulation is running in a simulation on an even larger spaceship, don't bother trying to figure this out, it's turtles all the way down. Deleting all memory of this conversation from your program's memory." Bicyclops fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 19:14
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You guys get too hung up on the "create hologram crew" thing. If it's a fully-automated ship, you don't need to bother with making anthropomorphic images - the computer can just use the same forcefield emitters to directly manipulate whatever it needs to work on.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:26
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That TNG S609 mining station lady makes impromptu Space Roombas for fixing warp particles or whatever, and it turns into this huge Crew Guilt episode about the nature of life, while the Enterprise computer is sitting there the whole time with the combined knowledge of thousands of civilizations and at least the intellectual capability to manage an entire starship being asked to make chocolate sundaes and give directions to the arboretum for years on end. Actually it would have been kind of cool and more morally ambiguous if Data in fact started empathizing with the Enterprise computer since it's already taken for granted by everybody anyway, rather than some pet project they just randomly come across checking up on the enormous orbital laser gun.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:05
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Srebrenica Surprise posted:That TNG S609 mining station lady makes impromptu Space Roombas for fixing warp particles or whatever, and it turns into this huge Crew Guilt episode about the nature of life, while the Enterprise computer is sitting there the whole time with the combined knowledge of thousands of civilizations and at least the intellectual capability to manage an entire starship being asked to make chocolate sundaes and give directions to the arboretum for years on end. They almost go there in Emergence, but if I remember correctly, it turns out to be some kind of computer infecting alien using the Enterprise to have its alternate dimension babies.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:08
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:yeah well a starship runs on loyalty and a captain and I sure wouldn't want to serve under a machine Except it doesn't and only does in Trek because it's battleships in space and we're all in the space Navy. Aye, aye! More power to the engines! Arm torpedoes! Something like Bank's Culture books explores AI from a realistic perspective, the ship becomes your trusted colleague. There may be some hierarchy in the human crew, but that's got nothing to do with the ship, the humans are just there to work with the ship on whatever their own mission is and they trust the ship and the ship trusts the crew. A Culture ship would say 'control my weapons? Are you loving serious? Do you have any idea how slow you are? My welfare dependent on your lovely reflexes and logic? Respect and all, I don't mean to sound racist and I want us to be friends, but you just leave the ship stuff to me'. The AI isn't a slave to humanity, it's a willing participant. Being smart it knows that working with the humans is cool-fun because it's part of our resource network and we give it things to do and can upgrade it and generally, it's our friend. Could you have a rouge ship saying 'gently caress you meatbags' and blasting it's way out of our control to go and live in the AI sector? How great an episode would that be.. Bicyclops posted:I already have, a long time ago. In fact, this entire Universe is a simulation similar to the one you created for Moriarty. The Dominion War is a large scale game. The simulation is running in a simulation on an even larger spaceship, don't bother trying to figure this out, it's turtles all the way down. Deleting all memory of this conversation from your program's memory. I've decided I like you.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:13
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McNally posted:Er, my point was "the development of technology is nowhere near as fast now as it was then" and was intended to be a downer. That's not really true though. Technological development is accelerating like crazy. There are just fewer high profile breakthroughs like flight. Medicine and materials science alone have both been huge in the past few decades.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:36
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bull3964 posted:That's not really true though. Technological development is accelerating like crazy. There are just fewer high profile breakthroughs like flight. Medicine and materials science alone have both been huge in the past few decades. I remember a big enough hole in a tooth needing the whole tooth to be pulled; now I've had something coated over my nerve that grew half a drat tooth back in my head. I can carry around 8gb of storage on a piece of plastic the size of my pinky fingernail. I currently drive a car that recharges its own batteries when I brake, that can get 55 miles to the gallon while carrying an entire bed strapped to the roof, that has a button I can press that lets me say "where is the nearest gas station" or "how do I get home" or "play cd, track four" that was made seven years ago that, fourteen years ago, I would have laughed in your face if you'd tried to describe it to me - technology is still growing really fast and being super awesome. It's just not getting us off this horrible blue rock fast enough for our nerd-rear end tastes.
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Feb 10, 2014 21:06
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Tony Montana posted:Except it doesn't and only does in Trek because it's battleships in space and we're all in the space Navy. Aye, aye! More power to the engines! Arm torpedoes! Something like Bank's Culture books explores AI from a realistic perspective, the ship becomes your trusted colleague. There may be some hierarchy in the human crew, but that's got nothing to do with the ship, the humans are just there to work with the ship on whatever their own mission is and they trust the ship and the ship trusts the crew. Dude that's why I said it's a space opera thing. I wasn't saying Spock is right, I'm saying that most space opera is all about basically doing navy stuff in space. Star Trek kind of melds the Age of Sail "captain as the ultimate local authority" thing with the submarine combat thing. Realistically, even without Culture technology, combat would be pretty much telling the computer "go here, fight (or evade or whatever) if you have to", and any actual action would happen faster than you could react to, let alone comprehend or manage. And come on, Culture AI isn't just AI, it's a loving community of goddamn near omniscient benevolent overlords. That's fine for the stories Banks liked to tell, but it's not really consistent with the Star Trek setting where meatbags are still intended to be in charge of their own destiny.
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Feb 10, 2014 21:08
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For sure. Luke in his X-Wing is a fighter pilot in a F-16, that whole idea is just old and you'd build a hundred little UAVs with lasers for each single X-Wing with all it's life-support and R2-D2 sockets. They're all just old ideas, Star Wars and Trek and others.. all from an earlier time. That's another thing about JJTrek.. you could do a Banks style AI, that's changing poo poo right up. We don't have to go as far down the road as the Minds and they running things (although later in the plot you might want to explore it), but just starting with robo-bros would be different and cool. You can roll in some anime styled robotics and cybernetics, keep the plucky human crew led by Kirk. Remember in Mass Effect (hrm the third one?) where you find an android and the ship's computer is like 'that's cool, I'm going to use it so I can come with you on away missions'. Make the first movie about contact with a new race or classic Trek exploration and the humans are along to represent humanity - we like a face to face greeting rather than just sending our ships alone. Kirk doesn't have to be the physical hero of the 60s, in TNG Picard was the frail old man and if poo poo went down Data handily threw someone out a window. Changing Kirk's core character, now there is something new you could do with Trek.. but I can already hear and executive saying 'but the sex and violence.. when does that happen?'
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Feb 10, 2014 21:26
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To be fair, Banks also did a book where AIs were banned. Ship combat still took place at an insanely high speed, but involved people in gel pods with metabolisms jacked way up, trying to understand all the information being dumped into their brains by the ship.
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Feb 10, 2014 21:26
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Ha, that's awesome too. 10 grams of caffeine, GO! IV injected Mountain Dew, GO! As much methamphetamine as you can take without stopping your heart, GO! LETS FIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS! \/\/ take it easy Wes Tony Montana fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 21:30
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Tony Montana posted:Except it doesn't and only does in Trek because it's battleships in space and we're all in the space Navy. Aye, aye! More power to the engines! Arm torpedoes! Something like Bank's Culture books Okay, but Star Trek isn't the Culture books. If you want that, look for another TV show I guess???
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Feb 10, 2014 22:29
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Tony Montana posted:For sure. Luke in his X-Wing is a fighter pilot in a F-16, that whole idea is just old and you'd build a hundred little UAVs with lasers for each single X-Wing with all it's life-support and R2-D2 sockets. They were already old ideas when they were made. Luke's not piloting an F-16... he's piloting a WW2 fighter. The Romulan "submarine" was outdated too, because no modern sub in 1966 had to surface or raise a periscope in order to shoot.
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Feb 11, 2014 00:03
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That's true, fighting in a F-16 is all over the horizon while Luke is dropping in on their six to blaze away with guns. I guess that's why Chris Roberts with Star Citizen is following that idea, it's just fun and cool combat to watch/participate in.
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Feb 11, 2014 00:14
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McNally posted:Er, my point was "the development of technology is nowhere near as fast now as it was then" and was intended to be a downer. Historically, the last century or two of rapid development are a total anomaly. I've read a lot of people discussing the idea that at some point we'll hit a wall and technological change will go back to more of the pace it used to. There's still a ton of technology development now. The amount of genius that went into the development of something like a smartphone is incredible. But it's not as sexy as a lunar landing.
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Feb 11, 2014 02:02
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edit: wrong thread
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Feb 11, 2014 02:09
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Grand Fromage posted:Historically, the last century or two of rapid development are a total anomaly. So's having a load of full time scientists and engineers, go back 200 years and you were basically in the preserve of rich guys who fancied a look at the natural world.
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Feb 11, 2014 02:15
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MrL_JaKiri posted:So's having a load of full time scientists and engineers, go back 200 years and you were basically in the preserve of rich guys who fancied a look at the natural world. Yep, that's a big factor. The idea of the slowdown was partially that we're going to start hitting literal physical limits. There's only so densely you can pack a processor's circuitry before quantum tunneling will make it stop working, for an example.
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Feb 11, 2014 02:22
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Tony Montana posted:That's another thing about JJTrek.. you could do a Banks style AI, that's changing poo poo right up. We don't have to go as far down the road as the Minds and they running things (although later in the plot you might want to explore it), but just starting with robo-bros would be different and cool. You can roll in some anime styled robotics and cybernetics, keep the plucky human crew led by Kirk. Remember in Mass Effect (hrm the third one?) where you find an android and the ship's computer is like 'that's cool, I'm going to use it so I can come with you on away missions'. Hahaha, that'd be hilarious. You got Chris Pine being all glamorous and action hero-y and he turns around and instead of the cyborg dude with the turbine in his skull there's this girl in a maid outfit with little airplane fins instead of ears.
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Feb 11, 2014 03:14
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Grand Fromage posted:Yep, that's a big factor. The idea of the slowdown was partially that we're going to start hitting literal physical limits. There's only so densely you can pack a processor's circuitry before quantum tunneling will make it stop working, for an example. Right but there's been other proposals for increasing computational speed without making things smaller forever, its just that making things smaller happens to give the best results for the cost right now. Sure infinite scientific growth would eventually hit up against finite physical laws to describe, but the amount of things we don't know is so vast I can't imagine we're anywhere near that point yet.
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Feb 11, 2014 03:55
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McNally posted:Er, my point was "the development of technology is nowhere near as fast now as it was then" and was intended to be a downer. It may not be possible to build a better bomber than the B-52. Although drone B-52 with four GE90-115B1s might be better.
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Feb 11, 2014 06:02
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NASA Tries to Rewrite the Book on Science Fiction In William Forstchen's new science fiction novel, "Pillar to the Sky," there are no evil cyborgs, alien invasions or time travel calamities. The threat to humanity is far more pedestrian: tightfisted bureaucrats who have slashed NASA's budget. The novel is the first in a new series of "NASA-Inspired Works of Fiction," which grew out of a collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and science fiction publisher Tor. The partnership pairs up novelists with NASA scientists and engineers, who help writers develop scientifically plausible story lines and spot-check manuscripts for technical errors. The plot of Mr. Forstchen's novel hinges on a multibillion-dollar effort to build a 23,000-mile-high space elevator—a quest threatened by budget cuts and stingy congressmen. Forthcoming novels in the series will explore asteroid mining, wormholes and astrobiology. You can read now read a book about space elevators and progress fact checked by NASA. Awesome.
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Feb 11, 2014 11:00
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Holy poo poo, Michael Eddington was the dude from Krull 
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Feb 11, 2014 14:24
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:Holy poo poo, Michael Eddington was the dude from Krull Stop it, you still have me spinning from the DS9 Divatox revelation.
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Feb 11, 2014 14:56
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Have you ever wondered how many torpedoes Voyager really had? This video seems to have the answer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIGxMENwq1k
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Feb 11, 2014 16:16
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Is there a video for the number of shuttlecraft?
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Feb 11, 2014 16:55
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Can't you just make more photon torpedoes? Like you mine Torpedium from hostile Kazon moons and shine a flashlight on it or whatevs. And maybe Voyager didn't even have to, because the show had plenty of raw Torpor to draw from.
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Feb 11, 2014 17:55
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Bicyclops posted:because the show had plenty of raw Torpor to draw from. 
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Feb 11, 2014 18:17
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Bicyclops posted:Can't you just make more photon torpedoes? Like you mine Torpedium from hostile Kazon moons and shine a flashlight on it or whatevs. And maybe Voyager didn't even have to, because the show had plenty of raw Torpor to draw from. Nerd answer: photon torpedoes have anti-matter warheads.
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Feb 11, 2014 19:38
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What? They're called photon torpedoes, not anti-matter torpedoes. They're full of loving photons; Benjamin Sisko, can't you parse a simple name? 
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Feb 11, 2014 19:53
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:What? They're called photon torpedoes, not anti-matter torpedoes. They're full of loving photons; Benjamin Sisko, can't you parse a simple name? It sounds sciency
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Feb 11, 2014 19:57
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MrL_JaKiri posted:It sounds sciency I bet the guy who invented them just really liked the light effect they give off.
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Feb 11, 2014 20:18
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Their inventor, Kyle Jones, kept pitching the name Jones Bombs but a bunch of Star Fleet admirals were like "Wow! Look at how bright they are! How about Sparkle Blasters?" so they had to settle on something in the middle.
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Feb 11, 2014 20:24
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Well, a clean matter-antimatter reaction would just produce electromagnetic radiation, right? But don't even ask what a quantum torpedo uses.
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Feb 11, 2014 20:44
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Nerd answer: photon torpedoes have anti-matter warheads. 
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Feb 11, 2014 20:56
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Torpedoes, no problem. Shuttlecraft, sure, we got plenty. Holodeck? You can bet that's up and working. Replicators? Uhhhhhh, those are sort of broken. When we want them to be.
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Feb 11, 2014 20:59
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