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Harder and Softer Science fiction: a discussion

Soban

Soban

Convention Veteran
One of the things that I've noticed recently is that although Star Army isn't hard science fiction, there seem to be some friction between those who want a much harder perspective on physics vs the already established soft elements of the setting. One example would be Zesuainum which is a superlative material that is nigh impossible to destroy. However, there are several ways in universe to destroy it, several of which are actually fairly common. I could probably list a lot of examples. What technologies are there in SARP that diverge strongly from real scientific principles? What are the things that are hard to accept and should we change the setting to be harder then it is currently? What pieces of the setting do you think are vital to know for someone just coming into the setting?
 
Personally I don't think there's much of a benefit to SARP if we try to go harder science. SARPs community isn't built around people with a background in the sciences like some sci-fi forums are so the closer we get to 'real' with the science the more difficult it becomes for people to create content, and the more difficult it becomes for the NTSE to check content. It would also require more knowledge of our GMs with how things react with each other.

Plus the image SARP already gives is 'bright high paced shounen anime", going more hard science(enough to really reap any of it's benefits) could result in that image changing(by accident or intent) and us losing our demographic. We could also accidentally invalidate some our of more iconic technology.

There's nothing wrong with Hard Sci-fi stuff in my opinion, but I don't really think hard sci-fi is for SARP as a whole. (There are some GMs and pots that benefit from it though)
 
I think the setting is "sci-fi with no overt magic." If you want to go hard then do it and nobody will complain (unless it's too technical and then it's usually un-approvable), but nobody's going to care if you have a "rail plasma gun" and can't explain how it works. Kind of like Star Trek is; sometimes Trek tries to explain things and sometimes they have bio-gel computers.
 
I think its fine if you wanna make something cool. But it should be believable in scale and proportions and fits within the limits of the setting and should be easy to understand how it works for the layman.

Ithink if you are creating something it should make sense. That even a layman can read that article and understand somwhat on how it works. So we dont get just technobabble bullshittery that clearly is just ad-libbed science terms to make it believable. (Theres a reason, Despite nepleslia having aether tech they dont use it. Im not describing any of that in an article cause aether just doesnt make a lick of sense to me and is just hot-topic science words that kind of make me not want to use this weird impossible to understand thingamajig in my ships other than one single one so oudated its mention of its aether weaponry is just that it exists on the ship... Plus its just not nep enough like a big ol super cannon~)

Frankly put; Anything out there super cool you want to make exists in some Sci-fi thing or another and ye can just look that up as an example. A little googling goes a long way compared to making something that frankly makes no sense and will get you jumped in the NTSE not just by the mods but by people who have an inkling of X on that topic (Like what i do with some weapons articles cause i actually know how a lot of weapons platforms work compared to most people here. It just makes it more immersive if it makes sense~)
 
I personally think that providing a scientific basis and bending the rules of science would be a better option than having science that is extremely loose. By that I mean using basic scientific principles to explain how things work. An example we're all familiar with would be something like a kinetic weapon.

We all know, even those of us that aren't scientific geniuses, that kinetic weapons do their damage by imparting energy onto the target causing things to shred, tear, bend, bruise and otherwise deform physically. Energy weapons work by imparting thermal energy which causes chemical reactions in the target to cause damage such as lasers burning skin and boiling the blood to cause steam powered explosions on a person.

That said, my personal argument for harder science stems not from explanation but from use. Currently, we have weapons that would cause extinction events across entire planets with a single shot that are being used to destroy or disable an enemy ship. In my opinion, worthless as it may be, these weapons would bring about an end of warfare anywhere in the setting because war would be so terrible and so cheap that everyone would resort to it first rather than peace talks and diplomacy.

Another argument for slightly more scientific explanations of things would be to look at Yamatai. Yamatai, as the example, has Aether and the ability to create matter from energy. Either of these technologies by themselves are hard to integrate into a setting. But with Aether's ability to generate unlimited energy and the ability to create matter from energy, this comes across as setting breaking. Further expansion on this example; Yamatai has the ability to effectively create infinite amounts of mass of any material they desire. Why do they not simply create unending hordes of robots (which can be done cheaply if god tier AI exist) that can simply overwhelm an enemy with numbers even with highly antiquated weapons and take over not only the Kikyo sector but the entire universe? Simply because an arbitrary force of an OOC person says that they cannot?

I get having rules OOCly on IC things. However, when the rules are simply the only thing keeping something from happening, the level of immersion into a setting rapidly dwindles for those of us that have invested years into our scientific knowledge. It isn't to say that things need to be hard scifi necessarily. Just harder than they are now. I know I'm new but I am not stupid and I am well-read when it comes to genres like this. The most successful ones make you nearly forget that you're a person reading a book and suck you into a world so vibrant and expansive you almost can't believe it isn't real already.
 
The problem there is that everything would change massively if we just lowered the power of the weapons. Because most of the energy from our weapons comes from their speed. Which is used to keep up with the speed of other objects in setting. Things in this setting are incredibly fast just in general, and lots of speeds would have to change just to slow down weapons. And then it would start to domino because other things would have to change because of the speed changes and so on and so forth.

Also as for aether there actually are restrictions on that, in that Aether is 'unlimited' but there is limits to the 'saturation' of aether. Long story short, only so much can be used at a time in any given region of space before it needs to 'recharge'. So that was already taken care of to create IC reasons to keep Aether from going crazy.
 
From the perspective of an engineer:

All these ships are terribly designed and if it weren't for faction metals they would tear themselves apart.

I'm not a well educated person when compared to other engineers. Aeronautics isn't my field of study. I'm a mechatronic engineer. I work with robots. Pretty cool, eh?

But here's how we break the rule: use aether to create more aether then use that aether to create more aether then use that to create more aether. Repeat ad Infinium until you have enough to do whatever you want. You've already broken physics once as well as chemistry and thermodynamics. Why not do so again?

Things in this setting are fast, sure. So why not make space battles a game of cat and mouse where he who finds the other first, wins? It wouldn't even need much to modify the setting. You'd just have to start implementing sensors and ways to determine if ships have the capability to detect one another, how much time it takes and how they do so. Tachyon sensors could be used to detect FTL signatures, for example. These could be used to alert others that someone or something has entered/exited the system they're in. It might not be exact but it would say 'hey, I exist'.

Other sensors could be involved which implies not only that we can keep the setting relatively the same but also vastly improve and detail it even more than before.
 
Funny you mention aether, as far as i knew its explained as “pure energy ripped from another dimension” and thats the best anyone knows about it lil
 
Or just read RP, learn, and be okay with the way things have always been done because the setting is good.
 
You can't use aether to create 'more' aether. Because Aether tech doesn't create something from 'nothing' it creates something form aether. So you can't make more aether than you already had. So that shuts that down completely. Aether also isn't something that can really be 'stored' without 'decay' in large quantities in the setting. (You'll notice most aether powered things actually draw in aether the moment of use)

As for the space battles, you're talking about changing the nature of the RP with that. And so not to be rude, but that is just plain a wrong answer. Because then it's not SARP anymore, it's something different using the name.
 
This is your opinion @raz which doesn't provide me much to go on other than 'trust me, I'm a doctor'.

However the point remains, even if Aether can't be used to create more Aether, that certain things like this either need to be vastly more detailed or need to be reworked.

I know this won't hold much sway here as scientific inquiry seems to be relatively subservient to cool graphics and CGI in modern times but I come from a different time and a different generation. Star Trek was never great because "flashy light" and "cool tech". Star Trek was great because at the time the people that made it took the scientific concepts that they knew, expanded upon them with fiction, and used it to create a universe that many fans still enjoy today.

I'm sure everyone has noticed how newer Star Trek movies and shows have forsaken 'energy to matter'. We've disproven it so many times scientifically that at this point the technology needed to do it is magic. Scientifically without going into too much detail and an hour long lecture, you need an infinite amount of energy to create any mass at all.

I understand that there are some die hard SARP fans out there. But settings are not built to remain the same and stagnate. Settings are built in order to modify and perfect them over time. They require hard work, dedication and sacrifice. I am certain most of you know my situation and why my content is hard to build here with the contract I have with my publisher. I'm also certain most of you probably don't give a damn about that. But I will say this much; it took twenty years to build that setting. I did so alone with no help from anyone else until very, very recently. Here, you have hundreds of people to help you rebuild the setting. And we can even find IC ways to implement these changes so that everyone's super weapon can remain canon and cannon without simply wiping the setting. There are thousands of ways to do this. But the point is... that setting I built? It is STILL not perfect. There is always room to improve and always room to make the next adventure and to leave an audience stunned in awe at the beauty of the universe.

In this universe, characters have become largely unrelatable from the view of an outsider. We have characters here that aren't even phased by the beauty of an alien sun setting over an unexplored world. We have characters that are arguably criminally insane that would rather spend all their days in war and chaos than to ever step foot into normal society; the same such people that we lock behind bars for their aggressive nature and eventually for their crimes they commit against humanity and nature.

Worthless as my two cents are, two cents stacked on top eventually equals a dollar and a dollar can get a candy bar at least.
 
Rascaldees said:
This is your opinion @raz which doesn't provide me much to go on other than 'trust me, I'm a doctor'.
Click to expand...
You're supposed to adapt to the setting you decide to participate in because you enjoy what's there, not the other way around.
 
One of the things I hear said to new players that really eases some concerns from them is this: "SARP is soft sci fi, it's not hard sci fi." We don't need to go harder, since that was asked, for this reason and for more. Like it's been said, making it harder would change so much in our setting, lore, and established roleplay, as well as what I mentioned in that it's a very welcoming environment to new players. It's fun for me to think of this soft science and how much more freeing it is for the imagination as a GM, and I am always looking forward to seeing what submissions will be made that make use of the wide range of possibilities.

Hard sci fi is also funny to me, because in order to make space future, you will have to make theoretical works and act like they're real and usable and you believe in them 100% when... so many "future" technologies made in sci fi of past that were written as based in our present and even our past are so laughably wrong and either never came to pass or were so totally off base that they're also laughable. So saying something is soft is saying, imo, like we as writers don't expect this to parallel reality, we just want to make some good stories and are making tech that will help us achieve that goal.

Also, reading the RP and being okay with the way things have always been done is a big part of joining a community and contributing to it. You are here to expound on what has happened and is happening, not to write the way you want to write without worrying about the past of the site. If you want to write your own way with your own rules, writing a book or two is pretty easy and I'd recommend that.
 
Or maybe we make alterations and decisions based on the mutual enjoyment of all parties rather than a single individual? I have tried to provide compromises and yet no one here seems interested in discussing them and instead insists they are correct in their opinions.
 
Rascaldees said:
Or maybe we make alterations and decisions based on the mutual enjoyment of all parties rather than a single individual? I have tried to provide compromises and yet no one here seems interested in discussing them and instead insists they are correct in their opinions.
Click to expand...
It's because you're the "single individual."
 
In the end, the best alterations and decisions are made not because someone yells loudly about them.
 
We are here to discuss about what we want in terms of the setting. To gain clarity about how we feel about the hardness of the setting of Star Army and some of the pain points in terms of the technology. Rascaldees is correct that we need to pay attention to the enjoyment of everyone and not just the individuals. Raz is also correct that Star Army is an established setting and there are going to be some Magic A is Magic A's that you are going to need to accept to be a part at it.

Please don't snipe at each other, this is a discussion not a fight.
 
And I agree with that @Ametheliana however I am not the only person that believes this to be the case. There are quite a few people here that agree with me but unfortunately the site politics OOC also make it hard for anyone to approach anyone about anything it would seem. There are quite a number of people watching this thread that are too afraid others will abuse their power in order to silence the opposition rather than attempting to be reasonable and talk it out. Me? I just don't care. Let people watch what I do and watch for any mistake that can potentially lead to a ban. That's fine. I can do the same thing.

Personally I'd prefer it if those certain people SPOKE UP but I doubt that they will.
 
If anyone is watching this thread and feel that they can't speak up due to fear of a ban or something, feel free to contact me on Discord and talk to me privately about the issue and I'll do my best to help insert some of your thoughts into the conversation. Even if they don't make it to the thread, I will listen to them.
 
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