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1 hour ago, Alienkiller said:

Scifi/Fantasy is in some cases not that anymore. Some of that could realised in the last 60 Years.

Yeah that is definitely true. Scifi authors spend their days imagining what lies next in technological advancement, so they are almost always going to beat the scientists and engineers who strive to bring those ideas into reality.

I think my complaint is that there are weak applications of future technologies. Like the way that the first Xenonauts game uses fusion in grenades. Maybe I'm wrong, but to me that sounds like that is not only impractical in terms of technology, but also implausible in terms of the science. So, whilst I am happy to have imaginary fusion technology, it doesn't feel right when that fusion technology is applied to handheld grenades. The problem is that you are asked to believe in miniaturised fusion technology ... ok, not too hard ... but all you get out of it is a slightly bigger boom ... not very satisfying, especially given that grenades tend to work using chemical explosives.

On the other hand, I'm not a physicist, so I don't even know for sure if fusion grenades are silly. And I don't think all scifi has to obey some rules of realism. It can just be for fun. As @ApolloZani said, the original xcom had pink mutons in green suits, thumping thrones in a pretty cheesy 80's fashion. A lot of the best scifi (think Ursula K Le Guin) doesn't even try and dig in to the rules of what is possible and plausible. But I think that when these games include research reports that give a science explainer, well, is it too much to ask for that explainer not to revolve around mumbo jumbo?

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Not everything will be practicable in the next 100 Years. There we all convinced about that. There I don´t disagree with the Scientists etc.

But we need SciFi Games, Movies and Series today. If we don´t have them and the others with Visions (Books etc.) we all were still not there were we are now.

 

 

 

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On ‎7‎/‎30‎/‎2020 at 2:58 AM, ApolloZani said:

@TrashMan

That's kinda the point? XCOM stuff is all science fantasy.

Not an argument. It's not a binary 0 or 1. It's a scale. And you can choose where you are on that scale.

There's a big difference between science-fiction and fantasy, in that one tries to keep things believable/within certain bound. Not necessarily real, but also not outright breaking every scientific law 100 times over.

I mean, if "it's fantasy" is justification, then ANYTHING can be justified. Literally everything. Humans could fart lighting. 2+2 = fish. You can become thin by eating more. Aliens could be literal space wizzard complete with pointy hats and beards and magic chanting.

 

Even in something like 40K (which is hillariously a thousand times more grounded than Marvel or DC), there's clear limitations. Space marines cross large distances by leaping bounds, because moving your legs faster in heavy armor just doesn't (and wouldn't) cut it. Super-heavy armor (Terminator) feels sluggish, not because it's slow (a space marine can run in it faster than a human can run), but because momentum due to it's sheer size and weight makes changing direction/turning rather difficult. A Repulsor (hover) tank crushes thing it flies over like it had tracks, because it's kept afloat by repulsing itself of the ground, not magically hovering.

 

But even when you write aliens doing incredible things, you can write them in a way that breaks less physical laws for the exact same effect. For example, the alien ship jumps out (hyperspace/subspace/wormhole instead of super-duper acceleration). Tough, to be fair, insane acceleration could be possible if you could generate a field that uniformely applies the acceleration to everything. Maybe.

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On ‎7‎/‎30‎/‎2020 at 6:42 PM, Ninothree said:

Yeah that is definitely true. Scifi authors spend their days imagining what lies next in technological advancement, so they are almost always going to beat the scientists and engineers who strive to bring those ideas into reality.

I think my complaint is that there are weak applications of future technologies. Like the way that the first Xenonauts game uses fusion in grenades. Maybe I'm wrong, but to me that sounds like that is not only impractical in terms of technology, but also implausible in terms of the science. So, whilst I am happy to have imaginary fusion technology, it doesn't feel right when that fusion technology is applied to handheld grenades. The problem is that you are asked to believe in miniaturised fusion technology ... ok, not too hard ... but all you get out of it is a slightly bigger boom ... not very satisfying, especially given that grenades tend to work using chemical explosives.

On the other hand, I'm not a physicist, so I don't even know for sure if fusion grenades are silly. And I don't think all scifi has to obey some rules of realism. It can just be for fun. As @ApolloZani said, the original xcom had pink mutons in green suits, thumping thrones in a pretty cheesy 80's fashion. A lot of the best scifi (think Ursula K Le Guin) doesn't even try and dig in to the rules of what is possible and plausible. But I think that when these games include research reports that give a science explainer, well, is it too much to ask for that explainer not to revolve around mumbo jumbo?

Fusion grenades sound utterly silly. You can't throw it far enough to get outside of the nuking radius.

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Interviews: Officer

Subject is a 136cm (4'5") caesan, isolated in an airtight, psionically shielded room with invasion standard N2/O2 mix. Dr. Patel leading, communicating through microphone, alloy glass, and PSIAC-6. Excerpt begins 0h36m into recording.

Subject: "Impressive progress for fragments, the others took far longer."
Dr. Patel: "What others?"
Subject: "You've met their sequenced children. This question serves no purpose."
Dr. Patel: "You've said that before, can you tell us what purpose questions should serve?"
Subject: "Ones which will lead to your rule of us."

Cooperation began with seemingly forthcoming, if cryptic, information with resistance to any form of useful elaboration. Military and technology oriented questions were stonewalled both through verbal-visual communications and text based PSIAC transcriptions. Attempts to coerce through positive reinforcement occasionally achieved minor elucidations, but only when met with unique stimulus. The removal of limbs and other similar techniques only produced the desired effects once, after which the subject adapted and no longer showed signs of fear, pain, or disgust.

New developments were required. Psionics are fundamentally one way, they cannot be used to read minds any more than a recorded speech can have a live conversation, but there are ways around this limitation. Though psionic influence is believed to be short-term we have no way of being certain about that (hence why field teams are often kept in the dark regarding sensitive plans) and so Research did not risk themselves or anyone on-base with direct contact. Members of the general population where selected for their psionic intuition.

Conference with the subject was hardly pleasant on both sides. After several poorly conceived escape attempts from controlled members and resultant behavior that could only be described as maddness in the subject it, worryingly, proved an eager participant. Offering advice and direction that we first took as subversive to the exercise yet provided the most fruitful results. It wanted us to succeed and as of this morning, we have.

Several keystones have already emerged and so this report is simply a preliminary, beginning with the most important: Caesans are best described as officers and are not the true leaders of the invasion.

The subject in containment is more than six hundred years old and has been involved in numerous invasions of other civilizations, some more advanced than ours, others much less so. Its species was chosen as ideal commanders capable of enforcing their individual will across countless species. Elimination of an officer in the field will likely result in panic of their subordinates as well as frenzied actions of their less trained castes (reapers in particular.) While not privy to the individual mechanisms or technologies of this war, it believes in a greater design in which we are culled and breed for our psionic potential to take our place as the generals and admirals of their leader's next invasion.

We obviously cannot allow this to happen. Not only will it represent billions of lost lives but the autonomy of our entire species.

Special note: Conference has requested becoming a permanent division of our organization. They would require their own facility if you accept their petition. Research believes their agents would be far better assistants than our soldiers to Liaison, speed up these kinds of analyses, and may one day be our best choice for psionic operatives assuming PSIAC becomes field viable. Their only condition is that the cesean officer remain on-site as their teacher, a risky prospect yet not much more so than allowing returned soldiers access to entire base.

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Interviews: Engineer

Subject is a 210cm (6'10", measured in exosuit) harridan, isolated in an airtight, faraday caged, high-pressured sulphur hexafluoride atmosphere. Dr. Eze leading, communicating through microphone and video. Excerpt begins 35h01m into recording.

Dr. Eze: "Its sentences require some kind of identity checksum."
Dr. Miller: "Which is easy enough to fake, we just don't know what a superior sounds like."
Dr. Patel: "That's more progress than yesterday. How's our vocabulary coming along?"
Dr. Eze: "Slowly."

The recovered subject only understands one language and, unfortunately, it's the most used alien language we've had the least success translating. While it's more than willing to answer any question we think to ask it, the most common response amounts to, "look it up." Since we neither have access to the alien's databases nor most of the knowledge a harrdian is implanted with when cloned, much of this report comes by way of indirect reasoning.

When it first woke up it began cutting its way through the alloy platting of its containment. Only one command was needed for it to repair its own escape attempt, it then deduced the purpose of its room and began sealing itself further. Friction welding the doors shut, flattening rivets, and marking microfractures for further work before we located the proper command to stop. Testing in this regard was put on hold until a sufficient vocabulary was built, done primarily by asking the subject to identify various objects both alien and human in origin.

When testing resumed, we discovered it can fix anything.

Engineering was consulted early on and they offered several of their own tools, machines, an engine, aeronautics engineer Mr. Musk's belt, and a microwave from the staff lounge. Given time and materials, the subject not only restores any given device's function but begin making improvements. From reinforcing alloys with ceramite to molding a far more ergonomic belt buckle than any on the (failing) markets today. As unwise as it is to make use of technologies built by a captive alien we have trouble communicating with, some of the changes are benign and simple enough that several personnel have recreated test footage themselves. Without authorization.

This no doubt presents an invaluable resource, if one that requires constant vigilance. We are entirely outclassed here and mapping enough adjectives and verbs to direct its abilities may not even get desired results. It has one idea in mind per device and has difficulty adapting designs. Although Research has learned of no less than sixteen ways to build a plasma weapon out of household materials, we are no closer to understanding the principals of its operation than when the first pistol was brought in.

It does not explain itself. It simply is.

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On 8/14/2020 at 1:35 PM, ApolloZani said:

The removal of limbs and other similar techniques only produced the desired effects once

MORE TESTING.

I like the above. They are not really explanations in the traditional sense, in that they seemingly leave you with more unknowns. Which is better than [science jargon] + [hand waving] = [simple outcome]

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