From: Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: SF or FF (Future Fantasy)?
Date: 30 Jul 92 06:02:55 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) writes:

> However, what do you mean by self-consistent?

By self-consistent I mean that there are no obvious contradictions in the
science of that universe.  ST:TNG is a great example of inconsistency.  The
crew is forever passing up obvious applications of their existing technology.
Self-consistency is routinely sacrificed for theatrical effect.

> How about the Telzey Amberdon stories by James Schmitz?  Set in the author's
> far-future semi-anarchy with various SF cliche technology, Telzey is taught
> telepathic abilities by a nonhuman species, and proceeds to have a variety of
> adventures.
> 
> Given that Schmitz seems to have certain laws of psionics, and that he
> extrapolates society's reaction to them, does this qualify as SF to you?

It's been a long time since I read those stories, so I can't remember the
details.  However, the parts I do remember probably do qualify as SF, as far as
the scope of the stories.

> Again, what would you say of a story that presented a FTL system with its own
> laws, implicitly or explicitly, and extrapolated from that?

I have no problem with that as SF.

> Some time ago, I wrote a(n unpublished) story in which a careless FTL
> navigator arrives back on a planet before he left, and causes havoc. Since
> this is an extrapolation of FTL and general relativity, would it feel SF to
> you?

From your description, yes.

> Does anything that doesn't "seem" to work by "known" means violate what we
> know of physical laws?

If it does work, then what we know of physical laws is incorrect.  A new theory
would have to be developed to explain the new thing as well as explaining what
the old theory did.

> To put it differently, consider three basement inventors.  One devises an
> anti-gravity machine.  One devises an FTL drive.  One devises a training
> method that allows people to be reliably telepathic.  All are SF staples. The
> first two immediately screw up general relativity, which must be drastically
> modified to accommodate the new inventions.  The third doesn't screw up
> anything known to be true or any fundamental theories I know of (there is no
> Grand Unified Theory, and I know of no fundamental theory that says there are
> no forces we don't know about).  Therefore, on a strictly scientific basis, I
> claim that psionics is less offensive than FTL travel or artificial gravity.

The third [psionics] does contradict fundamental theories.  If telepathy
provides a means of inducing a chemical reaction in one brain at a distance,
without using a known force, why hasn't it been observed already?  Such a
powerful basic force should be observable elsewhere, at least in other chemical
reactions.  Such a force that we haven't observed yet is no less likely than a
way around the lightspeed limit.  I haven't been following the GUT debates, so
I can't comment on how likely anti-gravity is considered now, though last I
heard it was still definitely impossible.

> However, the rap against psionics is we haven't reliably observed it and we
> don't know how it could work,...

...and there's no basis I've heard of for imagining that it would exist.  I
could equally claim that you can't prove that the moon is actually a giant
alien using "unknown forces" to appear as a ball of rock.  We haven't reliably
observed that it is an alien life form, and we don't know how it could live or
appear as rock, so by your argument, it's more likely than FTL.  :-)

Hey, my theory even has historical support (stories of the man in the moon),
just like psionics!  :)



ps.  I've been sending this reply telepathically, but no one seems to be
replying.  :)

--

Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca