Poll: Need your opinions (narrative setting).

[Spoonius]

I'll give you guys the short version.

It's a military sci-fi set 100-150 years in the future (some of you have probably seen me babbling on about it before). Until this point all my pre-planning and writing has revolved around creating as plausible and grounded a setting as possible. Believable technology, conflicts, people, environments, etc. No Hollywood glamourisation.

But... according to my brother this will all be extremely boring. He tells me I won't be able to create an engaging story in tandem with a 'realistic' setting, and that I need to throw an X factor into the mix (he suggested aliens).

To be honest I'm not sure myself. I wanted to write this way because I've never read a decent sci-fi with a totally authentic and immersive setting, but maybe they aren't common for a reason?

I'm probably taking myself too seriously, but I want to do this and am trying to acknowledge that what interests me might be boring as shit to everyone else. So... any feedback at all would would be really appreciated. :/

 

[excalipoor]

What do you consider believable technology in 100-150 years?

Boring or not; whatever you're going to write, there will likely be an audience for it. You just need to find it.

 

[madwarper]

Alternatively, why do things have to be "believable"?

If technology 100-150 years in the future can't do some unbelievable stuff, I'm sure as hell going to be disappointed.

 

[Vault101]

I'd say story and charachters and an interesting Idea (technology or otherwise) comes before setting

settings are damn hard

hence why I love Saga the comic...it throws realism out the window and goes for batshit insane yet everything is grounded because the aliens talk and act like us

But... according to my brother this will all be extremely boring. He tells me I won't be able to create an engaging story in tandem with a 'realistic' setting, and that I need to throw an X factor into the mix (he suggested aliens).

To be honest I'm not sure myself. I wanted to write this way because I've never read a decent sci-fi with a totally authentic and immersive setting, but maybe they aren't common for a reason?

if you dont want aliens dont have aliens...its your story, your setting do what you feel works

personally Ive been throwing around Ideas for a story (of the cheesy sci fi variety) but I feel that whatever I do would come across as a bad ripoff of stuff I like (mass effect, saga ect)

 

[Joccaren]

Realism can work, it just has to be a personal story that just so happens to be set in the future, or a conflict between plausible factions in the future. Don't play "ITS THE FUTURE" card too massively, and you'll get away just fine. If you do play it too much, you'll inevitably invite yourself into X-Factors either through your massive playing up, or through the fact that you playing up the fact that its the future basically foreshadows an X-Factor of some kind. What other point is there to setting it in the future?

In all reality, you might already have an X-Factor in your setting thanks to what you've said the future might be like. You don't need random stuff like aliens or FTL or Anti star system weapons for this X Factor, even cloning and robotics reaches the X-Factor level thanks to how we view such things today.

 

[Strazdas]

I'll give you guys the short version.

It's a military sci-fi set 100-150 years in the future (some of you have probably seen me babbling on about it before). Until this point all my pre-planning and writing has revolved around creating as plausible and grounded a setting as possible. Believable technology, conflicts, people, environments, etc. No Hollywood glamourisation.

But... according to my brother this will all be extremely boring. He tells me I won't be able to create an engaging story in tandem with a 'realistic' setting, and that I need to throw an X factor into the mix (he suggested aliens).

To be honest I'm not sure myself. I wanted to write this way because I've never read a decent sci-fi with a totally authentic and immersive setting, but maybe they aren't common for a reason?

I'm probably taking myself to seriously, but I want to do this and am trying to acknowledge that what interests me might be boring as shit to everyone else. So... any feedback at all would would be really appreciated. :/

tell your brother to read Elizabeth Moon and STFU. you CAN create realitsitc sci-fi.

 

[ultrachicken]

Keep in mind that "realistic" does NOT mean "boring." Technology 100-150 years in the future is going to be vastly different and very exciting. A conservative guess regarding the development of technology isn't necessarily realistic. But regardless of what you do, the characters are going to be what really drives your story.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I voted for Plausible.

You're the one writing it, not your brother. If your brother wants aliens, tell him to write his own goddamn story. Seriously.

Sell-outs who cave to popular demand might strike it rich from time to time from popularity, but what they don't get is the feeling of fulfillment achieved from expressing their creative side in the manner they most desire.

Not to mention that the popularity from being a sell-out almost never lasts very long, while the people who produce art from their heart and soul tend to be remembered from generation to generation.

So if you're in it just for the popularity, go with the X-Factor. But if you're in it for the artistic expression, go with your personal ideals for the story. Either way, there's an audience for pretty much everything these days, and the internet has made it easier than ever before to find and connect with them. Even if only one person enjoys it, you've still brightened someone's day.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

Just add dinosaurs.

Seriously though, your brother is completely wrong, you can certainly make a great story with or without this 'X factor' thrown into the mix, the deciding factor of a great story isn't the setting or context[footnote]Though this can certainly help market a story[/footnote] but the skill of the writer.

 

[Squilookle]

Er, can you give us a tad more information about it than just 'It's a military sci-fi set 100-150 years in the future'? I'd need to know a hell of a lot more about what you've already got before deciding if you need something more...

 

[SckizoBoy]

snip

Question: how advanced is space travel in this future of yours?

I only ask because I'd recommend reading the Forever War by Joe Haldeman... great book, with aliens as well and is fairly plausible.

At the end of it all, it's your story, so you can do whatever the hell you like with it. And ask someone else's opinion, not just your brother's. It may be completely different. However, I would say that you do need something that is beyond the realm of current speculative technology to make it have a sense of futurism... *shrug* I'unno... :/

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

It's okay to want to make your setting plausible, but don't focus too much on the setting or you won't get any work done, (you'll find yourself getting hung up on little details that really don't matter in the larger scheme of things). I'd say instead focus on the story and characters and really make sure they develop well. Remember that the setting is just the backdrop for the characters, you won't be able to include all these world details in the written work.

As for a plausible setting being boring, don't worry about that. As long as the characters are interesting, the setting can be as plausible or whimsical as you want. I would suggest against aliens however, although "plausible" aliens would be cool, who really knows what a "plausible" alien would look like? You'd find yourself thinking about the evolution of an entire planet, or you'd end up going the generic, overused tentacle, slime, little green men, tall gray men, rip off of something else, alien route.

Basically, do what you want, don't get hung up on little world details, focus on characters. I'd suggest keeping the setting to one planet again for the interest of not making your head explode.

 

[Loonyyy]

1) Plausible technology 100 years in the future is going to be highly speculative, and "realism" is an odd goal, which doesn't really add so much as restrict you. So you really do have some freedom, because no matter what you say, it's going to be crazy wrong, and that's fine. So have fun. If you want a grounded sci-fi, just make sure you obey the current hard rules of physics and you'll be set. I find that Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game did that well (Even if he did cheat with FTL Comms).
2) No, you don't need aliens or anything to spice it up. People watch CSI, people read Tom Clancy, people watch James Bond. You don't need to be fantastical, just engaging. You can spray interesting stuff everywhere in an attempt to be interesting, but that's cheap, and not very effective. If you've got a focus, and you do what you're doing well, you'll get interest. If you've got interesting drama, action, intrigue or mystery, then people will like it. Aliens would be a cheap ploy, unless that was to be your focus.

It's okay to want to make your setting plausible, but don't focus too much on the setting or you won't get any work done, (you'll find yourself getting hung up on little details that really don't matter in the larger scheme of things). I'd say instead focus on the story and characters and really make sure they develop well. Remember that the setting is just the backdrop for the characters, you won't be able to include all these world details in the written work.

As for a plausible setting being boring, don't worry about that. As long as the characters are interesting, the setting can be as plausible or whimsical as you want. I would suggest against aliens however, although "plausible" aliens would be cool, who really knows what a "plausible" alien would look like? You'd find yourself thinking about the evolution of an entire planet, or you'd end up going the generic, overused tentacle, slime, little green men, tall gray men, rip off of something else, alien route.

Basically, do what you want, don't get hung up on little world details, focus on characters. I'd suggest keeping the setting to one planet again for the interest of not making your head explode.

Also, listen to this guy. It's easy to get focused designing a world and folklore, but then you end up with some kinda boring material (Think the Silmarillion: Great worldbuilding, amazing detail, snoozer of a read). The narrative is more important. That's what people are going to read. If the other stuff isn't there, you've lost time. You need enough of a setting to write, and you can fill it in as you go. It's tempting to flesh out everything, but then if you change something, all the dependencies make it a hassle.

 

[Lectori Salutem]

Depends on your audience. I, for one, have no problems with 'hard' sci-fi and generally enjoy work of the likes of Arthur C. Clarke and Ben Bova. (Though those two are very focussed on science, I don't know any hard science fiction in a future military setting)

It's very much possible creating an engaging story against such a backdrop, though you might want to watch the pacing. It's easy to spend too much time detailing the setting, rather than focussing on the story/characters.

 

[Spoonius]

Thanks for the intelligent replies guys, I always know I can count on the Escapist!

Alternatively, why do things have to be "believable"?

Mainly because I believe that making things as plausible as possible will result in maximum immersion, and will lend authenticity to the subject matter (which is pretty theoretical at times).

Er, can you give us a tad more information about it than just 'It's a military sci-fi set 100-150 years in the future'? I'd need to know a hell of a lot more about what you've already got before deciding if you need something more...

A conflict (initially) over dwindling resources, set in the south-east Pacific. The story follows the protagonist (a young recruit) and his section-members over several years as they gradually become further and further embroiled in a war which keeps escalating and expanding. The characters and futuristic setting will be the real driving forces behind the narrative, assuming I do them well enough.

I know it might sound like boring subject matter, but hopefully the inclusion of scientific advancements in areas such as nanotechnology, fusion, robotics and AI (as well as speculation on the future status of the Earth) will give the story enough flavour to keep people interested. I also have some unique ideas in mind that I think will shake things up enough on their own.

Question: how advanced is space travel in this future of yours?

Civilian space flight is almost purely tourism-based (too economically and logistically inefficient and unsustainable for regular transport when compared to intra-atmospheric transport) and limited to nearby bodies (Earth, the Moon, maybe Mars).

Certain militaries around the world have established permanent space stations, each housing a significant complement of troops and allowing them to deploy anywhere in the world on short notice. Some also serve as orbital batteries, armed with advanced space-to-surface weapons and point defence systems, or carry aerial drones that can attack space, air and/or ground targets.

Exploratory space travel is accomplished by an ever-largening network of millions/billions/trillions of nanotech reconnaissance drones, deployed omni-directionally from Earth. Each initial drone is able to replicate itself numerous times using pre-packaged materials, and replicated drones can salvage additional materials from extraterrestrial sources in order to continue the reproductive process. Each drone is able to act as a communications relay linking all drones back to a command nexus on Earth, and software updates broadcast from Earth allow far away drones to reconfigure the next generation of drones on the fly.

In all honesty I don't know how realistic all that is, it's one of the areas I still need to research properly...

 

[worldruler8]

Exploratory space travel is accomplished by an ever-largening network of millions/billions/trillions of nanotech reconnaissance drones, deployed omni-directionally from Earth. Each initial drone is able to replicate itself numerous times using pre-packaged materials, and replicated drones can salvage additional materials from extraterrestrial sources in order to continue the reproductive process. Each drone is able to act as a communications relay linking all drones back to a command nexus on Earth, and software updates broadcast from Earth allow far away drones to reconfigure the next generation of drones on the fly.

In all honesty I don't know how realistic all that is, it's one of the areas I still need to research properly...

Gonna have to stop you right there, because that idea triggered an alarm for me. I have to ask you to clarify, is this nano-drone array for the solar system, or to other systems? Because the two have different issues and rules you will have to follow.

If it is a array within the solar system, then realize that:

1: Just because it is the future doesn't mean you can ignore orbital mechanics. "omni-directional" isn't as straight forward as you put it. If you want to go to Mars, you don't just point the rocket where Mars is and just activate the thrust. It's much more complicated than that, you'd have to leave the orbit of the Earth, which means you will then be orbiting the Sun, then increase your velocity so your orbit will go "higher" (farther from your orbited body) to where Mars's orbits, and happen to reach that point as soon as Mars does. This is why NASA missions have set times of launch, if you wait a few days, the amount of fuel you'd need to change your orbital direction could be crippling.

2: Unless you dabble into quantum mechanics, relays that are far away from Earth will have to obey the speed of light. If your relays are at the distance of the Sun from the Earth, it will take 8 minutes and 20 seconds until the one at Earth gets it. This delay can be annoying, and could make live discussion between the Moon and Earth (1.3 second delay. both ways) aggravating, and conversations farther away more easily used with "email" style communication (IE, you sent, but don't expect a quick lively discussion. similar to a forum like this. only your post doesn't exist until a few minutes after you post it.). So quantum mechanics can change this, with a little something called quantum entanglement, which is an odd effect where two particles "linked" will react the same way, regardless of distance between the objects. This technology isn't even a technology, so if your universe has it, it will most likely not be miniaturized to the point that the nanobots use it.

3: Everything in space is moving. Your nanobots won't be frozen in space, they'd be orbiting the Sun with the planets, which means relays would need to know that in January, you need to send your message through a different path then on August. Basically, learn orbital mechanics. Learn Kepler's 3 laws, and play kerbal space program. It has a free demo, and is one of the few games that take into account gravity at the point of being unholy realistic.


If it is going past our realm, and to the stars themselves, the previous points apply, but there is more as well.

4: Stars are really far apart. Really REALLY far apart. unless your universe has FTL modes of travel, your nanobots will be under extreme issues that will render them useless. The nanobots will need some sort of mode of propulsion, and if they are truly "nano", then that thrust will be minuscule. They would be the equivalent of planting a tree, which won't give you its fruit for hundreds of thousands of years. They'd need to have enough thrust to overpower the gravity of the Sun (I assume they would be launched from a body orbiting Earth) and have the fuel to launch out of the orbit from the Sun. (you will always be orbiting the Sun until the gravitational pull from the nearest star is stronger than the Sun)

5: The time delay will be extremely crippling. If you had colonies, it'd be like the European colonies in the 1600's. You wouldn't know the colony's current state of affairs, but rather would know of its history. And this delay would be equivalent of how far away the colony is in light-time. If it is 4.3 light-years away, if you send a message, they will not respond until 8.6 years. The reports you would recieve from them would be 4.3 years old. If they died from famine, disaster, or mutiny, you would not know until 4.3 years after it happened, assuming they sent an emergency signal. The colony would have to be self-sufficient.

I hope that clarified a few things. I'd talk about the rest of the points, but I'd need to know more about your work. I don't even know if half of these points I made are even relevant to your work.

 

[Spoonius]

That's a really interesting post, thanks.

Just to clarify, I envisioned it as a massive multinational project partially or completely spanning our solar system. Not really a means of communication between colonies or anything, just a joint cataloguing effort of the immediate known universe (for various reasons).

This article had a big influence on my thought processes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining
Such asteroids would be located, analysed, mapped and catalogued by the drones, which would then relay coordinates, trajectories and other assorted data back to the nexus on Earth. That's just one example of how I figured it would work.

You have a point about fuel and thrust though, I'm not sure what I could do there?

 

[worldruler8]

One solution is they aren't nanobots. Just have them be drones that are larger, but behave similarly to the Curiosity Rover en masse, and for asteroids. You could have several looking for asteroids, then have other drones designed to hook onto the asteroids so you'd have a real-time (with a delay, but asteroids won't sneak up on you) info on where they are. Would also be interesting if this info could then be sold to private markets. I'd go more into this but it's getting late

 

[Furbyz]

I voted for plausible because, if you don't have your heart in it, it will just ring flat. I don't know how good a writer you are, and I'm not saying you couldn't write the same story but with aliens well. I've just noticed that labors of love tend to be more special than something that panders for the sake of pandering.

Write something you love, that you can be proud of. Don't compromise unless it's what you want to do.

 

[Spoonius]

Thanks so much guys, over 90% of you said plausible so I'm definitely taking that advice to heart.

Time to buckle down while I have the opportunity... I've been procrastinating for ages and it's so exciting to finally be writing it! The prologue's almost done.

.

I just had one more question if that's ok?

I write in a fairly long-winded way. I'll admit that. I use a lot of lengthy adjectives at times, something that my only proofreaders so far have pointed out. My brother wouldn't even finish the first sentence (not joking, he saw the word "therapeutically" halfway through and stopped right there).

-_-

So my question: is it better to keep writing the way I do, or try to simplify everything? The current style lets me convey more information but streamlining would definitely increase readability.