Babylon 5
- Thread starter Kail
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Being alien shouldn't be a problem, rather how much of the technology is using principles and techniques as yet undiscovered. For instance, if Archimedes were presented a 19th century steam locomotive, I think there is a fair chance he could work it out. But a gasoline combustion engine would be harder as the gasoline would be much harder though not impossible since they had some familiarity with oil and its flammable characteristics. The battery and electrical system would likely be a puzzler for a while though, though. A nuclear reactor, though, with computers, electronics, and its atomic fuel would need real scientific reassessment of his conception of how things work to start figuring it out. So, I guess the answer is not dissimilar to your remark about WWII technology. It would depend on how truly alien the technology was.
Switch 4 and 2 and those would probably be my rankings to. I'd probably also rank Season 5 higher than Season 1. I kind of wish Season 5 was split into like 5A and 5B, because that's really how the season went.
That's all well and good, but you ignored everything in my post. There hasn't been a new story idea in an uncountable number of years if you break it down far enough. What can be new is how a story is told. You generalized and, as such, were over-broad and vague with nothing to guide me as to what you could possibly have meant until your follow-up. I gave specifics to consider. Read my previous post and try again?
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Good point, Gov Kodos. I have come across web site which made similar speculations about reverse engineering UFOs. With a given piece of machinery you would need to: 1 figure out its purpose 2. figure out how it works 3. figure out how to build it.
Even if a genius can figure out 1 and 2, how do you figure how to build it? As an example, computer chips are made in factories with high tech machines-you would likely need to reverse engineer those machines to make chips. But you can't reverse engineer those machines because they are back at the factory.
Regarding Guy Gardener's comments, there seems to be a pattern. With Earth essentially gaining FTL through contact with the Centauri, and Narns selling weapons during the Earth-Minibari War, Earth gains technology with the cooperation of aliens.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TechnologyUplift
In this scenario, humans would be the primitives.
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On the other hand, there are plenty of examples of this successfully occurring in our own real world. Look at how many highly sophisticated American chips the Chinese and others have reverse engineered over the years. See also the aviation and defense industries; it happens all the time.
The key is having an example to examine and work from – not only to see what it's supposed to do, but also to tinker with it in order to determine how it works.
Your manufacturing process may look nothing like the original, but the result will be functional, and sometimes better than the original. I like to think that humans are capable of applying this to alien technology, so long as we can tell that it is technology. The hard part isn't manufacturing -- it's understanding. Once we understand, manufacturing is comparatively easy in most cases.
If it's so far advanced that it looks like magic, then all bets are off.
Interesting comments, Ion. The catch is, what if the technology is several centuries more advanced than yours? Or to put it differently, several technological revolutions beyond your level?
Not really since China has a similar level of technology. Were the Chinese of 2000 years ago to get a computer they would be at a loss since they wouldn't have knowledge of plastics, electronics, or the technologies or knowledge to begin unraveling what a computer is much less what it does. They would have a pretty easy time with a 19th century steam locomotive, though.On the other hand, there are plenty of examples of this successfully occurring in our own real world. Look at how many highly sophisticated American chips the Chinese and others have reverse engineered over the years. See also the aviation and defense industries; it happens all the time.
The key is having an example to examine and work from – not only to see what it's supposed to do, but also to tinker with it in order to determine how it works.
Your manufacturing process may look nothing like the original, but the result will be functional, and sometimes better than the original. I like to think that humans are capable of applying this to alien technology, so long as we can tell that it is technology. The hard part isn't manufacturing -- it's understanding. Once we understand, manufacturing is comparatively easy in most cases.
If it's so far advanced that it looks like magic, then all bets are off.
As for the magic business, that phrase of Clark's is simply an authorial hand wave to justify not explaining story contrivances or a ridiculous McGuffins like his Monolith in 2001.
Hence the last line; I didn't mean it facetiously. If we can't identify that something is a technology, and draw at least a theoretical line between our own technology and the target, there's not much that can be done.
When it comes to something they really want, humans tend to be a bit persistent. Might take us a decade or so while we "invent" the lesser sciences that we can see in play, but we'd get there eventually.
Yes, I'm an optimist. :-)
I would actually argue that point. I was actually looking for references earlier, but I couldn't find them; I do believe, however, that this essentially happened repeatedly during the Cold War years, specifically in the area of electronics (though I could be misremembering). I would consider silicon electronics and the subsequent miniaturizations to be a fairly massive leap, even just from vacuum tubes.
Maybe tomorrow, after I've slept, I'll do some research and find out if my recollection is correct or not. If I remember.
Meh, wasn't intentionally referencing Clarke. I meant it more literally. If a box drops out of the sky that works like a Star Trek transporter, but to all of our available sensory abilities (natural or technological) looks like little more than a square rock, there's really not much hope that we'll ever figure out how it works. It will look too much like a magical rock that inexplicably teleports people.
Well, unless something else intervenes and somehow explains it to us.
And if anyone has a magic transporter rock, please do send it my way. I promise, I won't try to reverse engineer it.
The Chinese had gunpowder, but also lots and lots of things a long time before we did: a mechanical clock, a compass, America, the Moon, Celine Dion - well my point is that it wasn't enough to have the thing. It's what you can do with it that makes history.
I get your feeling about that monolith, I do - particularly since I haven't read the book but am only familiar through Kubrick's film, like perhaps many other sci fi fans. But you may not be aware that in the original film script, the monolith was explained in the first scene, which actually served as a very clear and necessary plot impetus and would have made the entire film make sense. IE, not a macguffin at all. Kubrick cut the scene and changed the entire mood of his film, and left us forever wondering what the monolith could have signified. The answer is actually very specific and logical, but I don't wanna say.
On the bottom of your post you should see your:
name/ time since you posted/edit/delete/report
Just click edit and go about editing. The mods will make note after awhile if you're posting like that. All that is unless there is a minimum number of posts before the editing feature appears. I am not sure about that. Probably, in the FAQ somewhere.
Yeah, there's no edit link, presumably due to a minimum post count/account age. I think it's the latter, which is what I meant by still being too n00b.
It's been far too long since I read it (I'm pretty sure I was still in high school, and that was far too long ago) for me to remember what was actually in the book.
Like I said, might need to revisit that.
It's been a long time since I've read them, too, though Clarke is my favorite writer. But I'm pretty sure they had a good idea of what the Monolith was in 2010, but they had to have known by 2061, considering plot developments. I should re-read them, too.
The Monoliths have two jobs.
1. To periodically kick the lower life form with the most promise up the evolutionary ladder a little until they have a space program.
2. To insist that middling life forms with space programs, stay the #### away from other life being tendered to by Monoliths who are as yet unready to play well with others.
Hmmm.
I just worked out 3 & 4 right now while typing.
3. If Monoliths are building life across the galaxy (universe?) and you figure out (from the safety of Earth) how to find Monoliths with a radio telescope, or something more future-sciencey, then you will simultaneously know which solar systems have life in them, and which solar systems that you will be bared from if you think about arriving within without an invitation. Seriously if there are Monoliths engendering Alpha Centaurian life, then there's no point sending the first extrasolar ships for colonization to Alpha Centauri.
4. Once you've advanced to the point that you can hack Monoliths, or destroy Monoliths, then all those solar systems where life is being raised by Monoliths on planets that can support life, those the hell are exactly where you send your next fleet of extrasolar ships for colonization (and strip mining).
1. To periodically kick the lower life form with the most promise up the evolutionary ladder a little until they have a space program.
2. To insist that middling life forms with space programs, stay the #### away from other life being tendered to by Monoliths who are as yet unready to play well with others.
Hmmm.
I just worked out 3 & 4 right now while typing.
3. If Monoliths are building life across the galaxy (universe?) and you figure out (from the safety of Earth) how to find Monoliths with a radio telescope, or something more future-sciencey, then you will simultaneously know which solar systems have life in them, and which solar systems that you will be bared from if you think about arriving within without an invitation. Seriously if there are Monoliths engendering Alpha Centaurian life, then there's no point sending the first extrasolar ships for colonization to Alpha Centauri.
4. Once you've advanced to the point that you can hack Monoliths, or destroy Monoliths, then all those solar systems where life is being raised by Monoliths on planets that can support life, those the hell are exactly where you send your next fleet of extrasolar ships for colonization (and strip mining).
I can think of a couple advantages to having humans fairly low on the technological food chain:
1. The human race tends to be the under dog.
2. Easier to write drama. On other threads it has been commented that Trek technology may become too magical.
BTW, Arthur C. Clarke was one of the few who could convincingly write technology that is too magical, the monolith and all that.
1. The human race tends to be the under dog.
2. Easier to write drama. On other threads it has been commented that Trek technology may become too magical.
BTW, Arthur C. Clarke was one of the few who could convincingly write technology that is too magical, the monolith and all that.
On the hand, could the ancient Chinese build a mechanical computer?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage
Heck, this is almost like an alternative techline.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlternateTechline
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