7 Questionable, Yet Widely Accepted Devices in SciFi

[FordSVT]

Certainly there's no reason to think that we'll ever have the ability to travel faster than light.

Certainly pushing a massive object to light speed and beyond is impossible, but I don't think something like wormhole travel is, given the ability to harness enough energy. Not likely in the near future I would guess, but 500 or 1k or 10k years from now who knows?

I'm uncertain of the feasibility of something like the Alubcierre (warp) drive as we know it, I understand it requires far more energy than it would ever be possible to generate relativistic speeds. If it worked. Which we don't know and may very well not.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ And let's be honest, if most episodes took the time to have the UT hash things out, the action would slow down to a boring crawl. This is one of the times where it's best to let dramatic license take over. Translation simply isn't important most of the time.

 

[Distorted Humor]

^ And let's be honest, if most episodes took the time to have the UT hash things out, the action would slow down to a boring crawl. This is one of the times where it's best to let dramatic license take over. Translation simply isn't important most of the time.

I do like how Babylon 5 handles it, it has a "Universal" language code that on first contract it sends to the other ship, and the language design is so that the computers can quickly translate it though the universal language, and with decent writing, as long as the computer is quick about it, it makes good drama...exp. in first contact situations.

 

[RAMA]

Phasers-Variable lasers basically...no they may never work like fictional phasers, but yes, the basic type of weapon...projected light/energy DOES in fact already exist.
Storm Trooper’s E-11 Blaster Rifles-Well this was based on a real weapon already. But no, a small laser type weapon is not likely for many decades.
The Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver-A magical device. They tried to limit its use in old Dr Who, but in the new Dr Who, it may as well be a wand.
Exoskeletons-?????????????????????? These already exist in multiple rudimentary versions. Stupid to include this on this list.
Mouse Droids from Star Wars-I don't know what these are.
Cloaking devices-There are some theories on this...there is already some practical application requiring mirrors and the like. Metamaterials might also work. Plasma stealth is another possible active stealth technology that some claim is already being used. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_stealth
Warp Drives-The least likely of the bunch, but other ways of getting around the light speed barrier may be possible.

 

[RAMA]

Neither of those experiments have anything to do with teleportation or "tractor beams" as they're used in Star Trek and other popular science fiction - the "teleportation" is good ol' quantum entanglement again.

Throwing around inappropriate skiffy terms seems to be as good a gag as any to try to get people to read a popular science article online.

I would say the "tractor beam" in the link genuinely qualifies as an atmosphere based tractor beam. Moving objects 5ft or more with a laser could be a growth technology.

RAMA

 

[23skidoo]

Certainly there's no reason to think that we'll ever have the ability to travel faster than light.

Actually, there have been scientists who have claimed to have made atoms exceed the speed of light in a lab. So never say never. Stephen Hawking rather famously also said "I'm working on that" when he visited the set of TNG once and was shown the warp drive set.

The part of the equation that at first appears unlikely is the "travel faster than light with no relativity issues" part. But that's where the warp speed cop-out happens because the Enterprise is not going in a straight line, but taking short-cuts. Some scientists claim they can prove this is possible, too.

For me the biggest device in SciFi is the "within 10, 20, 30 years we'll be living in space cities, etc". I like to think I have confidence that someday, maybe in a few centuries, we'll have colonies on Mars and the like. But having spent 40 years almost watching manned space exploration marching in place rather than moving forward, I no longer have any confidence of seeing much happen in my remaining lifetime. So for a story, especially a recent one, to be set on a Mars colony in 2050 - I call that questionable. 2150 maybe. And whether it will fly the Stars and Stripes, the Russian flag, or that of a third party country is another matter.

Alex

 

[RAMA]

Not just for the military...

http://singularityhub.com/2011/03/2...obot-suit-hal-the-exoskeleton-from-cyberdyne/

 

[Snaploud]

The article fails to explain why any of those devices are "questionable." What's so questionable about a portable laser, an exoskeleton, or a small droid? We already have the ability to create less effective versions of all those devices. The others are a little more complicated (even "questionable" if you bother to create an argument), but we have theories regarding both warp drive and cloaking devices. The sonic screw-driver is probably the most unexplained, but a sophisticated use of sonic waves could certainly accomplish quite a bit.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

What about the sonic SHOWER? I still don't know how those are supposed to work. Yeah, I know the bather gets bombarded by sonic waves, but that's only half the battle, so to speak. That may get the dirt off, but what about the sweat and the stink? How can sound waves get rid of those?

Could a person actually feel clean after using one of these things?

 

[sojourner]

Mouse droids are improbable???? wtf? all we ever saw them do was run around on the floor of the deathstar. What the heck is improbable about that?

 

[Marc]

Mouse droids are improbable???? wtf? all we ever saw them do was run around on the floor of the deathstar. What the heck is improbable about that?

there were no cat droids chasing after them?

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

Not too many people change the titles of these posts, do they?

The Universal Translator was the first device that came to my mind when I saw the title of this thread. Yes, I know it is a useful storytelling device--especially for the types of stories often seen on Star Trek--but it's not something I expect to ever show up in real life.

 

[Mistral]

Re: Not too many people change the titles of these posts, do they?

The Universal Translator was the first device that came to my mind when I saw the title of this thread. Yes, I know it is a useful storytelling device--especially for the types of stories often seen on Star Trek--but it's not something I expect to ever show up in real life.

Really? Because computers can already identify and translate known languages. Assuming a language is audio based like we use then a translator is an exercise in mathematical algorithms, nothing more.
The Mouse bots sound like the zsu-zsu hamsters my little kid plays with.
Phasers are a snap. Getting them to hand-held size is another story, of course.
The "blaster" is being worked on as we speak. Again, hand-held is a little more problematic.

Warp speed might not be possible-but FTL isn't outside the realm of the achievable. It probably won't happen in our lifetimes but that doesn't mean you can't do it.

Clothing might even merge with transportation technology, and also merge with medical enhancements of the body. Maybe people won't get their bodies enhanced so much as they'll have clothing that will put those enhancements into effect. Why do something permanent when you can get the same effect on a temp basis? -Temis

Try Vernor Vinge Rainbow's End. Interesting take on this premise.....and doable.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

Re: Not too many people change the titles of these posts, do they?

The Universal Translator was the first device that came to my mind when I saw the title of this thread. Yes, I know it is a useful storytelling device--especially for the types of stories often seen on Star Trek--but it's not something I expect to ever show up in real life.

Really? Because computers can already identify and translate known languages. Assuming a language is audio based like we use then a translator is an exercise in mathematical algorithms, nothing more.

But the UT in Star Trek translates unknown languages, and does so instantaneously so that the words even match the speakers lip movements, working so accurately that the characters are able to hold delicate diplomatic negotiations or share detailed technical information. And it apparently works through that communicator on the uniform's chest, since we see crew-members speaking with natives on the surface of planets. Heck, in Who Watches the Watchers the crew were able to speak to the natives when the crew were not even in uniform. Not sure how that worked.

Computers that translate languages are already here, but Star Trek UT is a completely different ballgame.

 

[Distorted Humor]

I do wish that there was more "auto-correct time" for the UT to get up to speed when it has a new language to learn. even if it played for gags.

But I have no problem with UT and FTL travel for storytelling reasons.

 

[Goliath]

Take English the 18th century, and then have a look at it now. Language two or three hundred years hence would be similarly quite different. And that'd be assuming people still widely speak English or something we'd basically recognize as English.

I take your point, but 18th-century English isn't all that different from its 21st-century counterpart.

Languages don't change at a constant speed. IIRC, the 17th century was a period when English was changing rapidly. The difference between early 17th-century English and late 17th-century English can be rather startling.

It's hard to try and feasibly predict what kind of changes we'll see in language, though (I think Firefly's half-hearted nod to Mandarin is about as good as it gets), and it's basically a lot of work geared towards making you harder to understand. It almost seems counterproductive for entertainmnet.

Yes. But it can be done. To choose just the most widely-known example:

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody being very quick to forget, newspapers being not much read neither. Well, what they sold there was milk plus something else. They had no license for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against prodding some of the new veshches which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other veshches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels And Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg. Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting this evening I'm starting this story off with.

A more recent example would be the Yiddish slang that Michael Chabon invented for his alternate-history novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

 

[Kegg]

Languages don't change at a constant speed. IIRC, the 17th century was a period when English was changing rapidly. The difference between early 17th-century English and late 17th-century English can be rather startling.

But English is a much more widely spoken language now then it was in the 17th century, and it's one with an increasingly diffuse amount of loanwords and influences. I personally think English is more likely to change fairly quickly, keeping that in mind.

Yes. But it can be done. To choose just the most widely-known example:

Oh, quite. But those two examples - which are good - are also novels, where carefully constructed languages can be part of the fun. Generally language has a more, ah, flatly communicative purpose on TV.

 

[Mistral]

Re: Not too many people change the titles of these posts, do they?

The Universal Translator was the first device that came to my mind when I saw the title of this thread. Yes, I know it is a useful storytelling device--especially for the types of stories often seen on Star Trek--but it's not something I expect to ever show up in real life.

Really? Because computers can already identify and translate known languages. Assuming a language is audio based like we use then a translator is an exercise in mathematical algorithms, nothing more.

But the UT in Star Trek translates unknown languages, and does so instantaneously so that the words even match the speakers lip movements, working so accurately that the characters are able to hold delicate diplomatic negotiations or share detailed technical information. And it apparently works through that communicator on the uniform's chest, since we see crew-members speaking with natives on the surface of planets. Heck, in Who Watches the Watchers the crew were able to speak to the natives when the crew were not even in uniform. Not sure how that worked.

Computers that translate languages are already here, but Star Trek UT is a completely different ballgame.

OK, um, taking it a little bit too literal.
Most of that is for story purposes.
Having a device which translates an unknown language is theoretically do-able. All language represents structure and structure can be represented with math-so given the proper math, you should be able to "crack the code" of a new language as long as it works something like ours-audible, within some sort of detectable frequency. Now, you have someone like the aliens in Norton's Starman's Son who use colors to communicate and you're going to have problems...

 

[Silvercrest]

Mouse droids are improbable???? wtf? all we ever saw them do was run around on the floor of the deathstar. What the heck is improbable about that?

Yeah! These days they're called Roombas.

 

[Beagleman]

But English is a much more widely spoken language now then it was in the 17th century, and it's one with an increasingly diffuse amount of loanwords and influences. I personally think English is more likely to change fairly quickly, keeping that in mind.

Actually I believe English will be much more stagnant in the near future, evolution works fastest in small isolated populations, same goes for the evolution of language. Now we have a very standardized language because it is so widely spoken. That's what makes a widely accepted standard much more necessary for people to understand each other (altough, of course there will always be local dialects). I think, mass-communication is one factor that will really slow down the change at least in "formal" English as a lingua franca.