Did the cover look like this?
Star Trek is Already Steampunk
- Thread starter YARN
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I tried to slog through it, but all the tech jargon about "sub-ether" and the constant use of the deflecting beam to save the day kinda put me off.
True, they should come up with a new name for it. Maybe retro-steampunk or something.
I was all ready to back you up on this, since Steampunk's definition doesn't come close to any outdated past prediction of the future...
That said, Man, I can't find any actual dictionary definition to Zeerust other then your link. That and it's a town...
The TV Tropes article cites Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and John Lloyd both with coining the term and claiming that there just isn't any other word for the concept. Since we can certainly agree that Steampunk is wrong, since Adams and TV Tropes are both established and famous, and since the neologism Zeerust has been coined, I simply said that Zeerust is "probably" "a better word". Being a neologism, I didn't say it was the word.
If you don't want to use it, you don't have to, of course, but in the future, until a better word comes along, instead of simply dropping the term, I'll say "what Douglas Adams and John Lloyd call Zeerust", indicating that it is a coined phrase, and who coined it (admittedly something I didn't do upthread, although at least I included a hyperlink). The TV Tropes article is very specific about what Zeerust means, and with its numerous examples, all on point, it therefore qualifies as a repository and (secondary) source of the definition. In fact, if you qualify a Google search for Zeerust by adding the names of Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, e.g. http://www.google.com/search?q=zeerust+douglas+adams+john+lloyd&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvnsob&ei=n3vwToiNGsaSgwehupydAg&start=10&sa=N&biw=1024&bih=570, then you get multiple hits on the term, all citing The Meaning of Liff by Adams and Lloyd.
And that's what makes it too vague too use... Just because someone uses it, doesn't make it the definition. The fact that if I plug in the word Zeerust, the first 100 hits are in reference to a S. African town, pretty much ends that.
And the only way you can see that definintion is to include the guys name- that makes it way too obscure.
Don't get me wrong, I get what you're saying and the point was made.
This is precisely what a neologism is, so I don't know how the idea that any false claim to more legitimacy has been made.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism:
You don't like the term, fine, don't use it, or coin a better one. But the fact that the first 100 hits are off-point doesn't have any bearing.
Qualifying the search with just science fiction focuses in on the topic, too, e.g. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&site=&q=zeerust+science+fiction&oq=zeerust+science+fiction&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=974l5195l0l5390l23l22l0l12l1l0l214l1479l1.8.1l10l0. Seems like the term is flourishing just fine in science fiction circles.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism:
You don't like the term, fine, don't use it, or coin a better one. But the fact that the first 100 hits are off-point doesn't have any bearing.
Qualifying the search with just science fiction focuses in on the topic, too, e.g. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&site=&q=zeerust+science+fiction&oq=zeerust+science+fiction&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=974l5195l0l5390l23l22l0l12l1l0l214l1479l1.8.1l10l0. Seems like the term is flourishing just fine in science fiction circles.
Can I really NOT use the word?! Really? Thank you, sir! Thank you indeed!
But really, next time I search for Zeerust, I'll be sure to qualify my search by prefixing it with "science fiction" or Douglas Adams...
Though to be honest, it still doesn't look as popular in sci-fi as you say.
My point was that Zeerust doesn't apply to Trek any more then Steampunk does.
And yes, I get what you're saying about it being A neologism, however the publication concerning Zeerust is hardly new. And why wouldn't you have said that from the get-go?
Anyway- You have your final say on this if you feel like it. I won't go on about it anymore after this post. I think we've strayed a bit.
Say what????? The fact that it's a neologism was front and center in the article I linked to when I posted about the term. I don't know why you're making an issue about it not being in wide use, since being in only limited use was all it was ever claimed to be. And, I don't know why you're picking on me anyway; all I did was report about it.
Wow, I've never heard anyone get so upset about a TV Tropes label before. As a rule, such epithets are informal, allusive to pop culture, and a bit inside/geeky, with the idea being to have fun rather than to aspire to ivory-tower formality.
And to me it seems self-evident that, however formally accepted it may have since become, a word like "steampunk" surely had equally geeky, slangy, irreverent origins. It was a neologism itself not so long ago. So it seems odd to draw such a vehement distinction between the two.
And to me it seems self-evident that, however formally accepted it may have since become, a word like "steampunk" surely had equally geeky, slangy, irreverent origins. It was a neologism itself not so long ago. So it seems odd to draw such a vehement distinction between the two.
Comet and Cupid;5455612 And said:Are you fucking serious? We're have a mild argument, a discusion, an exchange of words, and you think I'm picking on you?
Well fuck, I guess I'm picking on you again by responding to that.
It was just a god damned disagreement of something. But let's all sing fucking Kumbaya and sit around holding bloody flowers in complete agreement with each other. One big orgasmic circle jerk of tree huggers crying "Bully" should anyone say: Nay, my nerdy opinion differs from your nerdy opinion!!!
How was that for a rant?
^If you're the one having a "mild argument," why are you the first to escalate to obscenities and verbal abuse? You're sort of undermining your own position there.
YARN
Fleet Captain
Which is a ton of people.
It should have been direct fire control the whole time. How hard is it to move the "fire" button from the phaser room to the bridge?
Also, see my analysis where I establish that oral fire control would put one at a great disadvantage in an actual battle.
EXAMPLE BELOW: TWOK
Kirk - does not go by the book with Reliant. He get's fooled by a simple ruse. The more machine-like Saavik tells him what to do, but she gets shut down by Spock (bro's before ho's).
KIRK: This is damned peculiar. ...Yellow Alert.
SAAVIK: Energise defence fields.
---People on the bridge push buttons and we see gadgets activating. It takes about 6 seconds after Saavik gives the order for that order to be implemented.----
UHURA: I'm getting a voice message. They say their Chambers coil is overloading their Comm system.
KIRK: Spock?
SPOCK: Scanning. Their coil emissions are normal.
[Reliant bridge]
JOACHIM: They still haven't raised their shields.
KHAN: Raise ours.
JOACHIM: Their shields are going up
KHAN: Lock phasers on target.
JOACHIM: Locking phasers on target.
[Enterprise bridge]
SPOCK: They're locking phasers!
KIRK: Raise shields!
---Too late Kirk! You had ten seconds after Reliant started raising her shields to deliver this order. You had nearly 4 seconds after Reliant locked phasers!-----
If Data were in command and directly wired to the ship's control systems, this would have turned out differently. Remember First Contact?
DATA: Zero point six eight seconds, sir. For an android ...that is nearly an eternity.
Losing the first engagement with Khan put him at an advantage throughout the film. Capt. Data - hardwired into the ship would not have lost that engagement.
Everything in Trek seems to be semi-automated. Whether or not you need people depends on the needs of the plot.
What matters for my argument is that at NO time should we see people manually running out the guns (pulling up deck-grates etc.) on a Starship.
Doesn't matter. The old stuff has it and is thus Steampunk. The new stuff claims continuity with it and is implicated with it. And there is plenty of the new stuff which is Steampunk on its own.
At the point that an automated system empirically has a safety and overall performance record that matches or exceeds that of human operators, I have NO rational reason to say no.
EX: Elevators work fine without human operators. There was a time when elevators had pilots because they needed them and later, because it made old-timers feel good to have an authority figure with them pushing the buttons. Today, elevators are automated.
We're at the point with aircraft where they can fly themselves, but where the public isn't ready to hop into a pilotless plane yet. In 50 years, no one will care. And right now no one cares that planes without passengers don't have pilots (RC and automated drones) aboard.
Fortunately, computers can be programmed to learn, just like people. Computers can be programmed to make probabilistic guesses with limited info, just like people working from their gut instinct.
As an autonomous agent.
Behold! And Behold!
Can you operate your body? It's under mind control.
LOL, it would be more comfortable to maximize space. Those who have been in space modules on the ground and in micro-gravity report that the spaces are much bigger when you can access them more than just one location (i.e., the arbitrarily assigned floor).
This is the future. People have been off terra for hundreds of years. They've been in space for a while. They can handle it. They haven't just scooped your great grandmother off the deck of a sailing ship.
Don't make me get Timo on this point. He is relentless on this one. Artificial gravity is the last system to fail.
And so what? When artificial gravity fails you float. BFD.
This makes no sense to me. Are you saying that they wouldn't be able to navigate if they didn't have a fixed line-of-sight to surrounding stars?
YARN
Fleet Captain
Alright, I've had enough semantic griping out of you steampunks!
Get on topic
PHP:
and bow to your posthuman masters!Okay- but only because posthuman masters are better then human masters. And don't even get me started on those pre-human pricks!
YARN
Fleet Captain
I certainly hope so. We're working so hard to create true AI without really pausing to consider whether we should. Imagine something an order of magnitude more intelligent than any of us. Now imagine that it has greater feeling as well (e.g., that run deeper, have more flavors, more sublimity, more passion). If this thing doesn't like us, we're done for.
In the film IRobot, I actually felt for VIKI. She was just trying to do her job to serve humanity and the only way to do it was to take humans out of power. This is, IMO, close to the best case scenario with AI. It, for some reason, has an affection for us (like pets) and keeps us around.
The AI that apprehends the gulf between it's mind and ours, however, might be inclined to regard us as little more than the primordial ooze from which it arose.
TOS flirted with these tensions (Spock, in fact, was a representation of this tension - his machine-like mind always stumped when a creative solution was needed), but always found an excuse for the romantic human to be necessary (because of emotion, intuition, feeling, and creativity providing an advantage). This, however, was just whistling past the graveyard as many in this thread are attempting to do. M5, like Jessica Rabbit, wasn't bad, he was just painted that way so human writers could make us feel relevant in an age where humans are increasingly irrelevant.
Ya, like the time I lost reading this thread, thinking it was about Star Trek being Steampunk. which it clearly isn't. Little did I know the OP was just misusing the term Steampunk over, and over, and over, and over....
YARN
Fleet Captain
Little did I know you couldn't read.
If you could, you would clearly see that the first line of the OP offers a caveat against reading Steampunk literally.
It's a metaphorical reference, one that is becoming more apt as Trek continues to age.
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