Stellar Reaches

OK, so we are going to call our replicators “3D Printers”. And we know that we are going to have to wait 20 years before we can finally print off a basic, working cell phone. But that’s just details: all the basics have been ironed out, and the rest can be left to variations of Moore’s Law.

(Don’t you just LOVE exponential change? I know I do!)

Now, Peter Diamandis has provided us with a peek in the future with his book, Abundance. He has kindly provided an interview here for Which Way Next:

The part that interested me most what the use of an iPad as a tricorder. What would the bureaucrats at the FDA think? Already, the medical establishment is standing against AI, as it would put their very expensive educations to waste, and themselves out of a job. (Huge benefits to the patients are, naturally, utterly beside the point to these old and long-established cartels.)

Of course, the FDA can decide to freeze America in the past, protecting the vested interests of the medical establishment and leaving further innovation in the grateful hands of China and India – and Brazil, Turkey, Russia, even Japan and Mexico.

(Poor Africans and Latin Americans, unable to pay the cartel prices of licensed American medical expertize and drug creation, will quickly discover who their true friends are…)

I am confident that the FDA will also outlaw ultra-cheap “3D printing” of medicine – gotta give those government-connected pharmaceutical and Drug War lobbyists the limitless wealth and grasping powers they expect. So, the future of medicine will shift nicely to China, India, and probably the Middle East.

(I’m also looking for powerful technological breakthroughs in drug production from mysterious sources in Latin America as well. Yes, I’m looking at you, Mexico.)

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In MegaTraveller, the TL 12 Medical Pocket Scanner (Imperial Encyclopedia, page 61-62) costs  about 10,500 Imperial Credits (A lot more, if you convert it to 2012 US dollars. Pegging the 2012 US at TL 8 -

no to laser rifles, no particle accelerators, yes to video phones, yes to orbital settlements (a tiny one), no limb regeneration, no triphibian vehicles (never mind ‘early grav vehicles’), no jump1 (*deep, burning anger*), yes to superconductors (Referees’ Companion, page 28-29) -

and converting as per  TNE page 230, it will cost $19,833/19,833 ‘TL 8 credits’  (I’m going to totally ignore the ‘conversion equation’ on MegaT’s Referee’s Manual page 53.)

New iPads cost about $380, as of April 2012.

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Five minutes after originally posting this, I re-discovered North’s article on the joys of health travel in an age of FDA obsolescence: Health and Free Trade, found on LewRockwell.

A nice set of videos on good-looking starships and starmaps, using Cosmographer 3 & Campaign Cartographer 3.

The starships:

Starsystems:

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Actually, he’d be a pretty good one. And if he could cast out the snakes, he could convert the Aslans too!

The same day I make my push for the one-man movie, Gary North published a fine article on the failure of Christian moviemaking. Serendipity, indeed!

How does it relate to Travellers? If you want to show your vision of the Far Future, don’t rely on sugar daddies. Do it yourself, and do quality work. If you really want to change things, do it for free and post it on YouTube. If you want to make money, you’ll have to talk to Marc Miller, to split the royalties (but in that case, why not make up your own sci-fi universe?)

Time for a little more sci-fi anime. (Why not American movies? Because the stagnant American audience are interested in explosions and sex, and are uninterested in exploring new ideals, interesting concepts, and challenging cultures. If I have to go to the other side of the world to find something interesting to me, then it’s time to pay for a plane ticket – or an internet connection.)

First, I like the exploration sequence on a proper fungus world, from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind:

Second, the dream sequences of the Korean flik “My Beautiful Girl Mari” are also visually interesting. Otherwise, I find the movie boring, but if you like slow-paced family dramas mixed with dreamy fantasy, watch a few minutes, and see if you like it.

And then, there is Summer Wars. While the virtual reality bits are interesting, it’s hard to translate this into the 1970s sci-fi universe of Traveller. But what really interested me is the Jinnouchi family: they make a good model of a really low-level Vilani noble clan which has seen better days, but at least held on to the family castle, their pride, and each other. (And the 90-year-old family Archoness has a lot of high-level contacts she can pull in an emergency…)

Unbelievable – surely, some 50-year-old grognard has fooled enough with Corel or Blender to make a proper, full-feature Traveller movie by now!

(And if not him, then a 15-year old who has re-discovered pen’n'paper Traveller, and wants to haul it, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century…)

Some inspiration:

Voices of a Distant Star – made in 2002, by one man and his Power Mac G4. An interesting sci-fi anime, focusing on the problems of communication across ever-greater distances. Buy it here.

One man and his Power Mac G4, people!

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OK, so let’s say that you are just not good enough to turn Traveller into the visual work of art is should be, but at least you can aim higher than the 1980s picture books I make. Then, how about Archon Defender? A simple enough story, based on the Imperial Psionic Suppression Orders persecution of the Shard Sensitives by Empress Lucia sparking off World War II.

Yes, the voice acting is subpar… yes, the near-Nazi symbolism tends to break the otherworldly spell… but I do like the story, and the premise. With a few hours of hard work, it could be the basis of a great Traveller epic, perhaps set in the height of the Psionic Suppression era, or during a (non-canon) Psion Uprising the Referee decided to make up.

Again, it’s just one man and his computer. Traveller simply doesn’t need Lucasfilm anymore, not in this day and age… and especially not if you have a strong story.

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And of course, there is Ataque de Pánico!

Of course, the problem with this is that Traveller doesn’t use mecha as a rule: those walking machines are far too high-profile, and are just asking for the artillery to show whose boss (never mind the weight problems: a typical geek rant is here). But if you want a Solomani mecha invasion, you know what to do…

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I did some minor editing for Issues #14 – #17; fixed a few maps for Issue #16′s Map Pack; and tweaked the spreadsheet for Issue #16 as well. To download, just head to the Downloads section in the menu bar.

Another new Traveller online fanzine has been born, Traveller Republik, by Damon. Take a look, and see if there’s a way you can contribute!

I came across Ray Kurzweil’s article, The Law of Accelerating Returns, a few weeks ago. It was published in March 1, 2001 – pre 9/11 – so I’m a day late and a dollar short. But it’s still a good read.

His main point that our exponential rate of technological advancement is itself accelerating exponentially, and is worthy of thought. But here, I just want to put a finger on two secondary points he raises:

• Assuming nanotechnology, there will be a brief point when computers will be as smart as we are, around 2050, before soaring far higher than us.

• We have searched most of space, and have failed to find any Type III civilizations, at least one should have arisen over the last 10 billion years or so. This implies that there are no Type II civilizations, and thus no Type I civilizations. So, we are alone in the universe, so long as technological civilizations are concerned.

As far as projections go, Kurzweil’s isn’t too bad at all.

Now, let’s address the first question: should we fear the computer masters of the future?

I strongly doubt it, mainly because we are living in the slowly collapsing ruins of a command’n'control experiment of some really, really smart socialists, both hard and soft. If a bunch of above-the-law IQ 140 types couldn’t create an eternally static civilization – back when there were no faxes, no Internet, no networking, no hand-held camera-ready smartphones, no biowar, and no ever-cheaper range of weaponry both physical and digital – than it isn’t going to happen now. See Mises’ Socialism for details. (Or, if you are kinda lazy, spend 44 minutes watching the wonders of Soviet planning here.)

All this assumes that programs can be creative. Certainly, after a point, they will claim to be. Personally, though, I doubt it: at the end of the day, it’s all going to be about power and pleasure, just like the Compassionate Ones their minds will be modeled on.

“The Next Step of Evolution!”
“Superior in Every Way!”
Blah, blah, blah.
Nothing more than smoother lies and greater brutality, leading to a more swifter and  greater failure than today’s fast-disintegrating welfare-warfare state is now undergoing.

Next!

If we are truly alone in the universe… what then?

The solid majority of Atheists will be pissed, as it implies that humans are special. This idea is hated, as it restricts the power of the State to do what it pleases when it pleases to any man, woman, or child it chooses to target “for the sake of the People.”

(Yes, the Compassionate Ones despise any sort of claim to human uniqueness, while ALSO basing their right to rule on the claim of the State to manifest the Will of the People. An idolatry of the mass of people on the one hand, and a profound contempt of the individual human being on the other.

Why?

Simple: the State must draw it’s right to rule from the masses, so as a collective it must be claimed to be a god, standing far above the law. (This helps to flatter the mass-man, as well.) On the other hand, all challengers to State Power must be condemned as completely worthless and evil, without any rights at all. The State represents Us: the individual challenger of the State, even millions of them, are all Enemies of the People, and need to be crushed, one by one.)

Most (but not all) Christians assume that they are alone in the universe, so not a big change for them.

Amusingly, if we assume a young universe, then the potential for a limitless number of alien civilizations will be restored. There simply isn’t enough time for radio waves to have passed through the immense void of space: there may well be a massive interstellar state, on the scale of the Ziru Sirka, with their nearest inhabited world a mere 300 light years or so distant.

This is deeply annoying to Christians, as it will bring about all sorts of difficult theological problems we’d rather avoid.

God, on the other hand, simply loves His quiet little jokes.
Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past Him…

Traveller is geared to high-tech military-adventure role-playing, which I have always imagined to be similar to Ghost in the Shell.

(Yes, it’s set in A.D. 2030, not A.D. 5625 (1105 Imperial), but bear with me…)

However, I always had a soft spot for easy-going ‘slice of life’ fiction.

So, I was very pleased when I discovered the anime Aria (episode 4 below):

The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

A young girl moves from Earth to Mars Manhome* to Aqua*, to learn to be an Undine in neo-Venezia. She makes friends, and enjoys many charming adventures. Eventually, she becomes a true Prima, and becomes the new leader of her two-girl company, Aria Company. The End.

Corporate warfare?  “Let’s race gondolas!”
Brutal military assaults? Well, Aika does steal a little food…

No bad guys? No bad guys.

Happy New Year!

Due to academic and familial responsibilities for the coming year, there won’t be a new issue until September 2012 at best.

As a apologetic gesture, I have posted a few sci-fi YouTubes below that I find interesting & evocative. If interested, move on to the next page…