Are there a limited amounts of progressive content available to creative sci-fi writers?

Quoting Maximum7

Will they reach a creative wall when trying to think of how to make stuff even MORE advanced; that they can't?

They might. And if they do, they will fall back on imagery and/or CGI like Star Wars did from day one.

Reply to James Riley

Yikes. That’s not good. One of the most important aspects of Trek from the 60’s was how innovative it was. If they can’t do that anymore; I don’t see much of a reason to continue writing stories.

Quoting Maximum7

Yikes. That’s not good. One of the most important aspects of Trek from the 60’s was how innovative it was. If they can’t do that anymore; I don’t see much of a reason to continue writing stories.

:100:

Reply to Maximum7

Imaginary innovation is by far the easiest to create and develop because the only limitation is the suspension of the audience’s disbelief, and that can be rather generous.

Quoting praxis

Imaginary innovation is by far the easiest to create and develop because the only limitation is the suspension of the audience’s disbelief, and that can be rather generous.

Is it really? People aren't stupid. At least we live in societies where we mutually benefit or suffer, burden sharing I believe is the term. There is no castle without a king. No collection without a collector, I suppose. And the darker sides of life are more than omnipresent enough to distinguish one who can alleviate them, if not at least in one's thoughts and mentality.

If a man can come to such a place and yes one could say trick, deceive, or con or as you say create "suspension of the audience's belief" does he not simply expose not only the vulnerabilities but further journey one has to travel as far as understanding? One that yes may be fraught with challenges and great risk, but also gilded with exciting and worthwhile challenges and opportunity for further learning and chances to conquer fear? I like to think so. Don't you?

I don't think so.

By the following logic, where the background image of a film is the story of the film made before. I think it's limitless.

I can infinitely evolve creatively by making one or multiple image references to earlier creativity.

Background: Lamp
Story: Toy Story

Background: Giant Toys
Story: The Borrowers

Background:The Borrowers
Story: Dust Mite Paradoxes

Background: Dust Mite Paradoxes
Story: Monkey-Man God

Further...

Background: Lamp, at X degree.
Story: Alternative Toy Story

What do you think?

Reply to Maximum7 Both Star Wars and Star Trek – the latter for Grups and the former for Ewoks – are "stuck" in late-Victorian to early Cold War swashbuckling "space opera" and so, while greatly influential on the last half century of "scifi" (mostly) television shows, films & video games, both are almost laughably anachronistic compared to literary science fiction since the 1960s.

NB: I say this as a very nostagic, diehard Trekkie since the early '70s just after the original series (1966-69) was cancelled (which is the only Star Trek I've ever enjoyed, including the animated series (1973-74) and two movies: The Wrath of Khan (1982) & The Undiscovered Country (1991)). :nerd:

I think the reason for this is two fold: 1. commerce (i.e. more reliable returns on investments by formulaically fulfilling rather than subverting (broadening) audience expectations) & 2. the greater appeal (accessibility) of science fantasy over that of more niche (semi-literate) science fiction stories. Hollyweird writers earn their paychecks by rehashing old scripts and worn-out genre tropes; I believe they really don't know how to derive compelling, entertaining, drama from genuinely "speculative tech" stories (which are definitely not anachronistic like "space operas"). They're not hitting a "wall" so much as simply executing television & film formulas that are more popular with video gamed-out (mostly jaded) general audiences.

Quoting Outlander

I like to think so. Don't you?

You had me at “Dust Mite Paradoxes.” :love:

Oh, that was Varde. Sorry.

Reply to praxis haha.

Small and numerous, they're a nightmarish paradox.

I sincerely doubt that creative and sincere minds will ever run out of new content. This is especially true as our collective environments continue to change, with new technologies and paradigms entering and exiting daily. That will speed up too. So, the mutation of future science fiction media will be as odd and striking as ever.

Quoting Varde

I can infinitely evolve creatively by making one or multiple image references to earlier creativity.

Creativity doesn't evolve. The very process of evolving is a creative process. Creativity is going on all of the time. Also in the SF-field. There are always new technologies imaginable, in accordance with accepted or non-accepted ideas in science *that's what good SF is all about). Imagining a warp-drive device (as recently proposed by a French guy), a gravity gun, or whatever (say a rotating container with a super liquid in it, to store kinetic energy), will get easier when scientific knowledge progresses, and can even form a stimulation or improvement of science. So contrary to the assumption made by the OP, there is no evolution, convergence, or approximation to some final abstract entity. Which is the view hold by most scientists. Unluckily we are trained in adopting this doctrine from the young age on, and this reflects itself in the question asked by the OP.

Reply to GraveItty I thought evolution was a logical process.

In reference to animal evolution, it's not muscle memory but muscle pulsation that's the direct cause of evolution.

Even though muscle memory is indirectly affecting evolutions, it's not a creative process.

In this context, evolution refers to the cyclic progression of creative arts.

for ex. A snake that grows back a tail it's lost, or any type of growth, such as aging or scaling, is because of pulsation of muscles.

On cyclic progression, my former example(backgrounds, stories) anoints a greater cycle; happening in the mental realm.

Reply to 180 Proof The Expanse is new (in the last 6 years), and the series of books it's based on is just finishing up. It's quite different from Star Trek and Star Wars, mostly favoring more realistic portrayals of space with less magic technology. It's more like what we might expect several centuries from now if our current civilization expands out into the solar system. That and a big mystery plot that drives the events in the books and show, given the political and economic setup of the Asteroid Belt/Outer Planets, Mars and Earth.

Quoting Varde

thought evolution was a logical process.

Of course indeed! It's very logical. It has to be. If not, structures wouldn't have the possibility to evolve into life.

Quoting Varde

for ex. A snake that grows back a tail it's lost, or any type of growth, such as aging or scaling, is because of pulsation of muscles.

On cyclic progression, my former example(backgrounds, stories) anoints a greater cycle; happening in the mental realm.
ReplyOptions

I'm not familiar with muscle pulsation and cyclic progressions in relation to evolution. Of course muscle pulsation can be very helpful for performing circular motion or hammering, or other periodic motions, and you can progress cyclic, like a snake does when walking a terrain, I don't think evolution operates in this way, though thanks to the cycle of night and day it can take place.

Reply to Marchesk Yeah, I love the first three books and the show, despite casting issues (mine i guess), is a very good adaptation (with the close consultation with the books' authors who are also executive producers). Definitely a grown-up exception to the typical television "space fantasy" fare, mostly, I think, because it's an adaptation rather than a tv writers' room melodrama window-dressed with "spaceships, rayguns & technobabble".

Reply to 180 Proof In keeping with the theme of recent threads we've both been in, the fourth book has proto-Miller chapters in which it states that the protomolecule is not conscious, but some of its constructs like Miller are. And so they realize the futility of continuing to reach out.

Which is maybe borrowing from Arthur C. Clarke's 3001 where Hal and David are conscious simulations inside the Monolith, which is itself not conscious.

Alien tech apparently doesn't know what it's like. :death: :sparkle:

Are there limited amounts availabe of a progressive content? This question presupposes a progressive content. A progressive content grows. So the amounts in it grow too. It follows that there is no limit. The question is self-contradictionary.

Reply to Marchesk The Expanse saga is hard-ish space opera but not very hard. (I've only read the first five books though.) Still, I applaud the authors for delivering a great romp even though the setting and other ideas aren't new (re: Alien, The Stars My Destination, Gateway, etc) and even derived from trpgs like GURPS Space / Transhuman Space & MegaTraveller ... and several characters "inspired" by the defunct Firefly (Serenity). Btw, I never thought of "the protomolecule" as an analogue for "The Monolith" (which is definitely more of character) but just as a Lovecraftian plot device like "White Walkers" and "The Night King" in the Game of Thrones television series.

I think fiction is basically "hard-capped" by the reality we know. This goes for Sci-Fi, fantasy, anything really.

Personally, I am a great fan of the cosmic horror genre and occasionally engage in small writing pieces of my own. As a defining trait for cosmic horror - inspired by prominent spooky authors of the past - is some grotesque creature or happening that is "not from this world."

Now, how do we imagine something that is not from this world? The simple fact is: We don't. Everything that is fictional is inspired by some real life template. To take famous H.P. Lovecraft as an example: it is quite obvious that he was heavily influenced by the already strange looking creatures of the sea. He added a few degrees of monstrosity and there we go, we have a being of cosmic horror, vaguely imaginable, yet too obscure to fully capture in words.

Likewise science fiction is heavily inspired by the possible implications that our science today may present in the future. There hasn't exactly been anything revolutionary in the genre for decades because science has been lacking major revolutions for just as long. As quantum physics grows more advanced, I expect that we'll find more and more future technology based on the very concept in fiction - but as for now, we're stuck with lightsabers, hyper shields and FTL travel.

May we one day catapult entire stars onto our enemies by means of quantum entanglement. Until then, spacefarer.