Writing a sci-fi world of future inventions. Feedback and help?

[DelActivisto]

You might try something really far fetched, like people working together in peace and harmony, sustainability of farming attained, and environmental stewardship that actually maintains the earth for future generations. Now those are bizarre, far-flung ideas I'd like to see someone experiment with.

 

[night_wrtr]

Something to think about might be an invention that was forced into discovery by dire circumstances. Like an E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event). Something that had to be created or developed to prevent this extinction from happening, and then this is further developed for technological advancement. Then again, that might be a premise for a whole different story.

 

[Mirannan]

Something to think about might be an invention that was forced into discovery by dire circumstances. Like an E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event). Something that had to be created or developed to prevent this extinction from happening, and then this is further developed for technological advancement. Then again, that might be a premise for a whole different story.

Such as an Orion-drive spaceship, perhaps. Quick and dirty way of getting thousands of tons (at least!) into orbit. When your back is to the wall...

 

[R.T James]

You might try something really far fetched, like people working together in peace and harmony, sustainability of farming attained, and environmental stewardship that actually maintains the earth for future generations. Now those are bizarre, far-flung ideas I'd like to see someone experiment with.

Pfft Now that's fantasy.

You get ten people in a room
And they can't even decide on what pizza to order. They'd never be able to do peace, or care for the earth. We like stabbing each in back, our flashy screens and not using grey matter.


And any small group of people doing this would quickly be arrested or shot up by governments for "avoiding" tax money.


Seriously how have we not killed our selves off as a species yet?!

I'm down for everything you said but you'd need to remove... Actually.screw it I'll run with it. I have a post apocalyptic story where that might be a plausible end goal, it's sci-fi too. Because most of the issues are gone already.

 

[DelActivisto]

Pfft Now that's fantasy.

You get ten people in a room
And they can't even decide on what pizza to order. They'd never be able to do peace, or care for the earth. We like stabbing each in back, our flashy screens and not using grey matter.


And any small group of people doing this would quickly be arrested or shot up by governments for "avoiding" tax money.


Seriously how have we not killed our selves off as a species yet?!

I'm down for everything you said but you'd need to remove... Actually.screw it I'll run with it. I have a post apocalyptic story where that might be a plausible end goal, it's sci-fi too. Because most of the issues are gone already.

LOL... yeah, we were talking about this in another thread. It might have been the "writing better bad guys" thread. We talked about how Star Trek envisions a society, say, without money. Everyone works together. In reality that is probably not going to happen, and even in Star Trek people have some difficulties trying to get people to get along. But I think a story could also plausibly suggest we moved past those obstacles despite ourselves.

Now than, let's see if we can avoid a nuclear apocalypse before then!

 

[Dave]

You might find my suggestions from 2003 interesting 14 years later. Some have happened, others are closer, others thankfully haven't happened:
10 Years From Now...

 

[DelActivisto]

You might find my suggestions from 2003 interesting 14 years later. Some have happened, others are closer, others thankfully haven't happened:
10 Years From Now...

Some of those were downright prophetic.

If only hybrid and electric cars were common. Well, Tesla is certainly shaking up the market in that regard at least. These new EVs can get 200+ miles range on one charge and "only" cost $35k. I'll be happier when the price gets down to about 25k, batteries go 350 miles, last 25 years and aren't toxic to produce, etc.

Erm, soapbox over.

 

[Maximum7]

In 2100, I predict that technology will be fundamentally more advanced and different. I want to try and create an A-Z list of technology with each letter being one MAJOR technology or inventions in that year period. I'm trying to look for creative, fresh and not so obvious ideas. Not just like A for Antimatter Rocket. Can someone help me? It's for a project I'm working on. All of my ideas are too generic and obvious. Thanks

 

[Parson]

Hm, you could go all post-apocalyptic and use that are today low tech as the newest and latest after the flood.

A is for adding machine.

 

[Mad Alice]

Holographic phone calls a la Princess Leia in Star Wars.
Total memory transfers into a simulated personality computer simulacrum. Simular to the Russell Crowe character in the Superman movie or the Emergency Medical Hologram on Voyager. But in a picture frame like the Harry Potter series paintings and photographs. You can interact with your nearest and dearest after they have passed on.
Extrohuman gestation creche. A machine pregnancy surrogate.

 

[R.T James]

Hm, you could go all post-apocalyptic and use that are today low tech as the newest and latest after the flood.

A is for adding machine.

S is for sharpened stick.

 

[Cathbad]

S is for sharpened stick.

Wouldn't that be S.S.?

 

[R.T James]

Wouldn't that be S.S.?

My brain just threw an image into my head.

A person crawling out of the ruble of what used to be a shopping mart. His look determined, sweat dripping down his brow as he holds up proudly above his head a single piece of oak. Whittled on one side it was the greatest thing in the 22nd century.

"This is my S.S!"

 

[Harpo]

When the first working time-machine is switched on, the first time-traveller from the future will arrive in it, closely followed by their agents, and then paparazzi. By the end of that day, future corporations will have sent thousands of advanced time-travel machines, and those machines will be transported worldwide, making time-travel as commonplace as rail travel currently is.

Since a time-travel machine is a machine in which a person can travel in time, rather than the machine itself doing the travelling, all those "where are the time-travellers?" questions do not apply. Before T-Day, nowt. After T-Day, common and ordinary.

 

[Dave]

@Harpo Quite plausible, but what you are describing is an end of the world scenario here. There may be one book in it, but no sequels! In your universe, inevitably, people would go further and further back in time. Each journey would push T-Day back further into history and wipe clean the previous version of the world. Eventually, people will go back past the evolution of man, back past the dinosaurs, back past land animals, and at some point, someone will do something stupid...

 

[Harpo]

Nope, there'd be no time-travel before the first working time machine, just as there is no train travel beyond any railway track. I live on an island without trains, and there may never be trains here. Time-travellers will never visit the year 2017 because the first time machine hasn't been invented yet.

Time machines won't actually travel any when, but people will use them to travel 'up and down the timeline' like we do on railway tracks, or like visiting various floors via a liftshaft.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Nope, there'd be no time-travel before the first working time machine, just as there is no train travel beyond any railway track. I live on an island without trains, and there may never be trains here. Time-travellers will never visit the year 2017 because the first time machine hasn't been invented yet.

That's just based on what we think we know of time travel with current physics today. An 'actual' time machine, if such a thing could be built, may work utilising physics so beyond our ken as to make this assumption wrong.

We know that both QM and Relativity both are not complete descriptions of the universe and there must be something else in its stead. So, at least in a fictional universe, why not allow 'unrestricted' travel?

To take your analogy, you don't need to travel with railways. You can, instead, fly on a plane, helicopter, car....

 

[Harpo]

True, but then you have grandfather paradoxes and the "where are the time travellers" stuff to deal with.

'Unrestricted' fictional time travel, with just the one limitation - similar to how planes & helicopters are limited to the gap between Space and the ground/sea.

 

[Dave]

True, but then you have grandfather paradoxes and the "where are the time travellers" stuff to deal with.

Not if each time travel event re-writes the previous history and creates an alternative reality. You would just create an infinite number of realities.

 

[Harpo]

Maybe so, but they'd all be limited to after the very first time machine is first switched on.

Meanwhile, I wish to note that my earlier post (at 6am, my first today about time machines) was made on a different thread that made no reference to fiction, but was asking about possible future inventions.
Since then, the two threads were merged. I did not intend to embark on a discussion of time travel in fiction.