Communication in Sci-Fi

[Cli-Fi]

Most communication in sci-fi today looks pretty silly since any communication method to come out pre-2000 books, film, television has already been replaced and/or improved upon with modern day actual technology. Honestly, the timeline is moving a lot faster than I think most sci-fi dreamers give it credit for and yet its somewhat stagnated in a few places. I mean it's pretty ridiculous to think that people will still be using hard shell tablet devices as Star Trek "predicts" in the 23rd century right? I mean that's 200 years from now!! Yet, JJ Abrams still wants us to think that.

But let's stick to communication. Near future or far future. How do your characters interact with each other?

Also on another note: When is sci-fi going to incorporate the broader appeal of social media aspects? Do people just glaze over this huge new method of communication and think it's going to be a fad, so they don't include it in their material? I mean if tablets are still around why not some form of social media? Look I understand it's brand new and we don't know where it's going but as a millennial, I am incredibly concerned that it hasn't really been addressed. Communication in scifi seems to be stuck in the 1990s. Bluetooth! Bluetooth! Everywhere! Maybe sometimes 2000s. And then there is this big gap into crappy looking holograms or even very poorly explained telepathy. No in between before or after... No other advances in communication.

Besides for near future scare tactics. I haven't really seen the issue addressed in futuristic scifi.

Am I missing something here or are the communication issues that I have pointed out something to look into for the genre as a whole? Obviously this whole thing came about while working on my WIP a near-far future setting about the progress of technology and its impact on society.

 

[goldhawk]

The most advance form would be brain implants. You just think of who you want to get in touch with and you communicate, brain to brain. Of course, some will think this is too invasive and opt for old-fashion means.

 

[tinkerdan]

I don't see a problem with getting creative about communication; but really you can't beat the face to face or in your face that's been here since the dawn of time and I don't expect it to go away.

Still you could go with telepathy which at the moment remains as only an extreme form of suspension of disbelief.

But as to written forms and tablets I think that it could be extrapolated easily both ways one of those being that since we have had paper we've yet to go to a paperless society despite the possibilities available today. So I don't think it's shortsighted or lazy to imagine that if we ever do move over to other forms that the tablet could be the next paper which might take just as long to be phased out.

As to telephones; I guess in a way we dropped the ball by not realizing that Kirk was using cellphones to communicate with the Enterprise. And I could easily see us with those badges the next generation used. We can't help it that our space exploration has lagged seriously behind those innovations.

When all is said and done those are mostly just props around the real story and I'm not sure that it's an issue that we should cry about when we don't see authors extrapolating beyond what is recognizable.

Larger issues are how communication works when you go from point to point on a planets surface to point to point from surface to space and point to point from planet to planet. There are physical limits that have to be addressed that are much more important than how the device looks and what it might be compared to for reader comprehension.

The science for the larger issues often becomes intrusive when it's all so new and advanced that it requires explanation for context and contrast or comparison to what the reader knows. I shudder to think about the implications of trying to begin to describe all the little accessories in use because they all are so far advanced beyond what we use today that they are not recognizable at all to the reader.

I suspect the flip communicator may have been conceived mostly as a convenient prop. Perhaps someone pulled his billfold out of his pocket and flipped it open and it inspired someone to say what if your communication device was just as handy and compact as your wallet. (He flips his wallet open and talks into it and gets a few good laughs.)

Also there is the limit to what man can do-not just in the believably of telepathy.

Let's say for instance you replace a patients chart with a chip on their body that stores all the vital medical information a doctor needs.
You still have to have something to read it with and if the doctor is not a machine he'll have to have it displayed, because even if he had the equivalent of something that could read the information off to him, he'd want a means of going back consistently and who is to say that it wouldn't work best for him to have it on a readable tablet. Sure it could be a thin as a sheet of paper and as small as some of these kindle devices but it would still be some sort of tablet.

In much the same token as that in one story I have a future doctor using a stethoscope and, when the patient looks askance at it, he explains that there are still good uses for the device in the medical field.

There is nothing wrong with trying to extrapolate something new or unique. I have a device that the captain of a freighter uses that is an entire computer that looks like a monocle that he wears over one eye when he wants to have complete access to his entire ship and crew while he's outside the ship in the docks. But these devices will need some explanation or they just look like props made to give your characters and their world some eccentricity. They have to fit into the story and in this case the captain and the monocle are part of a distinct memory one of the characters has and it is addressed a number of times. So it becomes a prop that serves a purpose in a plot point or thread that runs through the story.

In the case of the flip phone communicators I'm not sure those were ever addressed in a way that made them plot worthy and so the phone could have been a rock and still served the function. My point being that later it's turned to a badge that serves the same purpose.

 

[Loren]

SciFi is entering a new phase where predicting the future is getting harder and harder, if not impossible.

The problem is that we are used to progress at a pretty linear rate. We see things in the view of 20 years and think the next 20 years will reveal about the same advancement in technology, but that is a falsehood.

Tech is expanding geometrically, not linearly, and we won't even recognize our world in 50 years.

If you think the old Flash Gorden was pretty lame, stories and films today will look positively ridiculous in the next few decades.

The exponential tech advancement just makes it even harder to predict what the future brings. Stories set a century or more in the future will have nothing to do with reality by then. In 50 years humans and machines will probably merge, forming a new species that will evolve so blindingly fast that no mere mortal could hope to keep up.

BY mid 2100s we should be blurring reality with virtual reality, so communication will take on a more face-to-face form, but what is the face of the 2150s?

If you try to devolve that based on today's visions you are likely to be way off the map. By that time we should have augmented brains that can digest and process information far faster than we do today. So, would you imagine a face-to-face consisting of spoken language? No, I suspect it will be a very high speed data dump; over in a flash.

That will be some very dull dialog in a SciFi story. I suspect that what passes for thought in the next four or five decades will be totally alien to us today.

The bottom line is, I wouldn't struggle too much with trying to get it right with regard to what the future will really be like because whatever you imagine will be totally wrong anyway. It would be like an isolated bushman trying to create a story about New York City life. Neither the village nor the New Yorker would recognize it, so you might as well focus on simply making your story a good literary read that is entertaining.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

SciFi is entering a new phase where predicting the future is getting harder and harder, if not impossible.

It's always been hard to impossible. Almost all predictions in SF, by futurologists and media are wrong.

you might as well focus on simply making your story a good literary read that is entertaining.

Yes. SF isn't about accurate prediction.

Still you could go with telepathy which at the moment remains as only an extreme form of suspension of disbelief.

Yes, no evidence for it at all, nor indication how it works. But can work better in a story than Star Trek Technobabble because it's a long established trope predating SF.

Any other communication is only going to change in the form factor and presentation of the end points. Still use electricity, radio or light. Of course I'm biased having written a history of it and being qualified as a Communications Engineer in BBC originally.

You might envisage Neutrinos or Gravity waves (but hardly likely as less than slow interstellar communication with Giant equipment due to nature of them).

Ursula Le Guin had the Light Speed Busting slow Ansible. Sensibly she didn't ever explain how it works, as such a device is suspected to be inherently possible.

Dick Tracy had the watch. Watch sized phones worn on wrist have now existed for over 20 years. Perhaps they might be more fashionable in the future (The Apple Watch is only a terminal screen for an iPhone, so the least capable wearable computer/comms in 20 years).

BT earpieces and google glass style AR headsets may get less noticeable and better quality. Likely using a pocket smartphone as host to reduce power consumption.

When is sci-fi going to incorporate the broader appeal of social media aspects? Do people just glaze over this huge new method of communication and think it's going to be a fad,

It's fashion. It's like something out of Brave New World or 1984. Some stories do have it. At the minute it's still a novelty. QQ/Tencent/Webo is as big as Facebook or bigger yet you never heard of it. Twitter isn't financially viable. Facebook's profitability relies on exploitation of users
Look up Wikipedia. There are 100s of niche "social media" and plenty of ones that will go the way of Bebo and Myspace.

Put in Social Media if you want to.

 

[Vladd67]

The most advance form would be brain implants. You just think of who you want to get in touch with and you communicate, brain to brain. Of course, some will think this is too invasive and opt for old-fashion means.

Iirc in the novelisation of Star Trek The Motion Picture, Kirk receives images of the Klingon ship being destroyed through a brain implant that Star Fleet kept secret as they were worried the general public would see it as some form of mind control.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

The problem is that we are used to progress at a pretty linear rate. We see things in the view of 20 years and think the next 20 years will reveal about the same advancement in technology, but that is a falsehood.

Absent Luddites working to prevent it, technology typically progresses in an exponential fashion until it's mature. New tech builds on old tech, and rapid progress pulls more people into the field, leading to even more rapid progress. The early stages just look linear when compared to the way the exponential shoots off toward the stars once it really gets going.

If you think the old Flash Gorden was pretty lame, stories and films today will look positively ridiculous in the next few decades.

Most of the movies and TV shows already do.

The bottom line is, I wouldn't struggle too much with trying to get it right with regard to what the future will really be like because whatever you imagine will be totally wrong anyway.

But that's no excuse for ignoring the likely path of technological progress. If you look at Clarke, for example, in Fountains Of Paradise, he predicted something much like the web, but he failed to predict Google. Just because he thought humans would be searching the web rather than software, doesn't mean he should have given up on the idea altogether.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

I don't see a problem with getting creative about communication; but really you can't beat the face to face or in your face that's been here since the dawn of time and I don't expect it to go away.

I disagree. I think 'face to face' communication will rapidly disappear. Firstly, if you really need 'face to face' communication with someone who isn't nearby, using a drone in the same location as them will be much easier than actually going there; network lag from anywhere on Earth to your brain would be similar to the lag from your senses to your brain, and it could save hours or days of travel. Secondly, if you have a ten thousand year lifespan, you just can't afford to risk getting 'face to face' with anyone you don't thoroughly trust. They might want to kill you. Or they might give you a fatal disease, so you die at a hundred.

In my near-future SF world, 'face to face' has pretty much gone away for those reasons. For example, no-one gets into most corporate habitats unless they work there. Even authorized visitors are kept in separate habitats, or forced to use drones while they stay on their ship nearby. Most low-tech habitats will at least quarantine you for a while, before they let you in.

Still you could go with telepathy which at the moment remains as only an extreme form of suspension of disbelief.

All the cool kids in my SF world have skulltop computers, then telepathy is just software and a wireless LAN. Of course, they also get malware, which keeps life entertaining.

When all is said and done those are mostly just props around the real story and I'm not sure that it's an issue that we should cry about when we don't see authors extrapolating beyond what is recognizable

If someone in the 25th century is picking up a phone to call their mother (and it's not some cool new fad, like, say, using record players today), I think the writer should probably find a new genre. No-one really expects SF to accurately predict the future, but many of us expect it to at least have a go.

Larger issues are how communication works when you go from point to point on a planets surface to point to point from surface to space and point to point from planet to planet. There are physical limits that have to be addressed that are much more important than how the device looks and what it might be compared to for reader comprehension.

True. We live at a unique point in human history, where just about anyone can communicate with just about anyone in real-time. It's never been possible before, and will never be possible again. There'll never be a Galactic Facebook.

Let's say for instance you replace a patients chart with a chip on their body that stores all the vital medical information a doctor needs.

Absent a social collapse that knocks technology back hundreds of years, I'll be amazed if there are any doctors a hundred years from now. Trauma medics and surgeons, probably. But doctors seem about as likely as Clarke's future web without Google... prodding your body, nodding sagely, and trying to remember what disease those symptoms point to will seem silly compared to feeding a thousand sensor readings into a computer that can tell you straight away.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The early stages just look linear when compared to the way the exponential shoots off toward the stars once it really gets going

It's slow start, short period exponential, then slow down to a plateau as the tech gets mature, then use can fall off a cliff as something replaces it. So no not at all as you claim.

See
static steam engines used as pumps -> Mobile Steam power. We are still in Steam Age. But Turbines have replaced pistons.
Telegraph: Mechanical semaphore -> Electrical -> Fax I -> phone -> radio telegraphy -> Voice radio -> Telex -> Fax II -> eMail
Computers: 1938-1946, 1950s to 1990s exponential, now plateau since 2000-2002 approx.
TV: 1898 - 1935 mechanical, 1936-1948 electronic (idea in 1905, gap for WWII). 1948 - 1980s, 1999-2012 Digital transition and plateau (HD existed from 1944).
Audio: Music box/Pianola, Edison Cylinder, Berliner Disk, tape, CD (1980s), MP3 (1995) now plateau.
Typed words: 19th C. Typewriter. 1970s dedicated Wordprocessors, 1979 .. 1988 rapid drop in price of Computer and Printer cost. 1991+ plateau. eBooks now replacing paper for draft copies etc (and electronic messaging for printed memos widely since 1996, though started in 1970s)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

where just about anyone can communicate with just about anyone in real-time

It's been a process since 1835*. Now it's generally cheaper and more portable. We could have argued it was true in the West 60 years ago. Chinese provided Mobile Phone infrastructure in Africa adds the last percentage of poor people.

[* Napoleon had thousands of miles of mechanical optical semaphore telegraph (TP Clacks) so near real time was possible for some people across Europe then! 1835 is first electrical telegraphs. Spam started on telegraphs installed in late 19th C. London to businesses / doctors, not a problem earlier when it was only Telegraph Offices (USA) or Post Office (UK).]

 

[Edward M. Grant]

It's slow start, short period exponential, then slow down to a plateau as the tech gets mature, then use can fall off a cliff as something replaces it. So no not at all as you claim.

No. The 'slow start' is just the early part of the exponential. You can't build a time machine before you figure out how to build a reliable flux capacitor... but, once you do, everyone is suddenly building them, and offering trips to hunt dinosaurs.

I remember Clarke pointing this out many years ago. Because technological progress is exponential, humans overestimate it in the short term, and underestimate it in the long term. We routinely see this in technology, where the early adopters say 'new tech X will radically change our lives over the next fifty years!', while the Luddites say 'ha-ha. new tech X has barely progressed in ten years and can't even do what old tech Y already does. What a joke.'

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Because technological progress is exponential

That is a media illusion. I've been studying and writing about tech for 40 years. It's only exponential for a short while for any particular tech. The slow start is to do with refining the tech and convincing market. Ocean Steamships not possible for nearly 200 years after steam engined pumps as the engines not efficient enough to be able to carry enough coal to cross ocean.

The tech for rocket launches (gyroscopes, Liquid hydrogen/Oxygen rocket motors etc) existed in mid 1930s. Satellite Launches just over twenty years later, only affordable for Direct to Home TV another 30 years later. Late 1980s to 2010 and exponential drop in cost and rise in capacity, peaking with Ka-Sat generation of satellites. We are now at a plateau. 1967 Men on Moon. But were is manned space exploration in last 40 years?

DNA etc and much biological science related to it is now based on discoveries about 60 years old (slow growth phase). We are entering the short exponential phase of genetic Engineering.

By its intrinsic mathematical nature, prolonged exponential growth always hits some sort of "wall". Physics, power, resources, etc.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

In my near-future SF world,

In a story you can have anything you like. But never imagine that the real world has any obligation to be similar.

 

[Nick B]

In the world of our work, which is far future, the technology you have is restricted by wealth, availability and culture. Most reasonably wealthy (think medium income people) have access to implants of varying capability. Most giving at least a basic HUD interface and general audio/video communications. Military grade stuff is way better. E-war and viral/hacker attack is a problem though.
Some people simply opt not to have them.
Developed worlds have a datasphere, akin to our internet. Implant suites interact with that ds if allowed.
Why would people use hand held devices? Quarantine. The only truly dependable firewall is to not be connected to a system, so when there may be risk (going somewhere you dont trust to have security) you use an external device. When your hardware is inside your head, you dont take risks.

Long distance communications are handled via hyperspace (with no explanation), but takesuime. For instant (or at least very short delay) communication is handled through binary gate technology (similar to some stargate style things in other sci-fi) and has very minimal information as to how it works. Though later in the series becomes quite important.

So, we have very varied communications.

 

[J5V]

You can choose whether or not to explain a sci-fi technology. Infodump-free explanations are fine, but most readers in most genres will just shrug and move on, accepting the proposition.

What I find more interesting is how these technologies can (be made to) fail, presenting opportunities for plot-centric obstacles. For example, if a faction is destroying Ansibles of all outposts, there needs to be significant effort to restore order. Likewise, civilisations can fall, reducing the population to a state where technology becomes word-of-mouth legend (e.g. BSG). Who knows what would have happened if the Roman Empire had survived their collapse?

 

[Edward M. Grant]

That is a media illusion. I've been studying and writing about tech for 40 years. It's only exponential for a short while for any particular tech.

Yes, as I said up above, 'technology typically progresses in an exponential fashion until it's mature'.

Ocean Steamships not possible for nearly 200 years after steam engined pumps as the engines not efficient enough to be able to carry enough coal to cross ocean.

And computers weren't possible for hundreds of years after discovering electricity. Steamships and steam engines are really no more related than transistors and power plants. You need a steam engine to build a steam ship, but the steam engine was progressing exponentially to the point where it could be used for other things, well before anyone started thinking about putting it on a ship.... once they did, steamships progressed rapidly, too.

The tech for rocket launches (gyroscopes, Liquid hydrogen/Oxygen rocket motors etc) existed in mid 1930s. Satellite Launches just over twenty years later, only affordable for Direct to Home TV another 30 years later. Late 1980s to 2010 and exponential drop in cost and rise in capacity, peaking with Ka-Sat generation of satellites. We are now at a plateau. 1967 Men on Moon. But were is manned space exploration in last 40 years?

Rockets for spaceflight developed because governments were willing to pay the staggering cost of launching them. They're only just becoming technologically feasible for anyone who doesn't have billions of dollars to burn, and manned space travel is about to explode as the cost drops to a level a significant fraction of the population can afford. Without those government billions, we probably wouldn't have started launching them until the late 20th century. Maybe not even until this one.

DNA etc and much biological science related to it is now based on discoveries about 60 years old (slow growth phase). We are entering the short exponential phase of genetic Engineering

And medical developments over the last few decades have been crippled by government Luddites. You can't get any kind of rapid progress when governments demand you must test something for ten years before it can be used.

Imagine how fast the Internet would have developed if every website had to be tested for years and vetted by the government before it could go live.

 

[Nick B]

Imagine how fast the Internet would have developed if every website had to be tested for years and vetted by the government before it could go live.

We will probably find out soon.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

computers weren't possible for hundreds of years after discovering electricity.

Depends what you mean by Electricity. The Ancient Greeks knew about static electricity.
Batteries: 1799
Conrad Zuse's Z1 computer was 1938 or 1939, but it could have been built in 1820s! It used relays. An IC based CPU is identical functionality to electromechanical relays; just faster, cheaper, lower power and smaller.
So the Electrical Age really started 1800 (lots of people making batteries) and the first computers 140 years later, Zuse used essentially 50 year old technology. The first Valve computer was in 1940s and could have been built from about 1928 if anyone had thought of it. Price of computers started plummeting after 1962 vs performance due to ICs (demonstrated 5 years earlier). The 1981 IBM PC was built of obsolescent HW and SW tech and held back home/office computing nearly 10 years!

The transistor was actually invented in 1930s (as an idea), but Bell labs first got one to actually work in 1948, beating many other people working on it because they had purer Germanium. French and German scientists working together in France actually independently got one working after Bell Labs, but before Bell Labs made it public. It was another 10 years before transistors would oust valves in battery radios and 15 for mains radios.

The history of technology is fascinating. Each success in implementing an idea makes the next one almost inevitable. In so many cases the same thing is independently developed by many different people. You only get to hear about the guy that published first. Also in some cases people are celebrated who didn't invent it at all! (UK celebration of Baird and TV ... in 1920s and 1930s he was working on a dead end mechanical system demonstrated in 1899. The real TV invention was EMI (UK) / RCA (USA) spearheaded by RCA's Russian expert, Zworykin (1935). Oddly many in USA celebrate Philo Farnsworth, but his system while electronic, was a technological dead end and everyone at the time (1930s) knew it. Both Farnsworth and Zworykin were inspired by a 1905 presentation on the idea of totally Electronic TV system using CRT (invented simultaneously in UK and Germany in end of 19th C.) for screen and camera. Certainly by 1920 the screen bit worked, but the target design for the camera CRT defeated everyone except Zworykin. The EMI/RCA connection originated with Emile Berliner inventing Gramophone disc. His New Jersey Victor company set up UK HMV (EMI from 1928) in 1898, I think. JVC Japan also was an offshoot. RCA bought Victor after Marconi was forced to Divest in RCA. Marconi licensed their domestic Radio brand to HMV/EMI. That's why RCA, JVC (only in Japan) and EMI all had the Nipper Logo (ironically it was an Edison cylinder phonograph, but the artist painted Berliner's gramophone on top.).

 

[Ray McCarthy]

and manned space travel is about to explode as the cost drops to a level a significant fraction of the population can afford.

No. The current developments are only for Low Earth Orbit, like Space Tourism and ISS. Though there is talk of a Mars mission, no current equipment is suitable. The value of it is dubious compared with robot probes and the radiation is a problem even though it's just our doorstep.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

but the steam engine was progressing exponentially to the point

It didn't progress exponentially. They did put steam engines on launches, river boats etc quite quickly. It was slow improvement of efficiency that got steam engine to point where the transatlantic ship could carry the coal, then everyone wanted it. You then had a short exponential growth in steamships till diesel engines started to replace them. Then with steam turbine, some ships (esp military) returned to steam, but using oil. Nuclear powered ships use steam turbines too. All coal, oil and Nuclear electricity is via Steam Turbine. So we are still in the Steam age, as well as Electrical (1800), Communications (1835) Electronic (1898) and Computer (1940s). The Internet "proper" predates website public deployment by about 15 years. Internet Age (1980s), Web Age (1992), though spec of HTTP for Web is maybe from 1989 Tim Berners Lee in CERN. Public Radio 1921, Public Electronic TV 1936.