What do you think are the minimum technological/scientific advances that must be incorporated in a future/sci-fi setting, for it to be plausible?

This is sort of the reverse of those discussions that pooh-pooh FTL drives, artificial intelligence, and laser guns.

E.g., golden age SF pretty much fails as a projector of plausible futures because it enormously underestimates improvements in miniaturization: netbooks, cellphones--these all point to a much more "cyber" future.

OTOH, is it really necessary to have "transhumanism" in all its forms? I don't mean ethically--but realistically, no matter how much some people dream about bio-enhancement, what's guaranteed and what's more speculative?

The reason this is related to RPGs is: I've read criticisms of GURPS Transhuman Space to the effect that technology as portrayed in the game makes it very hard to develop adventure situations. OTOH, sure, you could just play Traveller (nothing wrong with that!) but some of the tech there is arguably outdated even compared with real life today.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;302094What do you think are the minimum technological/scientific advances that must be incorporated in a future/sci-fi setting, for it to be plausible?

Honestly, none.

The introduction of a single idea into a modern setting can propel that setting into science fiction and be a very enjoyable one for RPGs.

For example, artificial intelligence. What if an artificial intelligence evolved on today's internet? Lets say that it begins exploring the environment and gets noticed by watchdog and anti-terrorism groups, how would they respond? Most national governments and corporations would not view this as an electronic evolutionary breakthrough but as a hacking or espionage attempt. Huge opportunities for gaming in that scenario.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;302094This is sort of the reverse of those discussions that pooh-pooh FTL drives, artificial intelligence, and laser guns.

E.g., golden age SF pretty much fails as a projector of plausible futures because it enormously underestimates improvements in miniaturization: netbooks, cellphones--these all point to a much more "cyber" future.

Well, as Allen Steele once put it, using science fiction to predict the future is like taking a blindfolded man and giving him a shotgun then telling him to hit a target on the wall labelled "the future". He may get a partial hit from the shotgun blast, but it is very doubtful that he will actually hit the target.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;302094OTOH, is it really necessary to have "transhumanism" in all its forms? I don't mean ethically--but realistically, no matter how much some people dream about bio-enhancement, what's guaranteed and what's more speculative?

The reason this is related to RPGs is: I've read criticisms of GURPS Transhuman Space to the effect that technology as portrayed in the game makes it very hard to develop adventure situations. OTOH, sure, you could just play Traveller (nothing wrong with that!) but some of the tech there is arguably outdated even compared with real life today.

As applied to transhumanism, I'd say that any technology that uses nanomachines is highly speculative. There are many reasons rooted in both physics and chemistry for this (not the least of which is the waste heat generated by nanomachines when they operate).

As for cybernetic enhancements, R. Talsorian Games Cyberpunk games and Masamune Shirow in his Ghost in the Shell manga series cover the limitations of the human body when it is used as a frame to attach cybernetics to. It is very hard to have superhumans unless the entire body is replaced.

Ultimately, much of the realism level will depend on the exact "feel" you want to have in your science fiction game. One thing that has come into gaming that I have seen that involves information technology is the idea that with the internet and all this connectivity we have, it will be easy to access sensitive information when actually it is still just as difficult.

Making accurate scenarios of the future is so difficult that there's a whole website dedicated to laughing at the people who tried, retro futures.

I think it's simplest to say "it's not the future, it's an alternate world." Instead of saying, "it is the year 2157, the Emperor of Earth has sent you -" you can just say, "in the fifth year of his reign, the Emperor of Earth has sent you -"

I think the biggest problem is unless you suddenly develop psychic powers, that SF will always be wrong on some level. It is fiction because it's made up, it isn't a real prediction of the future. Transhuman space won't even get it right, no matter how hard its tried to be consistent. We have no way of knowing if copying a person's brain is the same thing as having the living person there. The mind is subtle and complex, so it may never be possible. Neither might "giving birth to dragons" (which is one of the fiction blurb.) We don't know if genetic alteration can go that far, without errors being so prone to create non-viable life.

So its all "let's pretend this future will look like X."

In addition to what others have already said about s-f being a poor predictor (it's really about the present after all), I also feel that what's "essential" to include changes depending on what the hot new cutting edge tech is: rocket science in the '50s, cybernetics in the '80s, etc.

We can't predict the future beyond a few years, so nothing is essential.

One hallmark of technological progress IMO is that it tends to advance until it fades into the background - it doesn't become magical, it becomes mundane.  The exception is transport such as cars & planes, which need to be big enough to transport humans.  The most implausible futures IMO are those which fetishise particular technological elements.

Military sf is one of the easier areas to consider 'must haves'.  If your sf features space combat between rival militaries (as opposed to eg peacekeepers & pirates), I'd say realistic must-haves include missiles, which will have launch systems and destructive power at least as effective as a modern missile destroyer or nuclear missile sub - ie it can launch dozens of nuclear missiles in moments.

Another must-have is unmanned vehicles - reconnaissance drones, unmanned missile carriers, and possibly unmanned fighters - there won't be any manned 'starfighters', either; unmanned just has too big an advantage.  

Offense will be greatly superior to defense in space warfare; military technology will reflect that.  Less 'Star Wars', more 'The Forever War'.

Quote from: S'mon;302128We can't predict the future beyond a few years, so nothing is essential.

Now this is just plain nonsense. We can predict the future, and it's not looking so good at the moment...

It is the eleventh hour. One species of life has come to dominate on the surface. Calling themselves intelligent they work hard to consume the available natural resources altering the very surface of the earth via terraforming. They fight incessantly amongst each other, with groups and individuals competing to be the first to utilize/horde said resources for any reason, plausible, or implausible, naming genocide as an inherent group or individual right with no overall goal that is collectively defined to ensure that the race, and the planet, prospers.

They gather scattered resources in quantities so toxic that it will kill them off in a matter of minutes or hours if it is accidently released, and develop weapons systems for their competitions with the capabilities of sterilizing, or otherwise mutating all the life on the planet.

Their collective efforts over the last fifty centuries have initiated the largest die off of planetary flora and fauna since the age of the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago when massive rocks from deep space nearly extinguished all life on the planet.

They increase their numbers without first considering the impact their numbers will have on the remaining available resources, and life forms.

In detail, they practice an incoherent strategy of accelerating resource depletion, and intensified production until an imminent economic/bio collapse
forces them to create new technologies, then the cycle starts all over again. They pat themselves on the back and call themselves smart and evolutionary for doing this, daring to name their forefathers as primitive thinkers and doers.

Sadly, this is true, but not in the way that most of these people conceptualize.

Wake up, stop dreaming. There's a hole in the ocean, and water is pouring through...

Huang Chung, 1984

My general rule: In the future, there will not be as many cool things like jetpacks and psionics, but the computers will have much, much more processing power.

I'd sooner say the chief problem with Sci Fi anachronism isn't setting a game in 2250 which will turn out to have predicted the technology of that time wrongly, and have the people of the 23rd century laugh at you. The problem appears if you set a game in that time and you fail to give them the technology we already have.

You can count the number of sci fi universes which have, say, the internet or cellphones on the fingers of a blind starfish that's gainfully employed as a butcher's apprentice. The internet is not Far Future tech. Yet generally nobody in the far future has it.

Quote from: Axiomatic;302152The internet is not Far Future tech. Yet generally nobody in the far future has it.

One notable exception to that is A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, with its galactic "Net of a Million Lies" where distant gaseous intelligences and homicidal butterfly aliens swap conspiracy theories about humans.

Samuel Delany's Stars in My Pockets Like Grains of Sand had an internet-like information network, too...though I'd hardly call that a major work in the sense of being well-known or popular.

Funny enough Jules Verne may have predicted the internet. Poshumous publication of Paris in the 20th Century...(worldwide telegraphic network...)

Quote from: GrimGent;302153One notable exception to that is A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, with its galactic "Net of a Million Lies" where distant gaseous intelligences and homicidal butterfly aliens swap conspiracy theories about humans.

Major kudos to him.

Quote from: GrimGent;302153One notable exception to that is A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, with its galactic "Net of a Million Lies" where distant gaseous intelligences and homicidal butterfly aliens swap conspiracy theories about humans.

Well, this was written in 1992, after the Internet was established but before it was well-known.  And his galactic net was much like what existed at the time -- i.e. message boards and newsgroups.  I think there was better speculation in, say, David Brin's Earth (search technology and uploaded videos) or John Ford's Growing Up Weightless (PDAs and online RPGs).  

Though note that the question isn't what is needed for sci-fi to be truly predictive, but what is needed for it to be plausible.  i.e. What developments, if  lacking, are so egregious that it distracts you from the game/story?  

For me, I have trouble with primitive communication.  If we're several decades into an advanced future, everyone predicts AIs and computers that you can talk to, but as far as personal devices there is often the equivalent of walkie-talkies or cell phones.

Verne apparently had a Weapon Mastery feat in Blindfolded Shotgun.

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