Science Fiction Concepts

Topics? Where we’re goin’, we don’t need topics.

*Cue 80’s music

Sorry, don’t know what came over me there…

Although, to come back to my (wildly off-topic) point, I don’t deny that much of our cultural landscape regarding our individual and group morality comes from history, instinct and experience, however I wouldn’t write off ethics just yet. Perhaps my use of the terms ‘good’ and ‘evil’ were misleading, I suppose instead I was referring to ethics over morals. Morals do indeed come from all the sources you have stated, but ethics are the result of logical inferrence and debate, eventually becoming the basis of laws and statutes that govern our societies.

For example Teleological versus Ontological Ethics is a heavy debate that has raged for the better part of a century, based on whether or not one’s morality (and duty to society) is determined internally or externally.

For example Captain America determines his moral stance based on external factors, and then adheres to them rigidly (I will never murder anyone, I will never steal, I will never betray comrades etc…). This particular stance means that the things his society deems sins have a direct value, and it is his (and his fellow heroes) duty to uphold those values.

Iron Man on the other hand sets his moral compass on what he personally believes is the correct course of action. He can sacrifice a hundred lives if he deems it necessary to save a million lives. He uses his instinct and his cultural training and his own logic to determine what the correct course of action.

Both sides have their flaws (one side is inflexible and exploitable, the other allows you to justify shooting up a school if it saves more lives) but these stances aren’t passed down from the monkeys or our shared cultural background, they are logic problems that our culture strives to solve.

My point is, are there points of union between all possible cultures that exist in these ethical conundrums that could only be reached by an advanced civilization.

I hypothesize that it is impossible to entirely discount the possibility, and that when our society makes first contact, they will likely try to reach out to our new interstellar cousins with logic, and that those same cousins might well attempt the same thing.

Incidentally, regarding the Blorb, Imma let somebody else give the inaugural handshake.

But this is the problem. The very concept of civilization is alien to the Blorg. Each is alone, evolving along its on path, creating things to allow them to explore the world around it further (heat retaining suits to allow it to climb from the volcano).

Because they reproduce simply through their own reconstruction there is no need for them to produce a form of communication however maybe a mutal alliance will begin to evolve between the larger of them. Maybe they will find the relics of those that have created things but since been eaten.

Either way they may begin to create advance technologies but will never requite a civilization like we do as it offers them no benifit. Because they are focused on the self they have no need for philosophy, others are just wrong.

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I bet they are still driven by self-preservation, considering their nature. Evil is to kill me, not others. :wink:

Well then substitute ‘civilization’ for ‘mind’ in that instance. I think you would broadly agree that the Blorg’s thinking as the centuries wind on goes from simple to complex, right? That’s what societies of individuals do (roughly) as well. If the Blorg are one mind, and that mind gets more complex as it grapples with new concepts, its going to start thinking about its place in the world. Once it starts thinking about things other than its own survival, then philosophy and ethics may be seen to follow.

The rights of the other is something they will likely have difficulty with at first, but they will have the various lifeforms and food-stuffs that comprise their world to practice empathy on (imagine a lava-based vegan movement that the whole species takes on because it realizes that the things it eats have thought processes)

Also, their unique singular consciousness would likely see humanity as a similar organism, and therefore ascribe the same cultural rights and responsibilities to them at least until their mistake is corrected (China Mieville’s Embassytown is the homework reading for this topic).

Are the Blorg ever separated from each other? Is a section ever cut off and reattached? Were there multiple Blorg that were subsumed into one life-form over time? The only impediment to the Blorg’s understanding of singular beings is their lack of contact with alien intelligences. Much as our key impediment to understanding alien species is our lack of contact with alien intelligences.

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[fetches a cuppa and some biscuits to enjoy this intriguing debate] :tea: :cookie:

I am having far too much philosophic fun here, reading this. Really. :relaxed:

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I agree that over time they’ll gain a greater understanding of the world around them as their ideas and thoughts become more complex. This could lead them to questioning their existence and those around them which could lead them to stop eating those around, forming protective and exlusive zones to isolate them from the bigger dangerous ones.

Seing humans I think they would think of us as individual species each, without connection between separate humans the same as they are. They would struggle to understand the ideas of community or cooperative endeavours.

All this goes to show why most aliens are humanoid creatures with similar senses as they would have a similar conception of the ethics and structures that we think of as normal to an advanced race, therefore easier to write.

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I think we scared the other townsfolk away…

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I totally understand what you mean and agree with you somewhat, however I think it’s always been more fun and fascinating to think about what would happen if humans encountered a race significantly more advanced than ours. But it would be cool to see if humans and another race were similar or even if we were more advanced

I wanted to necro this thread because I just watched a video that inspired me as far as the relationship between actual science and science fiction:

@TracyCanfield, @adrao, and any lurking scientists…

  • Is there a potential energy gain here (is this feasible for something like a car engine or a power plant), or would the method end up losing energy?
  • Does anyone know if the process is in fact used for treating cancer cells like the video suggests?

Yes, it’s an area of ongoing research in nanotechnology. Potentially you can use nanotech to target cancerous cells and design it in a way that the particles will be heated by radiowaves killing tumour cells while leaving the surrounding tissue relatively undamaged.
https://www.nature.com/news/2007/071105/full/news.2007.218.html

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Well, there is quite a lot of development on hydrogen cars, though if you ask me lithium is going to win the battle (it has the momentum behind it, and sometimes the best technology doesnt win, Betamax vs VHS in the 80s)

Regarding cancer, the most promising technologies these days involve drugs to take the breaks off the immune system (so that your own body gets rid of the cancer) or training those cells to recognise the cancer (different though related problem), and DNA technology. In my opinion the war on cancer will be (largely) won with this new range of technologies.

Then, we need to start talking about the war on Alzheimers… what good is it that people live longer, if their brains wither and die? And so far no new treatments are promising, Alzheimers is a story of disappointment after disappointment, for the time I have been following it…

Well, this is a bit beyond me, but I have confidence that you’ll be able to follow it (is this legitimate news?):

On the topic of hive minds, I’d really like to see (and explore in my own work, for that matter) a species with a hive social structure that does not have a hive mind. And something that doesn’t interpret queen bees as leaders, either. I mean, ants and bees and termites and naked mole rats (etc.) aren’t telepaths. They have a very fascinating social structure which could make for great aliens.

I’m not really a fan of humanoid aliens. I think if you want something more humanlike, you might as well just make them variant humans, whether the result of genetic engineering or divergence after millions of years of evolution or whatever. That gives plenty of scope for exploring the near-human, which is certainly a worthwhile thing to do. I do also like seeing more nonhuman aliens, too—there’s the range to explore some possibilities that are really far from what we’re used to. And, well, they can still be carbon-based oxygen-breathing water-based life but be developed in ways that aren’t all that convergent on Earth life. My favorite speculative evolution project depicts the life of a planet called Ilion, all very detailed, gorgeously illustrated, rigorously designed, but still not at all Earth. It’s the project that gives me the best sense that these creatures could really exist… and best of all, they’re organized evolutionarily, with their own tree of life. I also really like the alien designs linked on this page, which are highly detailed and really give scope to how things could work with some very fundamental differences.

Oh, hey, I’ve contributed to that :smile: I’ve had a big project of developing the evolutionary history of a planet in that setting, though I haven’t worked on it for a while, and I’m nowhere near the present day. Still have a lot of ideas for it, though… I should get back to this :sweat_smile:

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I’m in the opposite lol

I’m tired of ‘Humans’ being special snowflake . Always the ones to save everyone , always the ones who are heroes…and nonsense . Sheesh… our specie live short lives…and because of that…we can do IMPOSSIBLE THINGS!

Yeah we can , but humans supermacy being shoved around…Urgh…I’m just tired of the concept of 'early or young specie that thrive against all odds and shine in the end ’ .

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then we go back to ‘first contact’ …a first step for humanity…shoot first…war next :rofl:

I never got alien cultures like Asari, Turians, Ewoks, whatever space species and what have you, always having an identical culture with the exact same rules and belief system, no matter the place, planet, or how far they are from the same system.

It seems weird to assume that all aliens would have a rigid cultural structure that has absolutely no diversity to it, even if it’s from groups that don’t even have the faintest connections to the homeworld where those belief systems probably developed.

Like Krogan are a warlike race on every possible planet, system, and galaxy? All Salarians ever, no matter the background and galaxy, are going to be science nerds?

It just doesn’t make a lot of sense me from a realistic perspective. I don’t care what the species is, if they are intelligent enough to be self aware and sapient, then there is definitely going to be at least some diversity and variation to it in high enough populations.

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And then of course, it’s handwaved with a really odd and lazy explanation about how humans are so uniquely individualistic and special, because there’s just something about being a killer ape from a water world that makes you a special snowflake.

well…there were some stuff that were explained . Like in ME 3 , where EDI explained why you couldn’t keep 2 krogan huddled together due to their agressivity .

For the Salarian , their short life…kinda force them in the science path . Although , I’ve met some salarian that weren’t all about science . I’ve seen salarian that were just worker , one become a dancer (lol) , and even merchant .

Same with Turiant . Yes , they are militarist . As in encouraged to join the military forces . But they aren’t all like that . I saw an engineer . Even the militarist ones aren’t all the same . Some are rigide , and some are loose canon . Nyreen for exemple is a vigilanté on Omega and a Biotic .

I think they follow a certain blue print to make them . And then build around it and fill the whole thing , structures , religions , cast and such . It’s based on Humans , who while very different individual by individual , we are copy pasting alot from each others when we build a society lol .

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