More Western than a Wagon Train to the Stars - Spoiler Discussion

POSTED BY: feralwanderer
UPDATED: Thursday, June 1, 2006 11:42
VIEWED: 16968
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ZICSOFT

Thursday, June 13, 2002 7:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Tymen:
Also, since Joss is using the Civil War as
one of his influences, it should be noted
that one of the reasons the South lost the
war was that the North had a superior
manufactoring and industrial complex supporting them. Easier access to more weapons and supplies.
Hence the access to more primitive technology on the fringe than in the core worlds.

Ok, my turn. Very true. What's more, this technology gap was one of the reasons the war happened. The agrarian south saw itself less and less influential in relation to the industrial north.

The election of Abraham Lincoln as President was the last straw. It wasn't just that he was an aboltionish, though that was important. It was that he was able to win the election without a single southern vote. (The Republican Party was just getting started, and didn't have the resources to qualify electors in every state.) So they decided to go their own way.

Anyway, this kind of issue makes Reconstruction a prime model for an "anti-Star Trek" story. Instead of there being a technological fix for every problem, technology is part of the problem.

PANDORA

Thursday, June 13, 2002 7:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:

Anyway, this kind of issue makes Reconstruction a prime model for an "anti-Star Trek" story. Instead of there being a technological fix for every problem, technology is part of the problem.

Another really interesting difference between Star Trek (along with other Roddenberry spawn) and Firefly is that Roddenberry's vision of the future was always one in which the Alliance/Federation/Commonwealth/whatever grouping of independent planets was benevolent, positive, and overall what was best for the universe. In Firefly, the Alliance may yet prove to be those things, but that's not the perspective from which Joss is taking us. It seems that the Alliance is a Bad Thing, at least from the view of our heroes, and the view of the future is a little more bleak than the shiny goodness of Mr. Roddenberry's vision.

It'll be a nice change of pace for the sci-fi genre.

Pandora

"Logic is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't beat actual thought." -Terry Pratchett, the Last Continent

PANDORA

Thursday, June 13, 2002 7:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:

Anyway, this kind of issue makes Reconstruction a prime model for an "anti-Star Trek" story. Instead of there being a technological fix for every problem, technology is part of the problem.

Another really interesting difference between Star Trek (along with other Roddenberry spawn) and Firefly is that Roddenberry's vision of the future was always one in which the Alliance/Federation/Commonwealth/whatever grouping of independent planets was benevolent, positive, and overall what was best for the universe. In Firefly, the Alliance may yet prove to be those things, but that's not the perspective from which Joss is taking us. It seems that the Alliance is a Bad Thing, at least from the view of our heroes, and the view of the future is a little more bleak than the shiny goodness of Mr. Roddenberry's vision.

It'll be a nice change of pace for the sci-fi genre.

Pandora

"Logic is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't beat actual thought." -Terry Pratchett, the Last Continent

FERALWANDERER

Friday, June 14, 2002 7:09 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Pandora:
Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:

Anyway, this kind of issue makes Reconstruction a prime model for an "anti-Star Trek" story. Instead of there being a technological fix for every problem, technology is part of the problem.

SNIP

It'll be a nice change of pace for the sci-fi genre.

Pandora

"Logic is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't beat actual thought." -Terry Pratchett, the Last Continent

Yeah, I agree I am really looking forward to a real frontier vision; where the "law" is thinly spread, the social environment is very dunamic as "gold rush" equivelent fever exists, technology isn't a panacea, and legends are built on personality and grit.

Jason
Sydney, Australia

SHUGGIE

Friday, June 14, 2002 5:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Pandora:
Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:

Anyway, this kind of issue makes Reconstruction a prime model for an "anti-Star Trek" story. Instead of there being a technological fix for every problem, technology is part of the problem.

Another really interesting difference between Star Trek (along with other Roddenberry spawn) and Firefly is that Roddenberry's vision of the future was always one in which the Alliance/Federation/Commonwealth/whatever grouping of independent planets was benevolent, positive, and overall what was best for the universe. In Firefly, the Alliance may yet prove to be those things, but that's not the perspective from which Joss is taking us. It seems that the Alliance is a Bad Thing, at least from the view of our heroes, and the view of the future is a little more bleak than the shiny goodness of Mr. Roddenberry's vision.

It'll be a nice change of pace for the sci-fi genre.

Pandora

"Logic is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't beat actual thought." -Terry Pratchett, the Last Continent

Whilst I pretty much agree with what you've both said I'm going to stick up for Star Trek and Roddenberry a little. Technology as the all-pervasive solution to society's problems was a very popular theme in 60's SciFi - something which was mirrored in the attitudes of the time.
So in that sense I think it was just that Roddenberry was a man of his time.

I prefer the more realistic view we have today. But when you think of the technological change that took place post-WWII it must have seemed that technology really was going to solve a lot of problems.

Shug

Her lips were saying 'No' but then I looked into her eyes
... and her eyes were saying 'read my lips'
- Niles Crane

TINYTIMM

Friday, June 14, 2002 6:47 PM

Just a pair of points:

After the US Civil War many parts of the country suffered. You can argue that East Kentucky didn't recover from the Civil War until the Coal boom around the turn of the century. You can also argue that it's seriously depressed today.

A "Colt Peacemaker" is a highly developed piece of technology requiring a skilled gunsmith to properly assemble, time, test and finish.

If fixed ammunition is available even a clutz like me with a crude machine shop and a lathe can slap together a submachine gun. Ya gotta be careful about technology.

Then again, if you need to slap something with a massive dose of kinetic engergy, an 1898 style Mauser Bolt Action Rifle will do the job very efficiently and probably will for the next few hundred years.

Jeff Timm
Who notes do-it-yourself SMGs can get you in serious trouble with most Governments of the world, a few Western ones will give you a fair trial before they toss you in the clinque, in the rest of the world they shoot you until you are rather seriously dead.

TINYTIMM

Friday, June 14, 2002 6:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shuggie:

Technology as the all-pervasive solution to society's problems was a very popular theme in 60's SciFi - something which was mirrored in the attitudes of the time.

Considering the track record for technology in solving problems, and the track record for everything else. I'll stick with technology, even if it is so sophisticated it isn't noticeable, such as super rice.

Jeff Timm
Who also likes free market economies, compared to everything else that's been tried.

ZICSOFT

Friday, June 14, 2002 7:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by TinyTimm:
A "Colt Peacemaker" is a highly developed piece of technology requiring a skilled gunsmith to properly assemble, time, test and finish.

If fixed ammunition is available even a clutz like me with a crude machine shop and a lathe can slap together a submachine gun.

OK, my ignorance of firearms technology is showing. Please be patient with me in the following discussion.

Your comparison between 19th and 20th century guns does make sense. But there's a reason that Colt gunsmith had to be so much more skilled than his modern counterpart. His materials were less developed, his machines had lower tolerances -- oh well, I'm talking out of my depth, but you get my point. When you're a long way from the nearest factory, the toys are more primitive and the craftmen are more skilled.

You ever meet an umbrella repairman? Of course not, we don't have them in industrial countries. But they have them in rural India -- and they get top rupee for their work.

You mentioned "fixed ammunition". Isn't that a pretty sophisticated bit of technology? Easily obtained whever UPS goes. (Which is not everywhere. In central New Guinea, the going rate for local labor is one shotgun shell per person per day.) But how hard would it be to go to a planet with no industry and get everything you need to manufacture it?

And as for your machine shop tommy gun. Well, even assuming it didn't have to fire black powder hand loads, and you'd also thought to import the actual machine shop from an industrial planet -- what kind of materials do you need? Hopefully there's some kind of on-planet steel mill, but will it be able to produce the kind of material modern guns are made of?

SHUGGIE

Friday, June 14, 2002 9:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by TinyTimm:
Quote:
Originally posted by Shuggie:

Technology as the all-pervasive solution to society's problems was a very popular theme in 60's SciFi - something which was mirrored in the attitudes of the time.

Considering the track record for technology in solving problems, and the track record for everything else. I'll stick with technology, even if it is so sophisticated it isn't noticeable, such as super rice.

Jeff Timm
Who also likes free market economies, compared to everything else that's been tried.

That's fine. I just think that the 60s SciFi view of technology was a too uncritical.

Shug

Her lips were saying 'No' but then I looked into her eyes
... and her eyes were saying 'read my lips'
- Niles Crane

ZICSOFT

Friday, June 14, 2002 11:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by TinyTimm:

Considering the track record for technology in solving problems, and the track record for everything else. I'll stick with technology, even if it is so sophisticated it isn't noticeable, such as super rice.

You speak as if doing technology were something we choose to do. Hardly. Our species is defined by its ability to make things.

Perhaps I put it badly when I talked about technology as a solution or problem. Technology both solves and creates problems. Which is fine. What's bad is blind faith in *any* tool, system, idea, etc. And that's the attitude the traditional Star Trek plot encourages, where some discovery or invention is guaranteed to save the day about 10 minutes after the final commercial break.

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