The effect of Moore's Law in the 'Verse

POSTED BY: Cazaril
UPDATED: Sunday, January 24, 2010 15:07
VIEWED: 5725
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CAZARIL

Saturday, January 23, 2010 10:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ImNotHere:
Of course, part of the reason that was such a successful prediction is that it got pretty much taken up as a performance target by the semiconductor industry...

Remember, Moore's Law isn't so much a prediction, as it was an observation of a current trend... The semiconductor manufactures may use it as a target goal now, but they were already doing it (probably with out knowing), before Moore ever spotted it.

As for your statement on jacks... Well you lost me at that point. Not because I didn't understand what you were saying, but because you added the link to make sure people knew what jacks were. I had to wipe the tears out of my eyes I was laughing so hard...

And I get that computers (and their components), are fairly high on the technological ladder, but here are a couple of things I also considered..

The departure from "Earth that was", seems to have been large scale, involving at least the two remaining super-governments. If I recall correctly, it took at least one complete generation to make the trip (maybe more), which would be a known factor. Therefore I can not imagine that they would not think to add such an important supply on all the ships, as a library. I'm not talking just paper books to pass the hours with, I'm talking schematics/diagrams/instructions/theory to make just about anything and everything. Including production schemes of what industries are needed to support each item. Therefore they aren't recreating the wheel, just the infrastructure to mass produce it (still a daunting task in itself). Considering that almost every modern connivence, from watches to coffee makers, use computer technology, it would get a priority to be reestablished.

Using Moore's law didn't take into account things like; advancement in materials, radical thinking, and the "ah-ha" moments that allow for huge jumps in technology in a short period of time. This includes theoretical break throughs that could still be worked on will in transit (Math and Physics don't need industry to work, it only needs it to prove it works).

But even though the law might be disproved during transit and initial terraforming/colonization, it's possible that large gains might happen to offset this "down time".

Serenity has a computer... The comm-sats do to... So the technology is there.

My impression was that Londinium and Sihnon are very technologically advanced, as are most of the Core Worlds. But people are in such a rush to colonize everything, most worlds just haven't had the time to rebuild the infrastructure. This has forced mankind to look back through history, and just take simpler items as he expands outward from the Core. Much like camping... Sure I can bring a flashlight, and it's great until the battery dies, but I should really think about flint and steel too.

These less technological worlds utilizes what technology they can, but I'm sure they are careful of the technologies they choose (Nandi's house looks like a frozen dinner to get cheap power. Ranse Burgess and his laser pistol - which didn't work out too well for him, The mag-lev train to Perodiso), because it's probably expensive to import.

I think a lot of the technology is, for lack of a better word, "hidden" from us, the viewers... And I believe Whedon does this on purpose. Serenity has her computer, but it's not a character as in Star Trek. The Cortex connections exist, but they are only used as a means of allowing the characters to communicate (they must be good for entertainment and knowledge, but they are seldomly used that way on-screen). Bellerophon Estates float, and the houses have huge security systems, and automated drones, but Whedon never explains them. Whedon seemed to use these things only as tools to tell a story with. He also used the simpler world of Serenity to tell part of his story too. It gave better contrast to see Mal's old handgun being cleaned, but working, when compared to Burgess' laser pistol that didn't work when needed. It also makes an interesting statement,

KINGEICHOLZ

Saturday, January 23, 2010 11:48 PM

Huh?

TRAVELER

Sunday, January 24, 2010 12:51 AM

I always laugh when Jayne tries to use the stun rifle to open that door on Ariel and starts cursing it when it fails. Then seconds later Mal blasts the door open with a covential firearm.

I suspect people still have private computers, but a ship requires navigation and that means being part of some network, the Cortex. I am surprised when he is asked for credentials. I would think the ship sends out an identification code. Is that not what the "Cry baby cry" is all about.

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler

BRIGLAD

Sunday, January 24, 2010 2:32 AM

Here's my theory of how stuff works in the 'Verse.

I came to this due to the thought processes I went through as I wrote some of my fanfiction.

Cortex: 'Verse wide combo, internet/TV/Radio system. works just as others and the RPG manual have described.

Navsat: Mentioned by Wash (and the Operative)several times. I envision a large 'Verse wide GPS like system used for ships navigation.

Serenity's computers: Serenity does indeed have computers. What today are called black boxes or Avionics in aircraft. There are probably small computers all over. Ranging from display generators for the screens and flight instruments/sensors, Navsat receivers for navigation to any number of smaller subsystems that run the ship. Heck, even the voice warnings in "Out of Gas" when the O2 runs low are probably computer generated.

Also, during the exodus, while they no doubt had the plans to build nearly anything once they arrived in the 'Verse, I can imagine that during the trip it was a sort of technological "Dark Ages" where innovation was quashed in favor of simple survival.

Then after they arrived, you have several decades of "setting up time" where the basic terriforming of the original core worlds took precedence over innovation. Figure at least 50 years worth of that. So that gives you about 150-60 years worth of very little technological innovation.

Add in a healthy dose of the K.I.S.S. principle (Keep it simple, stupid) and as the outlying worlds are terriformed, old tech like guns are both cheaper and easier to produce than high tech lasers and the like.

Once the Core worlds began building up their infrastructure. You then start getting things like Maglev trains and flying cars.

Throw in a few wars over the centuries to both boost and impede technological development (Rise and fall of Shan-Yu?) and the factor that it takes much less technological savy to maintain certain technology than it takes to come up with a new technology from scratch.

I figure some general Human complacency factors in as well. A "why fix what ain't broke" attitude.

The result (IMHO) is the 'Verse as shown to us by Joss.

BYTEMITE

Sunday, January 24, 2010 6:06 AM

What I heard from the Verse in Numbers is that the very first worlds were terraformed in advance of the arrival of humans. They sent out probes and robots ahead of the Arcs. But then, Londinium and Sihnon were pretty close to Earth-That-Was already, except for the absence of life thing.

Firefly systems and sensors, according to the RPG, are the most primitive systems, sensors, and computers still in regular use in the verse. It's all supposedly very rudimentary (by their terms?). The alarms might tell them they're a problem, but crews of a Firefly mostly rely on their own senses and skillsets to figure out what the problem IS and resolve it.

IMNOTHERE

Sunday, January 24, 2010 3:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cazaril:
As for your statement on jacks... Well you lost me at that point. Not because I didn't understand what you were saying, but because you added the link to make sure people knew what jacks were.

...not so silly: the game goes by a zillion different names. When I were a lad, one of the pieces was called a "jack of fives" but I'd have called the game they were playing in "objects in space" "fivestones", not "jacks".

Quote:

The departure from "Earth that was", seems to have been large scale, involving at least the two remaining super-governments.

Yes - although it also seems to have been planned in the face of ecological collapse.

Quote:

Therefore I can not imagine that they would not think to add such an important supply on all the ships, as a library.

Also true - but there's no evidence that they had any sort of replicator technology, universal constructors or nanotechnology that could turn schematics straight into products.

Quote:
Considering that almost every modern connivence, from watches to coffee makers, use computer technology, it would get a priority to be reestablished.

Nope - the absolutely first priority is to get large-scale agriculture established. You can't have a high-tech civilization if every citizen has to devote most of their time to producing food.

You don't need a coffee maker if you don't have any coffee, and you don't plant coffee until you know your wheat is going strong. Subsistence farmers don't need watches - they work by the sun.

If you plan to start a colony, hope and pray you've packed enough ready-made tech to get your agriculture bootstrapped before the freeze-dried rations run out - and however many robotic multi-harvesters you pack, don't neglect "Plan B" - the Mk3 biomass-driven self-replicating traction and personal transport module (with emergency protein ration function) otherwise known as the "horse".

Modern computer technology is only really possible because of the huge consumer market for high-tech products: the industry is wholly dependent on economies of scale. Even with today's infrastructure, getting small quantities of chips made is prohibitively expensive without the promise of selling tens of thousands.

Quote:
Using Moore's law didn't take into account things like; advancement in materials, radical thinking, and the "ah-ha" moments that allow for huge jumps in technology in a short period of time.

Yes it did. The continuation of Moore's law and its corollaries depends on a constant supply of "ah ha" moments. We've already had the switch to multicore processors, largely because of thermal problems with big, fast single processors (that was a major U-turn for Intel) - but now we need to get much better at writing efficient multi-processor code. Hard disc capacities would have peaked years ago were it not for the discovery of GMR ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_magnetoresistance)

Quote:

Serenity has a computer... The comm-sats do to... So the technology is there.

But not necessarily common or affordable, and what we do see is distinctly pre-21st century, except on the central worlds (which is exactly where you'd expect the limited supplies brought from Earth by the more wealthy ark passengers to crop up).

Quote:

I think a lot of the technology is, for lack of a better word, "hidden" from us, the viewers... And I believe Whedon does this on purpose.

Its also worth bearing in mind that Whedon is clearly not one to let rigourous, hard-SF world-building get in the way of telling a good story. If we didn't care about what happened to the characters, we'd probably spend more time asking awkward questions about how the Cortex can apparently provide FTL comms without violating general relativity, how you can fly across a giant solar system with an engine apparently made from old washing machine parts and why, when you're flying at 50,000 mph and cross paths with another ship, it appears to drift past at ab

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