Dr. Core wrote:
If you count human-piloted mechs, then you are haven't dig yourself an
inch out of a hole.
How so? You can't state something will or will not happen when nothing
in that path has started yet. We have piloted machines (planes, cars,
ships) and we have limbed machines (robots). What we don't have *yet*
is piloted limbed machines. Will we? I have no idea. Neither do you.
Scientists back in the day stated decisively that it was *impossible*,
not just improbable, for a baseball pitcher to make a baseball break.
Couldn't happen, it would just trace a parabola in the air. They were
completely wrong, those propellerheads, and that was just about a damn
baseball. Anyone saying that a limbed mech will "never happen" is
simply stating he has no imagination. Nobody alive is an expert on
weaponized mecha yet.
That's the point. Gundam, unlike Star Trek (FTL flight,
teleportation), Star Wars (Force, Rancor beast) and D&D (wizards and
zombies), deals with a "likely" near future, not any and all kind of
anime physics with "not zero" odds. There's a non-zero odds we will
have an Eragon-like future (I can construct a background setting while
breaking fewer real world laws of science than First Gundam). Doesn't
make it meaningful for Gundam.
Doesn't make it *not* meaningful for Gundam. How far away are we from
spinning orbital colonies? How far away are we from fusion reactors
that are small enough to fit in something the size of a bomber? I'd say
that until both those things happen, or begin to happen, any guesses to
timelines and feasibilities of limbed mechs are premature, in terms of
comparing to Gundam's future vision.
Good enough for me, good enough for Gundam. I don't think Tem Ray was
trying to win any award either.
Ah. So since coal burning power plants are cheaper and more stable than
fusion reactors you're saying that we should forget ever possibly seeing
one? Just give up, we have a working solution right here, screw nukes!
I'm saying there's a difference from everyday mundane companies selling
shit to make money and companies pushing forward, spending loads of
money (Honda robot) to see what's possible. And then there is the third
option, war forcing development of gear and machines that have become
necessary but would never have been conceived of or funded by peacetime
companies more concerned with what stockholders demand. Radar gave us
microwave ovens. War gave us working radar.
Anybody read "Rainbow's End" by Vernor Vinge? I'm reading it now.
Among the many many things this brilliant writer has written in the past
he proposes something that is minor to the story but, for this
conversation, gives a good example of a massive change for something
that nobody is thinking about right now. Specifically, architecture.
Anybody into architecture? I am, some. Well, in the story everybody
"wears". Meaning everyone has a PC built into his clothes. And contact
lenses that interact with these wireless worn computers. What does that
have to do with architecture? Well, in this possible (probable) future,
since everyone has this shit on his person it's sort of a waste of time
to expend loads of money on beautiful architecture designs (unless
you're rich). What they do is design basic buildings. Boring, bland
buildings, just a bunch of cubes really. A minimum of paint, shape,
etc. But, since you have these contacts in, the building looks like
anything you (or the builder) wants. Sure, the floorplan is unchanged
but the building can look as cool as you like. Money is spent on code,
texture painters. Get it? One change *in an unrelated field* can
completely knock another field on its ass.
I'm not saying anything like that *will* happen in the fields of space
exploration or war since, really, what do I know. But since we're not
at the point, yet, of having portable power supplies as spectacular as
the one a Gundam has, nor are living in orbit yet or flying fleets of
space battleships yet, I find it ludicrous for anyone to state that this
or that futuristic idea that can be engineered or predicted already
(even if it can't be built yet) cannot or will not happen simply because
nobody now can see a reason to want or use one. Radio was initially
considered useless, nobody could possibly want to buy a device to listen
to signals broadcast through the air. Really.
Alfred.
--
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"Success is not no violence."
- President Bush, on trying to find a way to be able to claim future
progress and success in Iraq without having to achieve the
complete victory he used to state as the only acceptable goal.
Alfred Urrutia - Digital Domain - 310.314.2800 x2267 - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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