posted
I just read something from BlueWizard that reminded me of something that occurs to me when I read OSC's science fiction work.
quote:I suspect in 3,000 years of genetics research evolution, they may have found a way to exploit Anton's Key but to do so in a way as to minimize the nasty side effects. Likely this also moderated the level of intelligence. The people of Path seem smart, but not Bean Super-Smart.
After 3000 years of technological development, it certainly seems like humanity should have some level of mastery over the human genome...and a whole lot of other stuff.
I don't get the sense that the Enderverse of the year 5000+ A.D. actually contains anything like the level of technology that it should. In particular I don't see a significant level of nanotech or automation.
Similarly, future history in the Worthing Saga doesn't seem to involve any startling technological development aside from the psychic powers of the Worthing descendants.
This is all fine...I love those books and their literary value is certainly not dependent on the scale of technological extrapolation that Card includes.
However, I do wonder why Card chose to make technology such a limited factor in these stories. Technology is not a small factor by any means - interstellar travel, artificial intelligence, and the ansible are very *big* factors in the Enderverse...but I do feel safe calling technology a limited factor. Compared to Alastair Reynolds or Charles Stross, for example. People's daily lives, and their standard of living, are not visibly, drastically different from what we see today.
I could speculate a few possible reasons for this:
1. (I'm leaning toward this one.) Card doesn't care too much about technology. He's interested in humans and in ramen and varelse. He uses the science fiction medium because it lets him explore these things on a larger, longer scale.
2. Card has been heavily influenced by Asimov and others of his generation, and emulates their future extrapolations of technology. He's aware of microcomputing, genetics, etc. enough to insert them into his universe, with some limited extrapolation of where these technologies will go, but is comfortable enough in the technological idea space of the Golden Age that he doesn't deviate significantly. (It's interesting that Card has written at least a little in the cyberpunk genre, demonstrating that he can deviate when he wants to.)
3. Card believes that human society and psychology will resist drastic fundamental changes - we'll reject significant genetic modification, rejuvenation technology, powerful nanotech, augmenting our minds and bodies with technology, etc. In other words, rejecting the values inherent in cyberpunk and later hard scifi where technology is the main driving force in future history.
4. Lack of imagination.
Now that I have those written out, I really would suspect that it's some combination of 1-3. I have a vague, and possibly incorrect memory that Card has described something like #3 somewhere...but I don't think that's the only factor.
I wonder what others think about the presence/influence of technology in OSC's science fiction, and what might be the reasons for the degree of such.
I'm also interested in the question of whether these stories could take place in a post-singularity technological society. Are the beings who inhabit such a universe sufficiently human? Are they ramen or varelse?
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
OK, but are you saying that there's no place for a Speaker for the Dead in such a society, or that the particulars of the plot would be different?
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I'm saying that once there's a technological singularity, humans cease to be recognizably human, and human stories can't take place.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
You also might consider the fact that there could be more advanced technology in the enderverse than what we've seen.
The worlds that are prominently featured include Lusitania, on which the human colony must be kept small and the world can't be industrialized, and Path, which is home to a society which is based on ancient Chinese traditions. If we had gotten to see Earth, or even more of a world like Divine Wind, we might have seen drastic differences in the level of technology used in daily life.
I've been hoping that we'll get to see Earth in "Shadows in Flight".
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Technology could plateau at some level. I love Asimov's Empire and Foundation books where civilization breaks down because technology becomes so automotized that nobody remembers how to create new technology or worse yet fix the old when it wears out. The mere thought of humans becoming so lazy and apathetic had me on edge from the start.
Posts: 197 | Registered: Jan 2007
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posted
Peter Hamilton's "far future" SF stuff has much higher tech levels, and alien cultures even more advanced than we. However, in his stories, each race eventually reaches a technological plateau where they're "comfortable" and then kinda stagnates there for a while until they go "post-physical." In his latest book that I just read last week, some humans are starting to feel that our race is no longer developing anything "new" -- simply refining what we've got, and so are worried that we are reaching our plateau also.
That said -- even with his focus on the technology and how people use it in the story, if it weren't for the compelling and interesting characters, it wouldn't be nearly as good.
Posts: 1323 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I found his lack of technology to pull me out of the story. For example, in Bean's story, they claim that they couldn't test the embryos to know if it worked. In the real world, that is a pretty easy test. And it was at the time the book was published. So, instead of thinking about the characters, I sat there trying to figure out how they could not know how to test the babies. And then I tried to figure out how you could create babies without this basic level of technology. And of course, the fixing of the people of Path- that is just an optimized version of some "failed" clinical trials from France. So, hard to view it as a breakthrough. But this left me thinking about the technology instead of the characters, which in this case was bad.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
That's almost always a problem when the reader knows more about the science than the author, and there's really know way around that.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
There's quite a simple solution actually. OSC just needs to get off his lazy butt and earn some advanced degrees in every field of science.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Here is something to consider, if just India and China reach the level of wasteful consumption of the United State, then the world is doomed. This planet simply can not support another 2 or 3 billion people living the way we do.
So, I suspect Card's lack of grand and obvious technology is related to ecological issues. Even with the human race expanding out into the Hundred Worlds, they have grown to realize that they can not continue with consumptive throw-away societies the way we live now.
Despite the fact that Ender on his colony world has access to a helicopter (or the equivalent), they seem to live limited (ecologically) lives.
When the Formics are building ships for the Piggies, we hear Ender comment that they are causing substantial pollution because the pollution seem insignificant compared to completely wiping out their race. But the implication behind that is that prior to the Formics starting to build ships, they were ecologically very conservative.
Notice that the Lusitania is a planet filled with trees, yet they do not chop down those trees to build houses. They use brick, stone, mortar, and elements left over from colony ships that brought them there.
But also notice that they have some pretty advanced laboratory instruments, so they must have some technology to produce them. So, my view is that behind the scenes, they have very advanced technology that allows them to create what they need.
For example, Bugger ships need electronics to operate. That means they have some simply method of producing various types of circuits. I imagine circuit technology has advanced tremendously in 3,000 years. Advanced to the point where a simple black box can produce what you need if you can think of it, and provide the raw materials.
Yet, that advanced technology, beyond the computer desktop, does not really intrude or make itself known in people's daily lives. In their daily lives, people are forced by environmental and ecological concerns to live very conservative lives.
Populations have to be controlled, food resources have to be monitored, toxic waste and the consumption of local resources must also be closely controlled and monitored. One of the aspects of the presence of humans on Lusitania is that they don't alter the Piggie's world.
I think in a hundred years, though I hope less, mankind will learn that the earth (or the planet) is not an infinite resource, and that it must be carefully managed if we have any hope of surviving. These lessons would be carried over into interplanetary exploration and settlement.
posted
I once read though I cannot remember where why OSC said he doesn't focus on the technology. If I recall its because the people in the book would not focus on it. If you where writing a book in current time you would not describe in detail what a TV is or a car, explaining how it works. I beleive the example he used was a door... where some writer would write something like, "The entry whirred and closed in four section one from each corner of the entry in a curved rotating shape". He then said if thats how all doors closed the character would just see it as the door closed so he writes it as "The door 'closed' behind him." The Technology is taken for granted just as we in our everyday lives do. When we speak to others do we explain how a car works or what it is if we take a ride in our story. Do any of us even think about how it works?
Posts: 16 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
From How To Write Science Fiction and Fantas by Orson Scott Card:
quote:The classic example is Robert Heinlein's phrase "The door dilated." No explanation of the technology; the character doesn't think "Good heavens. A dilating door!" Instead, the reader is told not only that doors in this place dilate, irising open in all directions at once, but also that the character takes this fact for granted. The implication is that many -- perhaps all -- doors in this place dilate, and that they have been doing it for long enough that nobody pays attention to it anymore.
posted
osc is not a scientis he could have gone over exactly how the holograms works ??????????????????????????? do the project onto air particles? HOW?
Posts: 1574 | Registered: May 2008
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quote:osc is not a scientis he could have gone over exactly how the holograms works ??????????????????????????? do the project onto air particles? HOW?
Can you diagram that first sentence or something? I don't really understand it.
And don't tell dkw to shut up; it's just not nice.
Posts: 980 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
sorry dkw he just make fun of my other topic :math is stupid: first sentence: OSC is not a scientist he could have gone over exactly how the holograms works but he didint
Posts: 1574 | Registered: May 2008
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posted
Even today limited 3D free-space holograms are possible. I've even seen them used on one of those Forensic TV dramas. So, it's not that infeasible. Logically in 3,000 years (though likely much less) the 3D-holographic computer screen will be very common.
Try to explain to a kid today a world in which their is no TV, no commercial radio, no telephone, and god forbid, no cell phone, no cable TV, no Internet, no computers, no cars, no airplanes, etc..., and there you have the world my grandfather was born into.
But all these technologies gradually made their way into common use. I still think technology is pretty spectacular, but I suspect most kids see it as common and boring. It's just there.
And, I think that is the point Card is making. All the technology that exists today is taken for granted by kids. They can't imagine having to look things up in books like encyclopedias or dictionaries, not when the same information is just a few keystrokes way. And now with WiFi spreading, you don't even need a land-line to connect to the Internet. You just open your computer where ever you are, usually college or a coffee shop, and a world of information is there. It's just expected.
But, I will note how accurately Card predicted the nature of computers. In 1977 when he conceived and published "Ender's Game" computers, Apple computers was only founded in 1977 and it took a while for their first computers to catch on. OSC's prediction that 'desktops' or computers would be a common and simple as they are was pretty spot on. They were thin, light, easy to carry, rugged, and generally had access to all the library knowledge in the world. Further, I'm under the impression that you were able to do and file your homework on these compact desktops.
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