When Characters Meet Technology

WHEN CHARACTERS MEET TECHNOLOGY I like to define science fiction as tales by which the inconceivable is made possible by way of some imaginary technology or scientific discovery. In different words, if the hero gets to a distant planet via a starship it’s science fiction. If the hero gets to a distant planet by way of magic, it’s fantasy. Clear sufficient as a place to begin, anyway. So then if science fiction relies upon to 1 extent or one other on imagined know-how, the balancing act is tips on how to keep your story a story, which I like to define as “characters in conflict,” and never a fictional technical paper. The fiction side of the science:fiction ratio demands folks doing issues in opposition to different individuals (and be at liberty to current folks as people, robots, area elves, Martians… no matter) while the science side calls for that they do it with science (technology, and so forth.). Easy. But then where to draw the line, or the place to stability that ratio of science to fiction? Thoug h she was writing inside her comfort zone of “Hard SF,” I was a little pushed again by what felt to me to be an instance of what I admittedly too-dismissively call “Hey, look at all this research I did!” in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Falling Free: Leo smiled thanks for the desired straight line. “They are indeed gas porosities. Oddly sufficient, though, when we crunch the numbers through, they don't look like defects. Let us run the pc scan down its size, with a watch to the digital read-out. As you see,” the numbers flickered at a nook of the display because the cross-section moved dizzyingly, “at no point do more than two porosities appear in a cross-part, and at all factors the voids occupy lower than five percent of the part. Also, spherical cavities like these are the least damaging of all potential shapes and discontinuities, the least prone to propagate cracks in service. A non-important defect is called a discontinuity.” Leo paused politely whereas two dozen he ads bent in unison to focus on this pleasingly unambiguous reality on the autotranscription of their mild boards, braced between decrease arms for a transportable recording floor. “When I add that this was in a reasonably low-stress liquid storage tank, and not, for example, in a thruster propulsion chamber with its massively higher stresses, the slipperiness of this definition becomes clearer. For in a thruster the particular diploma of defect that reveals up here wouldhave been critical.” Whew. Deep breath. And that is truly paragraph six of a twenty-5 paragraph lecture by protagonist Leo that runs more or less precisely like thisâ€"exhaustive particulars on welding high quality assurance. It is honest to remember that Leo has come to this house station to show welding to a team of genetically engineered “quaddies,” bred to work in zero gravity by some interstellar company. This scene reveals that the quaddies are sensible and attentive, understanding all these technical d etails and all this technical jargon higher than… properly, higher than I did, anyway. We see that Leo seems to know what he’s speaking about (as a casual reader I didn’t, gained’t, and wouldn’t ever have reality checked this myself) and is doing what he’s been brought to the station to do, despite his preliminary surprise and obvious discomfort with what are clearly proven to be genetically engineered slaves. But all that conflict-wealthy set-upâ€"the story at handâ€"stops for these exhaustive technical details. Do we (Lois McMaster Bujold’s readers) really want to take a seat via that lesson? I say no, however I perceive some readers may disagree. Rather than a literal technical lecture, in The Fortress on the End of Time authorJoe M. McDermott shows us his characters’ personal interaction together with his imagined future know-how: “Ensign,” stated the opposite tech, one of the four women on board, “recording off.” I nodded, confused. Wong handed me the he lmet and the go well with. I checked for any signs of injury. We sprayed ourselves with UV blockers, and suited up. We weren't in heavy gravity. The airlock door, as soon as opened, would result in a long tube that ran straight to the central axis upon which we spun. We would fall down into weightlessness after which climb out with ladders to the floor of the station’s outer shell. First, we checked each others’ suits. Never assume a swimsuit is sealed except it is checked twice by two diligent folks. Then plug within the interface, and verify the diagnostics for a seal. Recording begins with the pc interface. It can be turned off manually at any time. In cases of imminent death, I am advised, it's thought-about wise to say what needs to be stated, then turn it off to guard others from dying screams. There are additionally situations where communication indicators are probably compromised in wartime, and individual units need to have the ability to unplug from the community. I d id not perceive why Wong would want recording off. Even on board the station, whereas on duty, every little thing was recorded. We have been so accustomed to the microcameras and microphones, we didn’t even see them. Who could bother watching all that footage, anyway, except a machine? I had to decide on between my rigorous coaching and my new position model’s odd command. Safety protocols trump chain of command. I solely pretended to adjust my pc. I think about what I did sinful. Wong had his causes, and solely with the communication recorders off might he even dictate them aloud, however I didn’t take into consideration that within the second. There’s truly lots of technical detail there, and normally I would rather see that type of detail proven in action, and if that’s not attainable then rendered in dialog (as Lois McMaster Bujold did), and only after those first two possibility are proved unimaginable, in description. But this description, with some due to the primar y individual, feels extra private than the welding lecture. This is a human in a weird and dangerous environment, trying to recollect his training, attempting to make sure he does the best things even when he realizes that the right issues might be based on the incorrect reasons. Judgments are being made, the motives of different characters are being questionedâ€"this places me in that character’s expertise rather than pushing me right into a chair in a classroom. From a e-book about genetically engineered “machines” studying to use conventional mechanical units by way of an astronaut balancing safety protocols and the obvious “house guidelines” of the station he’s been assigned to, Ursula K. LeGuin does what both Bujold and McDermott do when we look at their books in whole. She reveals that machines themselves aren't the real drawback or answer, that “guns don’t kill folks, individuals do.” Or within the case of The Lathe of Heaven, Augmentors don’t change the w orld through efficient dreaming, effective dreamers do: Orr pulled away the electrodes whose wires ran like thread-worms between Haber’s cranium and the Augmentor. He appeared at the machine, its cabinets all standing open; it ought to be destroyed, he thought. But he had no idea tips on how to do it, nor any will to attempt. Destruction was not his line; and a machine is extra blameless, more sinless even than any animal. It has no intentions whatsoever but our own. Fill your science fiction with science and know-how, but not at the price of characters and story. Technology in science fictionâ€"or magic in fantasy, for that matterâ€"is blameless, it has no intentions however your characters’. â€"Philip Athans Engaging Your Readers Through Emotion and Description About Philip Athans