Random "hard" sci-fi question(s)

[Oxymoron]

I had an idea for a sci-fi setting.

The basics :

- "far future" : no hard date given, but it's hardly rocignizable from what we know today
- No FTL physical travel, but information on the other hand can be transmitted instantaneously without limits of range through quantum magic (not literal wizard magic, but from a meta point of view it could as well be magic for all I care).
- Mind upload is generalized, people can swap bodies like they want, and everyone is immortal in standard, as long as they choose to. Human-level AIs are commonplace.
- Nanotech has been refined to the point that a whole asteroid belt can be converted into habitats in a few years.
- As a result of the three previous point, there isn't really interstellar ships, but people can travel between star systems simply by operating remote-controlled bodies several lightyears away, or by transferring their whole Ego.
- The only interstellar ships are giant "colony ships", STL automated slowboats that carries the FTL communication relays and machines to start autonomously building the infrastructure for humans to start colonizing a new star system.


Basically, in this setting bodies are simply literal vessels of the mind. AIs and Humans are completely equal, in the sense that humans are simply Egos that where created by a human body being naturally born, whereas AIs are synths. And even then the boundary is pretty thing, as there's a lot of edge cases one way or another.

Also, there isn't any centralized "Interstellar Empire", and "mankind" isn't unified. So there's still conflict, but in this far future, things become a bit weird and alien when no one ever dies.

[Oxymoron]

Basically, I wonder how to write a thing where the people themselves are pretty alien from what we know, down to their nature.

[Shroom Man 777]

so there's no need for FTL travel aside from setting up the infrastructure if your brains and minds are disseminated ethereal incorporeal beings traveling through the biodigital quantum leyline networks across space and time

ghosts in the machine and all that shit for other peoples it would be fucking spooky since its as though humanity is a race of disembodied spirits drifting across reality, point to point around the galaxy (or whatever) so long as they have their huge machines acting as anchors for the thoughtsphere/soulsphere

[Oxymoron]

Pretty much, yes.

[Count Chocula]

I would recommend reading everything Charles Stross has written. He's covered most of your topics in his SF, including mind uploads and no FTL.

[Oxymoron]

I've talked a bit here of that civilization I played in a roleplay game, where people are functionally immortal, and who have to regularly flee into the unknown as the universe they live is regularly subject to civilization ending events.

And I was wondering what kind of effect it could have on them, their culture, their society, and the worldviews of the individuals composing it.


One thing is certain is that they're survivors. One of their leaders is famously quoted "Survival is the only Truth [that matters]". They're also famous for being extremely efficient when it comes to matters of warfare - an extension of their survivalist worldview. An efficiency they often use as diplomatic tool, an implicit statement.

But how would the people see things ? Those who have lived for several centuries, through countless conflicts, moved again and again between galaxies to avoid annihilation ? Lost their bodies more than once in the process ? Living with countless other species in a society composed of several hundreds of them ? Would they still manage to keep their "humanity" even though they would be more machines than men, thanks to the technologies they use to survive ?


There's just so many questions, and I have a hard time focusing on just which ones to ask...

[evilsoup]

Some of them might embrace life as fundamentally changing and fleeting. They could enjoy meeting bunches of new aliens every time they move, treat life as one big party.

Some might take an academic or even religious approach to this, gathering stories and details of the various civilisations they meet and trying to collate these records to find patterns over multiple galaxies' worth of civilisation

Or they could go in the exact opposite direction (isolationism) if you think that would be more interesting

actually I realise that this doesn't answer your question lol (or only partially does)

[Oxymoron]

Well, I tend to take the view, in my worldbuilding works, of societies being non-monolithic things, made up of diverse individuals ; so it's plausible all of this could be encountered, and more.


Among other things, I wonder what would be the "narrative" they adopt for their own history. I... don't know if that's very clear.

[Oxymoron]

Or they could go in the exact opposite direction (isolationism) if you think that would be more interesting

On that particular point, if the temptation is always there, they're also very much conscious that the moment they start isolating themselves from the world, they will engage themselves on a road that will, eventually but fatally, end with their own extinction. So even if they may not like having to get involved in the life of yet another galaxy populated of young, impetuous and unenlightened civiliations, they take upon themselves to do so ; with the hope of acting as a stabilizing element, a force for Peace and Order.

It somewhat works, but in the end they are alone.

And being alone is condemning yourself to death. So they have to continually pursue alliances, and thus, contact with the greater outside.

In the hope they last long enough to survive the next civilization-ending event.



By the way, these events ARE traumatic, and even with all their might, they often definitively lose a non negligible percentage of their people during them. So this further fuel their... paranoia (?) of the inevitable.

They can be pretty grim sometimes.

[evilsoup]

well hmm actually that brings up another thing
there's working with people as equals, or at least with respect for their culture and so on, and then there's being imperialist dickbags -- some might think that it would be easier to just establish control over the new, young, relatively powerless species they encounter in order to gain access to their resources rather than foster alliances and so on

[Oxymoron]

The temptation may be there, and no doubt a number of people would think conquering all the young ones would be a good thing [*].

However, there's several important factors at play :

- For all their technological might, they would lose in a straight-up, Napoleon-like "alone against the rest of the world" confrontation. If only from logistical constraints.
- Until she somehow manages to die or be replaced through internal politics [*], they are led by an immortal who doesn't roll that way, because...
- ... Last but not least, their primary goal is survival, not conquest, and this goal is better furthered through Peace than through War.

Not to say that they aren't going to launch themselves into wars (they have for example an explicitly stated policy of automatically launching themselves in a state of Total War against powers using certain types of weapons), but they aren't going to do it for gratuitous or purely self-centered reasons.



[*] I toyed several times with the idea of a change in leadership to give myself the occasion to go on a full-on rampage, but it would have been a straight-up suicide, for the reasons stated above.

[Oxymoron]

Basically, it's in they egoist self-interest to play the good guys and be good neighbors.

Pretty shocking, uh ?

[Oxymoron]

Though in the end the reason why people leave them alone is because they still somehow manage to carve themselves an Empire over very valuable pieces of real estate, and end up being allied with powers even more powerful than they are.

[adr]

one time in a roleplaying game i decided to pick a fight with the empire from star wars. it was actually amazing, diplomatic subterfuge, false flags, and tense speeches to turn others

ended with the destruction of like everyone and set up some real post-apocalyptic fun

sometimes in games someone just has to stir the shit to take the plot in a fresh direction!

[Oxymoron]

I know, right ? But usually it was my allies who ended up doing the shit-stirring, with my "character" being reluctantly drawn behind, or at least having to clean up the mess.


But yeah, how risk-averse would a civilization made of immortals be ? People who don't really care if their body get destroyed as long as they have a fresh save of themselves stored somewhere, but who views civilization ending as the most terrifying thing in the world ?

[adr]

that's really hard to say, i think you could plausibly go however you really want

there's always the risk that shit will blow up way more than you thought and be unrecoverable. the save of themselves could itself be blasted, or even all their other shit gets blown up. for example if many of their shipyards were destroyed, they can all be alive but they'd be trapped and extraordinarily vulnerable for a while

that shit is kinda scary, immortal or no

(and a potential response to the fear is to strike. hell in my world peace brainfic just yesterday i realized that we'd be vulnerable to conventional military attack on stormy days. the enemy prolly wouldn't try anything when there's possibly lasers from orbit available, but weather conditions can throw a wrench in that.

anyway a thing that came to mind is maybe we should just bring the enemy to their knees right now while we have the chance to ensure they won't destroy everything we've worked so hard to build when they get their chance.

they decided against it but hey the thought came up)



also on the individual level ppl might not take too many risks just because it is inconvenient. some might not care but still i could immortals not wanting to put up with it

and on the big scale i think they might do things if they were really confident in their core protection but otherwise no. who knows when the next world ending crap is gonna hit and you don't wanna be trapped in a infrastructure dip when it does

[Oxymoron]

The funniest thing is that in that setting, the existence of God is a known fact, and he's in fact the one responsible for the regular Apocalypses.

So with time they've become a special brand of Atheists.

[evilsoup]

I believe the term there would be 'antitheist' (i.e. they believe that God exists, but they hate Him)

anyway. Even between allies... well, there's a difference in France's relationship with say Germany versus its relationship with Algeria. So there would be differences of opinion on how to treat the various younger races, amongst your people, even if they were all committed to the broad idea of being allies.

[Oxymoron]

Provided without context (warning: may contain ponies):

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So, how to say it... You know what they say about us, huh? How we had the courage to abandon all that we had ever known, the comfort of our lives, to help ponies... hell, not just ponies, but all the people living down under there? Well, let me tell you one thing: it's bullshit.

Yeah, sure, we did volunteer to help the surface, and many of us made the ultimate sacrifice for that, but in all honesty? There wasn't any great ideal guiding our hearts. None of us were thinking farther than the simple fact that those murdering assholes needed to be stopped. I can still remember the news broadcast coming from Thunderhead, and the weeks that followed... There was no doubt in our heads that once they would have finished with the Surface, the Skies would be next.

You see, I had a very personal reason for wanting to join the Volunteers: My sister served aboard one of the ships that Neighvarro sent to attack Thunderhead. And she died there. Not because of Thunderhead. Not because of a Surfacer. No. She was killed by none other than one of her so-called comrade as she tried to protect a civilian during the assault on the city.

Thirst for revenge was what drove me, then a young colt barely old enough to enlist, to go down there. I wanted to show those bastards what it cost to hurt those I cared for. To hurt me.

… Anyway, when the Council got blown up, I had just gotten news of what had happened to my sister. While my best friend at the time preferred to side with the Isolationists in the clusterfuck that followed, the only thing that occupied my mind was to make these motherfuckers who supported Operation Cauterize pay, pay for their crimes and all the shit they did, supposedly in our name, for our own good.

When the Great Escape happened, I jumped on one of the Volunteer's raptor as soon as I heard they were leaving port. I didn't care where it was leading me, what was going to happen. I only cared for one thing: I was going to blast those bastards to piece.

I spent a few weeks on the Raptor. I can't even remember how it was named, as only one thing drew my attention for all this period: a young mare, whose story was similar to mine. Her own brother had been killed at Neighvarro, while her parents had been killed before her eyes by one of the Cauterizer's militia, who had flagged them as 'surface sympathizers' after they had expressed doubt on the Enclave's leadership, following the death of their son.

We grew close together. Like a young stallion and a young mare do. It was the strangest time of my life, and the memories I keep of it are...

… Sorry, excuse me. Anyway, as I was saying, I spent only a few weeks on the Raptor. I don't think three went before we heard the new from the Captain herself on the PA of the ship: we were going to Manehatten, and there was going to be a fight.

At this point, I think it needs to be said that I had never fired a single shot prior to joining the Volunteers. Some of the soldiers on board tried to train us young recruits on the basics, but there's only so little you can pass on in so little time. To say that I- no, that we weren't prepared for a fight would be one hell of an understatement.

And so, all engines roaring and surrounded by the loud groans of thousands of tons of metal pushed to their limit, we rushed toward our destination. And it's with my heart almost pounding out of my chest that we pierced down the cloud cover and that I saw the City for the first time. I can still remember it to this day.

It was early in the morning, and the sun had just passed over the horizon. We couldn't see it under the cover, but it shone enough to cast the city in the eerie halo of a young dawn. And then I saw it, the lone Tower, the only one that sat right and proud amongst the ruined buildings of a dead city, shining in the lights of a long lost civilization: Tenpony Tower.

But I couldn't stay to watch the scenery through the porthole, as the combats quarters almost immediately rang throughout the ship. It was time.

What followed... Don't ask me to describe it to you. The only thing I know is that at the end of the day, the ship I had been on had sunk, I had lost almost all of my comrades, and the first love of my young life had died in my hooves.

… You know, I went back to the Friendship City memorial a few years ago, with my wife and my kids. It was something I felt I needed to do. The Raptor was there, maybe one of the last witness to what happened that day, hanging peacefully above the bay.

When I reached the Ruins, and saw the wall, with the names. The victims. The martyrs. The heroes.

I bawled. I fell to my knees and bawled.

The biggest waste in two centuries. Why? For what?

I don't feel anymore need for revenge. I don't even feel anything at all anymore, but a numbness deep inside my heart.

You can't change the past. But you can act on the present, and influence on the future. That why we need to remember. We need to remember what happened, and learn from our past mistakes, or we'll be condemned to repeat them forever.

Never forget.
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I just want to know how it makes you feel. That's what I'm working on there.

What does it evoke to you?