HFQ Official Snippet #15 Merry Christmas!

Greyman wrote:Fallsfromtrees seems to be saying that sufficiently advanced technology is only indistinguishable from magic by the insufficiently educated. To the sufficiently educated, sufficiently advanced technology is just that.

Or something like that.

Ah. If that's what was meant, could the technology be truly classed as "sufficiently advanced"? I would have supposed not.

Peter2 wrote:

Greyman wrote:Fallsfromtrees seems to be saying that sufficiently advanced technology is only indistinguishable from magic by the insufficiently educated. To the sufficiently educated, sufficiently advanced technology is just that.

Or something like that.

Ah. If that's what was meant, could the technology be truly classed as "sufficiently advanced"? I would have supposed not.

Pretty much what Greyman said. My point that by the time you have a technological society, any advanced technology is going to be viewed as that - something we don't know how to do yet.

As an example - UFOs. I'm not going to get into whether or not they exist - different religion. My point is that by all accounts their performances are far beyond anything we know how to do today - anti-gravity, inertia cancellation, lack of momentum conservation, etc. They are NEVER depicted as being magical - always as an advanced [technological] civilization. I'm not sure you can propose anything that would not be considered technological instead of magical in our current society.

fallsfromtrees wrote:Pretty much what Greyman said. My point that by the time you have a technological society, any advanced technology is going to be viewed as that - something we don't know how to do yet.

As an example - UFOs. I'm not going to get into whether or not they exist - different religion. My point is that by all accounts their performances are far beyond anything we know how to do today - anti-gravity, inertia cancellation, lack of momentum conservation, etc. They are NEVER depicted as being magical - always as an advanced [technological] civilization. I'm not sure you can propose anything that would not be considered technological instead of magical in our current society.

There is an amusing plot hook here, in which there are our-real-world flying saucers, and their operating schemes are out of Harry Potter and the Natural D20.

I'd argue that the original statement, that sufficiently advanced technology IS indistinguishable from magic is true, regardless of the target audience. People in this day and age are just more predisposed to seek and accept a mundane answer in technology than to leap to the supernatural.

That doesn't change the fact that electroplating would look equally magical to our ancient ancestors and our modern children.

As for aliens and their super high performance craft, all I'm saying is that it COULD be a radically advanced drive system that massively outperforms anything we've got. Or it could be magic, and you, kind ladies and gents, can't tell which the answer is. You may believe you know that is some sort of technical tomfoolery, but you can't describe, even in vague generalities, what that might entail, so for all intents, it may as well be magic. Hence, indistinguishable.

What is magic anyway? Define magic and then we might differentiate it from technology. The ancients describe magical phenomena like flight that technology can duplicate. What do people mean when they use the term magic now?

Undercover Fat Kid wrote:I'd argue that the original statement, that sufficiently advanced technology IS indistinguishable from magic is true, regardless of the target audience. People in this day and age are just more predisposed to seek and accept a mundane answer in technology than to leap to the supernatural.

That doesn't change the fact that electroplating would look equally magical to our ancient ancestors and our modern children.

As for aliens and their super high performance craft, all I'm saying is that it COULD be a radically advanced drive system that massively outperforms anything we've got. Or it could be magic, and you, kind ladies and gents, can't tell which the answer is. You may believe you know that is some sort of technical tomfoolery, but you can't describe, even in vague generalities, what that might entail, so for all intents, it may as well be magic. Hence, indistinguishable.

Hi Dobriennm,

Welcome to the forums, enjoy your favorite simulated beverage on the simulated forum.

For all we know at this point, it could also be ICA scouts seeing Ahlverez's vanguard getting to where they're going to cross the Seridahn River.

I hope we don't have to wait that long to find out.

L

dobriennm wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:.V.
The Seridahn River,
The South March,
Republic of Siddarmark.

“What the hell is that?”

Merry Christmas RFC!

For everyone else (since RFC already knows)

So does this relate to HFQ Teeney-Tiny Snippet #2

03/30: Tiny 2: Hahlcahm Bahrns is up to something interesting that will go BOOM!

Seridahn River is near Thesmar where Hahlcahm Bahrns went delivering Troops in LAMA. So is Halcahm going up the Seridahn River to cut off Alverez?

David

lyonheart wrote:Hi Dobriennm,

Welcome to the forums, enjoy your favorite simulated beverage on the simulated forum.

For all we know at this point, it could also be ICA scouts seeing Ahlverez's vanguard getting to where they're going to cross the Seridahn River.

I hope we don't have to wait that long to find out.

L

runsforcelery wrote:.V.
The Seridahn River,
The South March,
Republic of Siddarmark.

“What the hell is that?”

dobriennm wrote:Merry Christmas RFC!

For everyone else (since RFC already knows)

So does this relate to HFQ Teeney-Tiny Snippet #2

03/30: Tiny 2: Hahlcahm Bahrns is up to something interesting that will go BOOM!

Seridahn River is near Thesmar where Hahlcahm Bahrns went delivering Troops in LAMA. So is Halcahm going up the Seridahn River to cut off Alverez?

David

Seems unlikely, as the ICA scouts just spotting Alverez's troops wouldn't have that severe a reaction to them. It is something unusual, and a riverine iron clad seems a likely choice.

Thanks for this snippet, RFC. I hope you and yours had an enjoyable Christmas.

I liked where the snippet ended. Just like any dealer in addictive substances -- keep me wanting the next fix.

fallsfromtrees wrote:Seems unlikely, as the ICA scouts just spotting Alverez's troops wouldn't have that severe a reaction to them. It is something unusual, and a riverine iron clad seems a likely choice.

I agree, it's just that the sequence seems wrong. We have all these snippets about going to the Cave and then the snippet about the Seridahn River. The setting up for the explosion would, at least to me, have to come before the Seridahn River snippet. Which means we skipped some major plot development (Not that our esteemed author would ever do that to his loyal fans!!)

Or that they encountered some obstacle they needed to remove (possibly at Evrytyn trying to get onto the Sheryl-Seridahn Canal or near Alykberg trying to get onto Dairnyth-Alykberg Canal)(although that's probably too risky to do now after the Great Canal Raid).

Or that the explosion is much later in the story and Hahlcahm Bahrns is much further east supporting Kynt Clareyk, the Baron of Green Valley is his operations.

David

dobriennm wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:Seems unlikely, as the ICA scouts just spotting Alverez's troops wouldn't have that severe a reaction to them. It is something unusual, and a riverine iron clad seems a likely choice.

I agree, it's just that the sequence seems wrong. We have all these snippets about going to the Cave and then the snippet about the Seridahn River. The setting up for the explosion would, at least to me, have to come before the Seridahn River snippet. Which means we skipped some major plot development (Not that our esteemed author would ever do that to his loyal fans!!)

Or that they encountered some obstacle they needed to remove (possibly at Evrytyn trying to get onto the Sheryl-Seridahn Canal or near Alykberg trying to get onto Dairnyth-Alykberg Canal)(although that's probably too risky to do now after the Great Canal Raid).

Or that the explosion is much later in the story and Hahlcahm Bahrns is much further east supporting Kynt Clareyk, the Baron of Green Valley is his operations.

David

I grant that we have not seen the setting up scene yet (RFC wouldn't have deleted that from the sequential snippets just to tease us would he? - Nah, no one would be that devious.), so if these are the ironclads, it is not related to what Bahrns will be doing later. Perhaps RFC will make it a very Happy New Year, and give us an advance snippet on Jan 1, 2015 - but if not, whenever he does we should find out what was just seen.