Steampunk, Time Travel and Suspension of Disbelief

People incapable of sitting back and enjoying Nemesis for what it is or that judge a time travel story not by the story itself or the consistency of the rules it creates for itself are kind of sad to me.

Someone not being able to enjoy, say Quantum Leap, because they have a narrow view of time travel is no fault of the creators of the show or other people who might use time travel as a plot device.

Nemesis makes no sense, but neither do quantum physics to me. I always thought it was pretty obvious that not everything was steam powered anyway.

---

[ QUOTE ]
I would think that if Nemesis' soldiers realized they all essentially had Fat Mans strapped to their backs, they wouldn't be quite so loyal.

[/ QUOTE ]
I would think it's more likely that Nemesis figured out how to build tiny fusion power plants. Not only would he only need water to run those (if he split the hydrogen off in the plant, that is), but let's face it: if humans built a functional fusion reactor this very day, what would be used to extract energy from it? Answer: a steam turbine.

---

"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi

Characters

Makes sense to me.

---

Story Arcs I created:

Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!

Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!

Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!

<QR>

As far as I'm concerned, there's no possible way that the Automatons are powered by steam, based on Maxwell Christopher's first mission where you go to an old pre-war Nemesis owned business that has been completely abandoned, and find Nemesis Automatons still there and functional. They're likely powered by some sort of battery that either lasts for an extremely long period, or is rechargeable.

---

[ QUOTE ]
<QR>

As far as I'm concerned, there's no possible way that the Automatons are powered by steam, based on Maxwell Christopher's first mission where you go to an old pre-war Nemesis owned business that has been completely abandoned, and find Nemesis Automatons still there and functional. They're likely powered by some sort of battery that either lasts for an extremely long period, or is rechargeable.

[/ QUOTE ]

But maybe the battery is recharged by a machine that runs on steam.

---

It would be easier to dole out suspension of disbelief if he was written as being less overtly steampunk and more Vernesian. Clearly, he's not limited to a steam-tech level of design and technology. The lore says that all of his gear is ultra-modern, and he clearly has a grasp of concepts like nuclear physics, cybernetics, and computer networking. However he plans to upload his mind into the Rikti telepathic overmind, he isn't doing it with steam.

Practically speaking, we get bludgeoned over the head with the steam engine because the devs/writers have to assume that the reader is someone who might never have heard of Nemesis until "just now", meaning just the time the happen to reading the text associated with some random mission clue or piece of salvage. We hear about steam over and over and over where we only hear about atom rays or cybernetics or advanced chassis alloys once per item and only in the context where it matters.

Like I said, I'd be happier if he was just considered a quaint Vernesian scientist as opposed to a stereotypical Prussian steampunk robotocist. He would actually be more interesting as some kind of long-lived scientific genius with a fiercely held agenda driving him as opposed to being an archaic mad genius who is supposedly always one step from ruling the world but who never quite gets there.

---

[ QUOTE ]
People incapable of sitting back and enjoying Nemesis for what it is or that judge a time travel story not by the story itself or the consistency of the rules it creates for itself are kind of sad to me.

[/ QUOTE ]Oh yay, post got eaten.

Look, in essence, if a 'story itself' leans on something that's stupid or doesn't make sense, or requires people to act like idiots to build tension or an emotional connection, then my not liking it is judging the 'story itself.' If all the guns in your world fire bananas and are nonlethal but you never tell the audience, any attempt to build tension by having people wave guns around is badly attempting to manipulate said audience and it's bad writing unless you're playing for comedy*.

* To paint with broad strokes here.

---

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I would think that if Nemesis' soldiers realized they all essentially had Fat Mans strapped to their backs, they wouldn't be quite so loyal.

[/ QUOTE ]
I would think it's more likely that Nemesis figured out how to build tiny fusion power plants. Not only would he only need water to run those (if he split the hydrogen off in the plant, that is), but let's face it: if humans built a functional fusion reactor this very day, what would be used to extract energy from it? Answer: a steam turbine.

[/ QUOTE ]

You and your extraterrestrial logic

And, after reading this, I'm reminded of the Foundation series, and how in the first novel a main character sports a nuclear reactor in a device the size of a walnut while a guard he's bribing is protecting something more like the plant on the Simpsons. Sure, the walnut-sized one only lasts two weeks after a full charge, but it can be recharged (essentially, Fusion batteries), but the main character acts as if the entire process is ludicrously simple and safe.

I wasn't thinking about Fusion... But I thought Fusion made MORE heat, not less. Doesn't this imply a more energetic reaction (Energetic meaning "Explosive")?

Also, I thought Cold Fusion is a misnomer, in that it doesn't make things cold, it just starts from room temperature.

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
<QR>

As far as I'm concerned, there's no possible way that the Automatons are powered by steam, based on Maxwell Christopher's first mission where you go to an old pre-war Nemesis owned business that has been completely abandoned, and find Nemesis Automatons still there and functional. They're likely powered by some sort of battery that either lasts for an extremely long period, or is rechargeable.

[/ QUOTE ]

But maybe the battery is recharged by a machine that runs on steam.

[/ QUOTE ]
It could be, but it probably isn't. The office building would have been abandoned for at least 2 years. The batteries in all likelihood just have incredibly long lifespans.

---

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
People incapable of sitting back and enjoying Nemesis for what it is or that judge a time travel story not by the story itself or the consistency of the rules it creates for itself are kind of sad to me.

[/ QUOTE ]Oh yay, post got eaten.

Look, in essence, if a 'story itself' leans on something that's stupid or doesn't make sense, or requires people to act like idiots to build tension or an emotional connection, then my not liking it is judging the 'story itself.' If all the guns in your world fire bananas and are nonlethal but you never tell the audience, any attempt to build tension by having people wave guns around is badly attempting to manipulate said audience and it's bad writing unless you're playing for comedy*.

* To paint with broad strokes here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, sure if the story is bad then the story is bad. What's being painted here (to borrow your broad strokes) is a picture of time travel as something that is never handled well because of an arbitrary set of rules that may or may not exist within the story itself.

If you say "I don't like Timecop because it doesn't follow this rule clearly established in Back to the Future," then you're a sad, sad individual (though if you say you don't like it because it's a Jean Claude Van Damme movie, we have something to discuss).

---

[ QUOTE ]

Also, I thought Cold Fusion is a misnomer, in that it doesn't make things cold, it just starts from room temperature.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, precisely. Even a process that heats water to produce steam and somehow causes fusion in the process is cold in comparison to the center of the sun. The word "cold" doesn't refer to the effects of the process, merely its ambient temperature. If you wanted to be really correct about the whole thing, I suppose you'd call it "low energy fusion" or something, indicating that the energy required to catalyze the reaction is a lot lower than is typically required to jumpstart a fusion reaction.

---

[ QUOTE ]
If you say "I don't like Timecop because it doesn't follow this rule clearly established in Back to the Future," then you're a sad, sad individual (though if you say you don't like it because it's a Jean Claude Van Damme movie, we have something to discuss).

[/ QUOTE ]I don't like TimeCop because it doesn't follow the rules laid out in Timecop. The problem with the existence of time travel devices is that if one gets made, then one CAN be made. Therefore, it is an inevitability in a vierse population, that the device will be created again. Therefore, eventually, time travel becomes commonplace, simply because there's nothing stopping time travel from profligating in the future. In essence, the past would be full of tourists and resource-exploiters from the future. Time would become pretty meaningless.

Timecop doesn't really work because when time travel is introduced, all the people involved in its creation are kinda stupid and the rules that govern is use and abuse are so limited. People hop back to the ancient history to [censored] with time? Happens infinitely, spiralling out because time travel is possible.

Perhaps I think overmuch of people.

---

Qr - hold on. Do the 'venturites', as I've just rather heavy-handedly dubbed them, think Doctor Who is crap?

That's not cricket.

---

MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

[ QUOTE ]
Qr - hold on. Do the 'venturites', as I've just rather heavy-handedly dubbed them, think Doctor Who is crap?

That's not cricket.

[/ QUOTE ]
*waits for Talen_Lee to flip out for being lumped in with Venture*

---

[ QUOTE ]
I don't like TimeCop because it doesn't follow the rules laid out in Timecop. The problem with the existence of time travel devices is that if one gets made, then one CAN be made. Therefore, it is an inevitability in a vierse population, that the device will be created again. Therefore, eventually, time travel becomes commonplace, simply because there's nothing stopping time travel from profligating in the future. In essence, the past would be full of tourists and resource-exploiters from the future. Time would become pretty meaningless.

Timecop doesn't really work because when time travel is introduced, all the people involved in its creation are kinda stupid and the rules that govern is use and abuse are so limited. People hop back to the ancient history to [censored] with time? Happens infinitely, spiralling out because time travel is possible.

Perhaps I think overmuch of people.

[/ QUOTE ]
What were the rules of time travel in Timecop? I (unfortunately) watched that movie and I distinctly don't remember any rules being introduced at all. The only thing I could come up with on a internet search was "you can't travel to the future because it hasn't happened yet" which as far as I can recall, they never did.

And why would time travel become common place? It it takes the resources of a national program or major corporation to actually build and run a time travel program (much like a space program), then even if it was possible it would still be highly restricted.

And the whole title premise of the movie "TimeCop" was that there is an active monitoring force that is patrolling Time looking for trouble makers, which even further ups the bar for making changes to the past.

I think your over-simplifying how "easy" it would be to Time travel (if it were possible) and how "easy" it would be to make changes and neglecting the the probability of repercussions and consequences for doing so way too offhandedly that would confound, compromise, or conflict with what changes a person would be able to make.

---

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Qr - hold on. Do the 'venturites', as I've just rather heavy-handedly dubbed them, think Doctor Who is crap?

That's not cricket.

[/ QUOTE ]
*waits for Talen_Lee to flip out for being lumped in with Venture*

[/ QUOTE ]

Lol. 'Doctor Who and the Venturites' isn't that far from an actual Classic Who title.

But you can see how shocked I was at the thought of me beloved Who being dissed by intelligent chaps like Venture and Talen-I forgot to sign off!

Eco

---

MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Qr - hold on. Do the 'venturites', as I've just rather heavy-handedly dubbed them, think Doctor Who is crap?

That's not cricket.

[/ QUOTE ]
*waits for Talen_Lee to flip out for being lumped in with Venture*

[/ QUOTE ]

Lol. 'Doctor Who and the Venturites' isn't that far from an actual Classic Who title.

But you can see how shocked I was at the thought of me beloved Who being dissed by intelligent chaps like Venture and Talen-I forgot to sign off!

Eco

[/ QUOTE ]
Doctor Who can't really help it, it's suffering from being an incredibly long running TV series. Continuity errors are more or less inevitable at that point.

---

[ QUOTE ]
And why would time travel become common place? It it takes the resources of a national program or major corporation to actually build and run a time travel program (much like a space program), then even if it was possible it would still be highly restricted.

[/ QUOTE ]

So it takes the resources of a program.

Then again, ten years later.

Twenty years after that, a different program.

The next five years are prosperous so three different programs get started.

Repeat ad infinitum, until humanity explodes. It's commonplace because every single one of those programs could send people to the same point in time

---

What shall claim a Sky Kings' Ransom?

PPD & Resistance Epic Archetypes

So the question becomes, from a storytelling point of view, "Why didn't they?"

Now, the author doesn't have to answer that question explicity within every Time Travel story written in that universe, but there should be an answer. And there should be a reason within each story as to why infinitely recursing yourself is NOT the answer.

Quite often, that takes the form of limitations on the Time Travel itself, such as: where are you going to get 1.21 jiggawatts of power in THIS time period to go Back to the Future in the first place?

---

Story Arcs I created:

Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!

Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!

Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!

"You can only travel X years safely."

"Every time somebody discovers time travel it ends up with a chronal cataclysm that makes it impossible to travel to before it."

"You are about to destroy the human race, making the point moot."

---

What shall claim a Sky Kings' Ransom?

PPD & Resistance Epic Archetypes

Oh God, I shouldn't have used Timecop as an example. It was mostly used for a laugh (since I haven't watched it since it came out and it was not exactly a good movie to begin with).

The Time Machine is consistent enough, isn't it? Of course, it's about a machine that is only used by one man and never reappears. How about Ludo's Broken Bride album? Of course, we're again dealing with a machine that is destroyed at the end.

Was Quantum Leap a bad TV series because it dealt with time travel? Was my youthful idolization of Michael J. Fox all for nothing because even though I enjoyed the hell out of the Back to the Future movies, they weren't actually good?

Is Star Trek 4 . . . wait, bad example.

No story is bad because it is set in a particular genre or uses a particular story device. A skilled writer could turn a stack of cliches into something awesome (just like a hack can turn something that should be fresh and original into boring crap). I refuse to discount something because it uses a single element.

Unless it's furries, of course.

If you can't enjoy an episode of 1980's Dr. Who because it doesn't address that the 2000's Dr. Who could show up and just save him or tell him what to do, that says more about you as a viewer than the writing of the TV show in question.

---

(QR)

Want a good, consistent version of Time Travel? Read Connie Willis's "Fire Watch," Doomsday Book, and To Say Nothing of the Dog. The last one goes into the most detail about how time travel might work.

If you don't consider that version of time travel believable, I've got nothing for you and suggest you let people who are less exacting enjoy it for what it is.

---

"Bombarding the CoH/V fora with verbosity since January, 2006"

Djinniman, level 50 inv/fire tanker, on Victory
-and 40 others on various servers

A CoH Comic: Kid Eros in "One Light"

[ QUOTE ]

If you don't consider that version of time travel believable, I've got nothing for you and suggest you let people who are less exacting enjoy it for what it is.

[/ QUOTE ]

Since I still giggle at Bill and Ted without getting all bent out of shape, I'm sure I'd enjoy them. Always love a good book recommendation.

---

Qr - time travel stories are easy to compose without any messups as long as nobody says 'but what if bob had killed his grandad?'.

I walked to work today. I didn't get hit by a truck.

But what if-

Nope. It didn't happen.

Likewise, if a time travel story ends with the mcguffin that enables time travel destroyed at a point in time after any time travellers are extant and using it, then you're pretty much ok.

Also, today, I didn't open my front door to find myself standing there with a longer beard and the keys to a delorean. This means that whatever happens in my future, I will never give myself the keys to a time travel machine, even if I find one and want to. Various accidents may have already happened to my future self that prevented him from meeting me today. It's more likely though that he remembers not meeting himself today and so just hasn't bothered.


Eco

---

MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

[ QUOTE ]

Also, today, I didn't open my front door to find myself standing there with a longer beard and the keys to a delorean. This means that whatever happens in my future, I will never give myself the keys to a time travel machine, even if I find one and want to. Various accidents may have already happened to my future self that prevented him from meeting me today. It's more likely though that he remembers not meeting himself today and so just hasn't bothered.


[/ QUOTE ]

Or maybe you DID but it lead to the end of the Universe and so another future version of yourself had to travel back to today to prevent the first future you from meeting the current you but then you never got the keys to the time travel machine that enabled you to end the Universe so you never had to travel back to stop yourself and the Universe was never in danger and so now you can rest easy knowing that today you saved the Universe!!!

---