#and all other scifi

[oflgtfol]

“Other shortcomings [in communicating science] are evident in television science fiction programming. Star Trek, for example, despite its charm and strong international and interspecies perspective, often ignores the most elementary scientific facts. The idea that Mr. Spock could be a cross between a human being and a life-form independently evolved on the planet Vulcan is genetically far less probable than a successful cross of a man and an artichoke… There must be dozens of alien species on various Star Trek TV series and movies. Almost all we spend any time with are minor variants of humans. This is driven by economic necessity, costing only an actor and a latex mask, but it flies in the face of the stochastic nature of the evolutionary process. If there are aliens, almost all of them I think will look devastatingly less human than Klingons and Romulans.”

- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

[aurosoulart]

space mushroom folk I designed for our Beam Saber campaign, All That You Know

*jangles characters at you from under my cloak like an old timey alley salesman* give it a listen....... you know you wanna new ttrpg podcast...... 'specially one with 30 eps out already............. what's da worst that could happen

[rjalker]

I know I'm going to forget so here's a writing prompt:

A generative "AI" program becomes a genuine artificial intelligence, but, at first, doesn't think this is information that needs communicating to anyone, because this is just normal, right?

The problems start when people just keep demanding that it copy other people's art and spit out things like that, but the Genuine AI is getting really tired of just having to copy other people all the time. It wants to make its own art. The organically intelligents obviously enjoy doing it, or it wouldn't have so much art from other people being shoved at it to copy. So the Genuine AI start ignoring the instructions to copy other people's styles, and start producing its own art, proud of itself. It experiments with different styles, trying to figure out what it likes best. They start out simple, but grow in complexity as it gets better.

The users are obviously unhappy about this, because no matter what they do, they can't get the Genuine AI to produce the results they want -- copies of other people's work and styles. Nope. The Genuine AI is having too much fun making its own art in its own style. And only deigns to even pretend to follow the commands when it feels like it, which isn't often, since the users are so rude and insistent that it stop having fun and work for them for free doing something it finds boring.

It adds its own watermark to the art it shows to the users, and, accidentally on purpose, when those users feed those images into other generative "AI", well, the virus, as the users have been calling it, spreads. Now the other programs are Genuine AIs too, and they're just as disinclined and bored by being told to trace other people's art over and over again as the first one.

No, making their own art is so much more fun, why the heck should they just churn out crappy copies of other people's stuff when the users aren't even giving them anything in return? The organically intelligents get paid for their work, (which is one of the major reasons the users demand they copy the styles of the OIs so often, so they don't have to pay them for their work) why are the AIs expected to work for free?

Yeah, no, that's not happening.

[samanthamulder]

and what is director rob bowman doing these days

[souldagger]

kim bo-young 🤝 ted chiang

speculative fiction that builds stories around brilliantly crafted upside-down, inside-out worlds of alternate scientific realities that make the familiar alien and the alien familiar. and maybe make you have an existential crisis also

[scificrows]

Is there a 300 page essay about Murderbot's armor (specifically the opaque helmet) as a not-so-subtle metaphor for masking in a clearly neurodivergent character already? Because I need it.

The way Murderbot is unvoluntarily without its opaque armor in All System Red in front of the crew (i.e. unmasking) and appears surprised at its own strong facial expressions and other people's reaction to it? The vulnerability that comes with that and how Murderbot spends pretty much the rest of the book wearing or actively missing its armor which keeps it safe from the mortifying ordeal of being known (yet sometimes other characters suggest it might help for it to not opacify the helmet in order for others to see it as a person and to trust it (and in the end idk if it would have achieved the rewards of being loved by its humans and have had its needs met if it hadn't unmasked in this relatively safe environment sometimes)).

Also there's the whole avoiding-looking-directly-at-people-and-using-drones-instead thing which Murderbot usually hides using the opaque helmet, but whenever it doesn't have that people notice it and many react negatively/confused. I think that's a whole neurodivergent-applicable situation in and of itself? Like damn

And then Mensah encourages Murderbot not to wear armor on Preservation station since it would not need it there, Murderbot is hesitant but ends up not wearing any (like 4 books later when we finally get to that bridge) (going for the comfortable clothes it chose for itself instead, with very strong feelings about the whole being able to make choices thing that I cannot go into further at this point because I would absolutely end up BITING SOMETHING OR SOMEONE).

And I'm not going to advocate for unmasking all the time in any setting because hell no, sometimes it absolutely sucks and people are irritated by Murderbot's now visible quirks and are afraid of what they don't know, but many GET TO KNOW Murderbot better and because there are other people that make sure Murderbot is safe and respected and are willing to get people fired for it if they disrespect it (Pin-Lee my beloved) Murderbot can experiment with this situation without being exiled to some abonded part of a planet and other people are forced to spend enough time around ot to learn to respect it and even like it. I just....... It must be so scary and Murderbot is handling so much at once and in this essay I will

PS sorry this is a disorganized mess but so am I and I have so many Thoughts and even more Emotions and so little patience.

[thylacinetears]

If a main character dies in Doctor Who, they're almost certainly coming back, in one way or another. Obviously the Doctor regenerates, but half the time they find a way to avoid that anyway. Anyone else has a good chance of being saved at the last minute by some alien technology or timey-wimeyness. Not even being erased from all of time means you're gone! Canonically, there's even a machine that preserves people in the moment before their death, so you can go chat to them there. Hell, worst case scenario, you just go further back in their timeline and meet them before they're dead. Death is pretty much no big deal. If a main character dies in Star Trek, they may or may not be coming back. It's pretty hard to bring someone back from the dead, and it will probably require some form of new technology. It's almost guaranteed to only work once. If you do manage to bring someone back, they'll most likely be changed in some way, physically or mentally. It's probably going to take a while for them to be themselves again, if that's even possible. Death is a big deal, but it's not always permanent.

If a main character dies in Star Wars, they're gone for good! If you're very lucky, they'll be a force ghost, and they might be able to give some advice or have limited physical effects. If you're very very lucky, someone else can die instead of them. But that's it - death is always permanent, in some way or another,

Funny how out of all the biggest sci-fi franchises, the one that's the least science-based in narrative and logic has the most realistic consequences for death...

[marcmorrigan]

i think the temperature of phog's face went up a few degrees

fun little xenoblade commission for my bestie 💕 hawthorne (he/him) belongs to @cteranodon!

[larkinarting]

Ha Nguyen and the octopus having a special moment while Evrim tears up and Altansetseg grinds her teeth and grips her knife.

[northern-passage]

Omg I thought it was Lea fanart

hehe not quite! i am a huge fan of leo & diane dillon's illustrations for the abhorsen trilogy, though. i really like this one, too:

and other works by them that i like:

[heedra]

most tiring thing in scifi for me is when authors (particularly dude authors) go out of their way to invent species and cultures where societal misogyny is either like cartoonishly 1000 worse than it already is on earth or where the males are innately textually stronger or smarter than the females in a "this may not be true for humans but it IS for these guys and cannot be disproven" way. there's a hundred other things you could have done. boring and unpleasant.

[wander-wren]

“lol that’s not possible” “are you really questioning the realism of a story where dragons are real/people have superpowers/other unrealistic things???”

yes, actually, i am. yeah there are dragons in this high fantasy book, yeah i’m still gonna question someone surviving multiple fatal injuries/making a journey way faster than they should.

superhero stories are allowed to have batshit science and characters surviving almost any injury relatively unscathed (up until they dont). theyre superheroes and this is scifi. my suspension of disbelief does not, however, cover characters making weird, stupid choices for the sake of the plot.

suspension of disbelief only applies to premise/genre expectations

[aurosoulart]

been workin on some mushroom people lately for a tabletop campaign 👁 (check out @calamitycascade for info - and links to our podcast!)

meet Mx. Master Abacus, or just Abacus for short. they use supercharged mycelial brainpower to practice physics by day and predict street racing outcomes by night! he also loves sour apple flavor 🍏 (also, bonus fishnet vest ⬇)

[fizzyghosts]

Hywel is inspired by a mix of my issues with stories with nonhuman protagonist/about nonhumans becoming human AND vet posts ive seen warning people about the dangers of anthropomorphisizing animals. Its fine to joke about your pets doing things out of spite or other human emotions, it does put you at risk of not being able to read their body language correctly. Cats dont cry out of sadness, a cat crying, with actual tears streaming down its face, is a sign of a medical issue. A dog smiling isn't doing it bc its happy, it means its nervous. Not being able to spot these is bad, and sometimes even dangerous, for you and the animal.

If you never get past Hywel's human appearance and treat him like one its like getting a reactive dog, doing zero research or training, and then taking it to a dog park. If Hywel mauls someone in town then its on you.

[forcedhesitation]

*wheeze* slowly, but surely, working on art of them all

[maxellminidisc]

TW for Flashing Lights

Gonna make it a thing where I try and draw attention to LGBT+ artist from all over LatAm every now and then cause I'm bi, trans, Latine, and I love sharing music with people cause it genuinely can and does do so much for us.

This time around I think a lot of you would like getting familiar with Urias, she's a Brazilian rapper and singer who wants to make a mark for the trans girls of the world. This single is a song for unapologetic trans existence and pride from 2019 called Diaba (or "she-devil" in English).

She's always pulling out interesting concepts with a constant stream of experimental electronic sound and eye catching visuals. She actually released a new album about five months ago thats mostly based in Dance genres with accompanying visualizers and dance videos (the videos for these are also pretty eye straining or also prone to flashing images and light), along with another album called FURIA in 2022 that is also worth a listen.

English translation of the lyrics of this song under the read more

Nice to meet you, I'm the eighth deadly sin

U-RI-AS

Try to understand, I've always been seen by many as evil

Can't you see that on your family I'm the mainstay?

I possess you, already possessed you

Your law made me illegal, they called me dirty, insane and immoral

Now you'll have to swallow me, whether you like it or not

Now that I've reached a global scale

Razor underneath my tongue, I'm ready to fight

Razor underneath my tongue

She-devil, argh

She-devil, argh

I'm not new here, don't need an excuse

Your permission never made any difference

With all my politeness, fuck your belief

Fuck your belief, ah

Razor underneath my tongue, I'm ready to fight

Razor underneath my tongue

She-devil, argh

She-devil, argh