Suspension of Disbelief

[Jon Miller]

I am having problems with US politics right now. I am beginning to think that this must be some simulation...

JM

[Flubber]

I don't have a big issue in game of thrones since they often leave things very vague as to how much time has passed .I am sure there are sites where they point at impossibilities by pulling some varied time references together bit instead of having to suspend disbelief on timing I simply don't pay too close attention . Varys is in Mereen and then Dorne and then on a ship in the fleet headed to Westeros?? MAybe he had a steady gale behind him the whole way to Dorme and his ship met the fleet just before they landed . MAybe there was three weeks netween each scene or three months . gathering a fleet takes time .. in fact there are numerous things between scenes that suggest a significant amount of time may have passed between particular scenes and my recollection is that most references by characters to times are vague . But yes I know the diligent can point to the references there are and see some inconsistencies . BUt as a regular viewer who is NOT particulatly notimg timelines , it is usually just simple enough to accept enough time has passed .

[Flubber]

I am having problems with US politics right now. I am beginning to think that this must be some simulation...

JM

Lol I have had a general suspension of disbelief in this presidency . My typical response is huh? Or WTF?

[Lorizael]

Theoretically, they can and do. Who knows how many dramatic plots were made unnecessary by the insightful preparations by Data, Geordie, Spock, and their ilk.

"Yes, Captain, we were attacked by a space squid arriving via our transporter, but our established protocols took care of the issue in short order. Would you like to see the video logs?"
"That won't be necessary, Number One. Well done."

Sadly, those stories are dead boring and rarely get published.

Heh.

I think there are better and worse ways to handle this sort of thing. What strains credibility for me is the technological paralysis most SF shows exhibit. Last minute saves that should have long-last lasting impacts if implemented reliably are often never heard from again. This is something I think the Stargate shows did really well, actually. Over the course of their many seasons, humanity's slow development into a high tech civilization changed the nature of the show and the kinds of threats and plots that were possible.

[Elok]

The biggest problem I have with suspension of disbelief is when disruptive new technologies are magically introduced midway through a sci-fi book (or more often a series), for example in Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead" series and in Alastair Reynolds's "Revelation Space" series the universe was set up such that slower than light space travel was a defining part of the universe, but halfway through the series faster than light travel was magically introduced (in Card's case some hicks on a backwoods planet developed the technology, in Reynolds's case the technology was developed thanks to a wormhole that let people talk to people in the future) and completely ****ed everything up. If the FTL travel had been introduced from the start, or if it had been introduced after a long time lapse (as in Cordwainer Smith's "The Rediscovery of Man" collection of short stories, or when the evolution of super-psychic powers was introduced in Card's "Worthing Saga" collection of short stories - in both cases the development of the technology took thousands of years), then I'd have had no problem with it - but as it was it seemed like the author had written himself into a corner and figured that FTL travel would help write himself out of it ("I need the protagonists to get from point A to point B really fast" - in Card's case this was so that the species on a planet that was about to be destroyed could colonize distant star systems, in Reynolds's case this was so that he could have a thrilling starship chase which wouldn't have been very exciting if all of the ships were accelerating at 1G).

I haven't watched GoT, but I'd have a problem with some new technology/magic being introduced midway through the series that let armies teleport around willy-nilly. If instead the fast-travel was just the director winking at the audience and saying "we're omitting the travel scene" then I'd be fine with it.

In one of the later Pern novels (co-authored with her son Todd), McCaffrey realized she'd made dragons "obsolete" (not really, they still had lots of unique abilities) by getting rid of thread, so she had a dragon suddenly discover that all dragons are telekinetic, at the same time as Pern had its first-ever giant meteor impact. So from then on the dragons were Pern's giant-meteor watch, because they could use mass telekinesis for something something. I forget if they pushed the meteor slightly or just teleported people out of the way or what. Anyway, yeah, two convenient game-changers for the price of one.

[Proteus_MST]

Interesting ... never read so far into the Pern novels.
Last I remember was the time jump of Jaxom on his white dragon, in order to bring back dragonriders from the past ... as well as the rediscovery of the AIVAS, which resulted in the colonists rediscovering their past (and the nature of the threads), as well as lots of technologies which had been long lost.

Guess I will get myself the books I am still missing in the not so distandt future, and continue reading the epos

[Elok]

Lessa made the particular time jump you're remembering, not Jaxom. It has indeed been a while

[ZEE]

Elok is a nerd.

[loinburger]

In one of the later Pern novels (co-authored with her son Todd), McCaffrey realized she'd made dragons "obsolete" (not really, they still had lots of unique abilities) by getting rid of thread, so she had a dragon suddenly discover that all dragons are telekinetic, at the same time as Pern had its first-ever giant meteor impact. So from then on the dragons were Pern's giant-meteor watch, because they could use mass telekinesis for something something. I forget if they pushed the meteor slightly or just teleported people out of the way or what. Anyway, yeah, two convenient game-changers for the price of one.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing I dislike. Telekinetic dragons? No problem. Overly convenient development/discovery of telekinesis in previously non-telekinetic dragons? Annoying.

[loinburger]

Another thing that breaks suspension of disbelief for me are Michael Crichton novels.

Premise: We've developed cloning! We'll use this fantastic technology to build a theme park.
Premise: We've developed quantum computing and time travel! We'll use these fantastic technologies to build a theme park.

[Lorizael]

What's unbelievable about our seeming inability to refrain from commercializing everything?

[Jon Miller]

I have read far too many of the PERN novels considering that only the first 3 (or even only the first 1) were really good.

JM

[pchang]

I have always liked the idea of a medieval/renaissance fantasy setting where you slowly discover that the world is really far into the future where humanity has colonized extra-solar planets and this one has lost its high tech knowledge and regressed. The monsters are just aliens and or devolved humans and that magic is just misunderstood/lost high technology.

[BlackCat]

Anyone read the Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell ? It may probably annoy many not liking tactics and not being fond of "Captain Marryat code of honour style".

[rah]

I've read all of them. They have gotten a touch stale. The midway or whatever spinoff seems to be more interesting now.
I've read one heck of a lot of books and while these aren't masterpieces, they're FAR from being bad. And I know bad.

And now I feel much better about reading only the first few perns. I probably read one too many