WarpPunk

[Philip Culmer]

I was doing a course earlier, and my studies led me to the subject of an Old Earth author of speculative fiction. This got me thinking: presumably, storytelling will still be an art, and people in the Honorverse will still read for pleasure, though I don't recall any specific mention of fiction - beyond the more extreme hyperbole of the newsfaxes and StateSec.

So what kind of Science Fiction stories might they read?

[Jackie Snedden]

In "Honor Among Enemies" she is reading a book in the Hornblower series by C F Forester that her father gave to her. There is also repeated mentions of a Space Adventurer - sort of like the old Tom Corbot Space Cadet series

[Peter Gold]

I'd think that a lot of existing sf tropes would have been made moot by technology.
They have ftl so that kills a lot.
I'd expect ftl comms would be a new big trope. Maybe some first contact of non spacefaring races that are at our tech.

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[Philip Culmer]

Not that I'm up to writing such a story, but if someone were to attempt something like Space Adventurer stories (not the stories themselves, of course) or other examples of the sort of science fiction that people in the Honorverse might read - but is not set in the Honorverse or using any of His Grace's IP - would that count as fan fiction?

[John Fairbairn]

I'd think that a lot of existing sf tropes would have been made moot by technology.
They have ftl so that kills a lot.
I'd expect ftl comms would be a new big trope. Maybe some first contact of non spacefaring races that are at our tech.

Interesting thoughts. For myself, I still go back and re-read "Doc" Edward Edgar Smith's Skylark and Lensman series. Perhaps it's just nostalgia, but I'll tell you true that most of the "SF" (the technology) stuff he wrote has happened. It endlessly fascinates me to look back and realise how much of it has been developed in reality ... and just in my lifetime. "Plates" - flat-screen monitors and TVs, lasers, real space ships, space stations, hand-sized communicators - video phones, plastics, and so much more. Same for stuff written by Anne McCaffery in the Pern series, particularly concerning genetics. I mean, we are seriously discussing whether we should reactivate some genetic examples of tissue from the Jurassic period. Dragons, anyone? Or how about Robert Heinlein's The Door Into Summer? All kinds of stuff about which he wrote now is real or nearly so.

And yet, at least for me, it does not detract from the stories one whit. In fact, it astounds me how closely the SF of yesterday was predictive of the reality of today. Maybe those old stories actually were responsible for stirring some scientific brain cells? And I could easily see someone with the inquisitive mind of Honor Harrington or Michelle Henke reading such stories for pure enjoyment ... even if they are "outdated".

[Peter Gold]

I think your examples prove my point.
Your examples are all of vaguely described tech that has become real in some form that looks like what was written.
How much sf that has been very wrong is still popular? Especially if the tech is a key component.
The impeller drive and his version of the hyperdrive are a key component to the plot along with look and feel they engendered. What would the Honorverse be if instead of his hyperdrive it was the codominium Alderson drive? Still have the impeller drive and weapon systems.

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[Philip Culmer]

Definitely agree with both of you - stories like Lucky Star and the Oceans of Venus spring to mind as thoroughly out of date classics that still give great enjoyment, and one of my favourite series involves a Private Eye in Diocletian era Rome.

I suppose where I'm coming from is trying to imagine what sort of scientific developments the authors in Honors era might imagine - sort of steampunk in reverse, so to speak. Peter's given me a couple of ideas to start with.

[Kevin Smith]

To use some terminology from GURPS Ultra-Tech, the Honorverse is a very "safetech" setting. Considering it's 2000 years in the future, the people and their society really have not changed all that much compared to the previous 2000 years. Technology that would cause radical changes has not arisen or stagnated well before we might have expected (AI and automation), been suppressed (Genetic engineering), has limitations that have not been overcome in 2000 years that prevent it from more widespread use (cybernetics), or it just hasn't been used in ways that would disrupt the stories the Honorverse is intended to tell (Cheap clean fusion, nanotech materials, radiation shielding, and easy access to space. They should have no problem building big, comfortable space habitats able to house trillions of people in a system.) You couldn't set Excession in the Honorverse, any more than you could replace the SKM with The Culture and still tell On Basilisk Station.

So, the Honorverse might have its own forms of transhumanist scifi that posits these changes. The equivalent of Ghost in the Shell, The Culture, Bladerunner, Azimov's Robots, Childhoods End, etc.

They might also things that we might think of as science fiction but they regard more as fantasy. A sort of similar ground that Steampunk has now.

[Philip Culmer]

Now there's some food for thought - Heinlein's Future History as a flavour of Retrofuturism - come to think of it, the colony on Tellus Tertius would be at about the same point in time as the Honorverse. The Honorvese has cloning as abuse rather than being neutral or positive - though Friday could well be considered as having started out as a genetic slave. Hard AI and silicon people though - that could be a fun thought.

[John Fairbairn]

Just a thought -

There have been a number of instances in the last 20 years - primarily in Star Trek, I think - where the author of a story posits that cybernetics gradually moves through a change from where the AI "just runs programs" (to quote Fisher Stevens as 'Ben' from the movie Short Circuit. I am thinking of an SF story I read (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) where a supercomputer gradually develops a sense of self-awareness. Some of them posit sudden changes, like Johnny 5 or the nanites that Wes Crusher allowed to escape.

We just do not know what will happen when a computer with enough circuits and/or speed to simulate massive interconnections begins to operate in AI mode. I think that will continue to be of interest to SF writers/readers until and unless it actually occurs, and perhaps for long afterwards.

Of course, that's not counting HAL in 2001 A Space Oddyssy, or R Daneel Olivaw in I, Robot, or Commander Data. They were built to be autonomous and self-aware.

About 40 years ago, as a student at the University of Minnesota, I was tasked to write a Turing Challenge program in Basic that gave the appearance of natural thought. I chose to do a psychological inquiry program - an AI shrink. I'm proud to say that I received an A+ grade on it. In just over 400 lines of code, I managed to create a system that recognised what was being answered and create a 'next question' based on each answer supplied by the user. The program exactly repeated its questions so infrequently that the instructor had to triple-check that the program printout and (in those days paper) tape I turned in actually produced those results.