From: Reason (reason@exratio.com)
Date: Mon Jun 10 2002 - 01:50:02 MDT
---> Adrian Tymes
> Reason wrote:
> > I can say I'll be putting in a couple of one-pagers for worlds
> with strong
> > extropian and libertarian themes. Magic is, after all,
> technology, and SJ
> > shouldn't get to have the only overly transhumanist RPG setting in
> > print...(not counting Planescape, I guess, which is only really
> peripherally
> > to do with issues such as the eternal return, becoming a god, etc, etc).
>
> Warning: they have explicitly said anything above medeval tech will be
> rejected as surely as a multi-page entry (i.e., automatically). Which
> means that if you want to introduce transhumanistic stuff, you'll have
> to *replace* tech with magic, not equate them.
Yes, yes, exactly quite. Where I'm heading with my submissions. Some of my
sci-fi stuff (including an expansion of The City from aleph.se/Trans) is an
examination of how an nanotech world pretty much looks exactly like a
magical mythical world to most of the inhabitants.
> Which could make for
> interesting worlds in itself: imagine, say, Camelot where Merlin had
> discovered and spread (like an early Mr. Torvaldis) some cheap and
> effective actual magics. For instance, carve stone in a certain way and
> fill the engravings with, say, fresh lamb's blood, and every living or
> recently dead beast and man within the engraved (potentially
> village-wide) circle shall be restored to full health (including
> physical reversion to the end of puberty, for those who have lived
> beyond that point). Or solve part of a certain infinitely complex
> magical formula, and your mind becomes faster (such that you can solve
> the next part faster if you want, or take a break and do other stuff).
> Then explore the effect of what that does to society...
>
> No, I'm not hiding that idea even if I am considering writing it up. If
> my version of this doesn't hack it but some better author's does, the
> meme is still spread.
Zigzactly. There's lots of fun stuff that can be thrown in here. Many of the
existing magical fantasy worlds are pretty high-tech, if you consider tech
to be working with the laws of the universe in a way that produces tools
that get things done. I mean, flying ships, clockwork golems, invisible
servants...
The big unextropian thing is that it's all limited in scope; the average
citizen doesn't get to buy a clockwork golem because, well, because
industrialization and mass production is verboten for the mainstream fantasy
genre, I guess. It's all hand-crafted Wellsian magic-tech.
Reason
http://www.exratio.com/
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