or Grendel LivesFlawedIntellect wrote:writings on the wall in blood with messages like "They're Everywhere!" Or "Run and hide!"
that would be very atmosphericFlawedIntellect wrote:corpses lying on the floor in different states of damage
Terminals
For what its worth Bungie did plan on doing this early in Marathon 1's development, though it and many other features were dropped, likely due to time constraints or limitations on gameplay.FlawedIntellect wrote: Cyberspace levels. (Because flying through wireframe 3D worlds has not been done in a while. Why not? Seeing the Sph't's cyberattacks first-hand, watching the conflict between Leela and Durandal, and trying to give Leela more control of the Marathon.)
As for the low tech terminals, that can be chalked up to the limitations of hardware back in the mid-90s. If Bungie could have simulated in-game holograms, audio/video clips, etc. at the time I'm sure they'd have included them with the terminals.
I think terminals on the marathon...and even in pfhor military vessels...make sense.
Think about it: you're not designing a pleasure transport for taking ueg personelle to mars and back with a projected service life of ~20 years...you're designing a colony ship that has to take not only its crew, but also enough raw materials and manufacturing resources to establish an entire civilisation that has no projected chance of ever contacting earth for resupply.
Id want my shipboard systems to be as small, energy/resource efficient, redundant and easy to repair/replace as possible. I mean, sure, we could have holopanels, but for every holopanel, we could have 10 terminals...and for every hour of repairing broken holopanels, we could have 10 terminals repaired.
also, everytime leela puts out a bulletin on a holopanel, she's using resources to not only draft the message, but also to draw 3d graphics, etc...and dont even get started on power consumption.
so yeah...I'm sure tau ceti had awesome holopanel PCs on its civil market once society got established, but for the marathon, a ship with a minimum projected lifespan of 300+ years, id say the designers went with the most redundant, easy to maintain solution possible.
Kinda makes me think about how companies still use win xp for workstations, the navy still uses DOS for control systems on ships, and russia still uses the soyuz for spaceflight.
this last point illustrates things perfectly: who's space program still functions? America's, with its "holopanel" spaceshuttle, or russia's with its "terminal" soyuz?
Think about it: you're not designing a pleasure transport for taking ueg personelle to mars and back with a projected service life of ~20 years...you're designing a colony ship that has to take not only its crew, but also enough raw materials and manufacturing resources to establish an entire civilisation that has no projected chance of ever contacting earth for resupply.
Id want my shipboard systems to be as small, energy/resource efficient, redundant and easy to repair/replace as possible. I mean, sure, we could have holopanels, but for every holopanel, we could have 10 terminals...and for every hour of repairing broken holopanels, we could have 10 terminals repaired.
also, everytime leela puts out a bulletin on a holopanel, she's using resources to not only draft the message, but also to draw 3d graphics, etc...and dont even get started on power consumption.
so yeah...I'm sure tau ceti had awesome holopanel PCs on its civil market once society got established, but for the marathon, a ship with a minimum projected lifespan of 300+ years, id say the designers went with the most redundant, easy to maintain solution possible.
Kinda makes me think about how companies still use win xp for workstations, the navy still uses DOS for control systems on ships, and russia still uses the soyuz for spaceflight.
this last point illustrates things perfectly: who's space program still functions? America's, with its "holopanel" spaceshuttle, or russia's with its "terminal" soyuz?
True, they would go for functionality, efficiency and minimalism over anything fancy. But I would think that in 500 years time, the lowest common denominator would have shifted quite a bit. Would they really be using monochrome CRTs with an Apple II-like text interface as the lowest common denominator? Yes, they do display full color pictures, but there's not much reason for the overall interface to resemble consumer tech of the 1980's.
Look at something like the Raspberry Pi, or any smartphone out there. You don't need a lot of energy for something far, far more advanced than what is seen in the bulky terminals of the Marathon. Look at where display tech is headed. Just ten years ago CRTs were still in common use, now LCDs are counting their days as people work around the clock to make OLED affordable. (Though I'm a dinosaur still exclusively using CRTs
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Also, I'm not so sure the space program comparison is accurate. Yes, Russia's is still functional and they still use primititve tech, but the reason NASA isn't doing well is because of the internal politics of the US. Our politicians would rather gut funding for the advancement of mankind for the sake of redirecting those funds to destructive, uncivilized wars for short-sighted goals of lining Haliburton and Cheney's pockets. The fall of NASA has nothing to do with overdoing things, but rather being starved by outside forces.
Look at something like the Raspberry Pi, or any smartphone out there. You don't need a lot of energy for something far, far more advanced than what is seen in the bulky terminals of the Marathon. Look at where display tech is headed. Just ten years ago CRTs were still in common use, now LCDs are counting their days as people work around the clock to make OLED affordable. (Though I'm a dinosaur still exclusively using CRTs
)Also, I'm not so sure the space program comparison is accurate. Yes, Russia's is still functional and they still use primititve tech, but the reason NASA isn't doing well is because of the internal politics of the US. Our politicians would rather gut funding for the advancement of mankind for the sake of redirecting those funds to destructive, uncivilized wars for short-sighted goals of lining Haliburton and Cheney's pockets. The fall of NASA has nothing to do with overdoing things, but rather being starved by outside forces.
Blastfrog wrote:
Also, I'm not so sure the space program comparison is accurate. Yes, Russia's is still functional and they still use primititve tech, but the reason NASA isn't doing well is because of the internal politics of the US. Our politicians would rather gut funding for the advancement of mankind for the sake of redirecting those funds to destructive, uncivilized wars for short-sighted goals of lining Haliburton and Cheney's pockets. The fall of NASA has nothing to do with overdoing things, but rather being starved by outside forces.
I wasn't making, explicitly, a comparison of space programs, but rather a comparison of the practicality, safety and total cost of the space shuttle vs the soyuz system.
The space shuttle, although a technical marvel, tried to fill to many niches at once, while the soyuz recognises that it is a manned vehicle and that alone. By adding technical complexity with little benefit (you can lift about as much unmanned payload on an Atlas or Titan or, god forbid, a vostok as a shuttle for less cost), the shuttle program, on its own and with no bearing towards the rest of NASA's operations, was a failed project -- it performed less missions than it was proposed to be capable of, cost more than was proposed and was overall, a failure.
I could have easily made a similar point with an AR vs AK analogy -- AK is meh tier but works in adverse conditions and has a longer lifespan; AR is better weapon, but requires more upkeep and lasts less long.
Now then, concerning the space program itself: your disdain for "destructive, uncivilised wars" is actually quite misplaced concerning spaceflight. Although space programs and enthusiasm for exploration in the cosmos is generally accopanied by naieve carl sagan-esque peacenik feelings, one thing and one thing alone must be recognised about spacecraft: on the whole, they are strategic weapons -- and for this precise reason, you see war mongers such as reagan or bush expanding space programs, while men such as clinton and obama cut funding to such programs.
War, especially war between strategically minded nations, drives spacecraft development -- principally because such warfare drives the development of newer, faster, higher capability ballistic missile systems.