OT Which would you Choose
 

If you had a real life choice of being any of the below, which one would you choose... Pick only 1

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

I chose between SG1 and DS9. I probably would have chosen a SG team if it was another one in say Atlantis, but I picked DS9 so I might get involved in the Dominion war.

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I'll choose to be a member of the crew of the Enterprise, but only if my shirt color isn't red.

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I would never want to be a "member" of the federation because they are to fascist for my tastes. Telling what you can and cannot do to the nith degree. No thanks, I would rather be Ferengi.

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http://www.friesian.com/trek.htm if you're interested in Atrocities allegation.

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I looked at the question as "which of these sci-fi universes will most allow me to live in techno-utopian comfort."

Originally I thought about one of the Trek ones, with the intention of resigning from Starfleet immediately and getting a safer job as a trader or something, cruising between different planets to see all the different planets meet all the different aliens.

However, then I thought about how phonging annoying the whole Trekoverse has become, and how all the aliens are just humans with bumpy heads and voted for Firefly. Sure, life would be difficult and dangerous, but it would sure as hell be fun. What's more, you get to hang out with Kaylee (yum). Besides, I reckon you could do pretty well for yourself in the Firefly universe, stealing and scavenging like they do on the show, and there'd be lots of interesting sights to see.

Mind you, given the option I'd probably choose the Honorverse over any of the previous options (but again, I'd resign from the military immediately. Too damned dangerous.) You'd want to make sure you were living in a stable and civilised part of the galaxy though (ie Manticore, Solarian core), Weber's galaxy is pretty cutthroat and if you don't arrive with any useful skills/ resources life would be extremely hard.

My absoulte favourite option though, would be to live on a Culture orbital or GCU: All your material needs taken care of by benign, God-like Machines; insanely powerful tech and body mods/ upgrades; limitless time and resources for every possible form of leisure you can imagine (and plenty more you can't); a whole galaxy of interesting aliens to live amongst and worlds to explore; effective immortality if you want it... Now *that's* how you want to future to look=-)

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

I remember when the NIST-connected clocks at work went haywire, displaying random times -- cinder block walls play havoc with radio communications, as anyone knows (apparently the people in charge were not included in the group known as anyone.)

I would tell people that the laws of physics were breaking down, and I expected a wormhole to form soon, and that I was jumping through as soon as I saw it.

Of course there would be oxygen, and food I could eat there. Everything would be the same, except it would be populated with hot chicks with blue skin, or grey skin, or bright red hair and a voice that melts metal.

In other words, I vote Farscape.

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

SG-1: Not really. Sure, cool planets to explore. But, on the other hand, constant threat of annihilation. Plus, it's gone totally over the shark.

Star Trek: The original series, early. When Starfleet had courage, Spock actually thought about using violence and there were space traders. (Harry Mudd, Cyrano Jones). I'd also imagine there'd be more non-human-clone aliens than shown on screan - Very low special effects budget. Some of the book univeres in particular would be cool.

Firefly universe: No thanks. I like my modern comforts and a reasonably sane government.

Babylon-5: Living conditions are almost universally bad. And I have a great dislike of minbari. Something about them being psychotic and genocidal. Along with most of the other races.

Deep Space 9: The only other Star Trek I'd consider living in. The characters are a lot more 'real' than TNG or some of the late TOS.

You forgot a few:

Star Wars: Are you kidding? Unless you're rich or a Jedi, life is harsh, brutal and short for nearly the entire galaxy. And Jedi don't have it much better. Either than or you live on a rich planet and their 'benevolent' government. Given that those people couldn't even organize to fight off an invasion, I'd pick somewhere else.

Aliens: No. Way.

Honorverse: I see much war, death and pain in the future. No thanks.

5th Imperium: 350-year life span, 700 if I decide to risk my neck in the military. That's a plus. Rational government - Constitutional Imperium - Not so bad. Tech that'll turn me into a cyborg with no downside? Where do I sign? Genocidal aliens coming? Ok, that's bad. But, on the plus side, world-size ships to blow them up with and real Nova bombs make me feel rather secure.

Culure: Nope. That place is just waiting for an Out of Context event to squish it.

The Caves of Steel: Sentient robots, cool. Being squished into a communist arcology, not cool. Skip.

The Foundation: The Empire at its height? Only read one book, but that seems like it might be a place to check out.

Man-Kizn Wars: No. Do I really need to explain?

Berzerker: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No.

Commonwealth, Alan Dean Foster: The two words I can never recall having read in that rather long multi-series are 'Elections' and 'Religious Freedom'. No. Besides, giant space vaccuum coming to kill them all.

Doctor Who: If I get to be a Time Lord (With TARDIS at hand) and survive the end of Galifrey, sure. Otherwise, I'd need to know where I'd end up.

1632 series: Nope. Far too primitive technologically.

Ok, that's enough.

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

I tried a culture book a few months ago. It seemed to be a popular series so I gave it a look. Of course from the start I despised the Culture and agreed with the changeling guy. The Culture is just lackies of AI's. The book is currently half read and lying under my bed. I have no plans to read further.

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I'd like to be on the Enterprise - it seems every week would bring a new random adventure.

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Yeah, Horza bora Gobochul is one of my favourite characters as well. How far did you get? Did you get to the tunnels?

You need to read some of the other books to get a broader view of the Culture. My favourites are probably Excession (I love all the Mind-talk in there, I'd happily move to the Cultureverse for nothing more than a chance to chat with a Mind) and Use of Weapons, which is just so dark it's, well, completely frkn opaque.

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

From the poll options, SG1. Easily the highest chance of survival. Second choice would be Babylon 5, I'd never go anywhere near any space borne construction run & maintained by star fleet. I am unfamilar with the fire fly universe.

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

Well, I voted the Enterprise (TMP Era) but I would prefer to live in the Federation in my head. Not the one plagued by bad writers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

Given the options I'd take serenity(dangerous yes, but damn what a ride, and yeah, kayle=yum), then DS9(aside from the occasional crossfire a trader here could make a ton of cash and be up front for a lot of history), then the enterprise(preferably D, that thing was a luxury liner), but if I had more to pick from, I'd take post peace keeper war Moya, or Lexx after it eats earth(or in that proffesor dudes spaceship full of naughty school girls....).

Also might like to take a spin on the Heart of Gold, the Bebop or Outlaw Star.

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

From the options, I chose SG-1. You guys all mention Kaylee from the Firefly universe being a plus, but I see Carter from SG-1 being quite the bonus as well! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

I forget the name of the universe, but I think it's one Narf mentioned; the David Weber universe with the world / moon sized ships, genocidal Achultaani coming to wipe the galaxy of all life...yeah that universe sounds like fun to me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

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The article on Star Trak was interesting, although it did miss a few random episodes that did tend to indicate some beliefs - "Bread and Circuses" mentioned the "Son" worshippers, for example, and apparently Uhuru was a believer. And despite Piccard's statement regarding the Federation not having money, there were too many "Free Trader" types roaming the outskirts that were making a living selling things. Couldn't all be barter, could they?

I voted for DS9 as it was more open to outside influence - more societies were represented than on any of the other shows - unless you count the society of the week on any of the other ST series.

While I'm a fan of Firefly, it is a very small universe, although the terraforming that went into making so many habitable worlds around one sun leaves a lot of possibility for xenoarcheology. There is also no explanation as to how people got there, and I would think there has to be some form of interstellar drive available.

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@Renegade: 5th Imperium, yep.

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I recall they had just left the ringworld that was blown up and Horza killed the captain and replaced him. The culture agent told the crew who he was. It had promise. I liked the ringworld, and the spaceship combat stuff, but I can't stand the stance it takes. I wanted the Religious aliens to win. Normally I would never support aliens over humans but the humans in the book aren't human, they're slaves to machines and I know a later book discovers Earth.

The Culture destroying the ring world merely so the enemy don't get it reminds me of Soviet scorched earth policy.

I saw one episode of Firefly that was mostly boring though I liked the alliance ship at the end. I merely couldn't get into "Cowboys in space". We were discussing Joss Wheedon after I overheard a friend call him a whore. I asked him why he was calling my 6th cousin a whore, and we got to talking. He pointed out Star Wars was cowboys in space but I said Han solo didn't wear a trench coat and use a revolver.

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

Fair enough. bear in mind though that your view of the Culture in that book is coloured by Horza's outlook. When you read the others you see it from a different point of view. It's supposed to be different to the society we live in though, and it's supposed to be challenging.

Who says they don't?

No, not slaves at all. The Minds and drones don't need slaves, they could exist perfectly happily without any humans at all. In fact, you could argue that their existence would be considerably easier without. No, they keep humans around and make life (very) comfortable because they like them. Minds are whimsical like that, and that's what's so appealing about them. They are very much like the old Greek/Roman Gods: Insanely powerful, but obsessed with watching/ tinkering in human affairs. Maybe that makes the humans in the Culture more like pets than slaves (and this is explicitly said in at least one of the books- excession I think), but they do still have freedom- people leave the Culture all the time, and humans are definitely respected.

In fact you could argue that they're *more* human than us: Without the stresses and pressures of trying to scratch a living/ accumulate wealth/ stay alive etc, they have the free time and resources to devote to *being* human. The Culture would probably argue that we are slaves to our economy, and they would probably be right.

Actually that's in one of the first Cuture books: A short(ish) story in State of the Art. It's extremely funny. They are in orbit around 1970s Earth, sending down people in diguise to learn as much as possible about Earth society. The bit where one of them watches Star Wars and then asks the ship for a working lightsaber is brilliant.

Note that they evacuated it first.
An Orbital (not quite a Ringworld) is a massive structre, but not such a big deal to the Culture. I think their resources are so vast and their attitudes are such that the loss of material things doesn't bother them too much. They'll just build another one. Hell, I wouldn't put it past them to go back, scoop up every bit of matter from the original and put it back together from the same bits. Just because they can- Like I said, whimsical.

Firefly takes a little getting used to but once you're in, you'll love it. Note that it is the ONLY science-fiction anything that my wife actually likes (and she doesn't just like it, she loves it too=-). If it helps, ignore the "space" bit and concentrate on the cowboys bit. In fact, even that is irrelevant. JW's stuff is all about the characters. You could dump the crew of the Firefly or the cast of Buffy in just about any setting and it wouldn't matter, it would still work.

I really don't see any reason for anyone to call JW a whore- he makes good, entertaining TV that people like to watch, and he gets paid for it. What the hell is wrong with that?

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

I don't know why he said that, we got distracted after I mentioned he was a relative.

The appendicies to the book said the religious aliens lost. Maybe the other books are better, I'll never know. I gave it a chance, he failed to interest me adequately. No more giving him money. I didn't just go to the back of the book. I was actually reading an article about the aliens and it mentioned the series, at which point I realised I'd never read it. Actually for awhile I was aware of them at the shop but I never got around to trying one.

I couldn't give Firefly the benefit of the doubt when the intro messed things up by saying they found a system with 100s of habitable planets. Now unless aliens, that were never mentioned, were involved I assume they meant to say a section of space. Anyhow I don't give more than 2 chances (3 is so generic). I have never watched Buffy and I only ever watched one epsiode of Angel because he was turned into a muppet. For awhile I thought that green demon guy was Quentin Tarrantino.

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

Yeah, they do lose, but I thought I maybe could trick you into finishing the book=-)

As for the Firefly-planet thing... I guess Joss Whedon created the Firefly's star system using FQM mod=-) Since all FTL travel, which is critical to almost all sci-fi, boils down to little more than handwavium anyway, why not handwave other details like the star system's structure? Especially if it prevents you from having to invent and maintain some convoluted system of warp drives, hyperspace or wormholes.

Basically, they are sacrificing some scientific credibility (something which is INCREDIBLY hard to attain in sci-fi anyway - how many sci-fi shows/ films/ books can you honestly name that a pedantic physicist couldn't pick holes in?) for storytelling and accessibility. This is something TV sci-fi has done since Kirk beamed down to his first polystyrene planet. Call it poetic license. As I said before, Firefly is character driven, the futuristic setting is nothing more than a pretty painted backdrop behind the actors.

Also, we don't yet have a detailled map of any solar system other than our own (and some of that is still inconclusive). We have models and speculation about the shape of other star systems, but most of the exoplanets we have found so far indicate that at least some planetary systems are very very different to this one. For all we know, a system with hundreds of terraformable worlds could be entirely possible.

Buffy is well worth watching, but like many of the best TV series you need to give it time. Like most of the best shows it takes about a series to settle into itself, and after that you can really begin warmng to it. Firefly is unusual in that it was brilliant within about 2 episodes. We'll never know if series 2 would have lived up to the promise of series 1.

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If you have access to a good public library, you don't need to spend any more money.I've seen lengthy discussions on other forums debating how to rationalize that and other incongruities in Firefly. Some people interpret that bit as hundreds of terraformable planets/moons/etc., others prefer multiple stars in a relatively small cluster. There are also debates over whether they have FTL drives, gravity control, and assorted other superscience technologies.

I think one of the problems with the hundred-planet system idea is that as far as we understand gravity, that many planets in one star's habitable zone couldn't maintain stable orbits over time.

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I was in fact at the library today and that occurred to me. I didn't see any of the books though.

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I picked Enterprise, but (as has been mentioned) only if I'm not a red-shirt.
Since there's no money (see that great link posted by Randallw) I think I'd become a holodeck addict and get discharged. Takes "just one more turn" to another level.

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Believe it or not, I am such a nerd that I actually did some research into this a while ago (out of curiosity unrelated to Firefly). The conclusion I came to (FWIW) is that you can get a lot of "planets" in stable orbits in the habitable zone around a single star if (and only if) they are actually planet-sized moons of giant planets (themselves presumably uninhabitable due to high gravity). The giant planets don't have to be as far apart as our system's gas giants. In addition, you can (in principle) have stable binary and trinary star systems with the stars pretty close together and not stealing each others' planets. It helps to have cooler stars, as their habitable zones are thicker. (Also, since you've got several stars close together, you want to minimize high-energy photons.) Multiply it all together, and you can get quite a few habitable worlds all in one system and not super-distant from each other. And you could use the slingshot effect to help conserve fuel as you traveled between them. But could such systems actually FORM in RL? I would bet "no" but we have a lot to learn. And could you get HUNDREDS of worlds? Wow, that's a real stretch.

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

Consider Phlebas is, in my view, the weakest Culture novel.. however if you didn't like it, I'm not going to try and recommend the rest of the series to you. If you do ever come across them in the library, however, The Player of Games and Use of Weapons are generally considered the best.

Player of Games also gives you a solid insight into day to day life in the Culture.

EDIT: also this; http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~stefan/culture.html

This bothered you, but the "destruction of war irrelevent culture orbitals, occasionally producing billions of deaths at a time" (quoting the appendix from memory) by the Idirans (for that is the name of the religious aliens) didn't?

Or the destruction of two stars in the Twin Novae battle, neither of which shone on unpopulated systems, by the Idirans?

(BTW; if you still have the novel you can safely read the Appendix's without giving away the end, the story is not about the war it merely uses it as a backdrop. They're pretty interesting, best part of the book in my opinion)

That's Horza's view. Horza absolutely dispises the Culture, which is why he works for the Idirans, even though the Idirans aren't exactly saints. He is a text book example of an unreliable narrator.

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

interesting enterprise and sg-1 running neck and neck

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I'd have to take the EVE universe over all those (wow, this poll is too short). Effectively immortal as long as I can still be cloned? Sign me up!

edit: From the poll options, DS9. If they can tolerate Quark and Garak, I'd be pretty much invisible which would be swell.

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

I voted for Firefly, mainly bacause I like the idea of space pirating/cowboys. To deal with the improbability of hundreds of planets, I like what Dogscoff said:

It is rather easy to pick holes in just about any of the Scifi universes, it can be suprisingly easy to pick holes in the theoretical physics of our own universe.

Some of the others were tempting, I would probably pick DS9 and/or SG1 second/third. The Enterprise would be tempting, but being on "The Starfleet Flagship" would be alot of pressure in my opinion. I'm not to familliar with the Babylon universe.

One other Scifi I like would be the Dune books. For anyone whos has read more than just the first book by Frank Herbert, there is alot going on there. I'm currently reading one of the books by Brian Herbert, it deals with mankinds battle against the machines. I am enjoying it.

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

Friendly warning. It's not too wise to mention the latest Dune books to die hard Dune fans. I'll admit they're the only ones I've really read and they were entertaining enough, if lacking in some areas, but recent Dune books are to die hard Dune fans as the SW prequels are to die hard SW fans http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Me, I take what I can from things and don't let faults bother me.

Well apart from mixing genres and unsympathetic "good guys" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

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I don't know if I would consider myself a Diehard Dune Fan, but I am most assuredly a big one. I understand it is hard to compare the newer Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson Dune books to Frank Herberts origonal series, different writers will write different, even if he's his son using his notes, but I have still enjoyed the Prelude books and I am almost finished with the Legends books.

I've learned not to be to discriminating when it comes to forms of entertainment. I get alot of time on my hands at work, and with out something to read or do, it can become very tedious.

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

I think Mick Farren's DNA Cowboys world would be a good one to live in.
The "Stuff Computer" beaming in anything and everything you want, including made to order Clones, assuming you can afford them.
Not to mention all the Sex, Drugs and ... well Music... that you could want.

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Watched an epsiode of Firefly on DVD last night and I would just like to reiterate a very important point I made earlier ni this thread:

Kaylee. Yum. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

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Amazing writer or not, Mr. Herbert Jr. was nice enough to take the time to tell us all the stuff that lead up to the Dune universe.

I'll take that.

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Didn't Herbert sr. do that in the first book though? It's in the appendix

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<font color="red"> ROFLMAO !!! </font>



http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e8...tystartrek.jpg

Re: OT Which would you Choose
 

because I have been reading what I assume is the same RPG.com thread.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i1..._motivator.jpg

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Well, since SG1 and B5 are the only options for ascension... and B5 only gives it to messianic elites like Sheridan. I'll choose SG1 while Oma is still helping people out.

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...Contrive to be on Abydos when it's scorched?

Of course, then you get to sit on your hands for the rest of eternity...

...I don't think much of the 'ascended' in SG - You've got a choice of indifferent or evil.

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Heh, Abydos go boom!
Most of scifi is pretty weak on "future evolution" stuff. And that darn Trek non-interference has pervaded too much scifi as an excuse for dismissing advanced beings.

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I thought SG-1 since my poor understanding is they get to go through portals to different worlds, so I could see a lot of different places and escape into one I liked, but then I realized I have avoided ever watching that TV series for a reason, and consequently I actually have no idea what I'd be getting myself into. So I chose Serenity because I figured it meant also traveling around and getting a chance to get off someplace pleasant.