CB Sci-Fi

[Ahriman238]

Just a thought I've had floating around for a while.

I once heard an interview with a Marvel editor, something about how comic books always have to remain rooted in reality "So they could be going on outside your window." This is why civilian life in comics is just like normal life for us, even though they live in a world where aliens and magic, and probably ancient gods are real. Where men live who can transmute elements, benchpress trucks and flip physics the bird, but all they ever seem to do is fight with it. Any of these amazing technologies or abilities that would change everything are ignored, because otherwise "it'd be science fiction."

As an aside, I think the worst offender was a Deadpool Dark Reign comic, in which Norman Osborn devloped a fast-working side-effect free cure for cancer as a one-off weapon. Nevermind that if he could produce even limited qualities all his bad PR issues would go away forever.

So... let's suppose it were a science fiction, where consequences can be examined and extrapolated. How would society be changed by the advent of supermen tomorrow? Aliens? Magic? Psionics? The advanced technology we see all the time? Time travel? Alternate Worlds? What would humanity look like a generation later? Two? Ten? How do people react, with their long experience of comic books?

Let's assume, at the same we presuppose all this, that time travel is a thing but works the same way as the old Marvel rule. You can't change history as you know it, but your actions can create an alternate universe where things played out differently. Similarly abuse the YJ/Whateley idea that most (but not all) superstrong types are touch-range telekinetics, able to lift large objects without snapping them in two or punching through with their arms.

[Simon_Jester]

One thing that would kick in very quickly is, well, something like the "registration debate." And harsh legal penalties for abuse of super-powers. No society would tolerate the depredations of supervillains very long before they started going "dammit, death penalty!" every time the Joker murders a dozen people or the Rampaging Raagh-Man crushes a few city blocks because someone forgot to put the whipped cream on his latte.

If that doesn't happen, it's probably because society has been reduced to a kind of super-warlordism.

[Rossum]

One issue with time travel that simply creates a new timeline is that it would effectively let you create your own little Earth to colonize. Limited primarily by your ability to "maintain the connection" between timeliness and how much stuff you can send through.

So, if you are some kind of Dr. Doom supervillain and want to take over the world but keep getting thwarted by heroes and non-idiot law enforcement, you could create a portal to 10,000 BC Earth and basically have a pre-historic planet to play with.

Or if you're a corrupt businessman (or even totally legit one who thinks time-travel is awesome), you could get plans for every invention or medical cure in the world, go back X years, and sell the stuff yourself in a real universe that nobody else knows about.

Hell, during the Cold War when people were afraid mankind could destroy the Earth, I'm sure people would love to escape to some other non-endangered world. Assume nukes (and all the other world ending stuff) exist in these worlds and you could have scores of time travelers fleeing through time to avoid messed up worlds or the results of their own actions.

Yeah... time travel and alternate universes could have all kinds of game changing effects on how people handle disasters.

[Ahriman238]

Or just endless worlds where nobodies been drilling for oil or digging up gold.

See, that's the sort of thing I just didn't think of, even when I've seen a similar idea in a book.

[Simon_Jester]

Although a lot of people would be deterred by the possibility of not being able to come back.

[Bedlam]

[quote="Rossum"]Hell, during the Cold War when people were afraid mankind could destroy the Earth, I'm sure people would love to escape to some other non-endangered world. Assume nukes (and all the other world ending stuff) exist in these worlds and you could have scores of time travelers fleeing through time to avoid messed up worlds or the results of their own actions.[quote]

That's more or less the plot to the Dr Who story invasion of the Dinosaurs. A bunch of environmentalists were told they were being taken to a new planet to set up a colony when in fact they were going to be taken back in time to before humans evolved.

[Ahriman238]

Dimension/timescrewing could get very interesting.

I suppose this is coming from reading Skraypers and Worm recently, the first having a cyberpunk setting and at least referencing mass civil unrest when supers first appeared, and the second having a lot of discussion of whether "capes" make the world a better or worse place, along with tidbits like renting movies from "Earth Aleph."

I just had an idea that it might be fun to try a story or a thought experiment where we project this forward, see what this rapid development (in wholly unexpected ways!) could lead to a few generations down the line.