Lowest End Sci-Fi Universe?

[Enlightenment]

If a line is drawn between technothrillers and real sci-fi/SF, the bottom end of the sci-fi power list is probably in the Firestar, Russian Spring, or Mars universes, none of which depict any technology that couldn't be in production within 25-50 years if we had a good reason to develop it.

Yeah, I think that this should be kept to space-faring scifi universes. Without that, people can bring in anything from Waterworld to Minority Report to Robocop and call them the weakest.

All of the above are space-faring universes. Firestar can get to orbit on fully reusable SSTOS, Russian Spring can get to the moon on fully reusable spacecraft, and the whole point behind Mars is getting to Mars the traditional way on a one-shot Apollo-style spacecraft.

[weemadando]

Least advanced sci-fi universe?

The Difference Engine?

Ooooh. You win.

[Sea Skimmer]

W-88 is the Trident II's primary warhead, 150 kilotons IIRC. Its not the worlds smallest, either in yield or size, though it is quite small. It is however what the Chinese stole, they also stole the RV design and the radar mapping system used by the MIRV targeting system.

I'm not aware of any nuclear weapon which could fit inside a AIM-120, some ADM's and the 250 ton davy crocket warheads weigh under 90 pounds, however they are too wide for the missile airframe.

Using an AIM-120 is quite stupid anyway, without vectored trust it would be little better then a dump fire rocket in space, and in an atmosphere I can think of dozens of better choices.

They should have been using the AIM 54's, or even rebuilt AIM 47s.

Those might have wide enough airframes for a nuke, AIM-47 was about the same width of AIM-2. However you still need to add vectored thrust and new programming and a new seeker to have the damn thing work in space. At that point you could just build an all-new missile for the same cost that would work better.

They're already gutting the weapon anyway, might as well do a proper job.

[Typhonis 1]

A few points I believe B tech refers to Battletech not Babylon 5. Second I do believe they got the idea for ID4 from War of the Worlds ,they did beat the aliens with a "virus" . World War you are looking at an alien race that well it has developed technology slowly they fully experiment with it and study its effects before using it .They hve space travel but its sleeper ships and they figurte 800 year old data is accurate since they believe that all alien races evolved slowly...then they came to Earth in the middle of WW2

[Raxmei]

Island in the Sea of Time does have some high tech but I think it's mostly pretty low-end. Most of the world is either uncivilized or bronze age. The biggest technological power is the Republic of Nantucket, which is at about mid-19th century level.

[NecronLord]

[quote="NecronLord]

Theres an episode where they fire 1000 gigaton enhanced ICBM's at apophis' ships and he basically laughs at them.

The missiles didn't detonate though; they just smashed into debris against the shields.[/quote]

and this has what relevence? they can still take 1000 meg missiles as a joke, doesn't matter how they survive it, they point is that they do? how does this establish an upper limit?

[NecronLord]

Come to think of it in the season one episode "there but for the grace of god" (yuck) they encounter a world the Goa'uld have sterilised, and this is such a regular occurance that the goa'uld have a symbol next to the gate to warn other goa'uld to 'turn back now'

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Water World: The Earth is covered with 90% water, humans are forced to live above the water's surface, hot-air balloons are considered a signifcant advantage, humanity reverts to bronze-or-iron age levels. Worn-out hulks like the Exxon Valdez are considered incredibly valuable commidities despite the fact that they're little more than iron-hulled barges propelled by oars (realism problem: can a ship like that really be propelled by that?). Everyone struggles to survive. Even Trek should have little or no problem subjugating them.

Road Warrior: I don't want to comment because I don't know if this is the same as Mad Max or not (I think one of Mel's best roles )

The Postman: never seen it, but if horseback riders are significant, then I guess Trek should get this too

FYI, Road Warrior is actually Mad Max II.

I guess we can exclude post-nuclear SF like Waterworld, Mad Max, and the Postman (and maybe games like Fallout and Wasteland), since the technology in those movies degenerates so much that it was primitive compared to 20th century tech.

[seanrobertson]

When I say BTech, I mean BattleTech, which is far different from Babylon 5

(Slaps forehead)

Jeez, Ray. I'm sorry. That was stupid of me...I should've remembered
BattleTech!

And yeah, the post is a mess. I don't know how to get my paragraphs in clean columns. They appear as much as I'm writing the message, but
once it's posted--ugh.

[Sea Skimmer]

[quote="NecronLord]

Theres an episode where they fire 1000 gigaton enhanced ICBM's at apophis' ships and he basically laughs at them.

The missiles didn't detonate though; they just smashed into debris against the shields.

and this has what relevence? they can still take 1000 meg missiles as a joke, doesn't matter how they survive it, they point is that they do? how does this establish an upper limit?[/quote]

IF the warhead doesn’t explode, then they have NOT absorbed a 1-gigaton blast. They have survived the kinetic energy of an modified ICBM RV, which is not very great.

Had it been standoff fused, there is no telling if it would have destroyed the ship or not. You can't just make the leap to them being able to shrug off 1-gigaton bombs when they never have actually done so.

If a dud Maverick shatters on a T-72's bow armor, does that mean if it had exploded the tank would also be just fine? No of course not. Yet that’s what your claiming.

[The Yosemite Bear]

The whole plot of a canticle for Lebowitz is that an Atheist nuclear engineer converts to Catholism, and the Franciscan Order he founds after the Apocalypse goes to great unimagineable lengths to perseve civilization during the comming dark age, and finally builds a generation ship, inspired by the legend of Noah.

[Patrick Degan]

Can't get much lower-developed for a SF universe than Space: 1999. Not only one piddly moonbase but one on a moon blasted out of orbit by the worst industrial accident in history; from a civilisation that can't even build a stable nuclear waste dump! Although the Alphans' capacity to replace destroyed Eagles rivals that of the onboard shuttlecraft industrial production line of the Voyager.

[NecronLord]

[quote="NecronLord]

Theres an episode where they fire 1000 gigaton enhanced ICBM's at apophis' ships and he basically laughs at them.

The missiles didn't detonate though; they just smashed into debris against the shields.

and this has what relevence? they can still take 1000 meg missiles as a joke, doesn't matter how they survive it, they point is that they do? how does this establish an upper limit?

IF the warhead doesn’t explode, then they have NOT absorbed a 1-gigaton blast. They have survived the kinetic energy of an modified ICBM RV, which is not very great.

Had it been standoff fused, there is no telling if it would have destroyed the ship or not. You can't just make the leap to them being able to shrug off 1-gigaton bombs when they never have actually done so.

If a dud Maverick shatters on a T-72's bow armor, does that mean if it had exploded the tank would also be just fine? No of course not. Yet that’s what your claiming.[/quote]

no but if the tank has an energy feild that destroys incoming projectiles, then yes it would. They regularly sterilise planets, far more than we see from the federation, thus putting them well above low end.

[NecronLord]

W-88 is the Trident II's primary warhead, 150 kilotons IIRC. Its not the worlds smallest, either in yield or size, though it is quite small. It is however what the Chinese stole, they also stole the RV design and the radar mapping system used by the MIRV targeting system.

I'm not aware of any nuclear weapon which could fit inside a AIM-120, some ADM's and the 250 ton davy crocket warheads weigh under 90 pounds, however they are too wide for the missile airframe.

Using an AIM-120 is quite stupid anyway, without vectored trust it would be little better then a dump fire rocket in space, and in an atmosphere I can think of dozens of better choices.

They should have been using the AIM 54's, or even rebuilt AIM 47s.

Those might have wide enough airframes for a nuke, AIM-47 was about the same width of AIM-2. However you still need to add vectored thrust and new programming and a new seeker to have the damn thing work in space. At that point you could just build an all-new missile for the same cost that would work better.

They're already gutting the weapon anyway, might as well do a proper job.

Having gone and watched the episode in question, I can tell you that the AIM-120 is on there for an AIR TO AIR missile TEST. The x-301 never got past the testing phase. However they were not planning to use them to take out goa'uld ships. (and to quote; 'while your doing all this, what is the mothership going to be doing?')

[NecronLord]

for that matter what do you think a 1000 megaton blast would do to a federation ship?

[neoolong]

What about Contact. They have one interstellar craft that only about 2 people think actually works, and they just built the thing, they didn't have to design it.

[Peregrin Toker]

My vote goes to an old danish sci-fi comic book, Rejsen Til Saturn. (danish for The Travel To Saturn)

Come on, the aliens in that planet build their aircraft out of ice cream, for crying out loud!

[Utsanomiko]

Technically, couldn't a science-fiction story use a pre-industrial setting and still be sci-fi, as long as it adhered to the principals of the genre? Just wondering.

But ahh, Mobile Suit Gundam. I'm a sucker for that One Year War stuff. Sure, some of it's cheezy, but there's alot of quality in there that makes it shine. Any series with a setting based on O'Neil's High Frontier (great page of related info at http://www.dyarstraights.com/msgundam/frontier.html), and doing such a fine job of explaining the role of 18m tall pilotable robots (Zeon using radar jamming to take advantage of Mobile Suits' computer-guided high maneuverability and visual-based targeting.) gets major Brownie Points from me.
They're not too low-tech, come to think of it, considering it'd only 160 years in our future if it wasn't for that stupid war in Vietnam. Mobile Suits were carrying refridgerator-sized fusion reactors in the megawatt range within 3 years of development (though that kind of technological marvel is mainly due to influence from exotic particles). They managed to churn out about a hundred of those 30km-long Island III colonies in about 50 years, so that's some idea of their industrial might. Making a quick assumption, I'd suggest that if they could manage to jam Star Trek sensors, they could hold off a small Fed taskforce in space for a short time (their megaparticle cannons aren't too bad, and mobile suits were originaly designed to be anti-battleship weapons), but totally whomp them in a ground assault.
Anywho, go watch Gundam 0080 or 08th MS Team. Do it right now. Now that's good drama.

But um, other than that, I really don't have a series to add. How about Fallout?

[Raxmei]

Is there any justification for Clan of the Cave Bear being sf? If it is, it almost certainly takes the prize.

[Utsanomiko]

Is there any justification for Clan of the Cave Bear being sf? If it is, it almost certainly takes the prize.

I thought that was anachronistic caveman porn?

[Skelron]

Don't forget that in Starship trooper's we could be talking about several diferent universes, which should be considered different... and I propose that we treat them as different, and so propse the following classifications, (With my belief for how they fit into the power ranges here)
1.) The Novel.. Very Powerful Infantry, Elite Forces on the ground, who all carry, among other weapons Nukes. The Suits they wear allow for rapid movement, and the philosophy of everyone fights, means that they have a larger avaible manpowr than their size might usually hint at. (Support staff of non-combatents are usually people that are ingured in such a way as to make them unfit for Combat duty.
2.) The Movie. The Forces Suck ass. They need serious help in tactics, I suggest an immediate shooting for any officer's and that they be replaced with Imperial Commisar's, well I would but the Commisar's would shoot all the men for being Brainless and inept.
3.) The Cartoon. Falls somewhere between the Movie and the Novel, the suits are back, but arn't as powerful as the original suits. Still these guys have a place in Combat.

[fgalkin]

The Traveler Fithp.

They travel to Earth STL and then get beaten by 20th century weapons.

[Vejut]

Well, to be fair, Earth did have to break out the Tac Nukes and sterilize large parts of Kansas and Washington to do it....
My vote would be for the various shorts, like "Blood Music" (guy turns into large bioengeneered intellegent cell), or for whats technically a science fantasy, Terry Daniel's Warpath (get around in canoes powered by aliens/mental energy, guided missle spears)

[Rathark]

My vote would be for the various shorts, like "Blood Music" (guy turns into large bioengeneered intellegent cell)

The cells in the novel version are awesomely powerful. The sheer concentration of their sentient observation bends the laws of physics.

[phongn]

The Traveler Fithp.

They travel to Earth STL and then get beaten by 20th century weapons.

Granted, those weapons are considerably more sophisticated than what we have now. I doubt a real-life Minuteman would be able to hit one of thier digit-ships. Nor do we have any directed-energy weapons with that much power (or a working orion drive, bomb-pumped gamma-ray head...)