[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by altworld

Since the best Sci-fi is used as an analogy for society, I find the best stories are the ones that treat Tech such as FTL as everyday objects. Like driving a car, or using a cellphone and don't get bogged down in the details of how everything works. It just does...

Hear! Hear! I fully agree! That was something which was also taught to me early on in my writing. "Extreme techno-geeks want to know why it ticks. The other 99% of your readers don't. So abstain from giving any details about an object unless it's relevant to the story." I've used that rule to great success in my own writing.

I think in Trek artificial gravity is generated by force fields pushing down, much like there use of the inertia dampeners. Reading about pseudo-tech can be fun after the fact, most of the time it bogs down the story and is a huge red flag that the story will be resolved through technical brilliance, and not by the characters.

Actually, it *was* explained *once* in a Star Trek book. I don't remember the title, but it was one of the 2nd generation TOS books where Kirk came back to life after Generations and became captain of his own ship, and had to fight against some psychic Vulcans who got their conscience trapped in some weird crystal ball which then later reimprinted them on another host body. Anyhow, one of the battles in the book involved a race who lived in 2x gravity and Scotty ended up fighting them by raising and lowering the gravity in the ship until he knocked everyone unconscious.

Anyhow, according to them, the artificial gravity on the ship is generated by a device that spins a special mix of gases inside a sealed chamber at high speed, which apparently generates gravity which is in turn piped through the ship like water and used to generate the artificial gravity experienced on the ship. Well, that's their definition anyways. lol. My explanation for how the gravity plates used by the characters in my books work follows the scientific law which states that Gravity is simply another form of electromagnetic radiation similar to magnetism, or the strong and weak atomic forces. To make gravity you simply charge a special plate in a given way and it creates unidirectional gravity. But anywho, I digress. lol.

Originally Posted by dworth

- Robots will often desire to be human, even if their brains are millions of times more sophisticated.

I don't find this at all unusual. This kind of thinking is simply an analog to existing human thoughts where people wish to be something they're not because they believe the grass is greener on the other side.

- Spaceships might have faster than light drives, laser cannons, funky looking hulls and enough velour uniforms for a thousand crew members, but they don't appear to have any loos. The Battlestar Galactica is exception to this, and has large, well appointed unisex toilets.

I think the reasons for that are simple. How often has taking a poo been an important story plot? I don't have them in any of my books, save one (and it's only a brief reference), because they're completely irrelevant to the story.