When does tech become "wank-tech"?

[SPOOFE]

It all comes back to story. If you need to invent a Conflict (all stories center around conflict) by making an enemy or problem orders of magnitude more insurmountable than can be reasonably explained - such as the Uber-Reman ship in ST: Nemesis - you've got wanktech. If you need to magically make some common piece of technology a million times better than it really is - like the nukes in Armageddon - you've got wanktech.

A good way to check for wanktech is to look at how common the technology is. In the Culture books, it's commonplace to see technology that would absolutely astound just about everyone else. There is no shortage of food, disease is all but eradicated, people live for centuries (and can live forever, if they choose)... the way people act, think, and behave has changed to match the level of technology. Banks' essays on this are excellent resources. In short, the technology has become so closely intertwined with all aspects of their society that it's impossible to think of the Culture existing without stupendously powerful Minds or miraculously versatile fields, effectors, and weaponry.

In some other sci-fi series, the only way to keep a story's drama escalating is to make the Good Guys face larger and larger ships.

Here's my proposal for a definition:

Wanktech - The phenomenon of inventing technology that is markedly, unusually above established technological limitations just to make the central tenants of your story work. See: The Core, the aforementioned Armageddon, Deep Impact...

In other words... if you've come up with a story with plot points that simply do not work in the context you're working with, and have to apply a sort of technological "plaster" in order to patch up this hole, you have wanktech.

[SPOOFE]

Well, you're welcome to try and disprove them. Good luck trying to disprove the last one especially.

No problem.

It DOES have to propogate to its target. It just does so in hyperspace (the 4th spatial dimension), not in any of the three usual dimensions.

The target CAN dodge it. Gridfire is ridiculously slow compared to other forms of attack.

It doesn't produce ANY energy. All the energy comes straight from the Grid (hence, gridfire). The "firing" ship simply pulls the Grid's influence onto the skein.

Why would it have recoil if it didn't originate from the firing ship?

There. Consider your complaints countered.

[Connor MacLeod]

Now, the notion of "War TARDISes" as advanced in one of the comic strips and later DW novels, bristling with temporal weaponry and all sorts of silly devices along those lines, is indeed wank-tech by any definition of the term; as bad as the Honoverse "gravitic wedge" or Voyager bat-armour or "transphasic torpedoes" or the Cosmic Nullifier or Andumbeda's nova bombs that can invert a black hole.

I've never considered the "gravitic wedge" of Weber's to be wank-tech. Its a plot device to allow for Nelson era naval tactics and ties into a method of propulsion, cutting down on the amount of extraneous pseudoscience. It isn't all powerful (it isn't a perfect shield - just go after the vulnerable sides or front/back), isn't a weapon by itself, and is simply background technology

The reason I would count the gravitic wedge as wank-tech is due to its perpetuation of the gravimetrics brainbug. Darth Wong gives a good teardown in his essay on the subject on the main site by pointing out how so many SF writers rushed to enshrine gravity manipulation as the key to omnipotence while ignoring that gravity is pretty weak compared to most other forces in the universe. To reiterate:

So if electromagnetism is so great, why can't we electromagnetically generate artificial gravity? The answer is that electric charge can be either positive or negative, so the protons and electrons in a typical object cancel out at long distances. At microscopic ranges they are imbalanced because the electrons of adjacent atoms are closer together than the protons, hence solidity and all other chemical interactions. Gravity, on the other hand, acts on mass regardless of charge (and we have never observed negative mass), so if you have billions upon billions of tons of matter, you will exert significant force. But there's the rub: you need billions upon billions of tons of matter. The relationship between mass and gravitational attraction is fundamental; there is no evidence whatsoever that it can be arbitrarily altered, any more than we can arbitrarily change the strength of electromagnetic force to effortlessly convert solid objects into plasma.

In sci-fi, it is presumed that if you could focus and reshape gravitational fields, you would be nigh-omnipotent. One person wrote to me once to mention something called a "gravitic wedge" (I'm guessing it was portrayed as some kind of "ultimate weapon" in some cheesy techno-masturbatory sci-fi novel or fanfic). But even if you could arbitrarily focus and reshape gravitational fields, a starship simply doesn't have enough mass to generate gravitational fields of sufficient strength to be noticeable.

If we're going to grant ourselves the ability to focus and manipulate forcefields to such a fine degree, why not use electromagnetism instead? If you could generate a negatively charged plane wall, even with a tiny fraction of the total charge bound up in a typical starship's mass, it would cleanly slice any solid object in half. Similarly, gravitic "shields" are a silly idea; even the gravity field of an entire planet or star will only decelerate incoming objects at a few G, but if we could make a negatively charged "bubble" around a starship, incoming missiles would crash into it just as if it were a solid object. And even artificial gravity need not be based on actual gravity; the rotating-ship concept uses simple kinematics, and our imaginary sci-fi race with fine control over electromagnetism could slightly polarize objects in order to make them respond more strongly to magnetic fields (believe it or not, electrically neutral atoms or even neutrons have tiny magnetic moments which can be used in order to confine them electromagnetically; see Wolfgang Paul's Nobel Lecture of December 8, 1989).

In short, if we had the power to arbitrarily manipulate gravitational or electromagnetic fields with the precision and flexibility typically described in sci-fi, I'd rather have the electromagnetic fields. As a weapon, it would be absolutely devastating, and it wouldn't require billions upon billions of tons of mass. Unfortunately, it's not exotic enough. Familiarity breeds contempt, and the existence of real electromagnetic technology seems to disqualify it for sci-fi. This was not always the case; in fact, the 1950s classic "War of the Worlds" portrayed Martians who made use of an "electromagnetic blister" shield system. But modern sci-fi chic has latched onto "gravitic" technology for precisely the same reasons that it shouldn't be taken seriously: it doesn't make sense. And since it doesn't make sense, sci-fi fans seem to believe that it must be better (think of it as Arthur C. Clarke's law in reverse).

This is where the writer (David Weber in this case) is simply using terminology that "sounds cool" but doesn't even withstand the most cursory examination as opposed to, say, Issac Asimov tossing out a nicely vague reference to "total conversion" power sources. Gravity is a known commodity in the universe, easily accessible even to the lay person with just a little reading, so basing uber-tech on something which doesn't make a lick of sense in terms of the known properties of the force in question would fall into my definition of wanking. In this case, the perpetuation of a rather silly brainbug which seems to be dug in like a tick and growing fatter with the greymatter it's sucking up.

I wouldn't blame Weber for this - alot of mainstream sci fi (Again the culture IIRC, Asimov, B5, ,etc.) tend to glorify the "gravitic" drive despite its wankish nature. And when its called "wank" I do so not so much because of the "gravity without mass" comment (Which is bad, but is simply applicable to many "space" series, including ST and SW.) I'd call it "wank" rather because of the "shortcuts" or "cheats" it gives a ship without the requisite side effects or problems (problems like you might have with a reaction drive.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Well, you're welcome to try and disprove them. Good luck trying to disprove the last one especially.

No problem.

It DOES have to propogate to its target. It just does so in hyperspace (the 4th spatial dimension), not in any of the three usual dimensions.

Okay, so there is a definite propogation of "something", but not the energy. I'm betting it can't be "blocked" or obscured by "line of sight" though, and its still a problem in terms of "blockable"

The target CAN dodge it. Gridfire is ridiculously slow compared to other forms of attack.

Only assuming the target has the Culture's abilities to percieve or see it. Someone without FTL sensors would not see it, obviously. Hence, it remains "un-counterable".

It doesn't produce ANY energy. All the energy comes straight from the Grid (hence, gridfire). The "firing" ship simply pulls the Grid's influence onto the skein.

Doesn't really help disprove the "wank" definition - this simply allows the ship to circumvent problems of recoil, fuel consumption, etc.. even if we disregard the potential "/mass/energy from nowhere" implications.

Why would it have recoil if it didn't originate from the firing ship?

It doesn't. Thats partly why its wank. Recoil from such would be a definite side effect, and Gridfire neatly sidesteps this. (IT also sidesteps heat dissipation, generatiopn, and fuel consumption issues associated with the given output.)

There. Consider your complaints countered.

Maybe for one or two points

[Morat]

Only assuming the target has the Culture's abilities to percieve or see it. Someone without FTL sensors would not see it, obviously. Hence, it remains "un-counterable".

I don't quite understand where this complaint is coming from. FTL sensors are very common in the Culture universe, so an opponent would have to be vastly less powerful than them for this to be concern. To me, it seems like calling an Aircraft Carrier wankish because it can't be countered by cavemen.

[Connor MacLeod]

♥

Only assuming the target has the Culture's abilities to percieve or see it. Someone without FTL sensors would not see it, obviously. Hence, it remains "un-counterable".

I don't quite understand where this complaint is coming from. FTL sensors are very common in the Culture universe, so an opponent would have to be vastly less powerful than them for this to be concern. To me, it seems like calling an Aircraft Carrier wankish because it can't be countered by cavemen.

FTL detection isn't neccesarily going to guarantee detection. Propogation rate and range factor into detection, as well as the prop[ogation rate of the "Sensor" beam (a sensor beam slower than the propogation rate of the "gridfire" shot might not detect it oor reach it, and even if it does, if the range is sufficiently short the timeframe might not allow any time to do anything about it.)

Another thing to consider is that while Gridfire might be "slow" relative to other attacks, how fast are those other attacks (especially considering that you have AI's using them. Generally I've heard anything from microsecond to picosecond-range timeframes for fighting.)

Besides which, its not strictly neccesary for me to continue arguing this point. I can easily concede this particular point and it still remains wank simply by the virtue of granting a tremendously potent weapon while virtually ignoring so many problematical "side effects" one might normally associate with such a weapon.

[SPOOFE]

Only assuming the target has the Culture's abilities to percieve or see it. Someone without FTL sensors would not see it, obviously. Hence, it remains "un-counterable".

Context is important. In the Cultureverse, any target that you would theoretically need to use Gridfire against would also theoretically be able to dodge it. Most battles are over in less time than it takes to even CREATE a Gridfire incursion... which is why CAM, effectors, and other such uber-crazy-superfast weapons are used.

It's DEFINITELY "counterable" in that, if a Culture vessel relied solely on its Gridfire to take out one of their enemies, that enemy would easily be able to destroy the Culture vessel with faster weaponry.

It's no more "wanktech" when compared to other universes than 200 GT turbolasers are "wanktech" when compared to Star Trek.

Doesn't really help disprove the "wank" definition - this simply allows the ship to circumvent problems of recoil, fuel consumption, etc.. even if we disregard the potential "/mass/energy from nowhere" implications.

Again, context is important. In the context of the Cultureverse, all the things you just described as as common as the internal combustion engine is today.

It doesn't. Thats partly why its wank. Recoil from such would be a definite side effect, and Gridfire neatly sidesteps this.

Inertial compensation is pretty standard throughout scifi. I can hardly consider that "wank".

Maybe for one or two points

If by "one or two poitns" you mean all of them, then yes, we are in agreement.

[SPOOFE]

It's DEFINITELY "counterable" in that, if a Culture vessel relied solely on its Gridfire to take out one of their enemies, that enemy would easily be able to destroy the Culture vessel with faster weaponry.

Let me expand on this a little... imagine if you were fighting someone that was swinging, say, a 800-lb. safe at you as a bludgeon. If you had to choose between another 800-lb. safe, and a rapier, as a weapon, which would you pick?

Obviously, a 800-lb. safe would have a lot more energy behind it. However, it's clearly not the ideal weapon you want to bring to a fencing match, right?

[constantine]

I think whether something is wank-tech or not depends a lot more on how it's described by the author or presented onscreen than its capabilities.

Imagine a Federation vessel encountering a Star Destroyer thusly:

"Captain: Surely there's got to be some way...
Seccond: Not that I can see, sir. They've got weapons so powerful they could swat us aside like a fly and I can't even...
Captain: But they must have some kind of weakness.
Second: I can't even get a scan through their armor. I suggest we retreat at best speed."

This is a fairly standard "Oh damn we're screwed" that you might see in many Star Trek episodes. The tech is clearly very powerful, and the characters are impressed, but it's not wanking.

Imagine this description instead:

"Captain: Surely there's got to be some way...
Second: Not a chance, sir. They've got hundreds of weapon emplacements so advanced we can't even understand them. Some sort of energy beam that propagates at lightspeed. One hit from any of the hundreds and we'd be blown to dust.

Their armor is so strong that our sensors can't get even get through it. It seems to be impregnated with neutronium and I don't even know how you would do that. Their shields could shrug off everything our fleet could throw at them, and it doesn't phase in and out like ours do. There's no way we could even use a transporter through those shields and armor.

And look at how their ship is laid out. Backups, redundancies, you can't take that whole thing out with one good shot like you could ours.

We can't even think about running away, since their propulsion and sensors - both of which my Federation mind cannot comprehend - are so advanced that they can track where we go and be there weeks ahead of us.

No sir, we could send every ship in the Federation and be obliterated. I suggest we begin construction of a giant white flag."

The difference between these two descriptions is the amount of unnecessary detail gone into describing the tech and its capabilities.

The more powerful the tech in the universe is, the harder it is to write it in a non-wank fashion, but completely unstoppable tech can be written in a way that's not wank (focusing on the characters' struggles to survive during an unstoppable conquest), and even outdaded tech can be written in a way that is (just go read a website on a famous WWII airplane or gun).

I submit that tech becomes wank-tech when the characters go into way too much detail describing it.

I disagree. I think detailed descriptions of technology is good writing. Describing an enemies capabilities is realistic whereas vague statements are not, especially from a militaristic point of view. Why wouldn't you want intelligence of the enemies capabilities?

If a captain asks his subordinate, "How fast is that torpedo chasing us?" and the subordinate says, "Really fast, sir." - That's not going to fly with the captain (no pun intended).

Whereas, if the subordinates reply is something similar to, "40,000 km/second sir. Collision in 12 minutes." - the captain has something to work with. Realistically, a captain would want to know everything he could about his adversary and their capabilities.

[Sharp-kun]

I usually decide how it fits in with the story and how it is explained. If it fits in well, and an acceptable reason for why the machine is uber is given (can be as simple as needed, as long as its not silly), then I wouldn't call it wank tech.

The Ideon (from Space Runaway Ideon) chopped planets in two, and could create black holes. It was capable of destroying the Universe. It was stupidly uber as weapons go. On the other hand it was never attempted to explain why it was so godly with technobabble. It was just a case of "it was built by an ancient civilisation, its powered by this strange energy force known as Id, which we'll learn more about". They gave an adequate explanation and it was good enough. The abilities and its uberness were also needed for the story. It was uber, but it had to be - the universe ending ability was required for the stories conclusion. You never got the impression it was wank tech.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The whole "Ancient technology = teh Über" meme is bloody annoying now. As amazing as the Romans were, I can't see their best legions taking on a dedicated panzer battalion.

[Sharp-kun]

The whole "Ancient technology = teh Über" meme is bloody annoying now. As amazing as the Romans were, I can't see their best legions taking on a dedicated panzer battalion

Depends how its done. I don't see any real problems with earth colonists discovering some extinct alien civilisation, and restoring some of the tech (which turns out to be superior to Earths).

The Ideon, while uber, in the end was destroyed rather simply by a battleship.

[ClaysGhost]

"Wank-tech" suggests to me both stupid technology/bad science (both of which I think involve the "no consequences" definition) and a disproportionate concentration on technology for its own sake rather than plot and character. The trouble with the first meaning is that pretty much every science fiction show and novel has some silly technology in it, even if it's just an FTL drive and massless artificial gravity. How useful is a category that could include almost every piece of science fiction? I suppose it could all be wank-tech; it's just that the more involved in the story it is, and the more often it's mentioned, the more offensive the intrinsic wrongness of it becomes.

I've thought hard about a definition, but I just can't come up with a good one. It seems like wank-tech should involve some bad science, it should be disproportionate (to what? almost impossible to quantify) and the technology should be there for its own sake, not to allow us insight into those using or abusing it. In a novel there should be paragraphs and paragraphs about the weapon, ship or device, describing it in minute detail. In a film (or novel) all the action should be centred on the wank-tech; the technology becomes like a character, and human/alien characters there just to support it. Bah, I don't know. Why do you ask these hard questions?



I think the debate over gridfire is really pointless. We see it explicitly used once by the Culture in six novels, and in that novel it serves a purpose by allowing Banks to restate and reinforce the views of one of the main characters about the Culture (that it's run for the benefit of machines) through his thoughts as he watches the attack. It spans, what, two pages? The weapon isn't the point, it's the effect on that character that's important. You can easily make a case for the Culture as a whole being disproportionate, but there are curious omissions - the relatively slow speed of FTL travel, the low population, the presence of competing powers able to match or better the Culture's technology, the fact that most of the text is actually about people and not about technological magic tricks (I sometimes wonder how, say, Perry Rhodan actually reads outside the snippets I see on sites like this, since most of what appears is only the stuff useful for vs. debates). The two times we see gridfire used by other players, it's to make the Culture (or bits of it) or the Idirans feel small.

I agree with Connor MacLeod about Excession; it's easily the worst of Bank's science fiction output. I don't understand why it seems to be so popular amongst Culture fans. I found the characters...not shallow, but unappealing, and some of the dialogue was very bad (especially the "emails"). In the other Culture novels I had some sympathy with the characters but in Excession they're mainly irritating.

[Connor MacLeod]

Context is important. In the Cultureverse, any target that you would theoretically need to use Gridfire against would also theoretically be able to dodge it. Most battles are over in less time than it takes to even CREATE a Gridfire incursion... which is why CAM, effectors, and other such uber-crazy-superfast weapons are used.

Which doesn't change my poitn really though, does it. (And now that we're on the topic, the rest of that tends to fall into the "pretty damn wank" category as well.)

It's DEFINITELY "counterable" in that, if a Culture vessel relied solely on its Gridfire to take out one of their enemies, that enemy would easily be able to destroy the Culture vessel with faster weaponry.

And if the enemy can't even detect it or reach the target? Somehow I doubt that every grroup in the galaxy has all or even most of the same tech or capabilities as the Culture, even if its vastly downgraded.

Besides which, even if I conceded this point, it doesn't change the other factors which make Gridfire wank (the important one being the general lack of side effects one would expect from weapons discharges of that magnitude.)

It's no more "wanktech" when compared to other universes than 200 GT turbolasers are "wanktech" when compared to Star Trek.

Except that turbolasers exhibit the recoil (and thus must be braced against it, which has disadvantages in the turret's rotation ability or fire arcs. Further, the ship must carry the requisite fuel to power said blast, which is also a disadvantage. And on top of that, they must dissipate the excecss heat of the blast. None of which is remotely applicable to gridfire: no recoil, no heat dissipation, no need to carry the fuel to power the weapon.)

Again, context is important. In the context of the Cultureverse, all the things you just described as as common as the internal combustion engine is today.

This has nothing to do with my point nor does it even begin to disprove it. Read above.

Inertial compensation is pretty standard throughout scifi. I can hardly consider that "wank".

How are inertial compensators going to solve the recoil issue? Where are the dampers going to dump all that inertia, pray tell? It can't just disappear into thin air. They need something to act against (usually a much larger mass.)

[Sriad]

Context is important. In the Cultureverse, any target that you would theoretically need to use Gridfire against would also theoretically be able to dodge it. Most battles are over in less time than it takes to even CREATE a Gridfire incursion... which is why CAM, effectors, and other such uber-crazy-superfast weapons are used.

Which doesn't change my poitn really though, does it. (And now that we're on the topic, the rest of that tends to fall into the "pretty damn wank" category as well.)

It's DEFINITELY "counterable" in that, if a Culture vessel relied solely on its Gridfire to take out one of their enemies, that enemy would easily be able to destroy the Culture vessel with faster weaponry.

And if the enemy can't even detect it or reach the target? Somehow I doubt that every grroup in the galaxy has all or even most of the same tech or capabilities as the Culture, even if its vastly downgraded.

Besides which, even if I conceded this point, it doesn't change the other factors which make Gridfire wank (the important one being the general lack of side effects one would expect from weapons discharges of that magnitude.)

If a Cultureverse... culture is capable of FTL travel, they're capable of detecting Gridfire. Anyone who isn't will not produce military conflict with the Culture, though there are certainly other kinds. Let's call this aspect of the argument moot, huh?

It's no more "wanktech" when compared to other universes than 200 GT turbolasers are "wanktech" when compared to Star Trek.

Except that turbolasers exhibit the recoil (and thus must be braced against it, which has disadvantages in the turret's rotation ability or fire arcs. Further, the ship must carry the requisite fuel to power said blast, which is also a disadvantage. And on top of that, they must dissipate the excecss heat of the blast. None of which is remotely applicable to gridfire: no recoil, no heat dissipation, no need to carry the fuel to power the weapon.)

The mechanism for gridfire is basically a hard brake. Culture ships travel by pushing against the grid, which distorts its topography. When they stop or start very suddenly, the distortion is big enough that it spills into real space. The fuel for the weapon is the same as the fuel for the ship.

In almost any other sci-fi setting, gridfire and most other Culture devices would be as wankish as a Stealth Bomber in the (American) Civil War. But the civil war didn't have airplanes, and the Culture doesn't use gridfire against the Confederation.

[Connor MacLeod]

If a Cultureverse... culture is capable of FTL travel, they're capable of detecting Gridfire. Anyone who isn't will not produce military conflict with the Culture, though there are certainly other kinds. Let's call this aspect of the argument moot, huh?

Fine.

The mechanism for gridfire is basically a hard brake. Culture ships travel by pushing against the grid, which distorts its topography. When they stop or start very suddenly, the distortion is big enough that it spills into real space.

Yet as I recall, the Culture vessel that used Gridfire in Consider Phelbas was not moving, nor was it propelled backwards when it generated the gridfire (and since gridfire is generated at the point of contact, the energy generated transmits no momentum to the target vessel anyhow.)

The fuel for the weapon is the same as the fuel for the ship.

But not generated or released BY the ship.

In almost any other sci-fi setting, gridfire and most other Culture devices would be as wankish as a Stealth Bomber in the (American) Civil War.
But the civil war didn't have airplanes, and the Culture doesn't use gridfire against the Confederation.

Are you reading what I am saying? This doesn't even bear on this particular point. Ignoring everything else, the basic unchanged fact is that Gridfire is wank because it ignores the side effects and consequences I have outlined above. As Mike pointed out, that definitely falls under the definition of "wank" (and if you really want to get into it, most of the other culture offensive weapons probably do, except for weapons like the CREWs and maybe some of the grravitic weapons. The CREWs at least should carry the problems one assiocaites with massive energy levels.)

[andrewgpaul]

The mechanism for gridfire is basically a hard brake. Culture ships travel by pushing against the grid, which distorts its topography. When they stop or start very suddenly, the distortion is big enough that it spills into real space.

Yet as I recall, the Culture vessel that used Gridfire in Consider Phelbas was not moving, nor was it propelled backwards when it generated the gridfire (and since gridfire is generated at the point of contact, the energy generated transmits no momentum to the target vessel anyhow.)

From what I read, extreme accelerations in hyperspace are a method of generating an Energy Grid incursion, not the method. On the other hand, we never see the GSV that demolishes Vavatch; mabye it is throwing handbrake turns around the system.

[XaLEv]

Yes, waves of gridfire can be produced by extreme accelerations, but it is imprecise. In realspace, it would probably look like a bright, rapidly moving point which appears suddenly and grows into a large oblate spheroid. Quite different from the hundreds of precise, relatively stationary lines produced at Vavatch. As for the ship which destroyed Vavatch, all the information about the ship itself takes up about a paragraph in the book, most of it is supposition and inference, and none of it describes the effect destroying Vavatch had on the GSV.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I disagree. I think detailed descriptions of technology is good writing. Describing an enemies capabilities is realistic whereas vague statements are not, especially from a militaristic point of view. Why wouldn't you want intelligence of the enemies capabilities?

If a captain asks his subordinate, "How fast is that torpedo chasing us?" and the subordinate says, "Really fast, sir." - That's not going to fly with the captain (no pun intended).

Whereas, if the subordinates reply is something similar to, "40,000 km/second sir. Collision in 12 minutes." - the captain has something to work with. Realistically, a captain would want to know everything he could about his adversary and their capabilities.

That's a far cry from what I was describing. If that's your idea of "detailed descriptions", then we're actually in agreement.

[constantine]

That's a far cry from what I was describing. If that's your idea of "detailed descriptions", then we're actually in agreement.

I see. I misunderstood you then.