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Re: Why I Hate Glasslands
Posted By: Train Dodger <tmesisrevenge@gmail.com>	Date: 9/19/12 4:07 p.m.
In Response To: Re: Why I Hate Glasslands (Archilen) : Now that medical advances have been brought up, I think it's worth noting : that in Glasslands, KT wholly fails to acknowledge the fact that medical : science is supposed to have advanced between the present and 2553. For : instance, people consider Parangosky to be ridiculously old at age 90 and : she has all the medical problems of a modern-day elder. With 500+ years of : medical advancement and the ubiquity of technologies like organ cloning, : one could expect lifespans of over 120 to be completely normal, and 90 : years would be closer to 70 in biological years. Ahh, yes. Precisely. Been a while since I read it last, and I remember that part bothering me a bit as well. Parangosky's not supposed to be nearly that frail. It's like KT doesn't even realize the long-term effects of cryostasis, or just what sort of medical wizardry the UNSC is capable of. : The UNSC is no Culture, for sure, but it's more advanced than KT makes it out : to be. Cancer has been eradicated to the point that common folk don't know : what it is. People can be resuscitated from clinical death. Basically any : organ can be cloned. As for human aging, I think Nylund's story in : Evolutions gives the best estimate, stating that the biological age of an : 82-year old Preston Cole would be roughly 60 (and that's 60 by future : standards), due to cloned organs, extended periods of time in cryo as well : as the minor relativistic effects involved in constant slipspace travel, : all of which are ignored in Glasslands. They're no Culture, eh? You can say that again. My essays on the UNSC's technological stagnation could fill Britannica-sized volumes. I still fondly remember my threads on the GameFAQs boards where I went into detail about the primitive nature of UNSC weapons and vehicles, and why they scarcely befitted a 26th-century military force. Pump-action shotguns? Our military fields a semi-auto shotgun right now, the Benelli M4 Super 90! Break-action grenade launchers that shoot grenades that only explode after bouncing off of something, striking a living target directly, or after receiving a command-detonation signal? We have multi-shot, revolver-chamber grenade launchers like the M32 MGL, first off. Secondly, the idea of a 40mm grenade with a multi-mode warhead that only explodes with either a conventional HE blast or EMP, but not both, is ridiculous, and a fusing system that complex would probably become damaged upon striking a sufficiently solid object. Tanks with 90mm guns that weigh as much as today's 120mm-armed behemoths and yet are still considered air-droppable? Right, now that's basically nuts. The Scorpion tank is a big, slow, slab-sided target. The only advantage of having such a high-mounted, unmanned, autoloading turret is to make it easier to shoot from the hull-down position. An M1 Abrams or Leopard 2A7+ would mop the floor with virtually any tank from the Haloverse, be it UNSC or Covenant. Besides, if the autoloader jams, you're basically screwed, as the failures of the Stryker MGS demonstrate. I love this part from one of the posts on this blog article: "Any jamming or stoppage in the gun or loader requires partial disassembly by hand, done by crewmen standing skylined and totally exposed atop the 8-foot-tall MGS." Pickup trucks with .50-cal anti-aircraft gatlings? Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns haven't been relevant for decades, and have been largely superseded by medium-range SAMs like the Russian Tor-M1. To have one with an exposed gunner position in the 26th century is downright pants-on-head retarded. So, yeah. The UNSC is advanced enough to have man-portable recoilless railguns, handheld laser cannons that can blow up armored vehicles, ship/vehicle-mounted coilguns of doom, powered armor, cryostasis, a cure for cancer, cloned organs, sentient AI and FTL travel... but they're not advanced enough to have semi-auto shotguns, multi-shot grenade launchers with impact-fused grenades, low-profile tanks with decent main guns, and IED-proof wheeled armored cars with enclosed crew compartments? That's some mad inconsistent world-building there. Either that, or some serious pork-barrel spending on behalf of some very ripped-off taxpayers. I can almost see why there are Insurrectionists to begin with; that stuff is just bogus. Any 26th-century government that paradoxically backwards deserves to be rebelled against. : It's like KT is repulsed by anything beyond her comfort zone and thus has to : force every setting into the same mold, no matter how advanced or : otherwise different they're supposed to be (again, why is she pretending : to be writing SF then is beyond me). It's not just about the medical : advances but everything; the way characters speak, act and how things work : in general. A lot of this can be chalked up to a lack of imagination - : it's easier to write when you don't have to imagine scenarios which may be : different from everyday life in the modern world - but part of it is : ostensibly for underlying ideological reasons like her anti-science : stance. Well, to be quite frank, I am repulsed by her work because it's outside my comfort zone. It doesn't provide more of the high-flying escapism that I've come to expect from the series. In fact, it does quite the opposite. Like Icarus's wings of wax melting in the sun, it drags the reader down to the briny deep. Plus, it does it in only the most ham-fisted, implausible way possible; by hijacking the canon and subverting past characterization.

Message Index

Why I Hate Glasslands	Train Dodger	9/17/12 10:22 p.m.
I agree with Williams, but I can see your points.	Rice	9/17/12 10:41 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	General Battuta	9/17/12 10:42 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	General Battuta	9/17/12 10:44 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Train Dodger	9/17/12 11:54 p.m.
On second thought...	Train Dodger	9/18/12 6:24 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	ZackDark	9/17/12 10:49 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	SonGoharotto	9/17/12 11:24 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Chewbaccawakka	9/17/12 11:29 p.m.
Correction.	Quirel	9/18/12 12:10 a.m.
Got it	ZackDark	9/18/12 12:26 a.m.
Re: Correction.	Chewbaccawakka	9/18/12 1:12 a.m.
Re: Correction.	Quirel	9/18/12 1:34 a.m.
Re: Correction.	Chewbaccawakka	9/18/12 1:48 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	General Battuta	9/17/12 11:32 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Beckx	9/18/12 9:40 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	General Vagueness	9/18/12 7:26 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Train Dodger	9/18/12 12:28 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Quirel	9/18/12 12:32 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	ZackDark	9/18/12 12:49 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Quirel	9/18/12 12:55 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	bluerunner	9/18/12 9:05 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	ZackDark	9/18/12 9:41 p.m.
Total war	Flynn J Taggart	9/18/12 12:36 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	SonGoharotto	9/17/12 11:19 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Jaydee	9/18/12 12:12 a.m.
On Halsey being demonized.	Rice	9/18/12 12:32 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	TDSpiral	9/18/12 12:33 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Hawki	9/18/12 1:49 a.m.
Projecting guilt	scarab	9/18/12 2:44 a.m.
Re: Projecting guilt	Jaydee	9/18/12 3:01 a.m.
Re: Projecting guilt	Hawki	9/18/12 3:12 a.m.
Re: Projecting guilt	scarab	9/18/12 3:52 a.m.
Re: Projecting guilt	Train Dodger	9/18/12 4:25 a.m.
Re: Projecting guilt	Quirel	9/18/12 9:41 a.m.
Re: Projecting guilt	Harmanimus	9/18/12 3:39 a.m.
Re: Projecting guilt	scarab	9/18/12 4:07 a.m.
Re: Projecting guilt	Hawki	9/18/12 4:46 a.m.
Re: Projecting guilt	Harmanimus	9/18/12 3:00 p.m.
More like projecting Quilt	bryan newman	9/18/12 4:52 a.m.
Re: More like projecting Quilt	Hawki	9/18/12 5:23 a.m.
Re: More like projecting Quilt	bryan newman	9/18/12 5:28 a.m.
Re: More like projecting Quilt	Hawki	9/18/12 5:34 a.m.
Re: More like projecting Quilt	scarab	9/18/12 1:20 p.m.
Re: More like projecting Quilt	Hawki	9/18/12 4:36 p.m.
Best Line of the Whole Debate	Hoovaloov	9/18/12 2:09 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Hawki	9/18/12 2:12 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Quirel	9/18/12 2:16 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Hoovaloov	9/18/12 2:22 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Train Dodger	9/18/12 2:25 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Hoovaloov	9/18/12 3:01 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	bluerunner	9/18/12 8:59 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Hawki	9/18/12 2:28 a.m.
Agree with all but the last sentence! *NM*	Lurono	9/18/12 2:43 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Hoovaloov	9/18/12 2:48 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Lurono	9/18/12 3:12 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Hoovaloov	9/18/12 3:29 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Lurono	9/18/12 9:35 p.m.
This: *NM*	thebruce0	9/18/12 9:01 a.m.
D'oh, attempt 2 :) This:	thebruce0	9/18/12 9:06 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Hoovaloov	9/18/12 2:18 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Train Dodger	9/18/12 2:40 a.m.
Re: Best Line of the Whole Debate	Lurono	9/18/12 2:55 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	scarab	9/18/12 3:22 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Train Dodger	9/18/12 3:54 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Archilen	9/18/12 3:38 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Train Dodger	9/18/12 11:45 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Archilen	9/19/12 9:14 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Train Dodger	9/19/12 11:36 a.m.
Corollary	Train Dodger	9/19/12 11:52 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Archilen	9/19/12 2:36 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Train Dodger	9/19/12 4:07 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	SonGoharotto	9/19/12 5:01 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Train Dodger	9/19/12 5:04 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	General Vagueness	9/19/12 7:15 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	ZackDark	9/19/12 7:19 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Train Dodger	9/19/12 7:56 p.m.
This is why Gameplay/Canon Segregation exists. *NM*	Rice	9/19/12 11:56 p.m.
Nope.	uberfoop	9/20/12 12:05 a.m.
To be fair to the UNSC...	SonGoharotto	9/20/12 12:19 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Quirel	9/20/12 1:02 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Gravemind	9/20/12 2:17 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Train Dodger	9/20/12 6:11 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	General Vagueness	9/20/12 9:32 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Train Dodger	9/20/12 11:13 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	General Vagueness	9/20/12 8:36 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	General Vagueness	9/20/12 9:09 p.m.
Parangosky in GoO.	Rice	9/25/12 4:19 a.m.
Also	Rice	9/25/12 5:26 a.m.
On matters of execution	davidfuchs	9/25/12 7:07 a.m.
Re: On matters of execution	General Battuta	9/25/12 2:46 p.m.
The Halsey Jaw Punch	Rice	9/26/12 2:26 a.m.
Re: The Halsey Jaw Punch	Subtank	9/26/12 5:06 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	General Vagueness	9/19/12 7:41 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	SonGoharotto	9/19/12 7:48 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Train Dodger	9/19/12 8:08 p.m.
Update To Original Thread	Train Dodger	9/18/12 9:04 p.m.
Re: Update To Original Thread	SonGoharotto	9/19/12 3:54 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	vlad3163	9/23/12 2:27 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	bryan newman	9/24/12 1:17 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Archilen	9/24/12 9:04 a.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	General Vagueness	9/24/12 3:20 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	General Vagueness	9/24/12 3:04 p.m.
Re: Why I Hate Glasslands	Tsudico	10/30/12 2:22 p.m.