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How Retro ?

I'm thinking that technology evolves from designs that take their cue from function, which then become refined and eventually free from the underlying tech. We see spacecraft today that are dominated entirely by crushing limitations on takeoff weight and limits on power sources and life support. In the future we have in Traveller, those limitations are long swept away.

Potentially we might see space craft that become style and fashion statements, and that look becomes the retro.

This is why I've argued for years that materials technology advancements should allow auto manufacturers to bring back fins, bullet-bra bumpers, and sweeping fenders. Technological should help advance style in design.
 
The David Lynch Dune was great, but I was more impressed by the television series that came out in 2000. The over all look and feel of it really captured the byzantine and alien look to the descriptions of the future society in the books. The art direction took it's cues from renaissance fashion and surrealist art. The worms were better than Lynch's, too.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0142032/
 
This is why I've argued for years that materials technology advancements should allow auto manufacturers to bring back fins, bullet-bra bumpers, and sweeping fenders. Technological should help advance style in design.

Ah, those cars looked so cool. I'm quite a fan of Art Deco, which had such stylistic leanings too. Of course, there are probably practical reasons (such as cost of manufacture) as well as fashion reasons that meant the style has gone, as well as fuel economy and safety.

Perhaps we are surrounded by style in our current cars, but our familiarity with it means we do not recognise it, although I don't imagine people cooing over pictures of my Ford Fiesta and saying how much style early 21st century cars had over their mid 21st century counterparts :-)

As far as Dune the movie went, I felt the retro was way too contrived, especially things like the translator device for the Space Guild navigator scene, come on guys, it's the year 10,000, you can make it smaller than that.
 
If you consult your Orange Catholic Bible....

Ah, those cars looked so cool. I'm quite a fan of Art Deco, which had such stylistic leanings too. Of course, there are probably practical reasons (such as cost of manufacture) as well as fashion reasons that meant the style has gone, as well as fuel economy and safety.
Art Deco Uber Alles! Art Deco rules and I can't wait for it to return...mmmmmm.

Perhaps we are surrounded by style in our current cars, but our familiarity with it means we do not recognise it, although I don't imagine people cooing over pictures of my Ford Fiesta and saying how much style early 21st century cars had over their mid 21st century counterparts :-)
I actually expect that they will talk about how the lack of MAT (mission adaptive technologies) really hampered they sense of personal style back in the day...but that's just my thoughts.

As far as Dune the movie went, I felt the retro was way too contrived, especially things like the translator device for the Space Guild navigator scene, come on guys, it's the year 10,000, you can make it smaller than that.
Now, do you have your OCB, good, now notice how we are Forbidden to Make a Machine in the Image of a Human Mind? That means our society has since the Butlerian Jihad made the choice to keep the technology in check and to a certain extent, less efficient and bulky and thus with in our sight, and by this means, keeping it from attaining the position of control and power that they and the Cymeks had over the Human Species. It is the other reason we have Mentants, Navigators, and the Witches. Each fulfills a useful function that Machines used to handle....much like our Species. Does that make sense?

EDIT: also, it's later than that, the 11,000 since the end of the Bulterian Jihad and the founding of the Empire. There was several centuries of Human Enslavement to the Machines and then the times before that even...it's more like 25,000 ad?
 
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My motivation for buying CT of late was to find a way to implement my desire for a "Retro"-type scifi rpg experience. My influences are classic Victorian/Edwardian lit (H.G. Wells, Verne, Burroughs), including the canals of Mars (after Lowell and Schiaparelli), pulp movie stuff (Alex Raymond's and Buster Crabbe's Flash Gordon).
 
The run on over, that's right run, not walk, to the Heliograph site and grab the space 1889 stuff... gives a (nearly traveller compatible) system for both ironclads, ether flyers, martians, venusians, etc.

Traveller has better character development, but hybridizing can be done easily. (Attributes run about 1/2 that of CT, and skills about the same levels, and they both are GDW designs...)

GIves you a wonderfully retro victorian sci-fi setting, with plenty of detail.
 
BITS 101 Starships (for GURPS) has the Brass Goat ... a 300 ton ship based on a Solomani wet sailing ship, complete with masts.

Used as "a shining beacon of daring and adventure, galanty faring throughout the Imperium, righting wrongs, doing deeds and saving Life as We Know It."

Captained by the Sixth Sir Edwin (think Dread Pirate Roberts in reverse) "seeking fresh feats and windmills new" and he never discovered the new modern fresher hidden in the engine room.

:oo::rofl:
 
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