Genre Tropes: The Technological Singularity & Enchantments of Technology
Technology is ever-changing and ever improving. The advancement in technology has also spawned off new ideas and new genres. Science Fiction and Space Opera are some. We imagine and create or modify current ideas to fit into the future. In these genres, prominent ideas like aliens, time-travelling, and artificial intelligence have thus sprouted out.
Aliens are other forms of life other than us, humans. They are always thought to be more advanced than us. The different assumptions made on extra life forms have made them more mysterious and creates much curiosity in people. Movies like E.T. and Star Wars has also created intelligent and advanced life forms that exist together with humans. Games like Mass Effect has also bridged the differences in different life forms, even going as far as love relationship across life forms. Mass media plays quite an important part in portraying aliens.
Time-travelling has long been an unproven theory in Science. It is the ability to go forward or backwards in time instantly. Albert Einstein proposed a theory that if an object travels faster than light, time will go slower and eventually reverse, therefore, going back into time. The Butterfly Effect is another concept created from time-travelling. If someone goes back in time and change the past, the effect will ripple itself into the present and future, changing the course of history itself.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a thinking mind which is made artificially and not naturally (By birth). By using numbers and algorithms, the artificial mind is ‘programmed to think’. AIs are very important in games as they perform tasks of interaction with the human players. The scary part of AIs is that if they are programmed to think like humans, will they surpass humans? Also, if they are ‘humans’, will they actually create more ‘humans’?
Space Opera and High Fantasy are genres which take on the futuristic and mystic part of fiction. Space Opera and High Fantasy takes our current society and way of living, and transform it into a different world and setting. However, the different world still emulates our current life. Space Opera fast forwards our city into the future, putting societal problems and civilization in a futuristic environment. High Fantasy merges our world with Fantasy and Magic, creating societies with magical powers, and like Space Opera, usually has societal problems or the archetypal good versus bad.
Through time, human has questioned their own Existence. Where do they come from? Why are they here? The Existence of humans has been answered by some religions, but no one knows the truth, because no one existed before humans. Perhaps, all the above genres are answers to all these questions. The human mind creates, therefore we create. We try to answer all the doubts about humans by creating other Existence, so that it mirrors us and tell us for whom we are. It is similar to having friends who point out who you are rather than yourself. We also try to be become God, by creating Existence. It is human nature to create. One day, through all these creations, we can eventually find out about ourselves, and eventually be enlightened and understand the Truth of the World.
In relation to Games Design, I think that Existence gives the game a reality to work on. Technology certainly gives Existence a whole new perspective, since it influences different ways of how the reality thinks and works. The future certainly leaves much to speculate about, and leaves much to create.
Aliens are other forms of life other than us, humans. They are always thought to be more advanced than us. The different assumptions made on extra life forms have made them more mysterious and creates much curiosity in people. Movies like E.T. and Star Wars has also created intelligent and advanced life forms that exist together with humans. Games like Mass Effect has also bridged the differences in different life forms, even going as far as love relationship across life forms. Mass media plays quite an important part in portraying aliens.
Time-travelling has long been an unproven theory in Science. It is the ability to go forward or backwards in time instantly. Albert Einstein proposed a theory that if an object travels faster than light, time will go slower and eventually reverse, therefore, going back into time. The Butterfly Effect is another concept created from time-travelling. If someone goes back in time and change the past, the effect will ripple itself into the present and future, changing the course of history itself.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a thinking mind which is made artificially and not naturally (By birth). By using numbers and algorithms, the artificial mind is ‘programmed to think’. AIs are very important in games as they perform tasks of interaction with the human players. The scary part of AIs is that if they are programmed to think like humans, will they surpass humans? Also, if they are ‘humans’, will they actually create more ‘humans’?
Space Opera and High Fantasy are genres which take on the futuristic and mystic part of fiction. Space Opera and High Fantasy takes our current society and way of living, and transform it into a different world and setting. However, the different world still emulates our current life. Space Opera fast forwards our city into the future, putting societal problems and civilization in a futuristic environment. High Fantasy merges our world with Fantasy and Magic, creating societies with magical powers, and like Space Opera, usually has societal problems or the archetypal good versus bad.Through time, human has questioned their own Existence. Where do they come from? Why are they here? The Existence of humans has been answered by some religions, but no one knows the truth, because no one existed before humans. Perhaps, all the above genres are answers to all these questions. The human mind creates, therefore we create. We try to answer all the doubts about humans by creating other Existence, so that it mirrors us and tell us for whom we are. It is similar to having friends who point out who you are rather than yourself. We also try to be become God, by creating Existence. It is human nature to create. One day, through all these creations, we can eventually find out about ourselves, and eventually be enlightened and understand the Truth of the World.
In relation to Games Design, I think that Existence gives the game a reality to work on. Technology certainly gives Existence a whole new perspective, since it influences different ways of how the reality thinks and works. The future certainly leaves much to speculate about, and leaves much to create.
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