To all who want Freelancer style world... it is dystopia, where 99% of human population lives on planets and only middle-classes of the most rich worlds (Manhattan, New London) can afford comfortable living. Place where corporations have more control than here on Earth and groups of workers that do find their way to space do view life as peripheral pirate on a rock across galaxy more meaningful than dying off radiation in diamond fields of Omega 11. Freelancer world has rampart work crisis, where Rheinlanders barely handle surviving until next day, Libertonians see their jobs being shut down and outsourced, Bretonians having the shortest lifespan in known space (With notable exception of Cambridge) and Kusarians being torn between tradition (and those who abuse it for their own profit) and modern ways (and those who abuse it for their own profit).
On top of that, we have genocidal aliens and it is even worse if you get born to Hispanics (unless you're OC and like hedonism on expense of million tragedies light years away). Space is dangerous and humanity divided into competing super powers again.
Basically the lives worth living is the 1% here.
back on topic, I believe Earth will go through really weird times and far fetched ideologies relevant to thriving with limited resources of Solar System prior to discovering meaningful way of interstellar travel.
Quote:Plus, that's not just boring generic magic like other things, there's actual SCIENCE behind alchemy, with it's own laws and stuff, which makes it even better.
I urge you to read about real alchemic practices that were done in the middle ages instead of saying that there's any sort of science background behind FMA.
Cause there isn't.
Most of the thing depicted in FMA as "alchemy" are, indeed, boring generic magic.
Also, the universe was created last Thursday, and everything around you, including your memories, just happened to pop into existence at that time. Honest.
No one said that live is rather good for all the people around it. Original lore does not really show how social statuses are shared, but on example of Kusari, you could belong to five of them:
- (Aristocracy) Imperial family + lords/daimyo, with various underlords - note: VIPs;
- ("High Rank" Merchants) Samura, Kishiro, GMG and part of Hogosha - note: VIPs;
- (Underdogs) Part of Hogosha, Farmer Alliance, BHG;
- (Subjects) Gray citizens, Kusari Freelancers, minor merchants, farmers;
- (Untouchable) Dragons, GC, Outcasts.
Quote:Plus, that's not just boring generic magic like other things, there's actual SCIENCE behind alchemy, with it's own laws and stuff, which makes it even better.
I urge you to read about real alchemic practices that were done in the middle ages instead of saying that there's any sort of science background behind FMA.
Cause there isn't.
Most of the thing depicted in FMA as "alchemy" are, indeed, boring generic magic.
We're not comparing real alchemy with FMA alchemy, or basing FMA alchemy off of real scientific laws...
I meant how in the FMA universe, they explain how their alchemy works, how the process of it is destroying and rebuilding matter, how they can't just create something out of thin air, they need something that they can destroy and then rebuild using their version of magic. They explain how they create what they create with scientific explanations, not just "oh, we waved this wand and now here this is".
Obviously, if you compare our science with what they do in FMA, then it is indeed "boring generic magic" for the most part, lol. But if you understand the FMA universe's science, you realize that in that universe, it is indeed science, not magic, to them at least.. Apples and oranges.
Alchemy was regarded as science in the past times. A lot of alchemical predictions were right - like turning lead into gold, but the problem is the gold is VERY radioactive and costs of doing that exceeds the value of gained "treasure".
Regarding FMA, alchemy there is way less generic than generic magic, being more shady practice not always wanted by everyone. Unlike magic in other media, FMA alchemy is quite believable to some extent, as it tries (and kind of succeeds) to follow physics.
Not to remind you that physics itself was also disregarded as child's play or even satanism, mind you.
AND GOING BACK TO THE TOPIC, it would be neither of all these choices. I believe we would end like humanity in hard sci-fi novels (e.g. some of Stanislaw Lem's ones), in which humanity did not contact any aliens and is rather developing slowly, barely reaching outside the Solar System.
We can only pray that Russians would share their prototype engine fueled by water. In fact, to construct reliable spaceship, we would need to unite a bit, with Russian, European, Chinese, American (nowadays also Indian) and Japanese technologies and ideas regarding space exploration.
However, if someone is going to Mars first, it would be either a private space company or PRC.
The way I view it the world (given that there is no 'outside' interference or a MAD) will evolve into a Firefly like universe.
Earth will have far too limited resources and capability to house all of us humans and with space travel developing on a steep curve. The current political wind in the world is to move towards unification, we slowly but surely have less countries in the world as more and more are getting unified (like the US, or the EU). Ultimately, it will either resolve at a MAD between two super-powers or anther unification that will swallow the rest of them.
As space travel will develop people will move further away from the 'core' and eventually, like with any outskirt will feel that they are discriminated, which will result in a deceleration of their independence, as if they are not benefiting from this unification why should they stay in it?
Not only have we reached out into space, we have giant robots to shoot each other with and end up blowing each other up so much that we forget how technology works.
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