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tuftearsI've been reading through The Legion of Nothing, a superhero fiction centered on Nick, who is an inventor without superpowers but the uncanny ability to understand and develop technology, and pondering why it is that inventors like Tony Stark seem to have had so little effect on their worlds.
Let's think about it this way. What amazing inventions exist in Iron Man's suit?
* Super-tiny power plant that is nevertheless capable of fueling flight for an extended period and powering tankbuster-class weapons
* Electrically powered exoskeleton that can give superstrength
* Lightweight armor that deflects and absorbs a wide variety of types of damage
* Miniaturized rockets for flight that can lift a grown man and his armor
* An on-board computer of amazing sophistication that can identify targets, manage flight and give perfect flight, and supervise all these components so they don't tear the armor (let alone the wearer) apart
* Various weapons like repulsors that practically fit into the wearer's palms
The main thing I find strange about it is that these things aren't being mass produced. The arc reactor alone could obsolete traditional coal-burning plants and vehicles and help move the Earth toward a cleaner environment. (in fact in the comic, Stark's new company, Resilient, is producing arc reactor cars) AI computer technology could be widespread; everyone could be using fancy holographic interfaces like Stark's. And don't forget, the 21st century has always promised us flying cars. They could become a reality!
Even if Stark is reluctant to share his inventions, it seems very likely many different agencies would be trying to duplicate and mass produce them: the military, rescue services, international companies, organized crime, et cetera.
...
And then it hit me, there actually is a fictional universe where all these things have already been done.
Heard of Bubblegum Crisis? It was an anime series released in the late 80s, featuring Genom, a powerful mega-conglomerate company that manufactured 'Boomers', humanoid robots that would perform a wide variety of tasks. These robots would sometimes go haywire, necessitating that they be eliminated by the 'Armored Defense Police', who were police equipped with armored suits.
Naturally, the heroines of the saga, the Knight Sabers, wore more powerful suits-- but they don't stand out as starkly against the more technological background of the series as Iron Man and his allies and foes do against the Earth of the early 21st century.
So-- yeah, I guess I don't have to write the story of the Sane Inventor. ;)
Let's think about it this way. What amazing inventions exist in Iron Man's suit?
* Super-tiny power plant that is nevertheless capable of fueling flight for an extended period and powering tankbuster-class weapons
* Electrically powered exoskeleton that can give superstrength
* Lightweight armor that deflects and absorbs a wide variety of types of damage
* Miniaturized rockets for flight that can lift a grown man and his armor
* An on-board computer of amazing sophistication that can identify targets, manage flight and give perfect flight, and supervise all these components so they don't tear the armor (let alone the wearer) apart
* Various weapons like repulsors that practically fit into the wearer's palms
The main thing I find strange about it is that these things aren't being mass produced. The arc reactor alone could obsolete traditional coal-burning plants and vehicles and help move the Earth toward a cleaner environment. (in fact in the comic, Stark's new company, Resilient, is producing arc reactor cars) AI computer technology could be widespread; everyone could be using fancy holographic interfaces like Stark's. And don't forget, the 21st century has always promised us flying cars. They could become a reality!
Even if Stark is reluctant to share his inventions, it seems very likely many different agencies would be trying to duplicate and mass produce them: the military, rescue services, international companies, organized crime, et cetera.
...
And then it hit me, there actually is a fictional universe where all these things have already been done.
Heard of Bubblegum Crisis? It was an anime series released in the late 80s, featuring Genom, a powerful mega-conglomerate company that manufactured 'Boomers', humanoid robots that would perform a wide variety of tasks. These robots would sometimes go haywire, necessitating that they be eliminated by the 'Armored Defense Police', who were police equipped with armored suits.
Naturally, the heroines of the saga, the Knight Sabers, wore more powerful suits-- but they don't stand out as starkly against the more technological background of the series as Iron Man and his allies and foes do against the Earth of the early 21st century.
So-- yeah, I guess I don't have to write the story of the Sane Inventor. ;)
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Date: 2014-08-11 03:02 am (UTC)A similar problem arose in the Deadlands setting. Even though there WERE a bunch of remarkable "steampunk" inventions entirely inappropriate for the time period, which could be ordered through such retailers as "Smith & Robards," individual inventors typically had their own MARVELOUS devices that could (depending upon the skill of the inventor, random die rolls, etc.) apparently break laws of physics. While technically-speaking, someone could pick up this inventor's device and use it, the device was more-or-less "powered" by the inventor -- he'd have to constantly make adjustments to it and maintain it to keep it working, and it simply WOULD NOT be readily replicated via mass-manufacture. The explanation was more-or-less that the devices only worked because "manitous" (evil spirits) were powering the "inventor's" devices, and generally doing it only as part of a master plan to make the world a worse place (even if the inventor was ostensibly using his devices to FIGHT evil), since almost all of those devices were powered by "ghost rock" -- an ore of supernatural origin that was basically poisoning the world with supernatural wickedness the more it was burned for fuel. (And then, when the Apocalypse struck, the manitous suddenly abandoned the inventors, and many of these devices no longer functioned, because "their work was done.")
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Date: 2014-08-11 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-11 03:29 pm (UTC)Anyway, I suppose that deviating from the norm on this would give you one of a couple of things:
1) You could have a story following our brilliant inventor as he shakes up the world. I'm of the opinion, however, that if treated realistically, he might maintain a considerable amount of celebrity, and still churn out a number of impressive things as he gets more resources thanks to funding and/or profits drawn in as a result of his inventions ... but sufficiently world-shaking inventions should be spurring other inventors to be spring-boarding off of his designs, rather than EVERY new advance just coming from one place.
2) Or, you could just have a futuristic or alternate-timeline sci-fi setting, where it just so happens that you have a celebrity inventor who's credited with many of the amazing world-changing inventions that differentiate this world from our own.
The bottom line is, I think, that the typical "invention as incidental super-power and plot convenience" mechanic of comic books just doesn't hold up to scrutiny very well if you put much thought into it, especially when the sorts of technologies required to MacGyver together a device to defeat the Planetary Threat of the Week are almost certain to have remarkable alternative uses.
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Date: 2014-08-11 03:39 pm (UTC)I wonder if #1 would read like a superpowered version of Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs? That could be pretty funny, actually.