12-30-2015, 10:58 AM
It all comes down to the fundamental premise of OA. Telling stories about a world run by superintelligent beings. This is very problematic because you have characters with a nominal intelligence rating substantially higher than the authors that both made the characters and decides what they will do.
Consequently, I rarely see superintelligence done well. Let's go through some of the failure modes:
Super Toys- the tendency to compensate with a litany of high tech devices. It is a fail case because the prerequisite techs are usually missing and the toys can usually be used by an ordinary person with training. Batman is one example.
Hidden Variables- deliberately concealing key details from the reader. Not really superintelligence they just know something you don't. Sherlock Holmes is my favorite example.
Random Mysteriousness- the idea that superintelligence looks like randomness to everyone else. This is the driving force behind a lot of theology. And can lead you to try to justify actual stupidity.
World Ownership- I once put a character as smart as me into one of my stories. Anything I could think up he could think up and consequently he was always one step ahead of the entire universe. I never made that mistake again, the world always needs to be the smartest character or else there is no story.
Avoidance- The smart thing to do is to avoid superintelligence if at all possible. From what I can tell that is what a lot of OA stories try to do, but superintelligent beings make up too much of OA to be effectively cropped out. As a result the stories seem shallow.
Consequently, I rarely see superintelligence done well. Let's go through some of the failure modes:
Super Toys- the tendency to compensate with a litany of high tech devices. It is a fail case because the prerequisite techs are usually missing and the toys can usually be used by an ordinary person with training. Batman is one example.
Hidden Variables- deliberately concealing key details from the reader. Not really superintelligence they just know something you don't. Sherlock Holmes is my favorite example.
Random Mysteriousness- the idea that superintelligence looks like randomness to everyone else. This is the driving force behind a lot of theology. And can lead you to try to justify actual stupidity.
World Ownership- I once put a character as smart as me into one of my stories. Anything I could think up he could think up and consequently he was always one step ahead of the entire universe. I never made that mistake again, the world always needs to be the smartest character or else there is no story.
Avoidance- The smart thing to do is to avoid superintelligence if at all possible. From what I can tell that is what a lot of OA stories try to do, but superintelligent beings make up too much of OA to be effectively cropped out. As a result the stories seem shallow.