>>5852827>>5853370What I liked most about The Expanse is all the hard sci-fi. A lot of space settings turn starships into just airplanes. In the Expanse, space is really frightening and hostile, and I think including elements like flip and burn (when a spaceship rotates with rocket engine pointing at destination, to decelerate as it approaches to arrive at target) make it far cooler. I suppose Dead Space also had a good feel for zero-G sections (hydrazine flamethrower was a nice touch hehe).
The franchise which I think would have benefitted most from hard sci-fi is actually Halo sequels. Instead of making it more ENERGY SHIELD CALL OF DUTY LOOK MY FORERUNNER RIFLE HAS A LEVITATING HOVERING SCOPE they should have made it lean more towards the hard sci fi given that the core audience were military enthusiasts etc. That way, when the covenant re-appear with plasma guns the contrast and sci-fi awe and wonder are re-established.
>>5851292>sci-fi, realism vs technological sublime>AI generated art / unreal engine "look" etc vfxI mentioned in this old qtg thread the idea of TECHNOLOGICAL SUBLIME
https://archived.moe/qst/thread/5737556/#5742246ie the sense of awe and wonder at beholding a mountain and its immensity, the Caspar David Friedrich mountaintop wanderer Romanticism painting, "Beauty Through Fear" the notion of human vulnerability and frailty before Nature, and how sci-fi art simply substitutes a massive starship or cyberpunk city hive panorama for the natural wonder. You don't need trees or forests or glaciers or sand dunes when you can replace awe at nature with generative art.
Now read this article, where the author has not quite grasped the concept in the same words, but attempts to articulate a contemporary susceptibility:
https://www.fastcompany.com/90916652/generative-ai-killing-sense-of-awe(...) one of the most concerning things about generative artificial intelligence right here, right now, is how it can rob us of our sense of awe. In a world where every image can be extraordinary with a simple prompt, nothing can be truly extraordinary.
...
That “million more awesome images” is the problem. Because AI is capable of providing an infinite overload of visually stunning work, it makes everything—both the AI and the real photos—feel cheap and disposable. Our minds, connected to a constant flow of music, TV series, YouTube shorts, and TikTok videos, becomes numb and demands all forms of superlative: bigger, better, prettier, hotter, weirder, uglier, more shocking. (...)
>gacha...?>>5852878(from the same article...)
The speed and accuracy with which AI can produce shockingly good images has accelerated this trend. Not so long ago, people were likening Midjourney’s ability to conjure awesome images at random with the dopamine hits of “a slot machine for creativity.”