Why I Stopped Reading Sci-fi

Throughout the last century, I obsessively read science fiction ... what would now be thought of as classic sci-fi but which was then the mainstream.  For me, authors like Asimov, Heinlein, Zelazny and Bradbury defined bad science fiction in a way that ruined me for the sort of dreck being written today.  I've tried a few authors over the years; I've even slogged my way to the end of several novels, but without much pleasure.

For the most part, the writing in modern sci-fi is juvenile; the plot development as well.  No substantial risks are ever taken with the book's theme.  Usually it boils down to pap like, "racism is bad" or "cooperation is necessary."  These are themes that might be news to a 12-y.o., but thank you, I've digested these gems of wisdom already.  It's even worse when the plot, characters and general context of the novel resembles taking a modern day story and crossing out "car" and writing in "spaceship."

But the quintessential sort of bad science fiction -- and eternally the most popular form of sci-fi -- is any story in which a technology that is built turns on its master so that everything goes disastrously wrong.  For my money, 2001: a Space Odyssey is the supreme example of absolute garbage ever written and slapped onto film.  Of course it's popular.  It preaches the endlessly popular theme, "science is bad."  The theme that is at the center of climate-change-isn't-real, covid-isn't-real, too much computer use is toxic, cellphones are toxic, power lines are toxic, the world is flat, everything is a conspiracy and so on.  What is Hal?  A machine.  And what does Hal do?  Turns on mankind.  And oh, wow, so deep!  See, humans invented tools, and tools create misery, aha!  If only we had never created tools, we'd all be so happy now!  Thank you, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

I'm certain that most readers here fall into two categories: those of you who have no idea who Rousseau was, and those of you who love him to death.  There might be a very, very tiny fraction of you who have read him, are familiar with him and recognize what a miserable, ignorant prat he was.  But I doubt it.  Voltaire thought him a prat.  Voltaire and I would have gotten along.

This is not, however, a post about Rousseau.  I learned a long, long time ago that people who love Rousseau are far past having any rational comprehension about the man's writing, while people who have no idea about Rousseau just don't give a shit.  If you're the former, fuck you.  If you're the latter, look up Rousseau on wikipedia and believe whatever you like.  If you're older than 25, and you haven't read Rousseau yet, you're sure to find him so unconscionably boring that I have little doubt you won't get far.  I read Rousseau's Confessions sometime when I was about 17, in high school.  Then I read a smattering of works by him in university, in my late 20s.  What a prat.

Rousseau died in 1778, well before the French Revolution that seized on his writings and used them to build guillotines and commit all sorts of atrocities in the name of "natural law" and "justice."  We can be quite sure that Mary Shelley, born in 1797, the future writer of Frankenstein, was fed a steady diet of both Voltaire and Rousseau.  I don't know who here has ever read Frankenstein.  I imagine most of you have seen one or more versions of the book committed to film, but let me rush to say that those are all way, way off the message in the book.  Usually, it's presumed that Frankenstein, the scientist, builds the monster, who turns on the scientist and then, as a monster, rampages throughout the countryside until he's destroyed.

Um, no.  For one thing, at the end of the book, both the scientist and the "monster" are alive (for one thing, the book is written by Frankenstein in 1st person; though I vaguely remember some postscript by the ship captain that might have said that Frankenstein was dead; it's been some years; maybe it's time to read it again).

Rousseau argued vehemently in his writings that human beings are naturally peaceful and kind, but that society makes them into monsters.  It is the famous and hopelessly wrong notion of "the noble savage," a concept that is still pitched today but has been proved wrong for only two centuries and a bit more.  Frankenstein is a novel about how a perfectly empty vessel of a creation is made into a monster by the truly awful way that it's treated.  Which then, faced with such ruthless injustice, acts as it is taught to act.  For those who haven't read the book, or who have read an expurgated version of it, the distinction might seem subtle.  For the remainder of my audience, the difference is staggering.

Frankenstein's monster is taught to be a monster, and so it sets out to wreak vengeance.  Hal is built to be a computer; it is in no way taught to be a monster, but it becomes one anyway, because ... well, because the author thought it would play better that way.  And it certainly did.  It played great.  It is really popular and really beloved ... none of which exempts the ridiculousness of the premise.

Nor does it excuse the decades of science fiction that is so, so anxious to get in on that sweet, sweet fear-mongering gravy that 2001 has made over the decades.  Fear sells.  And the irrational fear that we will build machines that will ultimately bring about our destruction sells best of all.  We can't open a science website anywhere on the internet without hearing shrill, terrified cries that A.I. is destined to dig our graves.  Of course, this stuff works best with ignorant, panicky people who haven't any personal experience with either science or technology ... which is most of the world ... and even scientists have a tendency to buy in because there is no such discipline as "science."  People in physics freak out about studies in neurology, while neurologists freak out about space; the astronomers sweat bullets about psychology while the psychologists lie awake at night worrying about contagious diseases.  Everyone in their own field is ignorant about every other, and so they're all ready to be sold on the science fiction horror scenario that's based on some flimsy concept not in their bailywick.  And thankfully, we have the internet to make sure we promote every terror every day.

Personally, I find it hard to convince readers that even a scientist, especially one that has a name popular enough that they will be encouraged to speak "candidly" on Big Think, is more likely to be promoting themselves in order to vie for grants and graft than they are interested in speaking the truth.  I mean, after all, if Max Tegmark is actually FULL OF SHIT when he talks about the terror-horror of A.I., what consequence does he face?  I can't think of a "leading scientist" today that hasn't shrugged his shoulders at some point and said, "Well, we can't predict the future."  Fair enough.  But why, then, do they spend so much time predicting the future whenever someone turns a camera in their direction?

In good science fiction, all the technology that's built works exactly like it is supposed to work.  The computers all function like machines, the robots perform the labours they're built to perform, the algorithms and formulas produce the results they were intended to produce.  It's the humans that fuck up and commit atrocities, not the machines and not the science.  It is made perfectly clear that Rousseau had his head up his ass and that technology and advancement have served to make our lives vastly better every step along the way ... and would have done even more if the dumb-ass, doom-crying dead-brained shitheeled selfish miserly greedy wrathful pig-ignorant humans might have been taken out of the equation.  In good science fiction, the heroes are those who use their education, intelligence and innovation to make fools out of the ignorant -- just as it actually happens, every day, in real life.  

Every day, trained and experienced doctors are saving lives and doing their level best to manage the terror-horror of this real disease ravaging the population, using every ounce of profoundly complex and effective technical equipment and innovation they can possibly lay their hands on.  The real crisis at present comes in two forms: (1) we don't have ENOUGH equipment, in the form of ICU beds and other innovations, to keep as many people alive as we ought to; and (2) we don't have enough trained, knowledgable persons in the medical field to manage an infectious disease on this scale.

A bad science fiction novel would invent some technological breakthrough that spread the disease and the disaster more quickly, promoting suffering and the deaths of hundreds of millions, feeding what the public fears to hear and wants to hear.

A good science fiction novel would have the experts cure the disease, only to find themselves restrained from saving the people by stupid people in power.  But it's okay, because the experts would then use their knowledge and reason to get around the morons and save the people anyway -- although that would require the writer to actually figure out a way to use knowledge to get around morons.

See, bad science fiction doesn't require any intelligence to write.  But good science fiction ... well, to write good science fiction, you have to actually innovate.  That's why we see so little of it.

Anyway ... I was supposed to be writing a post about why I don't employ the D&D game rule where golems have a percentage of getting out of control and slaughtering their creators.  My personal feeling is that golems ought to do exactly what they're built to do.  Full page here.

Mandragora

A transformation of the mandrake root into a minor golem, possessing humanoid like characteristics and a malevolent nature. While the mandragora, or root golem, can be controlled by its maker, it should be known that left alone or unwatched, and though small of size, the creature should be expected to wilfully cause trouble. For this reason, when not watched, it is often best to keep the mandragora contained or restrained in some fashion.

The mandragora is 15 inches tall (the size of a large mandrake root) and composed of hard, moist root material that cannot be harmed by elemental-based spells (though due to its size, strong forces will limit the creature's movement), notably fire or cold. Sustained fire, such as an oven, or super-heated rock will consume the creature, but if it is frozen in ice it will thaw unharmed.

It is formed from the mandrake root, which is itself dangerous to harvest. To bring the natural root alive, remove the roots and bury it outdoors in a hole covered with graveyard dirt to a depth of six inches. Thereafter the soil should be soaked with a quart of cow's milk in the dark of the night for 3-12 nights in succession, until it is seen that a part of the root has appeared above the level of the soil (typically an inch will be extended). At this point, the creator will need to pour into the soil a quart of spoiled or rancid liquid (of any extraction), then cast one of the following spells: animal friendship, charm person or mammal, commune with nature, hold animal, hold plant, speak with animals or speak with plants. Any of these will communicate with the new mandragora, who will then know its creator; the character should then extend an index finger towards the extended root, which will then grasp the finger, enabling the golem to be pulled out from the loose soil.

The mandragora cannot attack in melee or cause damage. It weighs 12 lbs. (much of it water weight infused in its root-body) and can move up to 15' per round (having 3 action points). It possesses short, stubby legs and arms that are each 3 inches in length; the arms possess five 4-inch long roots that can be used to loosely grasp things, so that the mandragora can be directed to fetch loose things or hide objects away (picking up any object up to a pound or dragging any object up to its own weight). It cannot untie straps or laces, cannot effectively rummage through a back pack or open doors, but its root fingers can be used to surprise or frighten opponents or animals, push objects off shelves, tip over objects taller than they are wide (up to its weight). It can throw objects it can carry only a few feet without much force, so that only very fragile objects falling on stone would break. It does not like things hung on its body and will rid itself of these things as soon as possible.

The mandragora, if it is able, will seek any opportunity to sneak away and become a pest to the party or others (particularly if the creator is asleep). If given the opportunity, the mandragora will cheerfully occupy itself with many of the above activities (particularly frightening animals and children or breaking things), dropping items into rivers or over the side of ships and boats, dragging logs out of a fire and leaving them next to sleeping persons, covering itself with mud and rubbing itself on clothes or food, making rustling noises in brush to bring others to investigate, knocking on doors and then running, etc. The creating character can encourage a mandragora to do these things to others by hurling the mandragora in a desired direction, where it is wished for mischief to be made (an enemy camp or habitation), speaking the words, "Give them grief, mandragora."

Because of its size and color, the mandragora will easily approach within a combat hex (5 feet) of a conscious, alert target without being seen. It will surprise normally (2 in 6) even in combat situations. If attacked, it is rated as AC 8 (AC 4 in darkness) and has only 1 hit point - but it is immune to bludgeoning weapons, swords and pointed weapons. An axe or bladed pole-arm, however, will kill it most efficiently.

Rethinking the Golem

Changes sometimes have to be made.

Traditionally, there are two things necessary to create a golem: coin in the tens of thousands and a few spells. That is the entirety of the process.  Details about what costs what are maddeningly vague.

Consider this description for the creation of an homonculous (the most detailed example I could find):

"When an homonculous is desired, the magic-user must hire an alchemist, and the latter will require 1-4 weeks to create fluids for forming the creature.  This will cost 1 pint of the magic-user's blood and 500-2000 gold pieces.  The magic-user must then cast a mending spell, a mirror image and a wizard eye upon the fluid to form the homonculous."

60 words.  It is things like this that makes me appreciate the cold-stone hatred people feel for AD&D.

Just what the hell are 'fluids'?  Why do I need to hire an alchemist?  Does this include when I've passed 15th level as a mage?  Are there leveled alchemists?  Why is the local alchemist fine with my constructing a monster?  Why does it have to be my pint of blood and not the alchemists?  Is it because I'm casting the spell?  What if I use a scroll?  Shouldn't I need to pint of blood of the writer of the scroll?  I can understand having to cast some sort of spell to prove the wizard is of a certain strength or power, but why those spells?  Surely a wider range of spells will do.

It is this kind of half-assed design that teaches young DMs to rebuff questions with, "Because I said so."  What other answer are you going to give?

I have never had a character make any serious effort towards the creation of a golem.  I've had a few characters who chanced into a golem manual and considered it, but they've all come to the same conclusion: "Huge numbers of gold pieces for a creature that's guaranteed to go berserk?  Um, no."

The math whiz who invented the golem berserk rule in the original Monster Manual probably thought this was very clever:

"Once created, the clay golem is under the command of the cleric who created it.  Each melee round the clay golem is in combat there is a 1% cumulative chance that it will be imbued with a chaotic evil spirit.  If this happens, the clay golem will immediately pass from the control of the cleric and attacks [sic] any living thing . . ."

On the surface, this sounds like a very small chance.  However, given the nature of random die rolls, the golem will probably go loony within 14 rounds (1% + 2% + 3% + 4% . . .).  Get out your hundred sided and see how long you can go.

I did.  I had 10 tries at it and these are the results: 13 rounds, 14 rounds, 10 rounds, 8 rounds, 22 rounds, 7 rounds, 12 rounds, 16 rounds, 6 rounds and 10 rounds.

The clay golem requires 50,000 g.p. to make (including the 30,000 g.p. vestments, which I presume are resuable).  Even taking my best result, I am paying 2,272 g.p. per round of combat.  For something that attacks once per round (though it has two hands) for 3-30 damage and some nice immunities.  That is going to become an extra problem in short order.  That price seems a little steep.

It's a double-edged sword, isn't it?  We have to jack the price up to keep the creatures rare and we have to make them dangerous to use so that players will think twice.  Yet with these rules a player would have to be an idiot to build a golem.  As an enemy, it doesn't matter if I can hit the golem . . . all I need is 10 to 20 terrified low-level minions to keep the golem swinging - the survivors of which I'll pull back the moment the golem goes postal.  Then the party can deal with the golem's instantly very inconvenient immunities.

I want to rethink the golem, which means rethinking the principles upon which the golem is based.

The golem's inescapable insanity is based upon a Kabbalist myth, invented to teach a lesson to students: don't fuck with nature, because nature will get you.  The same myth has been employed ever since, from Frankenstein and 2001: A Space Odyssey to Skynet in the Terminator series, the creators of the Matrix and whatever recent version of I, Robot that is set to be released in 2015.

(that's always a sore spot with me, as Isaac Asimov's set of robot short stories is a total, well-conceived subversion of this agonized trope)

In reality, we know this trope is crap.  We fuck with nature all the time and somehow nature never bites us in the ass.  We manage to bite ourselves in the ass quite a lot (what with dumping into rivers and ignoring global warming and all that), but the results we're getting from our actions are measurable, logical results, not the principles of nature reasserting itself just because.  There are no special contingency rules in nature that state, "If you try to do something that will make a lot of people feel squicky, the science will fail and the technology will run amuck, destroying everyone."

People used to make that argument against artificial hearts.  Think about that.  Artificial hearts were decried because they would turn ordinary people into monsters.

A rethink of golems must begin with the tale of the Sorcerer's Apprentice (Goethe anticipated me by two hundred years plus).  In the hands of the know-nothing apprentice, the ignorant, science is a dangerous, wild element that seems impossible to contain.  When the wise sorcerer appears, however, the spell is easily broken.

Naturally, most choose to read the poem in terms of man-versus-god, pounding Goethe into the 16th century rather than the 18th.  Man plays with nature and gets in trouble; God appears and bails him out.  This is a rather ridiculous read for someone contemporary with Voltaire, Rousseau and Byron.  Moreover, Goethe's version of the tale is based upon a pagan original, written by the satirist Lucian (think John Cleese after 50).

The lesson is changed from "do not fuck with nature" to "don't fuck with nature unless you know what you're doing."  Problems begin when the ignorant get involved - not because we did something we shouldn't have been doing.  The first is a limit in ability.  The second is a limit in thinking.

That's why I want to toss out everything to do with golems based upon a strict reading of mythology. It makes a nice story for frightening children, but the guidelines are useless for game play.  The golem must be viewed as a rational construct . . . not a doomed failure predestined to be possessed by a random spirit.  The problem should not be in the construct itself, but in the maker.

Speaking of contemporaries of Byron, I wish people would actually read Frankenstein before discussing it.  The failure isn't in the monster, it is in the creator, who is so pathetically weak about his own efforts that he mistreats and drives the monster away, rather than showing love for it.  As the monster hides, it first has the opportunity to see what love and kindness are - then it has these things brutally denied to it.  In hating the monster, it is made into a MONSTER, that then sets out to take its revenge upon Frankenstein and then the world.  It isn't a monster because it is made of dead flesh.  It is a monster because of how it is treated.

According to story, Mary Shelley wrote the book while living with her husband Percy and Byron, who were her audience when she first read the book aloud.  But I digress.

The other change that I'm set to take in creating golems is to steal the ability away from mages and clerics.  These classes already have enough choices and fundamentally I believe they're in the wrong camp where it comes to thinking golems.

Golems are made of earth, stone, metal, wood, bone, natural 'fluids' and so on.  They are made of nature.  It makes so much more sense to me that if a golem is going to live in harmony with nature, it must be created by a class that understands nature.  That is why my golems are found in the sage abilities of druids.

Been thinking about this all week.  Hopefully, writing this post has helped clear my head and I can start building rules about golems now.  All I have written right now in the wiki is "Content to follow."

Gingerbread Boy

To create a living creature made of gingerbread, mix together 8 oz. flour, 8 oz. sugar, 4 oz. butter, 1 oz. yeast, 1 oz. salt, 1 oz. pepper and 1 oz. minced ginger root.  While baking, the creator must cast one of the following spells upon the oven: detect magic, faerie fire, purify water, charm person, cause light wounds or the reverse of goodberry.

The result will be a small living boy weighing approximately 8 oz. or one half a pound - or, alternately, for metric sizes, 250 grams (throughout this post, metric weights will be slightly more than imperial weights).  This boy will be correct proportionately and approximately 8 inches in height.  In character the boy will be malicious when fed, ravenously dangerous when hungry.

On its first day of life, the boy's appetite will crave 1 lb. of living matter (or 500 grams), half of which must comprise flesh, bone, hair, fur or hide, even tanned hide.  This will be gobbled quickly and the gingerbread boy's weight will increase by half the weight of the food, or 8 oz. (240 grams).

Each day thereafter the amount of food that the boy will require will double - 2 lbs., 4 lbs, 8 lbs. (500g, 1kg, 2kg, 4kg) and so on.  Each day, the gingerbread boy's size will grow proportionally, increasing by half the amount of living material eaten.  The boy will quite willingly eat anything that's alive, up to half its own weight - so that when the boy reaches 8 lbs. (4kg) it will be large enough to eat rats, at 16 lbs. (8kg) cats and at 32 lbs. (16kg) small dogs and so on.  The boy will double in size until it is as large as 4,000 lbs. (2000kg), whereupon it will collapse from its own weight.

Feeding time must be the first hour after the sun rises; if the boy is not fed by the end of that hour, it will become infuriated, making noise and attempting to break free from whatever confinement it has been placed, squeezing through bars or easily climbing up the smoothest of walls, seeking food on its own.  Once fed, it will become passive, though it will act out abusively towards others, causing animals in particular a point of damage each day if its creator is not there to watch it and sharply reprimand its behaviour (more or less continuously until the sunset).  If the creature does not receive its food by sunset, it will die.

While the boy, when passive, will do what it's told by its creator, this will only last until the creator becomes small enough to eat (that is, when the creator's weight becomes less than half of the gingerbread boy).  At that point, the boy will begin to do as it likes, which will mean randomly attacking anything or anyone within reach.

The boy will possess 1-8 hit points per 50 lbs. of weight, but will only attack as 1 hit DIE per 250 lbs. of weight.  Thus, the boy will have 10d8 hp when it has reached 512 lbs, but will only attack as a 2 hit die monster.

It will do a maximum of 1 damage per 25 lb. of weight, divided between two attacks (the right hand will be the stronger).  Thus, at 512 lb., the boy would do 1d10 damage with each fist.  At 1,024 lbs., this would be 2d10 with each fist.

While still under control, the gingerbread boy will gleefully enter combat, attacking enemies of the creator (eating them if small enough and the boy is still hungry), so that the boy will be useful until it reaches a size too large to be controlled.  A wise player will prepare in advance for when it is time for the gingerbread boy to be killed before it becomes dangerous.

If the boy senses that it is abandoned, it will 'know' the location of its creator and will seek to reunite if able.  The boy will only prefer to eat its creator if no other creature is available - such as the creator's party, animals, enemies, children in particular, etc.

Keep in mind that creating the gingerbread boy and releasing it at some point in a town (for example) will be something that draws attention.  The divination spell, cast by a 7th level cleric, can very easily determine the source of this sort of thing with two questions: who created the creature? and where is the creator now?

Food for Thought.