Naruto: Wait… we have computers?
Sasuke: Apparently, we have headsets, and refrigerators, too.
Naruto: So, are we in the current time, or… when in the hell are we?
Sasuke: Apparently, we have headsets, and refrigerators, too.
Naruto: So, are we in the current time, or… when in the hell are we?
The first land battle in the century's first war began with a showdown from a distant age: fearless men on horseback against modern artillery. America's money was on the ponies. They won.
—"The Afghan Way of War", TIME magazine
Sokka: ...Let me get this straight. You can invent tanksnote , jet skisnote , and a gi-gantic friggin' drillnote … but the concept of a hot air balloonnote eluuuuuuuuuuuuuudes you?
Mechanist: Um, yes.
Sokka: I hate this world and everyone in it.
Mechanist: Um, yes.
Sokka: I hate this world and everyone in it.
[W]e moved out and terraformed a whole new galaxy of Earths—some, rich and flush with the new technologies—some… not so much.
—Mal, Firefly
The 18th century was a time of rapid innovation; in the space of a single year, the two-storey building, the stage play, America, and the rocket launcher were all invented by the same man: Shakespearicles, the strongest writer who ever lived. Despite his powerful grasp of language and the ability to bench press 700 British pounds, several inventions eluded his iron grip—most tragically among them, stairs. For the next three hundred years, people who needed to get to the second floor used the only method available to them: shooting a rocket launcher at their feet.
"I have often been asked: if we have traveled between the stars, why can we not launch the simplest of orbital probes? These fools fail to understand the difficulty of finding the appropriate materials on this Planet, of developing adequate power supplies, and creating the infrastructure necessary to support such an effort. In short, we have struggled under the limitations of a colonial society on a virgin planet. Until now."
"So off you go into outer space after Rinoa. Nope, they don't have working radios in this world, but the space programme is decades ahead of ours!"
"Whoa, whoa, what's this? Are you kidding me? Are we using tape-reel computers? Noooo… Wait, are those slots for punch cards? […] Jesus Christ, I think that is a punch card slot."
Stuck in an era of vague specificity—torches, swords, arrows, also electricity!
Who knew elves had guns?
"You're telling me that there were spaceships in the 1800s?" Lars snapped. "Bullshit."
"It's true," Grey Wolf assured him. "The Earth was not ready for their kind yet, but their inventors crossed over the Threshold long before most people could comprehend space travel."
—Mage: The Ascension - Convention Book: Void Engineers
So we're talking "just invented plumbing", versus, uhh, "everybody has a portal inside their bodies that can transport poop to another world".
Vaarsuvius: No, I understand, I'm simply saying that the architectural motifs found here in the city of Cliffport are inconsistent with the presumed medieval time period.
Durkon: It be magic.
Vaarsuvius: Yes, fine, I grasp the premise that any sufficiently advanced — and in particular, reliable — magic would be indistinguishable from technology, I merely find the implementation here haphazard at best.
Durkon: Meh. It could be worse, ye know.
Vaarsuvius: Oh?
Durkon: They could have magic trains.
Durkon: It be magic.
Vaarsuvius: Yes, fine, I grasp the premise that any sufficiently advanced — and in particular, reliable — magic would be indistinguishable from technology, I merely find the implementation here haphazard at best.
Durkon: Meh. It could be worse, ye know.
Vaarsuvius: Oh?
Durkon: They could have magic trains.
Captain Calamari loosed a plasma bolt from his crossbow, but the charging cyborg knight hefted his magna-shield and deflected the sizzling violet flare into the dust, forcing the square-jawed hero to coolly reload his cumbersome, anachronistic weapon and wonder as he did why he couldn't have a blaster pistol like Han Solo instead of being stuck in this weird hybrid cyber-medieval universe.
— Steve Lauducci, Bethlehem, PA, The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2018: Science Fiction: Dishonorable Mentions
Outside, on the snow-strewn plain, amongst the fires and trenches, there were huge wooden siege structures and missile launchers, heavy artillery and rock-throwing catapults; juried field projectors and gas-powered-searchlights; a heinous collection of blatant anachronisms, developmental paradoxes and technological juxtapositions. And they called it progress.
"Men fire guided missiles, from their mounts' saddles; jets are shot down by guided arrows; throw-knives explode like artillery shells, or like as not get turned back by ancestral armour backed by those damned field projectors..."
— Astil Tremerst Keiver the Eighth, Use of Weapons
Hilda Chester: How are your people able to walk — I mean, travel — faster than light, when the rest of your arts are so simple?
Captain Togram: They are not! We make gunpowder, we cast iron and smelt steel, we have spyglasses to help our steerers guide us from star to star. We are no savages huddling in caves or shooting at each other with bows and arrows.
Chester: We have known all these things you mention for hundreds of years, but we did not think anyone could walk — damn, I keep saying that instead of 'travel' — faster than light. How did your people learn to do that?
Togram: We discovered it for ourselves. We did not have to learn it from some other starfaring race, as many folk do.
Chester: But how did you discover it?
Togram: How do I know? I'm a soldier; what do I care for such things? Who knows who invented gunpowder or found out about using bellows in a smithy to get the fire hot enough to melt iron? These things happen, that's all.
Captain Togram: They are not! We make gunpowder, we cast iron and smelt steel, we have spyglasses to help our steerers guide us from star to star. We are no savages huddling in caves or shooting at each other with bows and arrows.
Chester: We have known all these things you mention for hundreds of years, but we did not think anyone could walk — damn, I keep saying that instead of 'travel' — faster than light. How did your people learn to do that?
Togram: We discovered it for ourselves. We did not have to learn it from some other starfaring race, as many folk do.
Chester: But how did you discover it?
Togram: How do I know? I'm a soldier; what do I care for such things? Who knows who invented gunpowder or found out about using bellows in a smithy to get the fire hot enough to melt iron? These things happen, that's all.
In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery.
Stephen Briggs: But in more recent books, we're almost in early Victorian times. Sometimes we're almost in modern times...
Terry Pratchett: I can explain all this. Firstly, the Discworld is not a real place. It's scenery for the novels. Anyway, there's no reason why worlds should all develop in the same way. The Greeks had all the necessary theoretical knowledge and technical ability to invent the wind-up gramophone. The steam-powered gramophone, come to that. They just never did it.
Terry Pratchett: I can explain all this. Firstly, the Discworld is not a real place. It's scenery for the novels. Anyway, there's no reason why worlds should all develop in the same way. The Greeks had all the necessary theoretical knowledge and technical ability to invent the wind-up gramophone. The steam-powered gramophone, come to that. They just never did it.
—"The Definitive Interview", The Discworld Companion (first ed.)
ThatsANiceGuy: Ah, Cosmos Quest; a game in which you discover the Higgs boson long before you invent the diesel engine.
— A comment on Cosmos Quest: The Origin
