"Which fictional universe would you rather live in?"

It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

In our defense, it is VERY post-apocalyptic, like 400 years or so depending on where you tag in.

According to Star Trek canon, all the apocalyptic stuff lasts for about a century, tops. The Eugenics Wars started in 1992 (pre-retcon to make them happen further in the future), the nuclear exchange happened no later than 2053, the Vulcans showed up in 2063, and Earth society appeared to be completely recovered by 2121 (the time of Enterprise).

Then let's hope they get dropped off at the right time.

Yeah but they didn't have weapons that could flash-vaporize entire cities while setting thousands of square miles of everything on radioactive fire. Honestly theirs was probably worse.

The most recent apocalypse could arguably be 536 AD, when most of the world couldn't see the sun for 18 months.

If you want to live in a fictional universe, you should mention when.

We just get to die in the water wars instead. Yay!

Haven't read any of those in an age. I liked it! Sentient wasps was fun, but a billion-year-old malevolent pseudo-virus that rapidly turned you into a military agent of an ancient and hugely destructive race was... less so.

And that's why it's the best place to live.

It's a bit taboo, but I believe permitted. "Typical" lifespans are on the order of a few hundred years.

I'd take his claim to have read it as seriously as anything else he says.

He also breathes oxygen. Whatcha gonna do now?

Chuds like rage against the machine too. Doesn't make Rage any less excellent.

He might have read it, but did he understand it? He's a fan of the Torment Nexus.

Yeeeah, I'm not so sure I'd opt for the Polity in third place. It has a lot of problems, and major population centers are regularly threatened. And their AIs go rouge with alarming frequency, but that's probably a consequence of being force-grown for war. Plus, just... Prador. As a civilian, I'd rather face xenophobic Idirans over Prador any day.

The appendix in Consider Phlebus put the Iridian war into interesting perspective.

Listen, if Bashir can casually turn Sisko into a klingon in an afternoon, outpatient, I'm pretty sure becoming my fursona gender transition is nbd

I think this is actually one of the more clever points Banks makes, although not explicitly.

Fundamentally, the Culture believes that living things (and their definition in this regard is remarkably broad) have a moral right to exist. Therefore, as a society they are not expansionist. In order to remain non-expansionist, the population must be kept stable and this has implications either in childbearing or lifespans. The average Culture human mothers about one child but that means they can't, on average live forever. Why they choose to have children at all perhaps also boils down to the future generation's moral right to exist, but also because they recognize that a renewing population means a renewing culture and Culture.

In this light, I believe it's easy to see immortality as a sort of childish self-aggrandizement comparable to wanting to become the ruler of some backwards planet. Skaffen-Amtiscaw (an artificial entity and citizen of the Culture) even remarks on Zakalwe's immortality as childish in Use of Weapons.

The Culture never appeals to nature – how could they, they are ruled by their Minds!

(Mind is a sort of very powerful artificial intelligence).

There is a lot of similarities between the Culture and Trek, they are both visions of post-scarcity humanity made impossible by the simple fact that humans could never be that nice.

If you knew anything about The Culture, you'd know it's not that simple.

Attitudes individual citizens have towards death are varied (and have varied throughout the Culture's history). While many, if not most, citizens make some use of backup technology, many others do not, preferring instead to risk death without the possibility of recovery (for example when engaging in extreme sports). These citizens are sometimes called "disposables", and are described in Look to Windward. Taking into account such accidents, voluntary euthanasia for emotional reasons, or choices like sublimation (abandoning physical reality), the average lifespan of humans is said in Excession to be around 350 to 400 years. Some citizens choose to forgo death altogether, although this is rarely done and is viewed as an eccentricity. Other options instead of death include conversion of an individual's consciousness into an AI, joining of a group mind (which can include biological and non-biological consciousnesses), or subliming (usually in association with a group mind).

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Death

I want optional mortality, but am also comfortable with death, and I can imagine situations of survival where I would prefer death.

Based on what I know, 99% of humans live in hive worlds and will never see conflict. The stories, the wars? Galaxy wide - like just looking at a map of the galaxy and how long space travel takes? Not just the warp traitors, but orks and Nids with their "proper" propulsion? The worst most humans will face is Darktide-style incursions of rot under a hive, and even then the upper levels may not even be aware of such.

The far and wide galaxy of Warhammer may certainly not be good, as theres settings like Star Trek where no matter where you go youre rocking a good time - but idk the worst most humans have to deal with is god-aweful mismanagement and ineffective government of the hive, maybe a Mechanicus comes to town and calls people "pre-servitors" for awhile and then fucks off back to Mars. The cities are beautiful when they're not on fire. Chances of being born to a mundane non-hellscape and living and dying with nothing happening are pretty good tbh

What about 5 mins with a Drukhari?

Ok, so remote Federation scientists seem to suffer a lot in ST, but I wonder how much of that is survivor bias. I mean, we can assume redshirt casualty rates are fairly consistent across starships, although that could be a leadership issue; but what if there's a vast population of remote research outposts and only a very tiny fraction ever gets in trouble? We just don't know. The Federation is enormous, and covers a vast 3d volume - if there are outposts even slightly evenly distributed across the surface of that volume, we'd be looking at a large population. More researchers probably die from slipping on food spills than rogue revived eugenics war corpcicles.

And don't wear a red shirt.

Wolf 359 is one of the closest starts to our solar system.

They weren't stopped there - they made it to Earth orbit before shutting down! Then they did it again a few years later!

Or get naturalized as a Caitan.

The problem with Enterprise is that it was kind sold as Star Trek before the transporters, before the shields, before the replicators, etc., but what we got instead was:

• Transporters Transporters, but only if we really need to.
• Raise the shields Polarise the hull plating.
• Replicator Protein resequencer.
• Tractor beam Grappling hook.

They didn't actually write a story about what it was like without these things, just what it was like with slightly shittier versions of these things.

Agree, that was well thought out. Also I loved how Toshi got a jarring feeling when the ship went into warp and it gave her the heebie jeebies. It totally made sense that some people would be aware of that, especially somebody whose "different" brain workings enabled her to parse meaning out of unfamiliar languages.

I thought they should have also made the Vulcan mind meld mysterious and weird at first - it's been so long I don't remember how they handled that, but in my own ideas for a retro series before Enterprise came out I thought the Vulcans would sort of keep the mind meld private and personal. The first time it would be used in an episode - reluctantly, in an emergency - it would really spook the crew. They would wonder, "Can they read our minds? Are they controlling us?" It would create a lot of tension and the Vulcans would have to rebuild trust.

Enterprise doesn't get a lot of love, but I really enjoyed it and was sad when it got cut short.

If it's the very same you, how was Thomas Riker created?

Heck, if you're the people type you could probably get a place on Risa and make a living out of hanging out in a bar and telling the tourists where they can get the best Bolian food on the planet. That's a perfectly sensible life trajectory in the Federation.

My general idea would be to be somewhere important enough that your quality of life is closer to TNG or Earth than DS9, without being in the constant danger and risk that TNG and Earth provide.

Thats a net positive.

Oh no, did the holodeck break and turn all the holograms real and evil? That's the second time this stardate

If you're talking about earth then doctors and replicators are standard. People that don't have replicators are unusual. Holodecks do use a lot of energy so I'm not sure how common they are, probably more like a theater would be as an amenity for a city not one on every corner. They had free teleportation on earth with some usage restrictions so the holodecks would probably be free but with like a once a week usage or limited appointments.

Or during post-WW3, Or pre WW3 in the Sanctuary districts,

I've got some bad news for you...

I don't think we're capable of a utopia on a large scale. Not unless our fundamental nature is altered, anyway.

But what if I didn't want any time line shenanigans at all?

Don't forget the record scratch

Klingons are Tankies.