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<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4827084" data-attributes="member: 80487">That's a good point, GMforPowergamers. A counterpoint is that the future is never what it used to be -- and trying to make it look more like today just ensures that there's something to &quot;date&quot;. Star Trek from the 1960s, or Forbidden Planet from the 1950s, is only so much more strikingly (and quite appropriately) &quot;out of this world&quot;. Indeed, when I saw in the early 1970s the footage from the original Trek pilot (worked into the two-part episode in which Kirk faces a court martial), it impressed me as even stranger.There must be familiar points of reference, because of course the story is really about us. However, we also need some sense of that gulf of time -- and anachronisms from&nbsp; the past are the only ones we really know! All we can say for sure about life 300 years hence is that it is likely to be very different. So, what we cannot even conceive in literal terms we must represent symbolically. It's the reverse of &quot;updating&quot; Shakespeare in modern dress for a play that had a &quot;contemporary&quot; setting when it was written.(If memory serves, Star Trek postulated the collapse of our present civilization before the rise of that which produced the Star Fleet. That and/or other cultural influences could rationalize customs that may seem old-fashioned to us, and of course there is always fashion itself!)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 4827084, member: 80487"] That's a good point, GMforPowergamers. A counterpoint is that the future is never what it used to be -- and trying to make it look more like today just ensures that there's something to "date". [I]Star Trek[/I] from the 1960s, or [I]Forbidden Planet[/I] from the 1950s, is only so much more strikingly (and quite appropriately) "out of this world". Indeed, when I saw in the early 1970s the footage from the original Trek pilot (worked into the two-part episode in which Kirk faces a court martial), it impressed me as even stranger. There must be familiar points of reference, because of course the story is really about [I]us[/I]. However, we also need some sense of that gulf of time -- and anachronisms from the past are the only ones we really know! All we can say for sure about life 300 years hence is that it is likely to be very different. So, what we cannot even conceive in literal terms we must represent symbolically. It's the reverse of "updating" Shakespeare in modern dress for a play that had a "contemporary" setting when it was written. (If memory serves, [I]Star Trek[/I] postulated the collapse of our present civilization before the rise of that which produced the Star Fleet. That and/or other cultural influences could rationalize customs that may seem old-fashioned to us, and of course there is always [I]fashion[/I] itself!) [/QUOTE]

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