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Report on an Unidentified Space Station (1982)
- voldacar 6y agoVery cool - reminds me a bit of Borges' "Library of Babel". I love the oceanic sense of vastness it gave me while reading it.
- a_e_k 6y agoIf you liked the "Library of Babel", let me highly recommend another story by Borges, "The Immortal". It is perhaps an even stronger match for Ballard's story here and has an especially good depiction of the sort of results that you get from procedural generation: > /This palace is the work of the gods,/ was my first thought. I explored the uninhabited spaces, and I corrected myself: /The gods that built this place have died./ Then I reflected on its peculiarities, and told myself: /The gods that built this place were mad./ I said this, I know, in a tone of incomprehensible reproof that verged upon remorse--with more intellectual horror than sensory fear. The impression of great antiquity was joined by others: the impression of endlessness, the sensation of oppressiveness and horror, the sensation of complex irrationality. (There's more to it, but I don't want to spoil it. Suffice to say that this one has something of the antithesis of the nice, neat hexagons in "Library".)
- voldacar 6y agoI will check that out, thank you. I should read more Borges. His ability to write very short pieces of text that are interesting and thought-provoking is unmatched.
- staplung 6y agoSoooo...Heathrow during the pandemic?
- mikewarot 6y agoAbout as scary as the Ikea store - http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-3008 http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-3008
- nsxwolf 6y agoI feel good knowing that some people have managed to escape.
- Waterluvian 6y agoThere's a fun little game that procedurally generates an infinite IKEA as the world for an indie survival game. I can't find it anymore but it was a funny concept.
- andrewflnr 6y agoThere is at least one video game explicitly based on SCP-3008. I'm guessing it's the same one.
- MayeulC 6y agoThere is one such gamemode for minetest, but it's a bit dull: https://content.minetest.net/packages/benrob0329/ikea/ https://content.minetest.net/packages/benrob0329/ikea/
- probably_wrong 6y agoI think you mean the game "SCP-3008" [1]. If that's the correct one, there's a stream [2] in the LoadingReadyRun youtube channel of people playing it. Not much happens in the video, but maybe the game has evolved in the last three years? [1] http://thaumielgames.com/index.php/scp-3008/ http://thaumielgames.com/index.php/scp-3008/ [2] https://youtu.be/2u4Xe7NaNO8?t=2269 https://youtu.be/2u4Xe7NaNO8?t=2269
- Waterluvian 6y agoYep that's the one. Hilarious concept.
- topynate 6y agoReminds me, perhaps ironically, of C.S. Lewis' description of Hell in The Great Divorce. Canadian public domain link: https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20140726 https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20140726
- hoyd 6y agoWas thinking about the same novel.
- King-Aaron 6y agoSo I don't quite get it. Is the station a metaphor for them having died and are in some kind of purgatory?
- FloppyDisk2021 6y ago...
- basementcat 6y agoI thought the whole point of sci-fi was to comment on society, politics, etc.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- JetAlone 6y agoTeleologically speaking, that's one of its uses... But I think the whole point of sci-fi is more about story-telling through "what-ifs" of varying feasibility driven by vision and imagination. It's easy for that to become ideological commentary, even propaganda because our visions are affected by our worldview. But personally, I still wouldn't say that commentary defines any genre of writing besides commentary.
- goatlover 6y agoI personally like sci-fi for the sci-fi, as long as the story and characters are interesting and well written. It can include commentary on society and politics as a lot of good stories do, but it's not the main reason for reading or watching science fiction for me. It is supposed to be set in a fictional world, after all. One of imagination and exploring possibilities. And if it's just used as a medium for commenting on contemporary issues, I'm not interested. There's other mediums for that like the news or documentaries.
- spacemanmatt 6y ago> It is supposed I think that begins an overly-subjective line of thinking that just doesn't fit everyone. It certainly doesn't fit me.
- jimmcslim 6y agoI’m reminded of the Mexican film ‘El incidente’, probably available on Netflix in your region.
- whywhywhywhy 6y agoSeconding ‘El incidente’, definitely worth a watch. Also Blame on Netflix although different sort of theme to this is worth a watch if you want your megastructures itch scratched.
- ketamine__ 6y ago"to small"? typo?
- pram 6y agoMy interpretation of this is: they entered a thing that is generating and expanding the further they travel, like world chunks in Minecraft. They're making it bigger by exploring it.
- JetAlone 6y agoFrom the outside they measured a high gravity even though they estimated 500 meters diameter and there's reason to believe there have been past explorers, so it only makes sense to me if it's actually bigger on the inside. The actual mass and inner depths could be expanding as you posit, though.
- zaarn 6y agoIt might exist in hyperbolic space; the station folds in on itself. Although it appears to be only a few dozen meters large from the outside, once you're in it's space, it appears much larger (500 meters) and the inside, which is endlessly looping in on itself) contains much more mass than the space should allow, squeezing what seems to be endless amounts of space into finite space.
- kaetemi 6y agoTo me it just reads like they landed on an uninhabited Earth, in a time when everyone's already forgotten that people used to live on a planet.
- rozab 6y agoPerhaps the architects of this station once read the instructions on a packet of toothpicks.
- m1ck 6y agoSome context https://boingboing.net/2020/12/15/the-quiet-horror-of-procedural-generation.html/amp https://boingboing.net/2020/12/15/the-quiet-horror-of-proced...
- walrus01 6y agoProcedurally generated things are not always as expected: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG_ErhAeROU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG_ErhAeROU
- Apocryphon 6y agoMore broadly speaking, liminal spaces https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N63pQGhvK4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N63pQGhvK4M
- Sniffnoy 6y agoNon-AMP link: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/15/the-quiet-horror-of-procedural-generation.html https://boingboing.net/2020/12/15/the-quiet-horror-of-proced...
- p1mrx 6y agoThis doesn't make much sense. If they're exploring on foot, then on what basis could they estimate any sizes beyond 500 miles or so?
- alanbernstein 6y agoDid you not see that they have instruments?
- p1mrx 6y agoIf their instruments can tell them that the station is 15,000 light years across, then why do they need to explore at all?
- spacemanmatt 6y agoThe point is the evolving picture revealed by instruments and data collection
- alanbernstein 6y agoSounds like hyperbolic space: https://www.roguetemple.com/z/hyper/online.php https://www.roguetemple.com/z/hyper/online.php
- etbusch 6y agoI remember reading somewhere that this short story inspired "The Parking Garage" episode of Seinfeld.
- teddyh 6y agoSomewhat reminescent of House of Leaves. See also the term “Liminal spaces”: https://imgur.com/gallery/xwOFK https://imgur.com/gallery/xwOFK
- LandR 6y agoHouse of Leaves is a great book. ANd in places really creepy and claustraphobic. I read it on the bus when I used to have to commute for 4 hours a day. Must have looked weird reading this giant book, and at some points reading it upside down, or on its side, or flicking through pages pretty fast (some pages only have 1 or 2 words on them).
- andai 6y agoThe Infinite IKEA http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-3008 http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-3008
- ddevault 6y agoI had an opportunity in 2019 to get lost in the Franklin Institute after hours with a couple of friends. Most of the lights were off, not a soul to be found, and some of the normal passageways were locked. The only signs of life was near the event nestled in a small corner at the back of the building, which we had arrived late to and decided not to disturb, choosing to explore instead. Cool experience. Another take on this idea can be found in the extremely good anime "The Tatami Galaxy".
- headmelted 6y agoI thought after the second report that this was moving in a very Jean-Paul Sartre direction with the idea of the inhabitants being trapped not just within the station, but in each other's company, infinitely (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Exit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Exit). Was pleasantly surprised by the direction it ended up taking.
- shifto 6y agoReminds me of the Blame! manga.
- paulmooreparks 6y agoAm I silly for thinking this was a satirical essay on software estimation?
- vnxli 6y agoIt’s got a good Rendezvous with Rama vibe to it. Y’all know of any other sci-fi stories in this vein?