>spacers

You mean void adapted humans? They forsook their brethren by forsaking the perfection of the human form.

The Ousters are not exactly villains mind.

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>>83771206
Spacers in general. From Zeonites to Hideazou or Gravitals.

>>83771123
i mean its pretty simple. they're humans but weird, they're basically indigenous to the uncanny valley

>>83771123
they are a mixture of alien and human, existing in the uncanny valley as a result
it's the same reason that All Tomorrows is so horrifying

>>83771206
>The Ousters are not exactly villains mind
They are literally the good guys, and the HEGEMONY OF MAN is actually an expansionist, corporatist empire run by super intelligent evil AIs, despite being where all the protagonists hail from and looking a lot like an idealistic federation-style space government initially.

>>83771123
Disdain for dirt-eaters

>>83771123
>ousters
>villains

t. globalist

>>83772051
When in the book did you realise the Hegemony was just our current awful system but in space?

>>83771318
>Hideazou
Breathing in Space is such an evil concept compared to flushing half of every generation down the toilet on account of limited resources.

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>>83772006
You can have a entire menagerie of transhuman horros when dealing with spacers. From minor modifications to massive modifications either united under a geno-cracy or being a anarchic plague to the cosmos.

>>83772276
I started getting suspicious during Brawne's story, but all the parallels between the Hegemony and neoliberal America weren't apparent until the Consul's tale at the end. It's amazing Hyperion was written in 1989 considering how spot-on its portrayal of a post-information age society is. Among the literature references and fantastical worldbuilding and other things going on in the book, Simmons also perfectly extrapolated the ideas of cyberpunk to the scale of a space opera.

>>83772287
>Be able to breath in space
>Still not fly enough to slowboat outta the solar system

>>83772006
It's horrifying?

>>83771123
Unmodified spacers are mostly too poor and too weak to pose any threat. The only way unmodified spacers could be strong enough to pose a threat is going full ONeill and Zeon, so to minimize the effects of space but then they live just like planetary types and the differences are nill.
Modified spacers on the other hand offer more potential. They could either be like the Cybermen from Doctor Who and be forced to use tech merely to survive and the harshness they had to deal with gives them a harsh outlook to love in general. Or they could have been founded by a ideological group that wanted to eternally progress further and the steps they made made the divide between planetary and space people to vast to meet as equals. There is also a elegance in the corruption of a ideal that even changed its population and that the cold and alien enviroment is now mirrored in the people of these descendants of radical pioneers.

>>83772051
>looking a lot like an idealistic federation-style space government initially
Implying the Federation is some rosy campfire and not a neurotechno-fascist human empire conquering neighboring species through diplomacy after the Eugenic Wars.

Why can't Dan Simmons follow through?

>>83776563
Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion works fine a duology, and only falls off a bit in the second book. The problem with all the books after Hyperion is one inherent to fiction: the stuff the audience imagines in the mystery boxes is almost always cooler than what's actually there. But you can't tell a full story without opening some of the boxes.

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Hope, Ambition, Pride, Supremacy, Community, Nationalism, Curiosity, Ruthlessness, Honesty, Coldness

>>83771318
gravitals weren't spacers, that was the asteromorphs. They could survive in space sure but the book says they lived on planets.

Because inyalowda think their gravity and their resources makes them better, but it just makes them weak and dependent.

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>>83771123
Twisted hubris.

>>83771123
They're basically recolored cowboys living on the outskirts of civilization.

>>83771123
Deep space is like the deep sea: it's a dark and hostile place where life shouldn't exist, and any life that does exist there will be twisted and horrifying.

>>83772276
>our current awful system

AHHH NO HELP ME I LIVE IN THE MOST PROSPEROUS COUNTRY AT THE MOST PROPSTEROUS TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY ITS SO BAD SAVE ME HITLER AND/OR MARX

>>83771123
Because as hard and barren space is, it's sheer size makes it an infinite frontier. Pre-spacefaring civilization was based on ownership of land, resources and industry, maintained by a monopoly on violence. The spacer exists independent of such things , as in order to be a "spacer" rather than a "spaceborn colonist", one must be independent of, partially or totally of static infrastructure, capable of drawing instead from the near infinite resources of the universe. The spacer is a nomad free of static civilization, he carries all he need to sustain himself and his technology with him, and if he finds himself prosecuted, he may simply leave, scattering this way and that if he wishes. He is free of laws and states and all their restrictions, he can go where he wants and do as he pleases, and all he must do is adapt to the void. So he breaks past the limits of humanity, abandons them, perhaps for necessity, perhaps because he wants to, perhaps because no one can stop him, it matters little. He is free now, and those behind the walls of atmosphere hate him for it.

>>83780931
>the things I need are more expensive than ever but I don't care because the things I don't need are cheaper than ever

>>83780931
There's heaps of evidence that average people are less happy, less healthy, and less wealthy than a few decades ago, despite increases in technology and productivity.

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>>83780678
>>83780947
The perfect ideology.

>>83781054
>>83781052
>Naziism, communism and globalist authoritarianism are the only options

He's trolling, ignore and report.

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I like the Brigador spacers

>A loose spaceborne culture of decadent hedonists descended from the wealthiest of humanity's elite who, bored with the long, strife-free lives granted to them by their advanced technology, seek the extremes of human experience and revel in combat and pillaging. Some Spacers find mercenary work in organized groups while others work alone. Some are contracted by the SNC, some are contracted by other groups, and some are in it to conquer and loot in their own right rather than under the auspices of any employer. They harbor a deep resentment of terrestrial humans and consider them to be little more than animals, disdainful of the fact that Spacers 'evolved' from such stock. As a result, they are often remarkably cruel and take joy in fielding weapons with horrific effects.

>A close friend once told me, "Spacers' blood is so cold it froze blue decades ago."

>As much as I want to take credit for that little turn of phrase, it's so perfect that I can't. Spacers are the elite, the part of society that walled itself off in tiny communities until even that got too close to being human for their comfort. Now, the closest any of them get to an Earth-like planet is getting sent to one for boarding school (and puberty) so their organs don't implode whenever they enter a gravity well as an adult. The planets that you and I spend our lives on are only interesting to them for the resources and capital they can extract to keep their cyclopean shops and luxury economies running. As advanced as they are - and they are very, very advanced - they still need to dock every few months of subjective time in order to keep the party going. That's why any Brigador worth their salt - that is, any that are still alive - knows to sharpen up and get serious when the red paint turns up on the screens. If you think you'd like the good life, the Spacers have never known anything else, and they are not planning on stopping anytime soon. No matter who gets in their way.

>>83780947

Damn. That shit hit me deep in the wanderlust.

I just finished reading The Hunger, a fictionalization of the Donner Party. And what struck me is the raw willingness to pick up and just... go into the wild. These people HAD lives, mostly successful ones, where they were. And instead they decided for their own reasons to pack up and wander into what is basically uncharted wilderness and travel for, even at the outset before delays, was guaranteed to be close to 6 months, on foot and wagon. And they had no guarantees of success at the end of that journey, only a clean slate.

That mindset is basically foreign in modern terms. Not only because there is no wilderness to set off into, no unclaimed land to just take, but we seem addicted to weighing the inconveniences. People avoid moving to near identical cities for career advancements because they'd be leaving behind friends and family they can still communicate with in real time. Settlers left behind friends and family never to see or hear from them again for the hope of a bigger farm.

Oh how I wish the age of space to come within my lifetime.

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>>83781547
>The notorious Clotilde Aalto: model, actress, dancer, high-profile criminal. She tore through the standard vices of the wealthy elite; beyond them lay the perversions of the hedonist, and she lay waste to those as easily as her bloodsport opponents. Aalto has managed to shock even our proudly decadent society with her latest exploits, such as turning gestation vats into a sous-vide of her still developing progeny - a most delectable Spacer balut.
They are a bunch of cannibals and gene-bred killers. They are just human Dark Eldar.

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>>83781622
The funniest thing to me is that if you go by the campaign missions, the depressed alcoholic with chips in his brain is actually the best pilot they've got.

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My own spacers are just used to autocracy and tyranny. In orbital habitats, living space is at a premium and everything needs to be accounted for and recycled. Your lives depend on the autocratic organizations who hold the remotes that determine if your block gets air filtered in or not. At best you live in a harsh and uncompromising but prosperous police state and at worst you are basically North Korea in space with even less hope for change. People will work themselves to the bone solely to save up enough money to get their kid taken literally anywhere else. Planetoid dwellers are a step up usually, with the gravity mild enough that the child will adjust. They honestly got the worst deal out of all humans.

>>83771123
The high level execs explaining why they were losing to the Ousters in the space battle over Hyperion was possibly one of the best exposed sci fi battles I've ever read about. You got a great impression of the doctrinal differences and how that was playing out without whole chapters of battleporn. Close second is the opening battle from Judas Unchained where the battle was 99% a contest of who can open more wormholes and launch more nukes. Battles the likes of which in these two books make space opera battles seem so silly in contrast.

>>83774988
Fuck off with this nu-trek bullshit.

>>83772279
Was the destruction of their sapience really necessary? Personally I`m all in space adaption but the loss of civilization and thought is the vry opposite for which people should work for.

>>83782901
It's a byproduct of their biological excellence not something they ever intended. Civilization and technology are crutches to make up for humanity's biological shortfalls. While I wouldn't call the evolutionists and their descendants perfect lifeforms they come closer than baseline humans.

>>83783006
Psssh. Loss of sapiency is the definition of lowering yourself. The idea that lack of consciousness "improves" a lifeform is popular right now, but its stupid and a fad.

Consciousness allows appreciation of beauty, creation of art, doing things that AREN'T necessary for survival. Without these things the universe remains effectively dead. Just chemical automatons going about reproduction. Adding value, in the form of beauty and art is the highest form of living. And yes, art is subjective and blah blah blah, but if you CANNOT make art, no matter how ugly it may be to me subjectively, even if its just a stick figure, you are no more than an animal.

>>83771123
You can`t be a villain to soil vermin that willfully blinded themselves, stagnating as the beast they are, their souls chained by gravity. No, it is mercy to get rid of them.

>>83784434
Yes, my point exactly. They bioengineered their way into complete self sufficiency and as a result lost the need for technology or civilization and the level of intelligence needed to maintain them. Since these things are all MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE in one way or another and they no longer help them have kids selection pressure kills them off until you have earthbound whalesquids who are maybe dolphin or chimp smart. Though personally I think the spaceborne hideauz are still people smart if only because of their war with the other humans.

>>83782115
TOS S1E9 Dagger of the Mind
and
Voyager S1E1 scene with Tom Paris on the prison planet
Both the Eugenics Wars and mandatory neural dampening, at least in Starfleet, are established canon. Nutrek my ass.

>>83780931
>AT THE MOST PROPSTEROUS TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY
Did you know all of England's great cathedrals were built with volunteer labour, because farmers spent most of their year not doing anything after advancements in agricultural techniques? Can you imagine an Amazon warehouse slave having the time to volunteer for even a fucking soup kitchen?

>>83782115
Remember when Kirk conquers a planet of gangsters, subverts their culture, and forces them to swear loyalty to the Federation? Because I do.

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>>83788876
FUCK gangsters!

>>83780931
Climate and ecological crisis.

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>>83771123
They're both dangerously batshit and comically inept.

>>83787710
>mandatory neural dampening
is this a serious concept or just technobabble?

>>83772051
Hyperion makes it very clear that the Hegemony knows the AIs are up to something without humanity's best interest in mind and are trying to figure out a way to oppose them without them catching on. The Ousters, while correct about the AIs, have the problem in that they can't actually fight the AIs and are perfectly willing to kill every last person in the Hegemony to save them.

>>83789537
>the Hegemony knows the AIs are up to something without humanity's best interest in mind and are trying to figure out a way to oppose them without them catching on
Gladstone and her inner circle know this, but it's not common knowledge and most of the Hegemony's actions are controlled by the AIs, directly or indirectly. That's why in the end Gladstone has to destroy her government from the inside to save its people.

>>83783006
I don't buy the argument that society evolved to compensate for biological weakness because in nature the most socially complex animals are usually also the most physically dangerous, such as elephants, gorillas and killer whales.

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>>83774988

>>83788876
I mean to be fair a planet of aliens that decided to model their entire planet's culture around a single alien relic they found probably wasn't capable of long-term survival in the first place.

>>83771123
Earth-bound envy makes them easy to hate.

>>83780931
>AHHH NO HELP ME I LIVE IN THE MOST PROSPEROUS COUNTRY AT THE MOST PROPSTEROUS TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY ITS SO BAD SAVE ME HITLER AND/OR MARX
You must be genuinely retarded to not realize the exponentially increasing debt, oil shortages, inflation and now biannual recessions that are constantly occurring. How deep is your head in the sand?

>>83781052
>>83781054
>>83787878
>>83789211
>>83791807
>They hated him because he told them the truth

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>>83780874
Seeker of darkness.

>>83780931
The system as a whole is prosperous, but all of said prosperity goes to the people running the system.

>>83776563
Because at some point he gets really horny and/or really Zionist, and he has to insert that into his novels.
Ilium was great, but then the sequel ended with the Jewish people retaking Jerusalem from Islamic monster things, and two prepubescent kids having graphic sex in the 1970s. And this was originally a story about the Trojan War in space.

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>>83771123
Genetically or otherwise modified humans make good villains.

>>83789528
Watch those two episodes and draw your own conclusions. The only reasonable conclusion you will reach is that Dr. Adams' work continued because the reason Tom Paris is in prison 100 years later (in Voyager) is that he refuses to have the behavior modifier installed/injected despite it being mandatory for Starfleet crew.
I write this as a fan, Star Trek is a totalitarian nightmare world with a glossy coating.

>>83795167
Is Simmons actually jewish or just fascinated by jewish culture? Because both Hyperion and Ilium feature Jewish characters prominently, but I also can't imagine a hardcore Israeli nationalist making a character like Colonel Kassad.

>>83798880
Simmons is a Mormon Judeophile.

That is all you need to know about his religious and political affectations.

>>83790402
t. borg

>>83799305
Is it just me or are Mormons strangely over-represented in fantasy and science fiction authorship?

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>>83771318
Zeon did nothing wrong, Gihren saved us from the Australian shitposting menace.

>>83799426
jupiter energy fleet >>> zeon > feddies

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>>83780489
Clearly aren't 'better' as people if they fall to meet that level of schizo baby-hate. Imagine if the transhumans responded with shock, gentle dismissal, compassion, and ultimately open invitations to coexist in peace and tolerance. Those two neo-beatniks seem a bit fun.

>>83771123
Nothing. Great villains are defined by being perfectly reasonable and just people, who want reasonable things, but are forced into conflict by circumstances and the failures of others. Not living in fucking space full-time.

>>83772006
>All tomorrows is horrifying
If there are descendants of ours 100 million years from now, and I hope there are, they won't resemble us in any way, physically culturally or mentally. But I hope they have peace, prosperity, connection to each other and their pasts, and above all a deep happiness born of fully satisfied moral conscious.

>>83796734
They are terribly uninteresting when their 'improvements' have only made the transhumans more capable / effective at tasks rather than more cooperative and rational. Transhumans dreamed up by most writers, who are baselines, are ultimately super disappointing because most writers are brainlets.

>>83780931
>>83792440
Schizo, no one said that, or appealed to any figure like Hitler or Marx to save them. The system has serious problems. We have concerns. The exponentially increasing growth and consumption strategy hasn't been seeing great outcomes in a while now. It needs big adjustments.

>>83782115
>>83797322
Reminder that Gene Roddenberry was against all funeral or death mourning scenes in TOS and TNG because he believed his utopian future of enlightened rationalist atheist communists wouldn't mourn a lost loved one because they'd callously acknowledge death as a function of life and move on without a further thought for the dead like some sort of humanoid ant. Everyone's utopia will always be someone else's dystopia.

>>83771123
>8 inches tall
can't be too smart with such a small brain. Can't imagine an eight-inch-tall villain

>>83799748
When he got his own show it was absurd. The 'bad guy' race were objectivist modified humans who believe in survival of the fittest called 'Neitzscheans'. And the 'good guys' were a commonwealth of people so tolerant (retarded) that they refused to exterminate carnivorous aliens that lay eggs in living sentient beings.

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>>83800326
>his own show

Andromeda was made nine years after Roddenberry died, dumbass. It just got his name slapped on it for marketing, because some of his old scripts and world bible stuff were technically used in the writing.

The actual "his own show" was Star Trek TNG S1 and (most of) S2, where he had monomaniacal control, and you can see the huge jump in quality in TNG S3 because he was basically on his deathbed at that point.

>that they refused to exterminate

Were unable to exterminate. The background setup is that the Commonwealth were losing the war badly enough to sacrifice one of their own core planets for a temporary peace treaty.

Honestly I'm not surprised they tried to dump the Neitzschean home world, all those guys are assholes who (in true Objectivist fashion) couldn't even complete their original goal of taking over because they were too busy fighting each other over who would get to take over.

>>83795167
How come all science fiction writers sooner or later turn out to be pedophiles?

>>83782088
The early Honor Harrington books have pretty good space combat, with a mix of, on the one hand, Napoleonic era style ships just battering each other in highly detailed gruesome ways until one side dies, and on the other, imaginative uses of the rules of space technology in the setting on the setting.

At a certain point the author stops giving a shit, though, and all the space stuff just turns into the good guys firing ten million missiles and then winning because they have somehow have better industrial production than every other faction even though all their spaceyards already got blown up in one of the books.