this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 159 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Yeah, I could see them making people work centuries to pay off the debt, or even worse, it only extends your life by a few years at a time and they turn it into a subscription service

[–] [email protected] 57 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Now you're thinking with capitalism!

Also similar concept, check out John Scalzi's Old man's war, follows that idea

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Fantastic hard sci-fi book series. And it didn't focus on this one high concept but has lots of themes about humanity. PS: Apparently a TV series is under development!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I never really understood why people called it similar to The Forever War.

The "similar premise" is mostly just acknowledging that relativity is important to space travel.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Wait, Old Man's War has FTL? Or was it important for in-system battles? I haven't read them in a while.

I recently red The Star Carrier Series by Ian Douglas and that has FTL and interesting hard-sci fi battles with relativity effects.

I agree that the forever war is quite different in concept and style, much more esoterical.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

OMW uses "skip drives" which are teleportation through multidimensional travel, time dilation is still a bit of a factor, but not nearly to the extent of The Forever War where it's practically the whole idea (as far as the science in the sci-fi goes)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah that's how I remember it. The similar premise is that in both stories people leave earth and go on extended war campaigns.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Right, but that's like, half of science fiction!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

There's also the terrific book, Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley, a book I bought on a whim when killing time in a college bookstore with a tiny sci-fi section and have since recommended to many people who thanked me for the recommendation.

The concept is that in the future, it is discovered that there is an afterlife, but only a very small number of people can get there naturally. So a medical procedure is developed that allows people to get to the afterlife. However, only the wealthy can afford it. Once their afterlife is guaranteed (things can go wrong, but that's another issue), they do things like start hacking people to death in the streets to commit suicide-by-cop because what have they got to lose?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortality,_Inc.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Isn't that basically the plot of Altered Carbon?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

No. They transferred their mind to new bodies, called sleeves. They had laws against double sleeving, putting your mind into more than one body, cause that causes all sorts of issues. The tech was basically what you're stopped to do for computers back up data and when something happens to the computer you put the same data on the new machine. The basic version was local storage called a stack that resided at the base of the neck. That's why executions killed the person and the stack. The rich had offside backups as well.

This is closer to In Time where the single body was kept alive and they used time to pay for things. The rich had thousands, probably much more, years stocked up. It's been quite a while since I've seen it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

In a sense, but it's a common cyberpunk theme. I remember an old movie called Repo Men with a similar premise, which was based off a pretty dope book, Repossession Mambo.

Its essentially the same premise, but with loaning artificial organs.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Also the plot of in time

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

I don't even have to click to know what movie it is.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I loved this movie as a kid. Its a little dated now, but still so good.