How to explain the main plot with science based concepts, without the non-sci-fi fans getting bored?

I am a sci-fi guy, and I find this whole concept a little boring... it would be like if Robert Kirkman comes up with this explanation for the Walking Dead, would anyone in the audience really care?

Does it even matter?

People may not like this observation.. But there is a reason why the explanation of an apocalypse is NOT very important to the survivors. And there is a reason why most TV shows, games, comics and novels about a post apocalyptic world don't really address the HOW.

The HOW, as Captain Adama pointed out in the aftermath of the cylon all out sneak attack, "does not matter"

The only situations where the cause of the apocalypse matters are: 1. There is a way to stop it. (Terminator) 2. There is a way to move forward knowing about it (Nausicaa)

posted over 5 years ago

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ashleylee‭

95 reputation 0 15 19 0

I am writing a very complex sci-fi book and faced a similar dilemma. I don't think my story would make a good game, but I like games that are based on good stories because they seem to have better themes, interactions and player engagement. Personally, I don't think the story matters a lot to most players, but popularity of games seems correlated with having a good story.

That said, here is my suggestion to your question:

How to explain the main plot with science based concepts, without the non-sci-fi fans getting bored?

The way you outlined the themes in your plot makes logical sense, especially to the alien race ("we were here first, we have amazing technology, we will suppress other life from threatening us"). But the human experience would be backwards from that, so you should mold your game and sci-fi story telling around explaining those themes in reverse from your outline.

For example, your game should start with the human experience of the biological event appearing without any explanation. The player must resolve the problem of survival, of course. In order to survive the player will obviously need to first, handle the immediate biological threat and second, understand what it is in order to stop or reduce the threat.

Making a connection between this new biological problem and recognizing that it is a weapon designed to destroy humans is important to your story, but not critical to game play or enjoyment of the game. However, it gives you the constructs you need to build the game. In your game, the biological threat can't be stopped simply with biological methods because it is a weapon and this discovery is important from a human perspective because, I assume that their attempts to deal with it are not effective or else it is, in some way, obviously alien.

Regardless, next the player must resolve the problem of why they are being attacked and how to stop the attack. In this part of your story, the sci-fi context and complexity picks up, and those interested in the story will delve into it. For those less interested, they will decide to play your game based on their investment so far and expected game play enjoyment. However, explaining to them that they have to "stop an attack because of quantum computers" is not really a problem. Any non-sci-fi fan would chalk that up to "I like the game, despite the stupid sci-fi story telling."

Third, once the player recognizes the connection between quantum computer activity and the biological attack, they now need to resolve who the attackers are and their motivation for attack. This requires some explanation about who they are so that the player can suppress or eliminate the threat from the attacker. At this point in your story, the sci-fi concepts of "biological weapon" and "quantum computing" set the foundation for explaining some kind of extra-terrestrial race that has amazing technology. Call it "alien" and be done with it, or dig into explaining a "Stage III Civilization," who they are, their motivations and technology.

For those invested in the story, it will be important that it make sense. But for players that are not interested, the increasing complexity of the story should simply parallel and be an explanation for more complex game elements and themes, like the complexity of weapons, introduction of alien technology, difficulty of problem solving, new and increased difficulty from opponents, the basis for cut-scenes and level transitions, etc.

So, while your story makes sense from the alien's perspective, telling sci-fi stories from a human perspective seems important here. It starts with familiar human experience, and transitions toward unfamiliar ideas in a progressive way that allows the story to introduce the new information to your audience in small enough pieces to help them assimilate the information. It keeps the strange or complex ideas manageable and meaningful as the more basic ideas build toward the more foreign and complex.

posted about 5 years ago

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Jim‭

5 reputation 0 1 1 0

Since this is a game, you can have your cake and eat it too: put the detailed explanations in sidequests or optional logs. The main plot presented to the player doesn't need to include anything but the basic rules of how the aliens are scary and evil. The side material can go into more detail about the nature of the aliens, the details of the invasion, and such. Now your boring exposition has become immersive world-building, and you can be the next Dark Souls (or Metroid Prime, or Majora's Mask, or Myst. This sort of story presentation goes way back.)

posted over 5 years ago

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eyeballfrog‭

15 reputation 0 3 3 0

Let me point out a different risk of providing a too detailed description of how the aliens learned about it: The risk of unnecessarily contradicting established science, and thus losing exactly those who would otherwise be most likely to enjoy detailed descriptions.

In this particular case, it is clear to me (a physicist working in quantum physics) that your knowledge in this area is based basically on popular science articles (which, I regret, are often terribly misleading). If you just say they detect it through some quantum gravitational effect unknown to us, that's enough for me to keep suspension of disbelief (we don't have a successful theory of quantum gravity yet). Or some post-quantum effect. Or basically, anything we don't yet know.

But if you try to explain it through entanglement, without invoking something we don't know yet, for me that breaks suspension of disbelief the same way it does if you claim in a Hard Science Fiction story that a Ford model T can go to space if you just select the right gear and then turn on the lights.

posted about 5 years ago

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celtschk‭

680 reputation 16 50 93 11

You have another problem, if you solve that, you solve this.

How did we figure out it was quantum computer activity that signaled them?

If this is told omnisciently or from the alien POV, you have no problem:

Alien #1: "A sustained trans-universe anomaly in sector 37. Quantum computing detected. Exceeding 100 qubits in total."

Alien #2: "Verified. I've scheduled an extermination bot. I have a transfer reservation on portal seven, it should open in [thirty minutes]."

If it is told from a human point of view, they either won't know why it happened now, or you arrange the plot so they find out.

The smart quantum physicist that figures it out (say he is on vacation in the wilderness when it happens) is bothered by what caused it for some time in the book.

He finally learns that the device that released the biological agent arrived at time X:Y, less than one hour after the minute this massive quantum computer was turned on for its first test run, a project that had taken three years and billions of dollars to complete.

Heck, maybe he even finds the expended drone they sent; no reason for the aliens to retrieve it; and in analyzing it figures out it was a quantum computing device too, but centuries ahead of anything humans could have done. Thus alien. And his own theories of quantum physics and alien life finish the conjecture.

posted over 5 years ago

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Amadeus‭

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