hey lovelies ❤ instead of telling me your headcanons for why that one interesting case of authorial-blindness-induced plothole I'm having so much fun analyzing actually makes perfect sense as long as you pretend something that didn't happen onscreen and was never discussed actually did happen, please refer to 15:51 and also internalize the distinction between watsonian and doylist explanations for things (A QUICK EDIT: hey guys so I consumed the sacred spice of Arrakis and it showed me a mystic vision that said that "butlerian jihad" thing you keep talking about was actually only written out in any detail in the 2000s by frank herbert's son decades after he died and also decades after the cell phone was invented, making it the exact opposite of a refutation of my point about dune not inventing phones. sorry to disappoint but I'm a space chosen one now or something and my mystic visions are always correct. thanks for making me google dune sequels though, that worm centaur guy was pretty cool) ok love you bye 😘 -R
Frank Herbert did think of it, it was critical to the society before the Butlerian Jihad, we know this because he wrote it down for us to read. This isn't just 'us' coming up with retroactive justifications. The in-universe reason for why the Great Houses rose to power is they exploited the chaos from the destruction of the communications networks during the Butlerian Jihad. Prior to the Great Revolt the galaxy was dependent on near instantaneous communication from anywhere to anywhere, the destruction of that ability is what leads to the feudalistic society we see in Dune.
One of my all time favorite moment in Critical Role's history is that time when Jester realized she could use the Sending Spell to annoy random people she met or heard off. The look of absolute horror on Matt's face as he realized what this spell can do in the wrong hands... ...and then, 50 episodes or so later, he weaponized it as his big bad was harassing Caleb with sending.
In my D&D campaign, I specifically gave the royal family earrings that stop mental effects (and give resistance to Psychic damage), from spells of lower level than five from non-trusted sources. This includes sending spell. The king needs to be protected both from compulsions and from telepathic harassment. You see, a king is famous enough to for anybody in the kingdom to be _familiar_ with him, and really doesn't want every lv5+ spellcaster with Sending being able to backseat-rule.
@@frantisekvrana3902 So you have the royal post office to shift through the physical mail of the king, and then the king just has "block all" on for mental mail.
In my D&D group, we had a warlock who was psychically linked to his patron. He abused this mercilessly to ask for advice so often that eventually I made hold music for the DM to play when the warlock was out of contact with his patron
@@BrunoMaricFromZagreb Yeah this is a pretty common one in games I've been a part of. In theory a warlock, cleric, paladin, druid, and potentially other classes can be connected to a god or patron or other higher power but that doesn't always mean said higher being is going to listen every time. They may be sick of their mortal calling them every five seconds and start only occasionally responding, and/or simply don't care enough much about mortal problems to actually respond or give aid/advice frequently.
I'm reminded of a scene I wrote in a modern fantasy sort of setting where a guy is sneaking around and his phone rings, so he rushes to shut it up before it gives him away, and then a minute later he gets a magic message directly into his brain from his Sister asking, "Why aren't you answering your phone?"
I work with middle schoolers, and I had to explain what a phone book was to one of them. When I told her it was a book filled with everyone’s phone number, her eyes got big and she went, “That’s creepy.” This feels like a real world example of your argument here.
I was explaining a programm to a newby and told him to "just click the floppy-disk icon to quick-save", and he just looked me dead in the eye and went "what the hell is a floppy-disk?" And it struck me - most younger folk only know the save-progress-icon as this weird square or rectangle with some plates and lines on it that is just kinda used everywhere, and have no idea that it's actually an image of a floppy-disk in a sort of homage
@@lemmetalkaboutthis I find the fact people don't know what a floppy disk even though I was born in the XXI century. Have they not had a stash of old items? Have they not watched media older than they are? Is that just, not normal?
@@k-techpl7222 I dunno. I was born in 1999 and had classmates who didn’t know what floppy disks were besides having been told “don’t touch that” as kids. They were mostly storing stuff like old office programs and photos for the really old computers their parents had. Meanwhile, I did know what they were because my dad had an old CAD program he ran a few times in front of me off some. However, I’ve also always seen save icons as “looks like a hard drive”, and floppy discs are frankly just a thinner, portable, delicate hard drive.
@@k-techpl7222 I mean, I was born 97, and never used them, but I was told what they were at least. Also still used video tape for a while there and other bit outdated stuff since we couldn't afford a bunch of new stuff
This isn't a trope talk. This is a half-hour documentary about the evolution of communication tech and the way creators use of communication in their works evolved alongside it. I'm not mad. Nor disappointed. Frankly, I'm just impressed. This is amazing.
By the way, things like wireless telephones functional anywhere like they are today require satellites. Funny thing is, on most alien planets, this wouldn't be an option in science fiction.
@@scottdoesntmatter4409 Unless whatever spaceship those characters came in either retained those capabilities while in orbit, or dropped off something in orbit prior to making their way down to the planet. It's something work keeping in mind during our own real life space exploration going forward.
@@kajeslorian2 This is a terrible video. Not only does she forget this concept of satellites being necessary for telecommunications, she also forgets that no rational, intelligent player of D&D would waste a slot, especially an upper level slot of spells for simply harassing a NPC. If they did, most GM's would send a few encounters their way, depleting their spellcasting immediately, and then ask them if they ever want to blow spell slots on useless harassment. I sure as heck would!
@@scottdoesntmatter4409 It sounds like you've never met Jester Lavorre/Laura Bailey. Players often have downtime in which they don't have to use their spells for combat, so using them for sending is better than doing nothing. Just because you would have the universe reorient itself to punish a player for creative use of a spell doesn't mean "most" DMs would, I wouldn't and nor would the ones I've played with.
@@scottdoesntmatter4409 man you are sad. You’re the guy who requires everyone to min max, for them not to lose their character, because there wasn’t enough conflict for you. You’re lacking the idea of social conflict, and emotional conflict. Work on using those instead of combat.
I love how Rick Riordan treated this trope in his Percy Jackson and the Olympians universe. The heroes can't use normal cellphones without EXTREME risk because the enemies can trace those to them very accurately. The gods and demigods DO have their own communication thing called 'Iris messages'... but it has quite a couple of prerequisites for it to work. You need: 1) golden Drachmas to pay for the connection through an offering; 2) water and light available in such a way that you can create a rainbow (because Iris is personified as a rainbow) to *create* the connection in the first place; 3) The goddess Iris being active and doing her job as normal and *not being captured or incapacitated.* This means that a lot of the time, the heroes will have an issue creating a connection based on points 1 and 2, and there's this constant tension that everyone hopes that Hermes-be-blessed Iris is fine and doing her job, to the point that when sending an Iris message *works,* it's basically a massive sigh of relief.
It also made me think of the delightful scene where the dyslexic ADHD demigods who want to read just have like, stacks of CD audiobooks and CD players everywhere
Thing that happened to my group in D&D when using an ally’s sending stone: Player: “Are you okay? Where are you at?” Lich holding the ally hostage: “Wrong number (23 words worth of laughter)”
Oh we had plenty of fun and antics with those friggin' things... Re-skinned for a "flashing visual" and "Loudly Audible" message notification, so when the thief got a message in the midst of a stealth-check... um... it was bound NOT to go well for him... The team "assassin" (ranger) didn't appreciate them much either... NOTHING more distracting than brightly colored lights and "something like a series of short bursts from a fire-bell" at an inopportune moment... Artifacts and Magic Items found in ANCIENT ruins can be SOOOOoooo damnably much fun! ;o)
My group had an incident where we were sneaking into a lakeside town held by an enemy force. We defeated a patrol, and then heard a noise from the squad leader's pocket. It was a sending stone and they were asking why he hadn't reported in yet. I replied "Sorry, there was a magic miscast, but it's fine, we're fine, everything's fine, here, now, thank you. How are you?" Naturally we then had to play out the whole exchange. I'd never been awarded double Inspiration before.
One of my parties had a PC and DMPC (we had a few that rotated through the party) with Sending Stones. Made sense as they were an Artificer and his great-great-granddaughter, a (homebrew) Gadgeteer Rogue. They were flavoured as hot pink Hello Kitty flip phones. (The artificer was an undead who had lived thousands of years ago when the world was high-tech; basically our world but with fantasy races. He often made references to missing videos games, or countries that no longer existed).
I think it’s hilarious in sci-fi, even modern sci-fi, there’s this insistence on face to face communication no matter how impractical (holograms, picture phones) rather than simpler voice communication. And while I understand the reason is aesthetic for the sake of the visuals, it makes me laugh because IRL most people hate FaceTime and video calls unless there’s a specific reason like to see someone’s baby or better explain to your grandma how to set up her TV.
Yep. Like there's always that one person on the Teams meeting who insists everyone has to turn their cameras on because it's more social and 90% of the people in the meeting either groan or make an excuse why they can't come on camera at that moment... or both.
It's an interesting parallel to the development of communication technology and culture to see the newfound value of privacy in an information-overloaded world
I get the need for faces to be seen in movies...but some movies set in modern times are so creative and fun with their talking-on-the-phone visual mosaics or montages. I'd love to see some of that brought into scifi
It depends on on preferences. I prefer texting over talking on a phone and video chat and speaking to someone face to face. I mainly hate talking on phones due to people mistaking me for a woman even though I'm a biological man.
That "Why did Han need to go look for Luke instead of calling him" at least is an easy one. Luke was caught in a snowstorm and those tend to disrupt signals heavily.
It's also radio silence too. Plus. If the empire intercepted a long range transmission then it would have busted the whole fucking opperation when they realised 'fuck wait these plans suggest that the design has a key structural weakness they can easily exploit, we should triple security, place a couple frigates there, and not engage the rebels with out being prepared for this specific eventuality. The point wasn't JUST getting the plans, it was also keeping them away from the empire
His lightsaber was on the ground, out of his reach, when he woke up with his feet frozen to the ceiling. Presumably the rest of his equipment, including his communicator, was likewise scattered around the cave. He just wasn't able to find it before he left the cave. Jedi have a strong link with their lightsabers, which explains why he was able to find that, even though he wasn't a fullly trained Jedi yet. The fact that he wasn't fully trained explains why he wasn't able to find the rest of his equipment.
I also like to think the reason they didn't send a call directly to "Old Ben" was because the Empire could monitor communications through normal means, and Obi-Wan had been noncommunicable for years so he didn't ave a secure line.
@@JohnSmith-bn5mi Retroactive explanation for what the writers never even considered, as Red points out in the video. The fact that it has to BE rationalized is part of what Red was addressing here. Just because we can make it make sense, doesn't mean it was written that way on purpose.
There was definitely a weird transitional period where TV writers hadn't figured out that everyone has cellphones yet, and kept writing contemporary idiot plots where people don't bother using those dang phones!
For a famous (and stupid) example: the plot of New Moon would have been resolved in 5 minutes if Edward had even tried to text Bella to see if she was still alive.
Yeah. Unless there's a sudden, major change that simply _cannot_ be overlooked by anyone with a pulse, it tends to take about 15 to 20 years for current trends and tech to make it to TV and movies.
@@Anastas1786 The obvious explanation for this is that people making decisions about content for TV and movies are in their 30s and 40s, while the people adopting current trends and tech are in their teens and 20s, so it takes that long for things to change from being newfangled nonsense the kids are doing to natural and normal things everyone has done practically forever.
@@rmsgrey That really isn't true anymore. Most of the current workforce have grown up in a world with constant technological advancements and are fairly used to the changing times.
I remember a lot of clumsy plot points trying to handwave the fact that they even exist. Oh, you did think of calling the cops, but there's no cell service...IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES? I would honestly have preferred the character to have straight up forgotten their phone.
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that video. Every now and again when I’m bored, I will try to stop myself in reality and examine how things are the way they are.
In 1953, Ray Bradbury published a short story called "The Murderer," in which people's radio wristwatches and personal background music are recognizable as cell phones and unlimited streaming music. Especially since the people in this future act in ways that were strange when the story was published, but are extremely relatable today: they panic when loved ones stop checking in every 2 minutes, they're unable to strike up conversations with strangers when they can't use their radio wristwatches to ignore their neighbors, and they spend most of their days drifting around in blissful musical bubbles, serenely self-satisfied and disinterested in anyone else's problems. The amount he got right in that story is frankly incredible. And, of course, in the same year, his novel _Fahrenheit 451_ introduced the Seashell, which was nothing less than a noise-canceling, radio-receiving earbud... as well as on-demand, personally-tailored television on increasingly massive screens. I will say, however, that as someone who chooses not to use a cellphone, I'm treated far better than Bradbury's stories predicted.
We don't even realize how powerful communication is because it's so natural to us. The fact that cell phones have to be routinely written out of horror movies is a big one I think. The ability to call someone and say "help" has to be accounted for otherwise the tension rings hollow.
On the other hand, I think we're missing on the potential of a character being in a horrible, scary situation, while able to freely communicate with their loved ones, and the loved ones being able to know exactly what's happened and still being unable to help. I once read a short story about this concept, where a girl ends in a parallel universe filled with monsters and such, but her phone still works to call home. The main character is actually the sister of the one who dissapeared, who is thus aware of everything her sister's going through but can't do anything other than provide moral support. The story ends when the phone's battery runs out and the girl's never heard of again.
@@Rynamony sounds creepy and amazing. Such a powerful tool creates so many good story telling opportunities. Just the idea of not having it can shake us to our core anyone. Like that story. Phone died, so what hope is there left.
Yep were not in the world of “oh no the phone lines been cut” anymore. I’ve seen this explored in some recent stuff tho. Horror set in rural areas sometimes takes advantage of the fact that even in the US some places have bad/no cell service. Most recently there have been films in which the phone/internet/video call is the creepy thing. And I’ve heard it suggested that the next step in horror will be deepfakes and stolen-identity horror, which could do some super interesting stuff with the concept of interpersonal and parasocial relationships and how they’ve changed because of the internet and cell phones. So I think we’ve almost moved past cell phones being written out of horror movies, but it needs to become a part of films in the way it’s a part of normal peoples lives I think.
I want a modern gas light. That film is so good. I imagine it where she’s got an iPhone and stuff but is so thoroughly psychologically isolated from any support she either doesn’t even think to use it to call for help, or communicates all the time, but never honestly about her situation, so her Allie’s don’t even know she needs help.
I find it so funny how this Trope Talk started as “how the march of real-world communications technology influences communication in fiction” and ended with “Red gives us the play-by-play of how a simple innocuous addition to her own long-running story gave her an existential crisis.”
To be fair, as someone who also read a lot of Elfquest, we are not the first to have tech and lore break our plots. (Terrifyingly, one of the initials in my username is an Elfquest Spirit Name I used for myself, and then forgot that's what it started as.)
Ya know it just occurred to me that since Aurora’s version of a phone is a wind elemental messenger bird, she could just make the excuse for why it doesn’t work be “it was too windy and it got blown to smithereens”
Like the opposite of when I do something relatively simple that was impossible when I was a kid, like paying a bunch of bills or booking a doctor's appointment from my phone in bed "Because we live in the future, dear"
Context for anyone who sees this comment and doesn't recognize the quotes, the characters had just discovered another character on the ship was a psychic
I remember when Sarah Z was asking on twitter for examples of bad self aware writing to use in her video on nerd culture, someone used this quote as an example since a spaceship would of course be completely normal to the characters and the line only makes sense from the audience's perspective. I haven't seen Firefly myself so I don't know if it's better in context.
@@ferhog7705 If someone said "that sounds like something out of science fiction" while they were using a computer or we were in an airplane, I would definitely point that out
Back in the 80s when portable phones were the size of briefcases, my dad got one and was instantly hooked. We were about to go to some family gathering, and mom and I were just about to open the door to the garage where dad was waiting. The phone rang. Mom grumbled, but decided she'd better answer it. It was dad, calling from the car asking us to hurry up. My parents laughed about that for a long time.
I'm assuming that back in the 80s, your dad was doing it as a joke. Not the way people do it without the slightest irony these days. I'm always late to appointments these days, too, because I don't use a cell phone, and as I head out the door to go to my appointment, my landline rings, and it's the place I'm going to, calling to confirm my appointment.
@@Vinemaple nice, me too. i haven't had a cell phone for a year, and i only got my house phone and wifi back on 4 months ago. people can't wrap their heads around it, lol
@@intellectually_lazy Although saying, "I'm sorry, I don't have a cell phone. At all" generally gets me cheerful and well-reasoned workarounds, I have never gotten the exasperated, "Well, why NOT?!" (that I always expect) from anyone.
@@incanusolorin2607 You can just look at each other's locations, and either talk out loud (if the device has sound), or write things down and hold them up to the air for the other person to see.
Funny story about Sending Stones: I once ran Waterdeep Dragon Heist, a low-level D&D adventure module, for my friends and as a joke I decided that the city watchmen would each carry Sending Stones like they were cops with radios. It occurred to me that the more I played into this bit, the more the city watchmen actually became a competent police force that was REALLY difficult to deal with. Any given watchman could radio their dispatch officer, who would then put out an APB to every watchman in the district and suddenly a simple robbery would turn into a GTA-style massive chase scene. They could even deploy Griffin riders with their own Sending Stones like they were police choppers to keep track of quickly fleeing suspects no matter where they ran to.
This made me think about how everyone in the later seasons of stranger things has walkie talkies. Like everyone has one and they basically act as cell phones
Or a more "old school" example, the fact that the C.B. radios in practically every car in Hazzard County become a plot point for almost every episode of "The Dukes Of Hazzard".
Good point. The writers are probably so used to writing around the fact that most of their contemporary characters all have phones. Go watch most any show set after 2010. Dollars to donuts they'll use cell phones in some way.
Oh God, I'm an old meat puppet now. Next thing I know I'm gonna blink and everyone will be sending texts to eachother using brain implants and talking about how weird it was that we all had cars when teleportation was just so simple.
@Hydrαngea 🌠 and according to the time I read that comment, the future was four minutes ago. Probably five by now. Or even six. Oh well, the future wasn't all that exciting, fun while it lasted I guess. 😁
I remember setting up a horror universe in the year 198X. Not out of a love for the 80's, I'm more a 60s-70s aesthetic type, but because I wanted as close to modern life as possible without cellphones or the internet. Pretty sure that's why there's a fixation on period pieces in the horror genre. A big ol' dusty book having the spooky lore is "better" than wikipedia on your iphone. But really it's because isolation is terrifying especially to generations that take constant connection for granted. You get some of the most effective psychological horror in modern audiences when your protagonist can't dial 911 on the highway. Also any modern killer worth their salt will know to target cellphones ASAP. Whether by stealing them or smashing them with a hammer, otherwise the killer has no common sense.
The photo of the Lunar lander descending that Michael Collins took was the first photo to include every human who was alive or had been alive to that point...except for one: him. It's amazing and bittersweet to realize that Collins took a photo of all of humanity, and couldn't be in it because he had to hold the camera.
@@aayushkothekar arguably, it does. They're still in the frame even if obscured. Its a poetic and philisophical statement I'm making. Not a literal one.
@@The_Viscount oh darnit! i gotta undermine my joke because now i wanna argue for real: no one was in that picture, just earth and space. zoom in all you want, you won't see any earth people in that pic, ever
"In 25 words or less where exactly are you and how flammable is it" made me laugh out loud, it captures the essence of the average D&D session so perfectly! Edit: nevermind, "I need you to remember the voice you ad-libbed for scrungly the goblin. NOW" does an even better job LOL
I realized how bad of an idea video phones actually are when I was sitting on the toilet one time, and my father just happened at that moment to discover Facetime, and attempted to videocall me SEVEN TIMES IN A ROW.
@Daniel Wilson It took me the whole seven attempts to manage that text. Reject call, open text messages, reject call, type a few letters, reject call, etc. I think my exact text was, "I'm shitting. Stop." He didn't even need anything. Just saw it was a thing and wanted to try it out. You'd think he'd get the hint, but boomers be boomin.
@@HOSER922 I mean you could've just pointed the camera away from you and said "I'm shitting" before closing the call, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that.
My personal "normalcy eureka moment" came a few years ago when I was relating a story from my time in high school to my wife, and commented that I should have just looked something up on my smartphone. Before realizing that I was talking about an event in 1988. And I was angry at myself not for having forgotten they were not a thing back then, but that I should have miraculously had one to fix the problem, because it made no sense to not fix it that way.
To me it was in 2017 when my mom asked me to get something she had forgotten in the trunk of her car, so I went down to the garage, opened the trunk, then seeing there were a lot of stuff there, I realized I had forgotten to ask her what the item was. So I sent her a message, she told me, then I sent a picture as confirmation I got the right one, she confirmed it, then on my way back up in the elevator I thought "Isn't this amazing? Just a few years ago I'd have to go aaaall the way back up to ask her, then I'd have to get back down, get the thing and pray I got the right one, else I'd need to go back to switch it with the right thing. But now, just a message and a picture and it's done."
"Speaking as someone with a large Jewish family I can say from firsthand experience that in this culture arguing is considered to be extremely healthy and necessary about anything and everything all the time." *THANK. YOU.*
@@BrunoMaricFromZagrebI think it’s an exaggeration lmao, but friends who know much more about Judaism than I do, I’ve gathered that enthusiastic debate is, in fact, a Thing in Jewish culture.
"In the more depressing cases, losing contact with your old friends." Or, for some of us, being able to ignore that high school ever happened was a big win.
Nowadays it looks more like deleting ton of your phone contacts as soon as you graduate. I did that about an hour after my high graduation ceremony and it felt so freeing
It's a rather pointed thing when the new D&D movie uses sending stones not just several times per day, but four different stones linked to each other simultaneously like they're straight up walkie talkies.
They do at least put a time limit on the duration. I'd class that under "you can research new spells" rather than "casually ignoring official usage limits on an existing item"
I'm 39. In high school (late 90s) our teachers kept telling us, "One day, very soon, every classroom will have computers in them!" We waited and waited, and finally computers were installed in our school... the year after we graduated (womp womp). In college (early to mid 2000s), my friends and I all assumed we would lose touch after graduation because that's just how life goes, and when this new thing called "MySpace" showed up, it was like a revelation. Suddenly we were able to easily message each other, share pictures, life updates, etc. despite being scattered across the country. Of course this would eventually give way to Facebook, texting, etc. I only bring this up because I find it fascinating to see how different age groups adopted and adapted to the Communcation Age we now live in.
Technically, the teachers were right in ways they could never imagine. Every classroom does have computers in them now. One for every student, in every student's pocket, plus the teacher.
I'm 29 and we only had like 2 80s computers in each classroom. We were told soon we would all get laptops. The year after graduation they got laptops (womp womp).
Yeah I'm 37, and so the jump to cell phones happened for my groups right in college. I knew all my college friend's phone numbers, I knew all my high school friend's parent's home phone numbers. I can still just pick up my cell and call the kid that showed up to a club trip I ran randomly junior year of college. But if I were to try to get ahold of the girl I dated for a month my Junior year of High school, I'd barely know where to begin. Track her parent's down if they're still living at their old house, the white pages?
I'm 48. My parents were very early adaptors of computers (TRS-80 Model 1 with cassette tape drive!) and I learned how to type on those using extremely primitive word processing software. I would routinely type up grade school book reports on my computer and print them off, and some of my teachers at the time freaked out about this and would forbid me from doing so on the justification that it was "cheating" for me to hand in a printed copy rather than a handwritten one.
There was an interesting period in the late 90s to early 2000s with shows like the X Files and Buffy where the writers had a lot of trouble writing plots that weren't ruined by the characters having cellphones
In 1999, the Pokémon anime had super-advanced video call technology that required what was basically a monitor fused with a phone booth. In 2023, we frequently keep video call technology in close proximity to our butts, and that will never cease to amaze me.
Generation five was when they realized that video call technology was achievable thanks to the C-Gear. Generation six introduced to the players search system. Generation seven was a cyber Plaza. Then Rotom started taking over UI features and now here we are.
@@gutsmasterson2488 I remember the X-transceiver being a selling point for pkmn BW! I own one of the official guides for the game and there are a few pages that are just "Look your ds has video call now! Isn't that nifty? You can even sharpie your friends face and put stickers everywhere!"
@@gutsmasterson2488 It's also worth noting that before Generation V, the pokedex in each game was designed to look like the most recent nintendo handheld: gen 1-2 were game boy, gen 3 was gba, gen 4 was ds. The gen 5 pokedex was based on the ipod, which was still hot new technology in 2009 when Black and White were being made. Then in gen 6 it was a holographic smartphone, and since then the pokedex has been essentially just an app in your personal Rotomified smartphone or tablet.
This all makes me think of Dr. Stone and how he purposefully made a communication device as their "secret weapon" due to instant communication being the most crucial aspect of winning a war. Like man, he GOT IT
It is a very smart move, and highlights that the author has considered the video topic. But that makes sense, his entire plot is modern tech in the hands of primitive people. However it is definitely telling that telecommunications is a focal point because even in modern warfare soldiers dont maintain the same form of constant communication we see in spy movies and the like, mostly due to expenses and coverage concerns and due to needing to prevent the communication channels being cluttered with unnecessary communication
@@Desdemona-XI even then mantaining comunication is esential, a big reason why ukraine was able to keep Rusia in check in this recent war was because they are able to keep comunications open thanks to starlink a completly new telecomunications technology that has proven to be extremly resistant to jamming were all other telecomunications providers were taken down in the first few days of the war Comunication is esential
I just realised that I made up a whole dream dimension in order for my characters to communicate with one another. And I didn't even notice how weird it is that this feels more natural to me than them just not being able to talk to each other...
Alright, alright, you got me. I had the same vein of an idea for my story, a very necessary and vital idea that allows for developments otherwise impossible but damn. The idea of that not being connection not being there at all feels really strange cause the two characters would almost be in two completely different stories. Also really cool to find someone else who had this kind of idea for communication. (Not incredibly rare in fiction depending on the type of dream communication I suppose, but still.)
And of course, the current campaign of Critical Role has the widespread failure of Sending spells as a major plot point -- precisely *because* of how much Laura Baily relied on Sending once her character got high enough level to cast it.
I didn’t expect to have the entirety of how I socialize completely torn apart in the first few seconds of this video. It was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one
I tend to shy away from socialization. I’m mostly a lurker both irl and on the internet. I’m not sure if it’s a result of this or my hearing is really good but I just tune into what other people are saying and I’ve gotten really good at extrapolating information. Which makes talking to people harder because I’m several steps ahead in the conversation because I assume everyone is on the same page as me. Theirs this fan song I remember hearing for Bruno that i resonated really well with “everything is way too loud, the roar of the whispers in every crowd, I’m sick of all the noise right now! Can someone please just turn it down?”
Can't wait for when we're all telepathically connected, and reading stories where people don't have a constant perfect mental connection are archaic and maybe even horror
11:02 There is one author's saving throw that I appreciate to explain R2D2's needing to carry the plans, and that's simply because the Empire controls the phones. The rebels _couldn't_ just beam the plans to Yavin IV without allowing the Empire to their secret base's location. As for the "you're our only hope" message, that was a message recorded with R2's bodycam, not onto any kind of Internet equivalent.
What's funny is that I'm a teacher for students who come from...basically backwater villages in Central America to the US, so I always have had an interesting perspective with this. To put it broadly. My own little backwater village in Nicaragua had an Internet cafe. Most of my students have had experience with technology and picked it up faster than reading. Like reading period. It's crazy how intrinsically adaptable people are and how that surfaces
Nowadays, we have quality testing and accessibility features everywhere to help with that. Maybe a little too well sometimes, but generally it’s really effective.
Well, children and the youth. It’s hit and miss with older adults. My mom and aunt were very resistant to change, while my dad I were far more adaptable.
Did red just make a half hour long video about “those dang phones”? You never stop amazing me red. Edit: i made this comment as soon as the video came out, cause I was genuinely shocked a trope talk about phones could be so long. Now where I have watched it fully, this might be my favourite Trope talk, red has made this far. She really took something I never thought to question, and then threw my way of looking at the world and fiction for a loop. It was so much better then I expected, and that says A LOT, cause OSP always have super high quality, in my opinion. This just blew me back in a way I was not expecting at all, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
I was at lunch when I noticed and had 20 minutes before I had to get back to work. I thought, "Oh, a new Trope Talk, I have time for that." I did not have time for that.
Never underestimate the power of communication. In Dr. Stone, which already has a theme of examining the things we created and marveling at how incredibly useful they are (its core opinion being that SCIENCE IS FUCKING AWESOME), Senku's immediate reaction to being informed that the antagonist plans to descend on his village with an army and wipe it out is to proclaim that he will fight back by creating the most powerful weapon in history: cellphones. A) He is completely serious; B) he manages to build phones with stuff barely out of the stone age; and C) they are absolutely crucial in the following conflict. Notably, said antagonist (who is also from our time and pretty smart) discovers one of the phones by accident and FREAKS OUT because he understands the power it represents and that he is now at a disadvantage despite holding almost all the cards.
Fun fact about the Star Wars examples: both are later explained by the story. In A New Hope, the Death Star plans have to be physically transported bc the Empire can too easily intercept the plans being sent through communication technology, and in The Empire Strikes Back, the snowstorm is explicitly blocking their comms, which is why they have to physically search for Luke.
I was thinking about that too The plans weren't "emailed" as we know today, where the recipient(s) gets effectively a new copy, and the original still exists, it's more like actual mail, the empire was mailing it and the rebels stole their letter, if they turned around and mailed it again the empire would pretty easily just steal it back It's a pretty interesting thought though
That's still a perfect example of what Red is talking about because in modern times the idea of a snow storm blocking a phone signal is incomprehensible with our current technology, but Lucas never would have thought of that in the 80s! Even if there's an explanation for those things it's clear it was written with the current technology in mind
I remember reading about Michael Collins, he said of being the loneliest man in the universe that it was nice after having spent so long with 2 other people in a confined space. Introverts of the world understand, the loneliest man ever was just happy to have some god damn peace and quiet
He was also hella busy with observations and riding herd single-handed on a spacecraft designed to be operated by three. But yeah, you definitely get the sense that he enjoyed the quiet when you read his memoir. He wasn't lonely, he was satisfied.
I once had to write a series of missed calls from one character to another over the course of weeks, and it was heartbreaking. The increasing desperation of the voicemails, the desire to just see them again, to know he's still alive, it hurt. Just imagining getting into an awful argument with your best friend and they just vanish for weeks straight, no messages, no response, nothing. I had to actually imagine my best friend disappearing so I could write it, and I almost started crying.
The amount of access, demanded by some of the "friends" I've had, has been extremely disturbing. Once I was able to tell someone "I'm not your boyfriend, you can't demand at-will access to me like you can your live-in boyfriend," and she realized what she was doing and quit, even apologizing... she went back to being a wonderful friend after that. Most of that type of "friend," however, ended up deciding I was cold, distant, and not interested in them, because I considered my response before replying, and didn't always reply within a week. But if you have a healthy, functional, and very close friendship with someone, yeah, that might be upsetting.
@@Vinemaple yeah, no, if we're not close and you just vanish for a week I'd too would just assume you're not interested. Might be a generational thing.
I didn't ask for an existential crisis first thing in the morning, but Red addressing the weirdness that is parasocial interactions is something I do come here for so I think the universe is having its Callout Fridays.
When Red started talking about her Aurora comic, how she was easily making a communication spell without thinking, it was like she was calling herself out and I honestly thought that was the funniest thing I had ever seen! 😂
The whole video, I was wondering when she'd bring up the little messenger birds. Wasn't expecting it to be the bedrock of the entire script. At least she has "You need Air Magic to be able to send them" as an excuse.
i fixed that problem in my story before it even came up, the magic system has the usual 4 elements, then a friend suggested adding technology and i came up with the idea of the 5th element metal being wiped because they used it to make electronics, now only a few relics exist
I was writing an expansion/conclusion to a Dwarf Fortress run that I particularly enjoyed at one point and gave my characters rapid long-distance communication. I only gave it to the leaders of the different parties, because all of the leadership of this faction were necromancers. I made them carry around small dead animals, specifically birds for comms but I also used a mouse and a snake as opportunistic workings that were a surveillance cam and a static signpost respectively. When they needed to communicate, one of the necros would have to terrify himself with existential thoughts (the only way necromancers will raise the dead in DF is if they feel threatened) and bring the bird back to life. He'd ask the bird for permission to use its eyes and speak from its mouth, because these were Good Necromancers who didn't like unthinking thralls, and send it on its way. Basically just Homing Pigeons+, as the communication was two-way and instant only after the bird arrived, so there was still the transit time and the necros had to consider speed (a swallow, in the story) versus durability (an actual pigeon) when preparing the connection. I think I can forgive myself this "I need communications to get everybody in the right place at the right time for this denouement and make sure my narrator can see what's happening in the climax when he's not in the room - the purpose of Surveillance Mouse."
The opening remark about normalcy brings to mind one of the many great quotes from Firefly. "Psychic though? That sounds like something out of science fiction." "You live on a spaceship dear." "Yeah, so?" Edit: 29:37 "Or, to save on postage..."
I thought this was gonna be a video about how boomer writers often equate cellphones to "everything wrong with the kids these days," but this is just as fascinating.
If I'm to understand: O.S.P's Red was in the middle of writing a story and had a writer's existential crisis realizing how hard she made it to write classic plot points by giving the characters an extremely effective magic communication network... And now this video explaining how normalcy can put an unintentional blind spot in a work exists. I am thankful for every minute I'm subscribed to this channel 😭
Bro I’m in a one on one D&Dish campaign that’s in a modern setting. My DM has run it with a few friends; and so they expected me to use my character’s literal SUPERPOWERS to solve problems. What they did not expect was me to call the cops any time anything suspicious happened, then join a local news station, document all of the crime I saw, and then report the villains to the government. It is now a very DIFFERENT campaign, to say the least.
@@bonefetcherbrimley7740 Uh well currently the main villain organization still has no clue who’s been leaking info to the news because I’ve never shown my face to them lol.
Oh, that young millennial segment hit me right in the childhood feels. I just hit 30 last year and my first memory of a phone was the corded wall hanger type my mom would stretch across the kitchen while talking to my aunt. During high school just before touch screens really took off, I remember how some of my classmates would memorize the buttons on their phones just to be able to text in class.
How things have change, in Thursday I got to the mall, and there were four people, a family talking with each other, with their smartphones, but not actually speaking with each other.
For context, I'm 36. My grandmother used to have a corded phone when she lived in the house we live on (long story) and now, by my mother insistance, we have a wireless (but still landline) phone. I keep telling her that when I moved out I wouldn't have one (nor cable TV). My younger sister did moved out of the house and she doesn't even consider having one (or, again, cable TV).
31:25 First of all, that drawing and Red's rant about her realizing things when working on her own comic was hilarious. Second of all, *What do you mean she has a comic?! How have I missed that until this point?!*
I was reading the comic for a while, then randomly discovered the channel, and made it about 2/3s through the backlog of Trope Talks before I realized *why* the doddle-figure art style was hauntingly familiar. And only because she explicitly plugged the comic. "Wait, Red draws Aurora? I thought the artist was called... Red... They're the SAME Red?!" Mind fully blown.
As someone who is extremely nervous about giving out their contact information and is stressed out by social media, I'm not sure I've ever gotten used to instantly being in contact with anyone but my family. I'm also sh*t at answering emails and texts so that probably contributes too.
32:45 The notion of “catch something in the mirror (of fiction) that’s shifted without our noticing” threw this whole essay into the realm of horror in a way it probably wasn’t intended.
Honestly, I think Dune's complete rejection of "thinking machines" does give some leeway in terms of ignoring the likely technological advancements such a large span of time would imply
I can see that perfectly. Technician: invents what is essentially a 1993 cell phone His supervisor: has a Vietnam flashback about that one time humanity was almost wiped out because of rudimentary AI and proceeds to smash it to bits
Given modern tech coming out recently, I take the additional reason as to why they use in person communication over telecommunications is because one could fake a message via some kind of Deep-fake tech. Not as dangerous when you have Mentants instead of Computers, but still a possible reason to add to the pile.
In defense of Star Wars, the OT and Prequels mostly used those comlinks (aka cell phones) for short range communication. Long range communication over hundreds or miles or to other planets required more powerful hologram devices that were connected to ships or stationary communication hubs. Those films also went to the effort of pointing out when the standard methods of communication didn't work. On Hoth for example, the heavy snow blocked the signal. That's why R2 couldn't locate Luke after a snowstorm started, C-3PO said as much. The range is also limited, the Rebels couldn't pin-point Han and Luke's position until they flew close by. That also happens in the Prequels. Qui-Gon and I can communicate with each other on our comlinks bur not with the Jedi on another planet. Bad guys also use jamming tech to justify why long range communication doesn't work. Even long range communication tech is limited, in Episode II I'm too far away from Coruscant so I have to contact Anakin who's on a closer planet. So I think the way those films used communication made perfect sense. It wasn't as efficiant and convenient as cell phones and when the normal methods of communication didn't work, there was a reason (jamming, intercepting, distance, etc) why it didn't work. Even R2 needing to deliver the Death Star plans made sense. The Empire were surely intercepting or jamming communications so the plans had to physically be transferred. As to why they didn't transmit the plans when they got to a stronger long range communication device (like a ship or a hub) I think it made sense that either the file size was too bug or they didn't know the channel to communicate with the Rebels who surely had private channels none of the characters would know about.
Agreed. Re: ANH If they broadcast the death star plans, how do they know the rebels are listening on that frequency? How do they know they got the message. How do they know they got the entire message intact? A rebel base that is running dark can't exactly be sending checksums!
Probably my favorite example of this in fiction has to be the den den mushi or “transponder snails” from One Piece. They’re literally just snails. Telepathic snails that are capable of perfectly mimicking human speech that people use to communicate with each other. God I love One Piece.
What I love most about it is that it's actually a network of snail-based technology. some are phones with different communication ranges other speakers others are used to wiretap other cameras others to counter the wiretap and others to basically activate nuclear bombs
Didn't those start out as basically landline telephones, and then the author introduced handheld versions partway through the story? ...Dang it, now I need to try and figure out when he introduced those and how far along cellphone tech was then.
@@emiliocorvalan3322 to be fair, the nuke triggering ones are basically just very specific telephone ones that just say "this is the island I'm on, fuck it up"
My mom always says that most older movies wouldn't work in a cell phone world cause all the problems could be easily solved by communication. So this was extremely interesting
I love how The Owl House not only had flying phones which are basically crows and scrolls which act as cell phones, but also a freaking social media parodying Instagram. Plus the flying microphones, cristal balls as computer or tv screens and gemstones as walkie talkies. It's a weird world building sometimes and I love it.
Bit of a tangent, but seeing Owl House's use to magic-fueled technology really makes me annoyed about Harry Potter's world building and its utter refusal to use tech or even innovate. Using the slowest birds to send hand written letters in a country commonly covered in clouds when instant teleportation exists just baffles me.
@@Caw4B I was indeed referencing Mulligan. I did have qualms with HP’s world building as I got older, Mulligan just gave me a succinct example to showcase it.
Red -- this is brilliant on so many levels. I spend a lot of my day job explaining to senior leaders in my company that their unconscious world view (created back when they were kids) is dependent on a world that no longer exists. I think I'm going to make them all watch this.
God the part about Sending being a pain in the ass for DMs is so real. I'll never forget that time I wrote an entire mystery surrounding the disappearance of the party wizard's family after the BBEG targeted them as revenge for the party's actions... and then as soon as the party found out about it the wizard said "alright, I'll send a sending to my dad and ask him how he and my family are doing and where they all are right now". I ended up asking the player if he couldn't cast the spell on the next session after I thought of a good reason why his character's dad wouldn't just tell him everything lol, and thankfully he was understanding. Our table ended up agreeing not to use long distance communication spells when they get too game breaking.
I know that feeling, but I could never make a deal with my group. Not because they wouldn't agree, but because I would feel like it cheapens the game. Its like finding some equipment or ability in a PC game and not using it because it makes the game super easy. Like yeah, but if I don't use it I feel like I'm not doing what the game is telling me to do, not playing the game as intended. So I usually homebrew a way of WHY sending is a bit more limited. Usually its "The person receiving the sending has to know the sender too". Meaning they can speak with family but they cannot speak to a random merchant they bought a potion from. The merchant wouldn't remember them!
Line the cells the captives are in with lead. Easy. Why lead typically blocks magic scrying and stuff in DND i do not know. I'm guessing it might be because it blocks certain types of radiation irl? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Ascendance of a Bookworm series has an interesting application of of telecommunications technology, the way the magic in general is used and affects the world is super interesting and deep. For communication they have magic tools that function as two-way voicemail (kinda like sending), they record a voice message, turn into a bird, fly unimpeded by physical barriers straight to the adressed person, repeat the message loudly 3 times and finally wait for a response and return when given one. The interesting thing about it to me is how non-private it is and background noise in the message is an important thing sometimes, as well as embarassing messages being heard by several people.
My first DnD character’s overarching goal as a character was to find his sister, who thought he was dead, which is why I actively avoided giving him that one spell that gives you the exact location of a blood relative, yet it never occurred to me that he could just use Sending to call her up, and as a cleric, he absolutely could cast Sending. I don’t even have the excuse that the communication we’re used to now wasn’t common then because this was only two years ago!
Well DnD is typically mediaeval type fantasy so he can't exactly be expected to know every spell that's possible ever unless they had access to some academic literature which common folk don't tend to have so most people don't know about it. But also "hey if you're looking for your sister I could cast Sending" Cast what now? "Sending, it locates a blood relative" You're fucking kidding me
You do have the excuse that people sometimes don't think about obvious solutions to their problems. Using that excuse in fiction is generally frowned upon, but in this case I think it works.
So, a tangential point came up when I was talking to one of my best friends. I mentioned how, yeah, if I die, you probably won't hear about it ever. We both live pretty isolated from our families and each other. That made her very uncomfortable. Beyond actively not wanting a friend to die, she's so used to knowing everything about me and that if I were hit by a bus or something, she'd lose that. It's a very weird paradigm when the end results of being ghosted or someone dying are functionally the same.
@Peters6221 It is morbid, but it's also like disaster preparation, I guess. You hope you'll never need it, but if you do, you'll be glad you prepared. Statistically it has to have happened a few times out there, but no doubt we just... never hear about it :(
@Peters6221 I've already received a couple messages from the phones of dead colleages. My guess is that the family chose every (or quite a few, I knew but a friend of mine found out through the text) contact and mass messaged everyone privately and not by group chat.
My brother recently died unexpectedly (he was 61). He was very active on Discord, but I don't know which of the servers he was a member of he was active on, and I don't know which of his "friends" were people he actually spoke with. Eventually I used his account to send a brief message about his death to anyone he had sent or received a private message from in the past year, and hoped the news would propagate out from there. Not only are we in constant touch with our friends in ways that decades ago were unimaginable, we have close friends who don't know our real name or where we are.
@@CrazyFarseer Are those really normal things to share? I would never do more than mention what I do loosely for work, and if you're hearing anything about my family it's only going to be lightly touched on. Or because my sister is in the room/in game with us/hijacker my discord while I'm on the toilet.
I find it funny this trope talk is just a history session with Red while also a wake up call telling us how strange it is that we can talk to each literally at any point in time almost anywhere in the world. I'm surprised Blue didn't make a cameo
Red: "I'm having an existential crisis and now you will, too." Audience: "Wait, wha- aaaaaaaaah! What is life? What is normalcy! What was normalcy! Aaaaaaaa-" By the way, I;m still waiting for my covert communication device that vibrates the bones of my inner ear that also somehow allow me to see Master Miller's sunglasses.
I have a pair of headphones that rest on the jawbone right in front of my ears and use that as the transfer medium. They are pretty great for driving as they don't block out any outside noise.
That you addressed communication in Columbo of all things makes my "grew up on all those murder mystery shows" heart soar. I always loved the cool phone tech in some of those episodes.
Most viewers: "Haha yeah it sure is silly how often people could resolve communication problems with easy access to phones." Also most viewers: *Gets anxiety about sending a text message reply and doesn't respond for several months.*
@@ldbboosha How about this: Same viewers: "So many problems would be solved without incident if the protagonist just called somebody!" Also same viewers: "A call from an unknown number I didn't expect? No way in hell am I picking that up, probably a spam call." RIP to the protagonist who had to steal somebody else's phone I guess. If you're going to make an argument about how modern communications tech trivializes problems in past stories, and leave out all the friction present in modern communications tech to make that point which would recomplicate the same problems, then you are making a different set of invisible assumptions.
@@Crandlefist i ALWAYS answer unknown numbers in the Hope that it'll be like that One meme about an unknown Number actually beeing a phone call from Stalin himself. Never happened so far, but im holding on to my Hope.
@@Crandlefist God, I have a colleague like that. She offered to be my reference for a job I was applying to and then she didn't answer when the recruiter called because her gut reaction was "unfamiliar number must be spam"
This might be Red's best video essay to date. Which is wild, because she absolutely kicks ass at video essays. It's both crazy and intuitive to me that our conceptions of communication and, more broadly, normalcy across fiction influence our worldbuilding and dreams of the future, and the implications on fiction are enormous. Everything we write and create is subject to the time and context in which it was created, so in a way the author can *never* die because their sense of normal imposes rules on the fundamental fabric of their worlds, and yet they also *have* to die if the work is to be adapted into later forms and contexts and still seem normal and coherent to the audience. Freaking fascinating.
Not really. Sigh. She conveniently forgets that cellphones as we know them require the use of satellite technology, and so science fiction has a huge problem with communicating to people a planet away from orbit. Unless you have tons of satellites to use every time you visit a new planet, you can't communicate.
@@scottdoesntmatter4409 or hear me out if they are using some sort of radio or a signal that is not radio paste that can penetrate planetary bodies so you don’t need to have a satellite bouncing around to the other side. Your sense of normalcy is talking and you don’t even realize it.
@@scottdoesntmatter4409 Cell phones use cell towers, my dude. There are specific phones set up to use satellite signals (ie "satellite phones") but most people don't use those. As for interplanetary communication, we are able to send messages across space using electromagnetic waves and have done so since the 60s. There's latency the further away you go since the speed of light is limited, but I've seen sci-fi authors tackle that in a wide variety of ways. It's not an unaddressed problem. More importantly, even if that nitpick was well founded, it still doesn't address Red's larger point about technology and context affecting a given author's ability to envision the future, so I don't really know why you brought that up here.
@@JaimeNyx15 Tell me, do you think cell towers would be present on an alien planet that you just visited with a spaceship? Would cellphones function at all without satellites or cell towers? Think. And that's just voice or text, we haven't even gotten around to video calls for the most part. There are some in use, but only rarely.
@@scottdoesntmatter4409 I think you're getting too caught up in the specific denotative definition of a cell phone here. Obviously if you're visiting another world or traversing a magic-infused fantasy world, you wouldn't be using cell phones specifically; you'd be using some sci-fi "communicator" or a fantastical "sending stone". But that doesn't have any bearing on the discussion. The point is that our access to instantaneous communication today *through* cell phones, the Internet, and other technology create expectations for that kind of instantaneous communication in our fiction, even in speculative and fantastical works.
An absolute testament to Red's writing skill is the fact that she can make an audience listen to Sneaky Snitch for over half an hour just by talking about fictional mobile phones.
I think this is also the reason for the massive 80s resurgence in fiction. Of course nostalgia also plays a huge part in it, but 80s and 90s story telling is just so convenient. None of the protagonists have a cell phone, but they might have a walkie talkie. Most houses have a landline (at least from what I've seen in US settings) so communicating is still relatively easy if everyone is where they're supposed to be. The 80s and 90s are in this sort of sweet spot of "we can reach each other without delay if it's important" and "how will we let anyone know we're in danger in the middle of nowhere?"
The Duffers have said as much in interviews around Stranger Things season 1 and this has been a thing as early as Blair Witch Project where the creators doing publicity stated they set it 5 years in the past to avoid the consequences of cellphones.
I do like how characters being out of communication can create tension and conflict, and I'd like to see it more in modern stories, but it does feel like a logical step to have characters in constant communication in fiction nowadays
Love how early D&D spell text is written like an advertisement for a spell. Also, petition to make a new series about the invisibility of normalcy in media beyond cell phones!
I don't think you have to convince her to do it. It's just that it's going to be so, so, so much work because she can't exactly use TvTropes as a launch point.
The bit at the end makes me think of Pratchett's Men of Clay. The solution to the mystery of how the Patrician was getting poisoned with arsenic turned out to be something no one looked at, despite consciously dealing with it every day: candles. You don't see it because it's what you see with. Pratchett had a lot of points to make about how what's normal changes over time.
Something thats neat over time is that the 90s/Bantum era star wars Legends had everyone using Comms that are relatively large and tied down, but by Legacy of the Force (In the 2000s) everyone and their mom started using Datapada as if that was always the case
Handheld planetary-range comms do appear as early as the Thrawn trilogy, and a new hope featured droid callers that functioned as phones, but I definitely agree that interplanetary communications were typically not possible from hand devices until later works.
Frank Herbert didn’t predict a lot of stuff, but he most cleverly gave himself a pass by having a universe where highly advanced computers were forbidden, and the functions of such were performed by spice addicts of the Mentat and spacers guild. So he still wins the most timeless space opera award
There are also a few more details that affect communication. The Fremen in particular are secretive and trying not to be detected by space-faring superpowers, nor even reveal how numerous they are. And because the Dune universe has faster than light travel, there's nothing odd about positing that no message could travel faster than their fastest mode of personal travel. Many of the in-person messages in the story are also high level diplomatic communications that cannot be left to more convenient (but more falsifiable, blockable, or less confirmable) methods of communication.
I do agree with this, but what I did find funny, and very telling of when he wrote it. Is that in God emperor of Dune, which was written in the 80s, he did Suddenly include a computer with a messenger application.
also most of the story happens on Arrakis that has magnetic moons and electrstatically charged sandstorms wich fuck up electronics even more so than they already are in the rest of the Dune universe
21:56 On one hand, rip dramatic dad reveal. On the other hand, Jester immediately sending a message to Babenon was the best reveal and the best reaction 😂 it was just one of those moments you just can’t write. It was just such a perfect dnd moment, like of course Jester would immediately message her dad and make things weird. Def one of my favorite moments from campaign 2 I’m so excited to see it animated 😂
I am reminded of an interview with the creator of Ghost in the Shell who said he had imagined wireless communication and electrical signals sent through finger tips and such however ended up simplifying to key boards and cords out the necks and tech like that because even when writing science fiction or fantasy or anything else like this you need to make it relatable to the audience. So even if you can imagine a drastically changed society and technology, the audience might be lost in the world building and not be able to engage with the story it's self.
By writing a fanfiction about a man from the 19. Century visiting a woman of the the 21. and her revisiting him, i had to rethink all things. What things they can use, what they know, what words they use and how they feel about. It is a real interesting experiment and tought me to look at things that are now totally normal for us at a different way.
I'm doing the inverse currently, writing a character with modern linguistics in a setting with its OWN linguistics and VERY FAR from earth lol. It makes you think
This might actually be my favorite video on the channel. You put so much effort into researching this thing that most people just don’t think about and legitimately made me see fiction in a new light. I love it.
I’m middle aged and when I was growing up, there was a lot of speculation about the 20th century. I still have times when I’m just amazed that I’m *walking around in the 20th century.* Most of our predictions didn’t come true, but there’s so much that we didn’t predict that’s absolutely awesome. Most of the awesomeness stems from the changes Red mentions in the video. This was a succinct and entertaining look at recent history. Thanks.
I remember some engineers and scientists on several occasions saying we could absolutely have flying cars today if we wanted but we don’t because no one could be trusted with them.
@@Broomer52 if by flying cars you mean small air planes it is true, but not levitating vehicles like we see in movies, they are based on anti gravity technology that probably will never exist, anyway cars in general are bad, we need more trains
@Aelech Deepestflame It's because the years 1AD to 100AD is the first century to occur in the AD period. Everything else just counts forwards from there. 1-100, 1st. 100-200, 2nd. 200-300, 3rd. 300-400, 4th 400-500, 5th. 500-600, 6th. 600-700, 7th. 700-800, 8th. 800-900, 9th. 900-1000, 10th. 1000-1100, 11th. 1100-1200, 12th. 1200-1300, 13th. 1300-1400, 14th. 1400-1500, 15th. 1500-1600, 16th. 1600-1700, 17th. 1700-1800, 18th. 1800-1900, 19th. 1900-2000, 20th. 2000-2100, 21st. Sorry for the big wall of dates, but visualising it like this was the best way I could think of to explain this point.
Having watched the D&D Move yesterday, I gotta say this video was startlingly prescient about the use of Sending Stones as basically magic walkie-talkies. They even have feedback in the movie! Truly, Apollo gives the gift of prophecy in bizarre ways.
Red:-"I'm frequently encouraging parasocial relationships."? Man! I'm so glad, to have found this channel, because this woman, is pure gold. Anyone else agrees or I'm just blowing hot air?
*NITROME!!! SHE SAID NITROME!!!!* I've love those guys since I was a kid! That was such a niche reference and you are the first person I've ever seen who randomly mentioned Nitrome so casually! A surprise to be sure but a welcome one!
I friggin loved my class on Philosophy of Technology in college, and this lecture on Philosophy of Communication Technology is scratching this same itch! This is a bona-fide banger, I hope this stays up for years and helps tons of people re-evaluate their stories and their lives, no lie!
hey lovelies ❤ instead of telling me your headcanons for why that one interesting case of authorial-blindness-induced plothole I'm having so much fun analyzing actually makes perfect sense as long as you pretend something that didn't happen onscreen and was never discussed actually did happen, please refer to 15:51 and also internalize the distinction between watsonian and doylist explanations for things
(A QUICK EDIT: hey guys so I consumed the sacred spice of Arrakis and it showed me a mystic vision that said that "butlerian jihad" thing you keep talking about was actually only written out in any detail in the 2000s by frank herbert's son decades after he died and also decades after the cell phone was invented, making it the exact opposite of a refutation of my point about dune not inventing phones. sorry to disappoint but I'm a space chosen one now or something and my mystic visions are always correct. thanks for making me google dune sequels though, that worm centaur guy was pretty cool)
ok love you bye 😘 -R
love you too red 😳
Frank Herbert did think of it, it was critical to the society before the Butlerian Jihad, we know this because he wrote it down for us to read. This isn't just 'us' coming up with retroactive justifications. The in-universe reason for why the Great Houses rose to power is they exploited the chaos from the destruction of the communications networks during the Butlerian Jihad. Prior to the Great Revolt the galaxy was dependent on near instantaneous communication from anywhere to anywhere, the destruction of that ability is what leads to the feudalistic society we see in Dune.
In Frank Herbert's defense, sending a text while on drugs is hard
Is this the hand of the author?
I take bite :)
Replying to this comment for visibility read because internet if you want to know more about how phones and the Internet changed normalcy
The reason Leia couldn't just email the death star plans to Obi-Wan is that the Jedi code forbids attachments.
_omfg_
HOW does this only have 35 likes this is gold
I see what you did there.gif
I hate you so much right now 🤣🤣🤣
My parents are looking at me funny now because I burst out laughing reading this.
I'm reminded of the quote "A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam."
By this reckoning no sci-fi that speculated on the emergence of artificial intelligence was all that good.
@@KatriceMetalunaIRobot would like a word with you
You guys should be UMM AKSHUALLY-ing the OP, not Katrice. They are just saying the quote from the person OP is quoting is flawed.
@@Vassilinia But why though? OP isn’t the person they’re disagreeing with.
Do you think there was no traffic jams involving horse drawn wagons?
Not only predictable but inevitable. Just most people never considered the issue.
One of my all time favorite moment in Critical Role's history is that time when Jester realized she could use the Sending Spell to annoy random people she met or heard off. The look of absolute horror on Matt's face as he realized what this spell can do in the wrong hands...
...and then, 50 episodes or so later, he weaponized it as his big bad was harassing Caleb with sending.
In my D&D campaign, I specifically gave the royal family earrings that stop mental effects (and give resistance to Psychic damage), from spells of lower level than five from non-trusted sources.
This includes sending spell. The king needs to be protected both from compulsions and from telepathic harassment.
You see, a king is famous enough to for anybody in the kingdom to be _familiar_ with him, and really doesn't want every lv5+ spellcaster with Sending being able to backseat-rule.
@@frantisekvrana3902 So you have the royal post office to shift through the physical mail of the king, and then the king just has "block all" on for mental mail.
"Hi, I'm looking for a Mister Jass, first name Hugh"
"Are you pooping?" or any other time Jester decided that, to be worth a Sending, she had to use ALL 25 words.
“This is possibly my father you guys, I have to sound cool.”
…
“Hi Dad!”
In my D&D group, we had a warlock who was psychically linked to his patron. He abused this mercilessly to ask for advice so often that eventually I made hold music for the DM to play when the warlock was out of contact with his patron
You could justify it with the Patron being exasperated with the mortal.
me (wizard) watching cleric's pray for stuff when if I have a question, I just cast contact other plane to facetime god.
Why do you think the patron makes hold music? If he really couldn't be reached there would be no music
@@tekbox7909Because DnD is a made-up game about wizards and dragons that is oftentimes quite silly? And having hold music would be really funny?
@@BrunoMaricFromZagreb Yeah this is a pretty common one in games I've been a part of.
In theory a warlock, cleric, paladin, druid, and potentially other classes can be connected to a god or patron or other higher power but that doesn't always mean said higher being is going to listen every time. They may be sick of their mortal calling them every five seconds and start only occasionally responding, and/or simply don't care enough much about mortal problems to actually respond or give aid/advice frequently.
I'm reminded of a scene I wrote in a modern fantasy sort of setting where a guy is sneaking around and his phone rings, so he rushes to shut it up before it gives him away, and then a minute later he gets a magic message directly into his brain from his Sister asking, "Why aren't you answering your phone?"
THIS IS SO FUNNY I LOVE IT
Is this story available to read somewhere? Because it sounds hilarious.
Then the brother replies: "why didn't you do this first? I'm trying not to get noticed here!" 😂🤣
“I’m trying to not get captured here!”
“Oh, sorry. I’ll call you back later, k?”
“Just use magical head voice!”
I need to read this.
I work with middle schoolers, and I had to explain what a phone book was to one of them. When I told her it was a book filled with everyone’s phone number, her eyes got big and she went, “That’s creepy.” This feels like a real world example of your argument here.
😂
I was explaining a programm to a newby and told him to "just click the floppy-disk icon to quick-save", and he just looked me dead in the eye and went "what the hell is a floppy-disk?"
And it struck me - most younger folk only know the save-progress-icon as this weird square or rectangle with some plates and lines on it that is just kinda used everywhere, and have no idea that it's actually an image of a floppy-disk in a sort of homage
@@lemmetalkaboutthis I find the fact people don't know what a floppy disk even though I was born in the XXI century.
Have they not had a stash of old items? Have they not watched media older than they are? Is that just, not normal?
@@k-techpl7222 I dunno. I was born in 1999 and had classmates who didn’t know what floppy disks were besides having been told “don’t touch that” as kids. They were mostly storing stuff like old office programs and photos for the really old computers their parents had. Meanwhile, I did know what they were because my dad had an old CAD program he ran a few times in front of me off some. However, I’ve also always seen save icons as “looks like a hard drive”, and floppy discs are frankly just a thinner, portable, delicate hard drive.
@@k-techpl7222 I mean, I was born 97, and never used them, but I was told what they were at least. Also still used video tape for a while there and other bit outdated stuff since we couldn't afford a bunch of new stuff
Red: "I'm not here"
Literally everyone: *gasp*
She was in the walls…SHE IN THE GODDAMN WALLS!!
@@starmaker75 And they were roommates!
Red is everywhere and nowhere. An unsolvable paradox
Ceci n'est pas une pipe
Ceci n'est pas une Rouge
"Dearest Martha, it has been TWO AGONIZING HOURS since I last parted from your DMs." When I tell your, I LAUGHED HARD. XD
WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME
This isn't a trope talk. This is a half-hour documentary about the evolution of communication tech and the way creators use of communication in their works evolved alongside it.
I'm not mad. Nor disappointed.
Frankly, I'm just impressed. This is amazing.
By the way, things like wireless telephones functional anywhere like they are today require satellites. Funny thing is, on most alien planets, this wouldn't be an option in science fiction.
@@scottdoesntmatter4409 Unless whatever spaceship those characters came in either retained those capabilities while in orbit, or dropped off something in orbit prior to making their way down to the planet. It's something work keeping in mind during our own real life space exploration going forward.
@@kajeslorian2 This is a terrible video. Not only does she forget this concept of satellites being necessary for telecommunications, she also forgets that no rational, intelligent player of D&D would waste a slot, especially an upper level slot of spells for simply harassing a NPC. If they did, most GM's would send a few encounters their way, depleting their spellcasting immediately, and then ask them if they ever want to blow spell slots on useless harassment. I sure as heck would!
@@scottdoesntmatter4409 It sounds like you've never met Jester Lavorre/Laura Bailey. Players often have downtime in which they don't have to use their spells for combat, so using them for sending is better than doing nothing. Just because you would have the universe reorient itself to punish a player for creative use of a spell doesn't mean "most" DMs would, I wouldn't and nor would the ones I've played with.
@@scottdoesntmatter4409 man you are sad. You’re the guy who requires everyone to min max, for them not to lose their character, because there wasn’t enough conflict for you. You’re lacking the idea of social conflict, and emotional conflict. Work on using those instead of combat.
I love how Rick Riordan treated this trope in his Percy Jackson and the Olympians universe.
The heroes can't use normal cellphones without EXTREME risk because the enemies can trace those to them very accurately. The gods and demigods DO have their own communication thing called 'Iris messages'... but it has quite a couple of prerequisites for it to work.
You need: 1) golden Drachmas to pay for the connection through an offering;
2) water and light available in such a way that you can create a rainbow (because Iris is personified as a rainbow) to *create* the connection in the first place;
3) The goddess Iris being active and doing her job as normal and *not being captured or incapacitated.*
This means that a lot of the time, the heroes will have an issue creating a connection based on points 1 and 2, and there's this constant tension that everyone hopes that Hermes-be-blessed Iris is fine and doing her job, to the point that when sending an Iris message *works,* it's basically a massive sigh of relief.
The loss of Iris messages for most of TOA was one of the most anxiety-inducing aspect of the Triumvirate in my opinion.
It also made me think of the delightful scene where the dyslexic ADHD demigods who want to read just have like, stacks of CD audiobooks and CD players everywhere
If I remember correctly, Iris also had to be in a good mood at the time- or not be pissed at whomever was making the connection.
Hey, you stole my comment!
Edited: By that I mean my idea for a comment, not an actual comment I had made.
Percy's essentially summed it up as being more effective than a multimedia ad campaign and a firework display at revealing their location
Thing that happened to my group in D&D when using an ally’s sending stone:
Player: “Are you okay? Where are you at?”
Lich holding the ally hostage: “Wrong number (23 words worth of laughter)”
That's brilliant
Lich: "Your Mother's."
Oh we had plenty of fun and antics with those friggin' things... Re-skinned for a "flashing visual" and "Loudly Audible" message notification, so when the thief got a message in the midst of a stealth-check... um... it was bound NOT to go well for him...
The team "assassin" (ranger) didn't appreciate them much either... NOTHING more distracting than brightly colored lights and "something like a series of short bursts from a fire-bell" at an inopportune moment...
Artifacts and Magic Items found in ANCIENT ruins can be SOOOOoooo damnably much fun! ;o)
My group had an incident where we were sneaking into a lakeside town held by an enemy force. We defeated a patrol, and then heard a noise from the squad leader's pocket. It was a sending stone and they were asking why he hadn't reported in yet. I replied "Sorry, there was a magic miscast, but it's fine, we're fine, everything's fine, here, now, thank you. How are you?"
Naturally we then had to play out the whole exchange. I'd never been awarded double Inspiration before.
One of my parties had a PC and DMPC (we had a few that rotated through the party) with Sending Stones. Made sense as they were an Artificer and his great-great-granddaughter, a (homebrew) Gadgeteer Rogue.
They were flavoured as hot pink Hello Kitty flip phones.
(The artificer was an undead who had lived thousands of years ago when the world was high-tech; basically our world but with fantasy races. He often made references to missing videos games, or countries that no longer existed).
I think it’s hilarious in sci-fi, even modern sci-fi, there’s this insistence on face to face communication no matter how impractical (holograms, picture phones) rather than simpler voice communication. And while I understand the reason is aesthetic for the sake of the visuals, it makes me laugh because IRL most people hate FaceTime and video calls unless there’s a specific reason like to see someone’s baby or better explain to your grandma how to set up her TV.
Yep. Like there's always that one person on the Teams meeting who insists everyone has to turn their cameras on because it's more social and 90% of the people in the meeting either groan or make an excuse why they can't come on camera at that moment... or both.
Well it's the same reason as to why characters in fantasy don't wear helmets in battle.
It's an interesting parallel to the development of communication technology and culture to see the newfound value of privacy in an information-overloaded world
I get the need for faces to be seen in movies...but some movies set in modern times are so creative and fun with their talking-on-the-phone visual mosaics or montages. I'd love to see some of that brought into scifi
It depends on on preferences. I prefer texting over talking on a phone and video chat and speaking to someone face to face.
I mainly hate talking on phones due to people mistaking me for a woman even though I'm a biological man.
That "Why did Han need to go look for Luke instead of calling him" at least is an easy one. Luke was caught in a snowstorm and those tend to disrupt signals heavily.
Also, "he hasn't checked in" presumably includes not answering his pager...
It's also radio silence too.
Plus. If the empire intercepted a long range transmission then it would have busted the whole fucking opperation when they realised 'fuck wait these plans suggest that the design has a key structural weakness they can easily exploit, we should triple security, place a couple frigates there, and not engage the rebels with out being prepared for this specific eventuality.
The point wasn't JUST getting the plans, it was also keeping them away from the empire
His lightsaber was on the ground, out of his reach, when he woke up with his feet frozen to the ceiling. Presumably the rest of his equipment, including his communicator, was likewise scattered around the cave. He just wasn't able to find it before he left the cave.
Jedi have a strong link with their lightsabers, which explains why he was able to find that, even though he wasn't a fullly trained Jedi yet. The fact that he wasn't fully trained explains why he wasn't able to find the rest of his equipment.
I also like to think the reason they didn't send a call directly to "Old Ben" was because the Empire could monitor communications through normal means, and Obi-Wan had been noncommunicable for years so he didn't ave a secure line.
@@JohnSmith-bn5mi Retroactive explanation for what the writers never even considered, as Red points out in the video. The fact that it has to BE rationalized is part of what Red was addressing here. Just because we can make it make sense, doesn't mean it was written that way on purpose.
There was definitely a weird transitional period where TV writers hadn't figured out that everyone has cellphones yet, and kept writing contemporary idiot plots where people don't bother using those dang phones!
For a famous (and stupid) example: the plot of New Moon would have been resolved in 5 minutes if Edward had even tried to text Bella to see if she was still alive.
Yeah. Unless there's a sudden, major change that simply _cannot_ be overlooked by anyone with a pulse, it tends to take about 15 to 20 years for current trends and tech to make it to TV and movies.
@@Anastas1786 The obvious explanation for this is that people making decisions about content for TV and movies are in their 30s and 40s, while the people adopting current trends and tech are in their teens and 20s, so it takes that long for things to change from being newfangled nonsense the kids are doing to natural and normal things everyone has done practically forever.
@@rmsgrey That really isn't true anymore. Most of the current workforce have grown up in a world with constant technological advancements and are fairly used to the changing times.
I remember a lot of clumsy plot points trying to handwave the fact that they even exist. Oh, you did think of calling the cops, but there's no cell service...IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES? I would honestly have preferred the character to have straight up forgotten their phone.
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that video. Every now and again when I’m bored, I will try to stop myself in reality and examine how things are the way they are.
@@gutsmasterson2488what video is it ?
That would be like a human saying "what is weather?"
This video made me aware of the water I was in, and it blew my mind.
@@reubenoakley5887 nah it's more like "hey there how's the radio?"
"Wtf is a radio?"
In 1953, Ray Bradbury published a short story called "The Murderer," in which people's radio wristwatches and personal background music are recognizable as cell phones and unlimited streaming music. Especially since the people in this future act in ways that were strange when the story was published, but are extremely relatable today: they panic when loved ones stop checking in every 2 minutes, they're unable to strike up conversations with strangers when they can't use their radio wristwatches to ignore their neighbors, and they spend most of their days drifting around in blissful musical bubbles, serenely self-satisfied and disinterested in anyone else's problems. The amount he got right in that story is frankly incredible.
And, of course, in the same year, his novel _Fahrenheit 451_ introduced the Seashell, which was nothing less than a noise-canceling, radio-receiving earbud... as well as on-demand, personally-tailored television on increasingly massive screens.
I will say, however, that as someone who chooses not to use a cellphone, I'm treated far better than Bradbury's stories predicted.
We don't even realize how powerful communication is because it's so natural to us. The fact that cell phones have to be routinely written out of horror movies is a big one I think. The ability to call someone and say "help" has to be accounted for otherwise the tension rings hollow.
On the other hand, I think we're missing on the potential of a character being in a horrible, scary situation, while able to freely communicate with their loved ones, and the loved ones being able to know exactly what's happened and still being unable to help. I once read a short story about this concept, where a girl ends in a parallel universe filled with monsters and such, but her phone still works to call home. The main character is actually the sister of the one who dissapeared, who is thus aware of everything her sister's going through but can't do anything other than provide moral support. The story ends when the phone's battery runs out and the girl's never heard of again.
@@Rynamony sounds creepy and amazing. Such a powerful tool creates so many good story telling opportunities. Just the idea of not having it can shake us to our core anyone. Like that story. Phone died, so what hope is there left.
@@Rynamony Holy shit that would fuck me up. It's brilliant and I never want to hear this premise again.
Yep were not in the world of “oh no the phone lines been cut” anymore. I’ve seen this explored in some recent stuff tho. Horror set in rural areas sometimes takes advantage of the fact that even in the US some places have bad/no cell service. Most recently there have been films in which the phone/internet/video call is the creepy thing. And I’ve heard it suggested that the next step in horror will be deepfakes and stolen-identity horror, which could do some super interesting stuff with the concept of interpersonal and parasocial relationships and how they’ve changed because of the internet and cell phones. So I think we’ve almost moved past cell phones being written out of horror movies, but it needs to become a part of films in the way it’s a part of normal peoples lives I think.
I want a modern gas light. That film is so good. I imagine it where she’s got an iPhone and stuff but is so thoroughly psychologically isolated from any support she either doesn’t even think to use it to call for help, or communicates all the time, but never honestly about her situation, so her Allie’s don’t even know she needs help.
_when you text your friend and they don't text back_
A communications disruption could mean only one thing: Invasion.
"Or they didn't pay the phone bill!"
@@MereMeerkat "INVASION!"
Then my friend must be invaded every 2 seconds XD
@@MereMeerkat, then they've been invaded by their telephone company!
@@glasscardproductions4736 Comstar Sends It's Regard!
I find it so funny how this Trope Talk started as “how the march of real-world communications technology influences communication in fiction” and ended with “Red gives us the play-by-play of how a simple innocuous addition to her own long-running story gave her an existential crisis.”
Oh to be a writer that has a existential crisis over the smallest thing… totally never happens, not at all -
@@blue-raptor4017 are you okay?
@@chocobear4078 oh yeah I’m fine, just a joke
To be fair, as someone who also read a lot of Elfquest, we are not the first to have tech and lore break our plots. (Terrifyingly, one of the initials in my username is an Elfquest Spirit Name I used for myself, and then forgot that's what it started as.)
Ya know it just occurred to me that since Aurora’s version of a phone is a wind elemental messenger bird, she could just make the excuse for why it doesn’t work be “it was too windy and it got blown to smithereens”
Red needs to see this
or maybe some sort of magical message-bird shooting machine that runs off a lacrima
@@LineOfThythe amount of “bop-“ sound affects would be amazing
Reminds me of the exchange from Firefly: Wash- "That sounds like something out of science fiction." Zoe- "We live in a spaceship dear." Wash- "So?"
Like the opposite of when I do something relatively simple that was impossible when I was a kid, like paying a bunch of bills or booking a doctor's appointment from my phone in bed
"Because we live in the future, dear"
Context for anyone who sees this comment and doesn't recognize the quotes, the characters had just discovered another character on the ship was a psychic
I remember when Sarah Z was asking on twitter for examples of bad self aware writing to use in her video on nerd culture, someone used this quote as an example since a spaceship would of course be completely normal to the characters and the line only makes sense from the audience's perspective.
I haven't seen Firefly myself so I don't know if it's better in context.
@@ferhog7705 the characters just discovered that another character was psychic. It is better in context.
@@ferhog7705 If someone said "that sounds like something out of science fiction" while they were using a computer or we were in an airplane, I would definitely point that out
Back in the 80s when portable phones were the size of briefcases, my dad got one and was instantly hooked. We were about to go to some family gathering, and mom and I were just about to open the door to the garage where dad was waiting. The phone rang. Mom grumbled, but decided she'd better answer it.
It was dad, calling from the car asking us to hurry up.
My parents laughed about that for a long time.
I'm assuming that back in the 80s, your dad was doing it as a joke. Not the way people do it without the slightest irony these days. I'm always late to appointments these days, too, because I don't use a cell phone, and as I head out the door to go to my appointment, my landline rings, and it's the place I'm going to, calling to confirm my appointment.
@@Vinemaple nice, me too. i haven't had a cell phone for a year, and i only got my house phone and wifi back on 4 months ago. people can't wrap their heads around it, lol
@@intellectually_lazy Although saying, "I'm sorry, I don't have a cell phone. At all" generally gets me cheerful and well-reasoned workarounds, I have never gotten the exasperated, "Well, why NOT?!" (that I always expect) from anyone.
“Oz doesn’t have a telecommunications network, it’s just a panopticon”
That’s a terrifying way to put it, but I get it.
Having two panopticon tecnically allows you to communicate
@@davidegaruti2582 Mutually assured communication
@@davidegaruti2582 How?
@@incanusolorin2607 You can just look at each other's locations, and either talk out loud (if the device has sound), or write things down and hold them up to the air for the other person to see.
@@davidegaruti2582 How the heck do you connect two panopticons, they're circular buildings!
Funny story about Sending Stones: I once ran Waterdeep Dragon Heist, a low-level D&D adventure module, for my friends and as a joke I decided that the city watchmen would each carry Sending Stones like they were cops with radios. It occurred to me that the more I played into this bit, the more the city watchmen actually became a competent police force that was REALLY difficult to deal with. Any given watchman could radio their dispatch officer, who would then put out an APB to every watchman in the district and suddenly a simple robbery would turn into a GTA-style massive chase scene. They could even deploy Griffin riders with their own Sending Stones like they were police choppers to keep track of quickly fleeing suspects no matter where they ran to.
That’s sounds like it would’ve been a lot of fun
Hope your players weren’t frustrated by it
@@SkyPerson they loved it! Guardsmen becoming a credible threat meant they had to get more creative with their heists!
Reminds me of the "KNIGHTS" parody scene in Shrek 2: "We have a madman on a white brnco heading into the forest."
This made me think about how everyone in the later seasons of stranger things has walkie talkies. Like everyone has one and they basically act as cell phones
Similarly, Metal Gear Solid 3’s use of walkie talkie’s that somehow perfectly replace the Codec
Or a more "old school" example, the fact that the C.B. radios in practically every car in Hazzard County become a plot point for almost every episode of
"The Dukes Of Hazzard".
Ooh, nice catch, they didn't, even in the aughties, VHF radio is very different from cellular tech.
Good point. The writers are probably so used to writing around the fact that most of their contemporary characters all have phones. Go watch most any show set after 2010. Dollars to donuts they'll use cell phones in some way.
Red is basically a cool aunt with a bunch of interesting stories and we are all her nephews and nieces that she is telling these storys to.
Speak for yourself youngun'. Some of us she's the hip young niece that's keeping us up to date with the cool new stuff;).
@@silverjohn6037 that's also a viable option for the older meat puppets among us.
Oh God, I'm an old meat puppet now. Next thing I know I'm gonna blink and everyone will be sending texts to eachother using brain implants and talking about how weird it was that we all had cars when teleportation was just so simple.
@@danielkubicek1323 The future is now old man
@Hydrαngea 🌠 and according to the time I read that comment, the future was four minutes ago. Probably five by now. Or even six.
Oh well, the future wasn't all that exciting, fun while it lasted I guess. 😁
You could definitely make an entire trope talk on modern horror movies' tactics for getting around the "everybody has a cell phone" problem.
They best solution is that their phone dropped or they forgot where they left it. It would be really funny.
I remember setting up a horror universe in the year 198X. Not out of a love for the 80's, I'm more a 60s-70s aesthetic type, but because I wanted as close to modern life as possible without cellphones or the internet.
Pretty sure that's why there's a fixation on period pieces in the horror genre. A big ol' dusty book having the spooky lore is "better" than wikipedia on your iphone. But really it's because isolation is terrifying especially to generations that take constant connection for granted. You get some of the most effective psychological horror in modern audiences when your protagonist can't dial 911 on the highway.
Also any modern killer worth their salt will know to target cellphones ASAP. Whether by stealing them or smashing them with a hammer, otherwise the killer has no common sense.
Breaking down near remote, spooky cabins in the woods is always an option
"Why aren't they picking up?!"
Smash cut to the phone buzzing away between some couch cushions.
This would make such a good Halloween trope video!!
The photo of the Lunar lander descending that Michael Collins took was the first photo to include every human who was alive or had been alive to that point...except for one: him. It's amazing and bittersweet to realize that Collins took a photo of all of humanity, and couldn't be in it because he had to hold the camera.
But it doesn't include all ofhumanity as almost half are behind the earth not seen in the camera
@@aayushkothekar arguably, it does. They're still in the frame even if obscured. Its a poetic and philisophical statement I'm making. Not a literal one.
right, that was the 3rd guy from genesis?
@@The_Viscount oh darnit! i gotta undermine my joke because now i wanna argue for real: no one was in that picture, just earth and space. zoom in all you want, you won't see any earth people in that pic, ever
He should've taken a selfie
"In 25 words or less where exactly are you and how flammable is it" made me laugh out loud, it captures the essence of the average D&D session so perfectly!
Edit: nevermind, "I need you to remember the voice you ad-libbed for scrungly the goblin. NOW" does an even better job LOL
I realized how bad of an idea video phones actually are when I was sitting on the toilet one time, and my father just happened at that moment to discover Facetime, and attempted to videocall me SEVEN TIMES IN A ROW.
The truest expression of terror. Solution, text back, not now, _poopin!_
We were warned about this in 'Spaceballs' in 1987.
@Daniel Wilson It took me the whole seven attempts to manage that text. Reject call, open text messages, reject call, type a few letters, reject call, etc.
I think my exact text was, "I'm shitting. Stop."
He didn't even need anything. Just saw it was a thing and wanted to try it out. You'd think he'd get the hint, but boomers be boomin.
@@HOSER922 I mean you could've just pointed the camera away from you and said "I'm shitting" before closing the call, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that.
"How many times have I told you to never call this wall! This is an unlisted wall!"
My personal "normalcy eureka moment" came a few years ago when I was relating a story from my time in high school to my wife, and commented that I should have just looked something up on my smartphone. Before realizing that I was talking about an event in 1988. And I was angry at myself not for having forgotten they were not a thing back then, but that I should have miraculously had one to fix the problem, because it made no sense to not fix it that way.
To me it was in 2017 when my mom asked me to get something she had forgotten in the trunk of her car, so I went down to the garage, opened the trunk, then seeing there were a lot of stuff there, I realized I had forgotten to ask her what the item was. So I sent her a message, she told me, then I sent a picture as confirmation I got the right one, she confirmed it, then on my way back up in the elevator I thought "Isn't this amazing? Just a few years ago I'd have to go aaaall the way back up to ask her, then I'd have to get back down, get the thing and pray I got the right one, else I'd need to go back to switch it with the right thing. But now, just a message and a picture and it's done."
"Speaking as someone with a large Jewish family I can say from firsthand experience that in this culture arguing is considered to be extremely healthy and necessary about anything and everything all the time."
*THANK. YOU.*
You need therapy.
@@BrunoMaricFromZagrebI think it’s an exaggeration lmao, but friends who know much more about Judaism than I do, I’ve gathered that enthusiastic debate is, in fact, a Thing in Jewish culture.
and people think you guys are actually lizard people who control the world from the shadows.
actually now that I think about it-
Judaism moment
Where does she say this? I missed it 😭
"In the more depressing cases, losing contact with your old friends."
Or, for some of us, being able to ignore that high school ever happened was a big win.
Nowadays it looks more like deleting ton of your phone contacts as soon as you graduate. I did that about an hour after my high graduation ceremony and it felt so freeing
It's a rather pointed thing when the new D&D movie uses sending stones not just several times per day, but four different stones linked to each other simultaneously like they're straight up walkie talkies.
They do at least put a time limit on the duration. I'd class that under "you can research new spells" rather than "casually ignoring official usage limits on an existing item"
I'm 39. In high school (late 90s) our teachers kept telling us, "One day, very soon, every classroom will have computers in them!" We waited and waited, and finally computers were installed in our school... the year after we graduated (womp womp). In college (early to mid 2000s), my friends and I all assumed we would lose touch after graduation because that's just how life goes, and when this new thing called "MySpace" showed up, it was like a revelation. Suddenly we were able to easily message each other, share pictures, life updates, etc. despite being scattered across the country. Of course this would eventually give way to Facebook, texting, etc. I only bring this up because I find it fascinating to see how different age groups adopted and adapted to the Communcation Age we now live in.
It allows people to stay in touch more which can definitely be a good thing
Technically, the teachers were right in ways they could never imagine. Every classroom does have computers in them now. One for every student, in every student's pocket, plus the teacher.
I'm 29 and we only had like 2 80s computers in each classroom. We were told soon we would all get laptops. The year after graduation they got laptops (womp womp).
Yeah I'm 37, and so the jump to cell phones happened for my groups right in college. I knew all my college friend's phone numbers, I knew all my high school friend's parent's home phone numbers. I can still just pick up my cell and call the kid that showed up to a club trip I ran randomly junior year of college. But if I were to try to get ahold of the girl I dated for a month my Junior year of High school, I'd barely know where to begin. Track her parent's down if they're still living at their old house, the white pages?
I'm 48. My parents were very early adaptors of computers (TRS-80 Model 1 with cassette tape drive!) and I learned how to type on those using extremely primitive word processing software. I would routinely type up grade school book reports on my computer and print them off, and some of my teachers at the time freaked out about this and would forbid me from doing so on the justification that it was "cheating" for me to hand in a printed copy rather than a handwritten one.
There was an interesting period in the late 90s to early 2000s with shows like the X Files and Buffy where the writers had a lot of trouble writing plots that weren't ruined by the characters having cellphones
In 1999, the Pokémon anime had super-advanced video call technology that required what was basically a monitor fused with a phone booth. In 2023, we frequently keep video call technology in close proximity to our butts, and that will never cease to amaze me.
Generation five was when they realized that video call technology was achievable thanks to the C-Gear. Generation six introduced to the players search system. Generation seven was a cyber Plaza. Then Rotom started taking over UI features and now here we are.
@@gutsmasterson2488 I remember the X-transceiver being a selling point for pkmn BW! I own one of the official guides for the game and there are a few pages that are just "Look your ds has video call now! Isn't that nifty? You can even sharpie your friends face and put stickers everywhere!"
@@Xx_Oleander_xX I think by that point, I switched to Bulbapedia because it was cheaper than buying strategy guides.
@@gutsmasterson2488 thats fair. I had the guide because I didn't have a tablet or computer at the time and using google on an ipod kinda sucked
@@gutsmasterson2488 It's also worth noting that before Generation V, the pokedex in each game was designed to look like the most recent nintendo handheld: gen 1-2 were game boy, gen 3 was gba, gen 4 was ds. The gen 5 pokedex was based on the ipod, which was still hot new technology in 2009 when Black and White were being made. Then in gen 6 it was a holographic smartphone, and since then the pokedex has been essentially just an app in your personal Rotomified smartphone or tablet.
This all makes me think of Dr. Stone and how he purposefully made a communication device as their "secret weapon" due to instant communication being the most crucial aspect of winning a war. Like man, he GOT IT
That isn't a deep concept to grasp nor is the author clever for pointing it out
@@WickedKnightAlbel does it have to be deep or clever to be a good application? No. Glad you shared your opinion that no one asked for.
It is a very smart move, and highlights that the author has considered the video topic. But that makes sense, his entire plot is modern tech in the hands of primitive people.
However it is definitely telling that telecommunications is a focal point because even in modern warfare soldiers dont maintain the same form of constant communication we see in spy movies and the like, mostly due to expenses and coverage concerns and due to needing to prevent the communication channels being cluttered with unnecessary communication
@@Desdemona-XI even then mantaining comunication is esential, a big reason why ukraine was able to keep Rusia in check in this recent war was because they are able to keep comunications open thanks to starlink a completly new telecomunications technology that has proven to be extremly resistant to jamming were all other telecomunications providers were taken down in the first few days of the war
Comunication is esential
I just realised that I made up a whole dream dimension in order for my characters to communicate with one another. And I didn't even notice how weird it is that this feels more natural to me than them just not being able to talk to each other...
tell me they can use avatars on this alternate dimension and other people can walk into their chat looking like kermit the frog
@@devforfun5618 So, VRChat then?
Alright, alright, you got me. I had the same vein of an idea for my story, a very necessary and vital idea that allows for developments otherwise impossible but damn. The idea of that not being connection not being there at all feels really strange cause the two characters would almost be in two completely different stories.
Also really cool to find someone else who had this kind of idea for communication. (Not incredibly rare in fiction depending on the type of dream communication I suppose, but still.)
Not the most uncommon idea, but hey! I am reading a fanfic series that has something like that, but restricted to soulmates.
It’s like when covid happened and every show came up with an excuse to have the main characters stay in their homes
ja, like 2 or 3 years later
@@intellectually_lazy
Fictional media tends to be delayed 2 to even 10 years later from the real life events that inspired them.
Doctor Who: Flux merely got crazy with VFX and body doubles.
Can you give examples?
Are there any examples?@@intellectually_lazy
I did not expect to come here and see the majesty of Laura Bailey deconstructing Matt’s sanity 25 words at a time but I’m glad for it
The second I saw critical role my first thought of Laura’s messages was “…. You pooping?”
I am... catching the MADNESS!
And of course, the current campaign of Critical Role has the widespread failure of Sending spells as a major plot point -- precisely *because* of how much Laura Baily relied on Sending once her character got high enough level to cast it.
"HEY PLANK KING"
I didn’t expect to have the entirety of how I socialize completely torn apart in the first few seconds of this video. It was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one
I tend to shy away from socialization. I’m mostly a lurker both irl and on the internet. I’m not sure if it’s a result of this or my hearing is really good but I just tune into what other people are saying and I’ve gotten really good at extrapolating information. Which makes talking to people harder because I’m several steps ahead in the conversation because I assume everyone is on the same page as me. Theirs this fan song I remember hearing for Bruno that i resonated really well with “everything is way too loud, the roar of the whispers in every crowd, I’m sick of all the noise right now! Can someone please just turn it down?”
@@Broomer52 you mean Encanto? That song was fan made by RUclipsr OR3O, written in the perspective of one of the characters in movie, Dolores
Can't wait for when we're all telepathically connected, and reading stories where people don't have a constant perfect mental connection are archaic and maybe even horror
Reminiscent of the Martian hivemind from "A Miracle of Science"!
I recommend the Old Man's War series then. It'll give you a taste of what that's like, both the good, and the very bad
@@Technodreamer Hey, a fellow MoS fan in the wild!
I wouldn't mind being able to speak telepathically, but I want to break that connection when I want to be alone. Gotta charge those social batteries.
there a story from an anime. Kino Travels (or something) where that has been done.
not a good idea ...
11:02 There is one author's saving throw that I appreciate to explain R2D2's needing to carry the plans, and that's simply because the Empire controls the phones. The rebels _couldn't_ just beam the plans to Yavin IV without allowing the Empire to their secret base's location.
As for the "you're our only hope" message, that was a message recorded with R2's bodycam, not onto any kind of Internet equivalent.
Honestly, this makes sense to me. It's fair enough that they wouldn't want to risk that/
What's funny is that I'm a teacher for students who come from...basically backwater villages in Central America to the US, so I always have had an interesting perspective with this.
To put it broadly. My own little backwater village in Nicaragua had an Internet cafe. Most of my students have had experience with technology and picked it up faster than reading. Like reading period. It's crazy how intrinsically adaptable people are and how that surfaces
Nowadays, we have quality testing and accessibility features everywhere to help with that. Maybe a little too well sometimes, but generally it’s really effective.
Well, children and the youth. It’s hit and miss with older adults. My mom and aunt were very resistant to change, while my dad I were far more adaptable.
Did red just make a half hour long video about “those dang phones”?
You never stop amazing me red.
Edit: i made this comment as soon as the video came out, cause I was genuinely shocked a trope talk about phones could be so long. Now where I have watched it fully, this might be my favourite Trope talk, red has made this far. She really took something I never thought to question, and then threw my way of looking at the world and fiction for a loop. It was so much better then I expected, and that says A LOT, cause OSP always have super high quality, in my opinion. This just blew me back in a way I was not expecting at all, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Yes, she just did XDXD
...and she got 14,000 views in less than 30 minutes
my god she's become my grandmother
I was at lunch when I noticed and had 20 minutes before I had to get back to work. I thought, "Oh, a new Trope Talk, I have time for that." I did not have time for that.
@@daviddaugherty2816 Psh, there is ALWAYS time for that!
Never underestimate the power of communication.
In Dr. Stone, which already has a theme of examining the things we created and marveling at how incredibly useful they are (its core opinion being that SCIENCE IS FUCKING AWESOME), Senku's immediate reaction to being informed that the antagonist plans to descend on his village with an army and wipe it out is to proclaim that he will fight back by creating the most powerful weapon in history: cellphones.
A) He is completely serious;
B) he manages to build phones with stuff barely out of the stone age; and
C) they are absolutely crucial in the following conflict.
Notably, said antagonist (who is also from our time and pretty smart) discovers one of the phones by accident and FREAKS OUT because he understands the power it represents and that he is now at a disadvantage despite holding almost all the cards.
Ah, yes! Can't wait for the anime to release the next season!
The stone wars was my favorite arc
@@RasmusVJS new world is already airing!!!
@@spritemon98 What!
@@RasmusVJS YES
Fun fact about the Star Wars examples: both are later explained by the story. In A New Hope, the Death Star plans have to be physically transported bc the Empire can too easily intercept the plans being sent through communication technology, and in The Empire Strikes Back, the snowstorm is explicitly blocking their comms, which is why they have to physically search for Luke.
Also the way Obi-Wan lived as a desert hermit he may not have even had a space phone.
I was thinking about that too
The plans weren't "emailed" as we know today, where the recipient(s) gets effectively a new copy, and the original still exists, it's more like actual mail, the empire was mailing it and the rebels stole their letter, if they turned around and mailed it again the empire would pretty easily just steal it back
It's a pretty interesting thought though
That's still a perfect example of what Red is talking about because in modern times the idea of a snow storm blocking a phone signal is incomprehensible with our current technology, but Lucas never would have thought of that in the 80s! Even if there's an explanation for those things it's clear it was written with the current technology in mind
@@Naoto-kun1085 Also, I'm betting the Rebellion could have used something like a VPN or Tor to avoid governmental snooping.
@@Naoto-kun1085 no they actually say that in the movie, funnily enough
Wait, Red is not here?! Someone fix the fourth wall! I can’t handle this parasocial interaction being called out!😭
We're Writers! The fourth wall is so fragile it never lasts! It's a paper door!
I remember reading about Michael Collins, he said of being the loneliest man in the universe that it was nice after having spent so long with 2 other people in a confined space. Introverts of the world understand, the loneliest man ever was just happy to have some god damn peace and quiet
He was also hella busy with observations and riding herd single-handed on a spacecraft designed to be operated by three. But yeah, you definitely get the sense that he enjoyed the quiet when you read his memoir. He wasn't lonely, he was satisfied.
the irish nationalist?
@@caseykafka5009 No, the astronaut.
@@caseykafka5009 Apollo 11 astronaut that stayed on the command module while Neil Armstrong and buzz aldrin were on the moon
@@caseykafka5009 I was real confused into I understood it was another Michael Collins
I love how she acknologes that the bad guy having instant comunication was a thing WAAAAAY before theactual instant comunication
I once had to write a series of missed calls from one character to another over the course of weeks, and it was heartbreaking.
The increasing desperation of the voicemails, the desire to just see them again, to know he's still alive, it hurt.
Just imagining getting into an awful argument with your best friend and they just vanish for weeks straight, no messages, no response, nothing.
I had to actually imagine my best friend disappearing so I could write it, and I almost started crying.
I’d love to read it
Would you like a hug?
The amount of access, demanded by some of the "friends" I've had, has been extremely disturbing. Once I was able to tell someone "I'm not your boyfriend, you can't demand at-will access to me like you can your live-in boyfriend," and she realized what she was doing and quit, even apologizing... she went back to being a wonderful friend after that.
Most of that type of "friend," however, ended up deciding I was cold, distant, and not interested in them, because I considered my response before replying, and didn't always reply within a week.
But if you have a healthy, functional, and very close friendship with someone, yeah, that might be upsetting.
-this is bojack, btw... horseman
@@Vinemaple yeah, no, if we're not close and you just vanish for a week I'd too would just assume you're not interested. Might be a generational thing.
I didn't ask for an existential crisis first thing in the morning, but Red addressing the weirdness that is parasocial interactions is something I do come here for so I think the universe is having its Callout Fridays.
When Red started talking about her Aurora comic, how she was easily making a communication spell without thinking, it was like she was calling herself out and I honestly thought that was the funniest thing I had ever seen! 😂
The whole video, I was wondering when she'd bring up the little messenger birds. Wasn't expecting it to be the bedrock of the entire script. At least she has "You need Air Magic to be able to send them" as an excuse.
Falling or calling?
i fixed that problem in my story before it even came up, the magic system has the usual 4 elements, then a friend suggested adding technology and i came up with the idea of the 5th element metal being wiped because they used it to make electronics, now only a few relics exist
I was writing an expansion/conclusion to a Dwarf Fortress run that I particularly enjoyed at one point and gave my characters rapid long-distance communication. I only gave it to the leaders of the different parties, because all of the leadership of this faction were necromancers. I made them carry around small dead animals, specifically birds for comms but I also used a mouse and a snake as opportunistic workings that were a surveillance cam and a static signpost respectively. When they needed to communicate, one of the necros would have to terrify himself with existential thoughts (the only way necromancers will raise the dead in DF is if they feel threatened) and bring the bird back to life. He'd ask the bird for permission to use its eyes and speak from its mouth, because these were Good Necromancers who didn't like unthinking thralls, and send it on its way.
Basically just Homing Pigeons+, as the communication was two-way and instant only after the bird arrived, so there was still the transit time and the necros had to consider speed (a swallow, in the story) versus durability (an actual pigeon) when preparing the connection.
I think I can forgive myself this "I need communications to get everybody in the right place at the right time for this denouement and make sure my narrator can see what's happening in the climax when he's not in the room - the purpose of Surveillance Mouse."
"The Invisibility of Normalcy" sounds like a whole-ass college course for film media majors and I would be SO DOWN for more!
That was a important part of my ethnology classes in university
I feel like this is a big moment for Red, going further than explaining tropes and actually starting to theorize about them
The opening remark about normalcy brings to mind one of the many great quotes from Firefly.
"Psychic though? That sounds like something out of science fiction."
"You live on a spaceship dear."
"Yeah, so?"
Edit: 29:37 "Or, to save on postage..."
I thought this was gonna be a video about how boomer writers often equate cellphones to "everything wrong with the kids these days," but this is just as fascinating.
Ditto
If I'm to understand:
O.S.P's Red was in the middle of writing a story and had a writer's existential crisis realizing how hard she made it to write classic plot points by giving the characters an extremely effective magic communication network...
And now this video explaining how normalcy can put an unintentional blind spot in a work exists.
I am thankful for every minute I'm subscribed to this channel 😭
Bro I’m in a one on one D&Dish campaign that’s in a modern setting.
My DM has run it with a few friends; and so they expected me to use my character’s literal SUPERPOWERS to solve problems.
What they did not expect was me to call the cops any time anything suspicious happened, then join a local news station, document all of the crime I saw, and then report the villains to the government.
It is now a very DIFFERENT campaign, to say the least.
well played!
Bruh turned it from Dresten Files to X-Files. 💀
Tell me more.
@@bonefetcherbrimley7740 Uh well currently the main villain organization still has no clue who’s been leaking info to the news because I’ve never shown my face to them lol.
Nice!@@lolli_popples
Oh, that young millennial segment hit me right in the childhood feels. I just hit 30 last year and my first memory of a phone was the corded wall hanger type my mom would stretch across the kitchen while talking to my aunt. During high school just before touch screens really took off, I remember how some of my classmates would memorize the buttons on their phones just to be able to text in class.
How things have change, in Thursday I got to the mall, and there were four people, a family talking with each other, with their smartphones, but not actually speaking with each other.
i like them curly cords, great fidget toy, we're truly missing out
For context, I'm 36. My grandmother used to have a corded phone when she lived in the house we live on (long story) and now, by my mother insistance, we have a wireless (but still landline) phone. I keep telling her that when I moved out I wouldn't have one (nor cable TV). My younger sister did moved out of the house and she doesn't even consider having one (or, again, cable TV).
33 and same
Memories the buttons on their phones?
I don't get it
31:25 First of all, that drawing and Red's rant about her realizing things when working on her own comic was hilarious.
Second of all, *What do you mean she has a comic?! How have I missed that until this point?!*
I was reading the comic for a while, then randomly discovered the channel, and made it about 2/3s through the backlog of Trope Talks before I realized *why* the doddle-figure art style was hauntingly familiar. And only because she explicitly plugged the comic. "Wait, Red draws Aurora? I thought the artist was called... Red... They're the SAME Red?!" Mind fully blown.
It's quite good, check it out! Red linked to it in the description.
She mentions it on most episodes of the OSP podcast.
As someone who is extremely nervous about giving out their contact information and is stressed out by social media, I'm not sure I've ever gotten used to instantly being in contact with anyone but my family.
I'm also sh*t at answering emails and texts so that probably contributes too.
lets be friends and then never talk because we dont know if the other person is busy and we dont want to be annoying ?
@@devforfun5618 No need to throw a nuke in a classroom 💀
@@devforfun5618 This speaks to me.
@@devforfun5618 It's more that I forget to message someone for so long that I just assume they've stopped liking me in all that time.
Oh my god! Someone else finally understands me!
32:45 The notion of “catch something in the mirror (of fiction) that’s shifted without our noticing” threw this whole essay into the realm of horror in a way it probably wasn’t intended.
Honestly, I think Dune's complete rejection of "thinking machines" does give some leeway in terms of ignoring the likely technological advancements such a large span of time would imply
Feeling as it'll be an era that'll be quickly changed once the era has become too chaotic to sustain its old technological norms.
I can see that perfectly.
Technician: invents what is essentially a 1993 cell phone
His supervisor: has a Vietnam flashback about that one time humanity was almost wiped out because of rudimentary AI and proceeds to smash it to bits
Given modern tech coming out recently, I take the additional reason as to why they use in person communication over telecommunications is because one could fake a message via some kind of Deep-fake tech. Not as dangerous when you have Mentants instead of Computers, but still a possible reason to add to the pile.
Was coming to say this but you said it perfectly
Thank you.
In defense of Star Wars, the OT and Prequels mostly used those comlinks (aka cell phones) for short range communication. Long range communication over hundreds or miles or to other planets required more powerful hologram devices that were connected to ships or stationary communication hubs.
Those films also went to the effort of pointing out when the standard methods of communication didn't work. On Hoth for example, the heavy snow blocked the signal. That's why R2 couldn't locate Luke after a snowstorm started, C-3PO said as much. The range is also limited, the Rebels couldn't pin-point Han and Luke's position until they flew close by.
That also happens in the Prequels. Qui-Gon and I can communicate with each other on our comlinks bur not with the Jedi on another planet. Bad guys also use jamming tech to justify why long range communication doesn't work. Even long range communication tech is limited, in Episode II I'm too far away from Coruscant so I have to contact Anakin who's on a closer planet.
So I think the way those films used communication made perfect sense. It wasn't as efficiant and convenient as cell phones and when the normal methods of communication didn't work, there was a reason (jamming, intercepting, distance, etc) why it didn't work. Even R2 needing to deliver the Death Star plans made sense. The Empire were surely intercepting or jamming communications so the plans had to physically be transferred. As to why they didn't transmit the plans when they got to a stronger long range communication device (like a ship or a hub) I think it made sense that either the file size was too bug or they didn't know the channel to communicate with the Rebels who surely had private channels none of the characters would know about.
When you started to use "I" in your comment, it made pause and go "hold on, what?". Then I checked your profile name 😂
Agreed.
Re: ANH
If they broadcast the death star plans, how do they know the rebels are listening on that frequency? How do they know they got the message. How do they know they got the entire message intact? A rebel base that is running dark can't exactly be sending checksums!
@@lt.swampfox7339same here
Also, Leia has to send the droids in person because Obi-wan is living off the grid in order to remain safe.
In other words - comlinks aren’t phones, they’re walkie-talkie radios
Probably my favorite example of this in fiction has to be the den den mushi or “transponder snails” from One Piece. They’re literally just snails. Telepathic snails that are capable of perfectly mimicking human speech that people use to communicate with each other. God I love One Piece.
What I love most about it is that it's actually a network of snail-based technology.
some are phones with different communication ranges
other speakers
others are used to wiretap
other cameras
others to counter the wiretap
and others to basically activate nuclear bombs
Not to mention live-streaming video! But the best part is when they mimic the appearance/expressions of the people on the other side.
Didn't those start out as basically landline telephones, and then the author introduced handheld versions partway through the story? ...Dang it, now I need to try and figure out when he introduced those and how far along cellphone tech was then.
@@sabertoothkim that is such a great example of what red talks about because one piece is so old you literally see the changes over time
@@emiliocorvalan3322 to be fair, the nuke triggering ones are basically just very specific telephone ones that just say "this is the island I'm on, fuck it up"
My mom always says that most older movies wouldn't work in a cell phone world cause all the problems could be easily solved by communication. So this was extremely interesting
I love how The Owl House not only had flying phones which are basically crows and scrolls which act as cell phones, but also a freaking social media parodying Instagram. Plus the flying microphones, cristal balls as computer or tv screens and gemstones as walkie talkies.
It's a weird world building sometimes and I love it.
Bit of a tangent, but seeing Owl House's use to magic-fueled technology really makes me annoyed about Harry Potter's world building and its utter refusal to use tech or even innovate. Using the slowest birds to send hand written letters in a country commonly covered in clouds when instant teleportation exists just baffles me.
it makes the scenes of them not understanding human objects kinda weird in retrospect tho
@@raidev_ I mean, I'd be a bit confused if I didn't know what a cristal ball was and it would take me some time to figure out it's a "round TV".
@@J-manli funny you say that. Because that's exactly what Brennan Lee Mulligan said in a podcast with Matt Mercer. It's borderline animal abuse
@@Caw4B
I was indeed referencing Mulligan. I did have qualms with HP’s world building as I got older, Mulligan just gave me a succinct example to showcase it.
Red -- this is brilliant on so many levels. I spend a lot of my day job explaining to senior leaders in my company that their unconscious world view (created back when they were kids) is dependent on a world that no longer exists. I think I'm going to make them all watch this.
What does your company do?
That almost doesn't matter, most higher ups in any company will be running off of the idea that the world they trained to work in no longer exists.
They'll get bored before the 10 minute mark
God the part about Sending being a pain in the ass for DMs is so real. I'll never forget that time I wrote an entire mystery surrounding the disappearance of the party wizard's family after the BBEG targeted them as revenge for the party's actions... and then as soon as the party found out about it the wizard said "alright, I'll send a sending to my dad and ask him how he and my family are doing and where they all are right now". I ended up asking the player if he couldn't cast the spell on the next session after I thought of a good reason why his character's dad wouldn't just tell him everything lol, and thankfully he was understanding. Our table ended up agreeing not to use long distance communication spells when they get too game breaking.
I know that feeling, but I could never make a deal with my group. Not because they wouldn't agree, but because I would feel like it cheapens the game. Its like finding some equipment or ability in a PC game and not using it because it makes the game super easy. Like yeah, but if I don't use it I feel like I'm not doing what the game is telling me to do, not playing the game as intended.
So I usually homebrew a way of WHY sending is a bit more limited. Usually its "The person receiving the sending has to know the sender too". Meaning they can speak with family but they cannot speak to a random merchant they bought a potion from. The merchant wouldn't remember them!
Line the cells the captives are in with lead. Easy.
Why lead typically blocks magic scrying and stuff in DND i do not know. I'm guessing it might be because it blocks certain types of radiation irl?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Ascendance of a Bookworm series has an interesting application of of telecommunications technology, the way the magic in general is used and affects the world is super interesting and deep.
For communication they have magic tools that function as two-way voicemail (kinda like sending), they record a voice message, turn into a bird, fly unimpeded by physical barriers straight to the adressed person, repeat the message loudly 3 times and finally wait for a response and return when given one. The interesting thing about it to me is how non-private it is and background noise in the message is an important thing sometimes, as well as embarassing messages being heard by several people.
My first DnD character’s overarching goal as a character was to find his sister, who thought he was dead, which is why I actively avoided giving him that one spell that gives you the exact location of a blood relative, yet it never occurred to me that he could just use Sending to call her up, and as a cleric, he absolutely could cast Sending. I don’t even have the excuse that the communication we’re used to now wasn’t common then because this was only two years ago!
Well DnD is typically mediaeval type fantasy so he can't exactly be expected to know every spell that's possible ever unless they had access to some academic literature which common folk don't tend to have so most people don't know about it.
But also "hey if you're looking for your sister I could cast Sending"
Cast what now?
"Sending, it locates a blood relative"
You're fucking kidding me
You do have the excuse that people sometimes don't think about obvious solutions to their problems. Using that excuse in fiction is generally frowned upon, but in this case I think it works.
21:23 "Who wants to hear me loudly eat this pudding" had me uncontrollably cackling like Vincent Price in Thriller for several minutes.
So, a tangential point came up when I was talking to one of my best friends. I mentioned how, yeah, if I die, you probably won't hear about it ever. We both live pretty isolated from our families and each other. That made her very uncomfortable. Beyond actively not wanting a friend to die, she's so used to knowing everything about me and that if I were hit by a bus or something, she'd lose that. It's a very weird paradigm when the end results of being ghosted or someone dying are functionally the same.
Oof. That’s a kind of good point… although, neither of you know enough about each other to call either the other person’s family or workplace?
@Peters6221 It is morbid, but it's also like disaster preparation, I guess. You hope you'll never need it, but if you do, you'll be glad you prepared.
Statistically it has to have happened a few times out there, but no doubt we just... never hear about it :(
@Peters6221 I've already received a couple messages from the phones of dead colleages. My guess is that the family chose every (or quite a few, I knew but a friend of mine found out through the text) contact and mass messaged everyone privately and not by group chat.
My brother recently died unexpectedly (he was 61). He was very active on Discord, but I don't know which of the servers he was a member of he was active on, and I don't know which of his "friends" were people he actually spoke with.
Eventually I used his account to send a brief message about his death to anyone he had sent or received a private message from in the past year, and hoped the news would propagate out from there.
Not only are we in constant touch with our friends in ways that decades ago were unimaginable, we have close friends who don't know our real name or where we are.
@@CrazyFarseer Are those really normal things to share?
I would never do more than mention what I do loosely for work, and if you're hearing anything about my family it's only going to be lightly touched on. Or because my sister is in the room/in game with us/hijacker my discord while I'm on the toilet.
Red better have like 3 doctorates with the level of research she does for these videos. I’m impressed!
I find it funny this trope talk is just a history session with Red while also a wake up call telling us how strange it is that we can talk to each literally at any point in time almost anywhere in the world. I'm surprised Blue didn't make a cameo
Red: "I'm having an existential crisis and now you will, too."
Audience: "Wait, wha- aaaaaaaaah! What is life? What is normalcy! What was normalcy! Aaaaaaaa-"
By the way, I;m still waiting for my covert communication device that vibrates the bones of my inner ear that also somehow allow me to see Master Miller's sunglasses.
I have a pair of headphones that rest on the jawbone right in front of my ears and use that as the transfer medium. They are pretty great for driving as they don't block out any outside noise.
@Justin Jacobs yeah same, also when you turn them up loud on a song with a bassy kick drum it vibrates your head and feels nice
Enh, "What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly". Many of us already know in our bones/bone-analogs that normalcy is relative
Bone anchored hearing aids exist. Some of them can hook up to a modern phone via bluetooth.
See also, cochlear implants.
That you addressed communication in Columbo of all things makes my "grew up on all those murder mystery shows" heart soar. I always loved the cool phone tech in some of those episodes.
“Columbo was a science fiction series” is not something I expected but am very glad I got
Most viewers: "Haha yeah it sure is silly how often people could resolve communication problems with easy access to phones."
Also most viewers: *Gets anxiety about sending a text message reply and doesn't respond for several months.*
Back off!
@@ldbboosha How about this:
Same viewers: "So many problems would be solved without incident if the protagonist just called somebody!"
Also same viewers: "A call from an unknown number I didn't expect? No way in hell am I picking that up, probably a spam call."
RIP to the protagonist who had to steal somebody else's phone I guess.
If you're going to make an argument about how modern communications tech trivializes problems in past stories, and leave out all the friction present in modern communications tech to make that point which would recomplicate the same problems, then you are making a different set of invisible assumptions.
@@Crandlefist i ALWAYS answer unknown numbers in the Hope that it'll be like that One meme about an unknown Number actually beeing a phone call from Stalin himself.
Never happened so far, but im holding on to my Hope.
@@inserisciunnome
Why Stalin?
@@Crandlefist God, I have a colleague like that. She offered to be my reference for a job I was applying to and then she didn't answer when the recruiter called because her gut reaction was "unfamiliar number must be spam"
This might be Red's best video essay to date. Which is wild, because she absolutely kicks ass at video essays. It's both crazy and intuitive to me that our conceptions of communication and, more broadly, normalcy across fiction influence our worldbuilding and dreams of the future, and the implications on fiction are enormous. Everything we write and create is subject to the time and context in which it was created, so in a way the author can *never* die because their sense of normal imposes rules on the fundamental fabric of their worlds, and yet they also *have* to die if the work is to be adapted into later forms and contexts and still seem normal and coherent to the audience. Freaking fascinating.
Not really. Sigh. She conveniently forgets that cellphones as we know them require the use of satellite technology, and so science fiction has a huge problem with communicating to people a planet away from orbit. Unless you have tons of satellites to use every time you visit a new planet, you can't communicate.
@@scottdoesntmatter4409 or hear me out if they are using some sort of radio or a signal that is not radio paste that can penetrate planetary bodies so you don’t need to have a satellite bouncing around to the other side. Your sense of normalcy is talking and you don’t even realize it.
@@scottdoesntmatter4409 Cell phones use cell towers, my dude. There are specific phones set up to use satellite signals (ie "satellite phones") but most people don't use those. As for interplanetary communication, we are able to send messages across space using electromagnetic waves and have done so since the 60s. There's latency the further away you go since the speed of light is limited, but I've seen sci-fi authors tackle that in a wide variety of ways. It's not an unaddressed problem. More importantly, even if that nitpick was well founded, it still doesn't address Red's larger point about technology and context affecting a given author's ability to envision the future, so I don't really know why you brought that up here.
@@JaimeNyx15 Tell me, do you think cell towers would be present on an alien planet that you just visited with a spaceship? Would cellphones function at all without satellites or cell towers? Think. And that's just voice or text, we haven't even gotten around to video calls for the most part. There are some in use, but only rarely.
@@scottdoesntmatter4409 I think you're getting too caught up in the specific denotative definition of a cell phone here. Obviously if you're visiting another world or traversing a magic-infused fantasy world, you wouldn't be using cell phones specifically; you'd be using some sci-fi "communicator" or a fantastical "sending stone". But that doesn't have any bearing on the discussion. The point is that our access to instantaneous communication today *through* cell phones, the Internet, and other technology create expectations for that kind of instantaneous communication in our fiction, even in speculative and fantastical works.
An absolute testament to Red's writing skill is the fact that she can make an audience listen to Sneaky Snitch for over half an hour just by talking about fictional mobile phones.
I rewatch this video every few months because it is a masterpiece and every single rewatch, the intro ages more and more into the finest ambrosia.
I think this is also the reason for the massive 80s resurgence in fiction. Of course nostalgia also plays a huge part in it, but 80s and 90s story telling is just so convenient. None of the protagonists have a cell phone, but they might have a walkie talkie. Most houses have a landline (at least from what I've seen in US settings) so communicating is still relatively easy if everyone is where they're supposed to be. The 80s and 90s are in this sort of sweet spot of "we can reach each other without delay if it's important" and "how will we let anyone know we're in danger in the middle of nowhere?"
The Duffers have said as much in interviews around Stranger Things season 1 and this has been a thing as early as Blair Witch Project where the creators doing publicity stated they set it 5 years in the past to avoid the consequences of cellphones.
Now a day where is the nowhere?
@@danieladamczyk4024 wow that's a good point. The desert? Deep in a forest. Really far under ground?
@@anthonyhernandez4266 In desert, satelite will find you. In forest too.
So ground, deep sea or space.
I do like how characters being out of communication can create tension and conflict, and I'd like to see it more in modern stories, but it does feel like a logical step to have characters in constant communication in fiction nowadays
It just takes some extra steps to accomplish, like how Brandon Sanderson uses Aluminum to interrupt (among other things) magical communication.
Love how early D&D spell text is written like an advertisement for a spell. Also, petition to make a new series about the invisibility of normalcy in media beyond cell phones!
I don't think you have to convince her to do it. It's just that it's going to be so, so, so much work because she can't exactly use TvTropes as a launch point.
The bit at the end makes me think of Pratchett's Men of Clay. The solution to the mystery of how the Patrician was getting poisoned with arsenic turned out to be something no one looked at, despite consciously dealing with it every day: candles. You don't see it because it's what you see with. Pratchett had a lot of points to make about how what's normal changes over time.
Something thats neat over time is that the 90s/Bantum era star wars Legends had everyone using Comms that are relatively large and tied down, but by Legacy of the Force (In the 2000s) everyone and their mom started using Datapada as if that was always the case
Handheld planetary-range comms do appear as early as the Thrawn trilogy, and a new hope featured droid callers that functioned as phones, but I definitely agree that interplanetary communications were typically not possible from hand devices until later works.
Frank Herbert didn’t predict a lot of stuff, but he most cleverly gave himself a pass by having a universe where highly advanced computers were forbidden, and the functions of such were performed by spice addicts of the Mentat and spacers guild. So he still wins the most timeless space opera award
There are also a few more details that affect communication. The Fremen in particular are secretive and trying not to be detected by space-faring superpowers, nor even reveal how numerous they are. And because the Dune universe has faster than light travel, there's nothing odd about positing that no message could travel faster than their fastest mode of personal travel. Many of the in-person messages in the story are also high level diplomatic communications that cannot be left to more convenient (but more falsifiable, blockable, or less confirmable) methods of communication.
And no one, most certainly not his son or some c tier sci fi writer, Co wrote/shat on any further expansion of Dune.... right....?
I do agree with this, but what I did find funny, and very telling of when he wrote it. Is that in God emperor of Dune, which was written in the 80s, he did Suddenly include a computer with a messenger application.
@@argr4sh I didn’t care for anything past that first trilogy, but obvs Frank did. :-)
also most of the story happens on Arrakis that has magnetic moons and electrstatically charged sandstorms wich fuck up electronics even more so than they already are in the rest of the Dune universe
21:56 On one hand, rip dramatic dad reveal. On the other hand, Jester immediately sending a message to Babenon was the best reveal and the best reaction 😂 it was just one of those moments you just can’t write. It was just such a perfect dnd moment, like of course Jester would immediately message her dad and make things weird. Def one of my favorite moments from campaign 2 I’m so excited to see it animated 😂
I am reminded of an interview with the creator of Ghost in the Shell who said he had imagined wireless communication and electrical signals sent through finger tips and such however ended up simplifying to key boards and cords out the necks and tech like that because even when writing science fiction or fantasy or anything else like this you need to make it relatable to the audience. So even if you can imagine a drastically changed society and technology, the audience might be lost in the world building and not be able to engage with the story it's self.
By writing a fanfiction about a man from the 19. Century visiting a woman of the the 21. and her revisiting him, i had to rethink all things. What things they can use, what they know, what words they use and how they feel about.
It is a real interesting experiment and tought me to look at things that are now totally normal for us at a different way.
I'm doing the inverse currently, writing a character with modern linguistics in a setting with its OWN linguistics and VERY FAR from earth lol. It makes you think
This might actually be my favorite video on the channel. You put so much effort into researching this thing that most people just don’t think about and legitimately made me see fiction in a new light. I love it.
I’m middle aged and when I was growing up, there was a lot of speculation about the 20th century. I still have times when I’m just amazed that I’m *walking around in the 20th century.* Most of our predictions didn’t come true, but there’s so much that we didn’t predict that’s absolutely awesome. Most of the awesomeness stems from the changes Red mentions in the video. This was a succinct and entertaining look at recent history. Thanks.
Hate to be that guy, but you do mean the 21st century, right? I don’t know why they do that, but they do. Century is whatever year you’re in plus 1.
I remember some engineers and scientists on several occasions saying we could absolutely have flying cars today if we wanted but we don’t because no one could be trusted with them.
@@Broomer52 if by flying cars you mean small air planes it is true, but not levitating vehicles like we see in movies, they are based on anti gravity technology that probably will never exist, anyway cars in general are bad, we need more trains
@Aelech Deepestflame It's because the years 1AD to 100AD is the first century to occur in the AD period. Everything else just counts forwards from there.
1-100, 1st.
100-200, 2nd.
200-300, 3rd.
300-400, 4th
400-500, 5th.
500-600, 6th.
600-700, 7th.
700-800, 8th.
800-900, 9th.
900-1000, 10th.
1000-1100, 11th.
1100-1200, 12th.
1200-1300, 13th.
1300-1400, 14th.
1400-1500, 15th.
1500-1600, 16th.
1600-1700, 17th.
1700-1800, 18th.
1800-1900, 19th.
1900-2000, 20th.
2000-2100, 21st.
Sorry for the big wall of dates, but visualising it like this was the best way I could think of to explain this point.
@@devforfun5618 obviously not anti-gravity technology.
Having watched the D&D Move yesterday, I gotta say this video was startlingly prescient about the use of Sending Stones as basically magic walkie-talkies. They even have feedback in the movie! Truly, Apollo gives the gift of prophecy in bizarre ways.
Red:-"I'm frequently encouraging parasocial relationships."? Man! I'm so glad, to have found this channel, because this woman, is pure gold. Anyone else agrees or I'm just blowing hot air?
Couldn't tell ya, but I hope hot air gave his consent.
@@chukyuniqul. Seriously, my only nitpick is streams are so busy no one can get a good word in!
She super slaps.
I learned about emotional intelligence and people from watching her stuff.
I think you, might just, be overdoing it, with the, commas.
@@flibberfrogman5508. If you say so.
*NITROME!!! SHE SAID NITROME!!!!*
I've love those guys since I was a kid! That was such a niche reference and you are the first person I've ever seen who randomly mentioned Nitrome so casually! A surprise to be sure but a welcome one!
Was Nitrome one of the fanfic sites?
I have no idea what that is.
It was a flash game company. Had some pretty good games until flash died
They switched over the the mobile market, but they're actually good
I friggin loved my class on Philosophy of Technology in college, and this lecture on Philosophy of Communication Technology is scratching this same itch! This is a bona-fide banger, I hope this stays up for years and helps tons of people re-evaluate their stories and their lives, no lie!