Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to include giant mech suits

Re:Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to inc... by Frotag on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @05:15PM (#46224678)

I think a lot of character-centered conflicts boil down to the same set of problems, regardless of the setting. For instance, you often see "keep the status quo and die a slow death" vs "expensive, risky gamble". Sometimes the setting is a small midwest town, sometimes it's a spaceship on the way to Beta Virginis. Sometimes the solution is actually unique to the setting but often it's just "find a compromise, prevent the extremists from blowing up the deal". Replace the mayor with a captain and TNT with nuclear bombs and you basically have the same story.

> There's really only a minority of people who are interested in stories that have no personal relationship stories in them at all.

All that to say I wish there were more stories that are more focused on the plot / implications of the setting. What-ifs that aren't derailed by character drama. "What if telekinesis was real? How can we exploit it for energy / propulsion / everyday gadgets?" Like basically thought-experiments in narrative form, or a textbook with characters.

Or at least I wish I knew how to search for these types of stories. Searching for "hard sci-fi" comes close but it requires the science is plausible (no FTL, minimal new physics, etc). I don't think it's reasonable to expect authors to simulate an entire universe / provide plausibility proofs for every bit of engineering / physics. As long as the mechanics of whatever fantasy physics are consistent and developments are plausible, that's good enough for me. I don't even need a satisfying conclusion, if the protagonist rebels fail because the ultra-wealthy corpos are just better equipped, so be it, at least the ride was fun.

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Re:Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to inc... by MichaelZuo on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @05:26PM (#46224813)

How many very smart people with excellent writing skills and grasp of human relations would spend their time writing fiction?

There’s probably not even 50,000 of those on Earth per annual cohort coming of age. And of the remainder practically no one will turn down the 7 figure cushy hedge fund job or equivalent career path.

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Re:Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to inc... by BalinKing on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @09:19PM (#46226890)

Honestly, the SCP wiki might scratch this itch for you—it's sci-fi but with a lot of fantasy elements, and I'd put it on the "hard" side of the spectrum. Also, I think Greg Egan's books are pretty out there (the two I've read are Diaspora and Permutation City, whose settings aren't particularly "plausible" IMHO), and they really make you think.

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Re:Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to inc... by pests on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @11:04PM (#46227513)

Agreed. It's framing device of reports / scattered documents / etc also remove a lot of the characterization or characters completely and focus just on the "what if?" of the story.

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Re:Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to inc... by jacobjwalters on Thursday December 11, 2025 @04:15AM (#46229255)

The Expanse (both a recently completed book series and a cancelled yet mostly complete TV adaptation) is pretty good at this; it sets up a world with complex political dynamics, and lets things mostly evolve as a result of those dynamics, with the main characters largely just along for the ride. It takes the science parts super seriously too: ships have to worry about acceleration and debris fields during battle, communications have to account for the speed of light, that sort of thing. There's only the occasional injection of new technologies to push things forward about once per book/season.

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Re:Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to inc... by frmersdog on Thursday December 11, 2025 @03:15PM (#46236555)

The Expanse has been called, "The closest thing that we're going to get to a live-action Gundam series," in the past. And it's certainly better in a lot of ways. You do have to thank Gundam (and Alien) for dragging us out of the John Carter Valley (which OG Star Trek certainly fell into quite often).

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Re:Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to inc... by sungho_ on Thursday December 11, 2025 @10:19AM (#46232443)

Orion's arm

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