关于《文明：太空》及其突出的技术利用

作者：Collin Campbell

Firaxis的策略游戏《文明：太空》是关于人类居住在全新世界中的故事。以并不算太遥远的未来为背景，游戏要求玩家选择并投入技术而更轻松地在游戏中前行。

当这款游戏于去年10月24日发行于Windows PC上时便出现了许多关于游戏中的技术选择的研究。尽管之前的《文明》游戏已经创造了技术进程，但《太空》却是关于一种揣摩以及对于未来的研究。

Polygon与游戏的两位首席设计师展开了交谈，希望以此明确他们所选择的那些技术的含义。

特异材料

在罗马衰亡后的几个世纪，人类创造实物的技能也消失了。而当我们再次找回这一技能时，建筑，即我们城市的布局便得到了彻底的改革。根据Firaxis，这种飞跃有可能再次出现。

首席设计师David McDonough说道：“想象在未来，我们非常擅于集合机械科学与化学工程，如此我们便能够设计更棒的建造材料，从而开始扭曲或打破一些物理定律。”

“他们可以巧妙地转换负载重力，或者他们能够从周围环境或者通过修复缺陷或者不断适应而发展，收缩并吸取营养剂。让我们想象，如果我们不再面对今天的任何限制会怎样？如果我们能够根据想象创造任何东西会怎样？我们真正能够做些什么？”

仿生学

20世纪70年代的电视剧《无敌金刚》将仿生学置于与控制论同样的文化空间中，但是它们却是截然不同的。仿生学是关于创造模仿自然系统的机械系统，或者致力于与环境的协调。

例如蜘蛛网便被当成组织或计算技术的模型。

McDounough说道：“基于仿生学，你能够为如何创造并应用力量，打斗或保护自己免受自然的影响等方面提供最佳建议。”

另一位首席游戏设计师Will Miller说道：“你可以贯穿人类历史看到这些。我们习惯通过烧毁矿山最上方的煤矿再开始深入挖掘。但这在今天看来是无效且过时的。我们不应该如此具有破坏性。我们可以通过合作方式去获取资源，材料和能力，这比采取破坏的方式强多了。”

仿生学是《文明：太空》的早前游戏技术，这是考虑到了之后游戏中更高级的单位和建筑。Miller说道：“这就像是哲学入口点一样。”

整体思维

计算机擅于解决许多问题，但却不善于更加直观的推理，如识别病人的病痛。而未来的人工智能却擅于做出一些机智的决定。

Miller说道：“想象如果一台计算机能够诊断任何疾病，如病症的话会怎样。虽然它们并不能取代医生，但这却是一个很棒的开始。就像面向病人的谷歌一样。”

“这同时也伴随着网络上的其它技术，如量子计算，这些激进思想越过了摩尔定律而进入一个全新的计算机领域。这不只是通过同样的电路系统推动更多电子。这是计算并思考计算的完全不同的方式。”

轨道网络

我们已经使用了卫星进行通讯并寻找方向。但如果包罗万象的信息网络让我们能够找到更加详细的信息的话会怎样？我们已经见证了英特网与手机所带来的强大能量。那么下一步的进化会是怎样？

McDounough说道：“拥有一大群轨道实体让你能够获得你从单点中不能获得的全局信息和看法将引出各种类型的有趣事物。拥有能够获得真正全球性的的信息和地球般广阔的视野的能力将创造出巨大的能量。”

Firaxis也承认这些技术带给社会的威胁和危险与利益是同等的。它们要求来自自由社会的更高级别的管制。在《文明：太空》中，轨道卫星便创造了军事和制作利益。

Miller说道：“人们可以触及更接近自己完整潜能的东西。他们可以完全参与到社会中。他们可以推动文化或科学的传播。他们拥有更多生产力。”

生物圈

在过去100年里，更棒的食物制作效能彻底改变了人类的行为，人们将腾出来的收入（在富裕的国家）用于维持生计。但是当我们开始计算环境破坏的成本时，这些效能的利益也开始缩小了。

一些荒凉的地方的巨大温室是否既能根除食物短缺的问题也能保护我们的环境？如果人类开始寻找新的星球，我们将需要更多食物。

McDonough说道：“一个设备齐全的生态玻璃容器或独立的环境让你能够维持地球上的生命。在这个全新的新球上不存在任何我们需要通过进化而逐步了解的东西。所以我们该如何确保自己的安全并适应这里？生物圈让你能够保留你觉得安全且舒适的地球环境。”

从更长远的角度来看，我们需要创造能够收获当地食物的技术。但为了开始在新的星球上生活，我们需要先丢掉原先的生态容器。

遗传设计

当深入理念的科学研究时，Firaxis抢占了最佳科幻小说。Warren Ellis的《Transmetropolitan》讲述了一个科学故事，在这里美容基因操作是一种惯例。McDonough表示自己是受到这个故事的启发。他解释道：“人类可以为了有趣而改变自己的生理。他们想办法通过结合遗传学而让狗具有一半的人类意识。《Transmetropolitan》让你看到了未来将是不可估量的，并且会出现许多让人震惊的变化。”

“在我们的游戏中，我们专注于不可思议的部分。但对于游戏中的许多技术，如果你认真回想的话，你会发现它们将改变对于人类的意义，并且可能改变我们社会的状态。”

“我们今天重新创造麻疹病毒去对抗癌症或尝试着明确如何从基因上改变蚊子以避免登革热的传播等等都是对世界卫生有帮助的行动，但最主要的是什么呢？我可能会说，我想要看到基因设计成真。但我同样也相信这有可能会对真实世界造成威胁。”

先进的火箭

civilization_ship_spot(from polygon)

太空之旅所面对的主要障碍之一便是物理学以及我们根本的火箭技术。

McDonough说道：“我们都知道火箭是什么以及它是如何运行的。我们以及基于在宇宙中的假设创造了一个完整的航天产业。如终端速度之类的内容。如果在新世界中存在不同，那么这将如何影响火箭技术呢？有可能会对此造成巨大的影响。”

“你可以以好奇号为例。在火星着陆与在地球着陆是完全不同的情况。那里的空气非常稀薄，你不能使用降落伞安全着陆。那里没有大海，所以也不能选择在海中着落。”

“如此便诞生了天空框架，即能够使好奇号从几百米的高空逐渐降落到火星上。所有的这些都不是你一目了然就能够想到的，但这却与在全新星球上创建航天基础设施是完全不同的主题。”

群体机器人

在一个理想的未来社会中，我们将具有充足的能量与基本资源，人类进行基本劳动的动机将大大减少。那时候人类将需要机器人的帮助。

比起用于执行任务的单一机器人，人类可能会受益于无数能够独立完成一两件事，但也能够合作完成几乎任何事的单位。

由一群聪明且适应性强的AI所控制，它们将能够应对几乎任何工作。

Miller说道：“你可以想象一群小小的机器人程序按照部署去修理摩天大楼或清理龙卷风过后的残骸或者维持足球比赛的治安等等情况。如果你将其变成无数的实体，它们便能够各自执行某些事，而联合起来则能够完成几乎任何工作，这真的非常酷。并且非常强大。”

场论

如果人类将前往遥远的银河系或者是太阳系中的其它星球，那么聚居地之间的即时对话，如我们在地球上通过电话或网络所进行的对话就会变得不可能。

科幻小说作家处理银河系间的对话便遇到了这一问题，这便是所谓的场论。

Miller解释道：“我们将通过量子与粒子间的缠绕而跨越遥远的距离进行即时通讯。如此便能能够无需延迟20分钟甚至是20年而与另一个世界的宇宙飞船进行通讯。这在星际经济中具有非常重要的意义。”

同时也仍存在一些较为普通的应用程序。他笑着说道：“你是否能够想象拥有一个即时网络的含义？我能够传达所有的一切内容。这是非常酷的。这样的世界是最佳调制解调器。”

动力系统

这是我们真正需要的。有些技术能够带给我们无限，廉价且能够适应环境的可用动力资源。

在《文明：太空》中，星系间的移居者会使用名为动力系统的技术去打开钍反应堆。

Miller说道：“我们真的很喜欢钍这个理念。这个关于非天生核燃料的理念能够基于更安全的方式驱动一个核反应堆，并输出更高的能量。这是一种即将出现的技术。”

“该理念是关于不再拥有巨大的发电厂，而是拥有分布于使用点附近的能量制造元素。这是我希望在现实中所看到的未来的飞跃。”

（ 本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转功，如需转载请联系：游戏邦 ）

CIVILIZATION: BEYOND EARTH AND THE ULTRA-COOL TECHNOLOGIES OF TOMORROW

By Colin Campbell

Firaxis’ strategy game Civilization: Beyond Earth, shows humankind populating new worlds. Set in a not-too distant future, the game demands that players choose and invest in technologies to ease their path.

Much research went into the technology choices utilized in the game, due to be released on Windows PC on Oct. 24. While previous Civilization games have charted technological progress in the past, Beyond Earth is a matter of conjecture and futures studies.

Polygon spoke to two of the game’s lead designers to find out what a few of the technologies they chose might mean for us, if they become realized in the future of humankind…

METAMATERIALS

For centuries following the the fall of Rome, the skill of creating concrete was lost. When it was found again, architecture, the possibilities of construction, the way our cities are laid out, were all revolutionized. This leap forward could happen again, according to Firaxis.

“Imagine in the future where we’ve gotten so good at the combined sciences of mechanical and chemical engineering, we could engineer building materials that are better, that start to bend or break the laws of physics,” says lead designer David McDonough.

“They transfer stress loads smartly, or they grow and shrink and absorb nutrients from their surroundings to repair defects, or they’re adaptive. Just think, what if we didn’t have today’s limitations anymore? What if we could build truly from our imaginations? What would we be capable of?”

BIONICS

1970s TV show The Six Million Dollar Man placed bionics in much the same cultural space as cybernetics, but they are very different. Bionics is more about making mechanical systems that mimic natural systems, or work in harmony with the environment.

Spiders webs, for example, have been used as a model for organizations or computing technology.

“With bionics, you’re suggesting that the best lessons for how to build and apply power, fight, or protect yourself come from nature,” says McDonough.

“You can see this throughout human history as well,” says lead game designer Will Miller. “We used to strip mine mountains by burning off the top of them and digging it out. That seems really inefficient and antiquated, even today. We don’t have to be so destructive. We can extract resources, materials, and power from the landscape by working with it, better than we can do so by working against it.”

Bionics is an early-game tech in Civilization: Beyond Earth, allowing for advanced units and buildings later in the game. “It’s sort of a philosophical entry point,” says Miller.

SYNTHETIC THOUGHT

Computers are good at solving lots of problems, but less good at more intuitive reasoning, like figuring out a sick person’s ailment. But artificial intelligence in the future will be much more capable of making smart decisions.

“Imagine if a computer could diagnose any disease, given the symptoms,” says Miller. “That doesn’t replace the doctor, but it’s a great place to start. Sort of a Google for ill people.

“This couples with other technologies on the web, like quantum computing, these radical ideas that leapfrog Moore’s Law into an entirely new realm of computing. It’s not just pushing more electrons through the same kinds of circuitry faster. It’s a fundamentally different way of computing and thinking about computing.”

ORBITAL NETWORKS

We already use satellites to communicate or to find directions. But what if an all-encompassing information network allowed us to find out more detailed information? We have already seen how much power is afforded by the internet and by cell phones. What is the next level?

“Having a swarm of orbital entities that you’re interlinking with that provide information and insight on a global scale that you can’t get from a single point on the globe leads to all kinds of interesting things,” says McDonough. “The ability to have truly planet-wide information and planet-wide oversight gives a tremendous amount of power.”

Firaxis concedes that such a technology poses at least as many threats and dangers to society as benefits. It would require high levels of regulation in a free society. In Civilization: Beyond Earth, orbital satellites grant military and production benefits.

“People can achieve things that are closer to their full potential,” says Miller. “They can fully participate in society. They can help with the propagation of culture or science. They’re more productive.”

BIOSPHERES

In the last 100 years, better food production efficiency changed human behavior significantly, freeing up income (in wealthy countries) that would otherwise have been spent on sustenance. But the benefits of these efficiencies are beginning to wane, even as we count the cost of environmental destruction.

Could giant greenhouses in otherwise inhospitable places eradicate food shortages while protecting the environment? And if humankind is going to start travelling to new planets, we will need to eat.

“A bio-dome, a self-contained terrarium or self-contained environment allows you to sustain life on a planet that you’re not meant to be on,” says McDonough “There’s nothing on this new planet that we necessarily evolved to handle. So how do we make ourselves safe and well-situated there? A biosphere allows you to keep the nice Earth environment where you feel safe and comfortable.”

In the longer term, technologies devoted to harvesting local foodstuffs would need to be created. But for getting started on a new planet, a fat bio-dome dropped from on-high is a good beginning.

GENETIC DESIGN

As well as digging into scientific research for ideas, Firaxis plundered the best science fiction. Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis tells a story of a society where cosmetic genetic manipulation is the norm. McDonough says he was inspired by this story. “People can change their physiology for fun,” he explains. “They’ve managed to make dogs semi-sentient by messing with their genetics. Transmetropolitan does a good job of making you see that the future is going to be incredible and also kind of appalling.

“In our game, we’re focused on the incredible part. But a lot of the technologies that are in it, if they were to really happen, you have to sit back and think, this would change a bit about what it would mean to be human, what our society would even work like.

“The stuff that we’re doing today with re-engineering the measles virus to fight cancer, or trying to figure out how to genetically modify mosquitoes so they can’t carry Dengue fever anymore, are great for world health, but where would that lead? I might say, yes, I would love to see genetic design become a real thing. But I can also believe that would be pretty scary for the real world if it happened.”

ADVANCED ROCKETRY

One of the major obstacles facing space travel is just physics and our rudimentary rocketry technology.

“We all know what a rocket is and how it works,” says McDonough “We’ve built an entire spacefaring industry based on assumptions about being on Earth. Things like terminal velocity. If it’s different on a new world, how does that affect rocketry? Probably affects it quite a lot.

“You can take the Curiosity rover as a great example of this. In order to get something onto Mars, it’s an entirely different proposition than landing something on Earth. The atmosphere is so thin that you can’t use parachutes to land safely. There’s no ocean, so there’s no splashdown.

“That’s where the sky frame came from that lowered Curiosity onto the ground from several hundred meters in the air. All of these things are steps that may not be obvious to you right away, but it’s a totally different kind of proposition to establish spacefaring infrastructure on a new planet.”

SWARM ROBOTICS

In an ideal future society, where power and basic resources are plentiful, the motivation for humans to undertake basic labor might be significantly reduced. Robots will be required.

Instead of a single individual robot designed to perform a task, future humans might benefit from innumerable fleets of units that are individually capable of maybe one or two things, but working together they’re capable of almost anything.

Controlled by a swarm AI, something that is extremely intelligent and adaptive, they could handle just about any job.

“You can imagine a swarm of these tiny little builder-bots just being deployed to repair a skyscraper or clean up after a tornado or police a football game,” says Miller. “If you abstract them down to thousands of entities, each of them doing one thing, adding up to all of them being capable of anything together, that’s really cool. It’s very powerful.”

FIELD THEORY

If humankind is to travel to distant galaxies, or even to planets in our own solar system, instant conversations between colonies, like those we enjoy via telephones and online services on Earth, become impossible.

Sci-fi writers dealing with pan-Galactic dialog have faced down this problem, by invoking Field Theory.

“It levers quantum entangled particles to communicate across vast distances instantaneously,” explains Miller. “Being able to communicate with a spacecraft on another world without a 20-minute delay or even a 20-year delay. That would be huge, particularly with its implications in an interstellar economy.”

There would also be more prosaic applications, closer to home. “Can you imagine the implications of having an internet that’s instantaneous?” he laughs. “I could stream everything. That would be awesome. The world’s best modem.”

POWER SYSTEMS

The big one. The one we all really want. Some tech that will give us an unlimited, cheap, environmentally sustainable source of usable power.

In Civilization: Beyond Earth, the intergalactic settlers use a technology called Power Systems that unlocks a thorium reactor.

“We really like the thorium idea,” says Miller. “This idea of a not-inherently-fissile material that could power a nuclear reactor in a much safer way, with a higher energy output. That’s a technology that’s right on the horizon.

“The idea of not having giant power plants anymore, but having energy-producing things distributed closer to the point of use. That’s a fundamental leap that at some point in our future I hope to see us make in reality.”( source:polygon )