17 KiB
[BST] What would a rational Wuxia-esque world look like?
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Author: u/None *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/8bkt4u/bst_what_would_a_rational_wuxiaesque_world_look/
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Score: 48
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Created: 2018-04-11T21:31:45
Post:
The main point I wish to discuss in this; in the wuxia genre, supernatural powers are almost always the result of hard rigorous training. If you train hard enough, then you can jump across rivers, punch trees right out of the ground and dodge bullets/arrows with ease.
Wuxia films seem to exist in a world where humans beings truly are infinitely perfectible; there are no hard caps on how fast a person can move, or react, or how strong or precise or skilled they can become.
And so here's my question; what would a medieval world, or even industrial world look like, if human beings really were infinitely perfectible to that degree? Even ignoring how different sports would be in a world where elite athletes could react faster than lightning and move just as fast; what would society look like?
Considering that in many wuxia films training has to start from a young age in order to be maximally effective, would that result in an almost biologically enforced caste system, in which people in different positions have drastically different capabilities? In real life a wannabe chef can break into the business just by attending culinary school, if they are determined enough; such a thing would be almost impossible in a world where the competition is trained to the point where they can chop onions in milliseconds and fillet fish in a blink.
Even stereotypically scholarly pursuits would be different; most wuxia heroes can move and, most importantly, think at impossible speeds. A child unlucky enough to have received no training at home could walk into a classroom full of peers whose pencils moved at blurs and whose thoughts moved even faster.
And if things like 'secret training techniques' and 'ultimate moves' carried over, than the changes would be even greater. In real life the differences in fighting ability between people is small enough that even elite fights would have significant problems trying to fend off more than three serious attackers. Not so in wuxia films, where martial artists with access to secret techniques can take on hundreds of layman at once and come out triumphant. The police and the military in a rational wuxia world could be significantly more powerful than the civilians they protect, and that opens the situation up to a world of abuse.
Essentially my question boils down to this; how do you guys think the world would look, if there were no limits on human physical ability that couldn't be overcome by training?
Comments:
u/Subrosian_Smithy [+34] Nudist Beach (an hour later)
I would say that power levels are more firmly capped in Wuxia; "no limits" is more of a Xianxia thing? In describing such a world, I would definitely draw from Xianxia.
The world is a hellscape of war between all men and against all men, because the logic of the prisoner's dilemma applies in every single interaction; no-one wants to be the one caught with their pants down when someone more powerful comes along and steps on you, which means that everyone is trying "cultivate" and self-improve to become the strongest... and leaving your weaker enemies alive tends to leave them the opportunity to train up and become stronger than you down the line, so there's an incentive to step on the weak.
The reason this world doesn't become a singleton ruled by one of the first cultivators (acting with first-mover advantage) is probably some mixture of:
- Cultivation/training not being applied easily or perfectly to longevity, so that even the most powerful beings eventually die. You can get an asymptotic power curve out of this, where people have to work together across generations to approach immortality, and still struggle to reach it.
- Some "rubber-banding" effect, making it easier for the weak to become stronger than it is for the strong to become stronger. This is a major feature of Xianxia, where the stronger you are, the longer and harder you have to "cultivate" for further benefits.
- Alternately, the world is a singleton already, ruled by someone apathetic enough that they only intervene in the world in order to strike down those who get strong enough to be a threat. This is also a Xianxia thing; Gods (who may themselves be powerful cultivators) often impose divine restrictions on how powerful cultivators can become.
u/None [+13] (2 hours later)
Thanks! To be honest I threw this post together from vague recollections of martial arts films I watched growing up and a few musings on shonen anime, so I was just kind of hoping 'wuxia' was the right term to use. I'm definitely going to check out some Xianxia, because there's probably somebody whose already had my ideas and written a movie about them :)
Also that story was wonderful, and full of plenty of ideas to think about; if there were Arts like that in a Xianxia world, that could put Nations centuries behind their counterparts, with almost no hope of catching up quick enough to actually compete. The international state of affairs would be to rush to find something you can do better than anybody else and specialize, because it would be impossibel to ever beat another nation at their own game.
Rubber-banding would add a similar limit to self-cultivation as well; the limit of power would be the human life span, and as such those who best cultivated longetivity would have the best chance of being strongest (unless cultivating longevity is so time-consuming it detracts exponentially from your ability to cultivate other traits, like strength or speed).
I especially like the idea of Gods just being especially powerful cultivators. It really hints at the whole 'no-limits' thing that I love about the idea of infinite perfectibility.
It could even fit the idea of many polytheistic religions; that there are different gods for different things, because different cultivators brought different skills to divine levels and then closed the door behind them. Hermes became the fastest man alive and then made sure nobody could follow in his footsteps. Hercules became incredibly, ridiculously strong, and so ascended to godhood as well. Becoming a god could be all about speed grinding a specialty until you break some divine limit that lets you properly develop other godly attributes (e.g becoming so strong and tough that even time can't wear your body down, allowing you to exceed the lifespan limit and keep cultivating).
The entire arc of a rational protagonist could be finding the one skill with the potential to carry someone to godhood that doesn't already have a god enforcing a limit on it, and then racing to be the first one to ascend with it.
u/xamueljones [+11] My arch-enemy is entropy (3 hours later)
The entire arc of a rational protagonist could be finding the one skill with the potential to carry someone to godhood that doesn't already have a god enforcing a limit on it, and then racing to be the first one to ascend with it.
The story could be a modern-day Xianxia where the civilization incorporates technology into a cultivation society (kinda like magitech) and the protagonist is striving to be the first to develop a skill relating to some newly developed technology such as computers.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+4] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)
the protagonist is striving to be the first to develop a skill relating to some newly developed technology such as computers
Neo in a Rational Matrix.
u/andor3333 [+9] (17 hours later)
The entire arc of a rational protagonist could be finding the one skill with the potential to carry someone to godhood that doesn't already have a god enforcing a limit on it, and then racing to be the first one to ascend with it.
The plot of RMJI is exactly this. The protagonist finds an exploit and spends most of the story trying to conceal it and build up as fast as possible while avoiding attention.
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/a-record-of-a-mortals-journey-to-immortality/
u/elevul [+1] Cyoria Observer (2 days later)
Is there a place to get the whole book in epub?
u/andor3333 [+1] (2 days later)
This is the only version I have seen.
u/BlueSigil [+1] (4 days later)
You can convert books on many sites, including this one, to epub using the FanFicFare plugin for Calibre.
u/Green0Photon [+8] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (3 hours later)
Wouldn't the meta-logic of the prisoner's dillemna still exist though? You would give mercy to others and so others would give mercy to you, otherwise be crushed entirely.
Perhaps at the highest levels, those people wouldn't want to destroy the surrounding area, and so wouldn't go all out unless forced. They'd also already have the cultural conditioning from when they were younger to at least not be super terrible. People of all ages might really want to avoid destroying stuff, because people need stuff to live (land, shelter, food, friends, etc).
It depends on the power curve, but I can see most monsters being ganged up on. I can also see that in some cultures, Noblesse Oblige might become a pretty big thing as well.
Essentially, I don't think it would necessarily be an 100% hellscape. There are social factors that people live under to prevent complete societal collapse.
u/Mountebank [+13] (4 hours later)
because people need stuff to live (land, shelter, food, friends, etc).
They don't though. In most xianxia the upper level powers can literally create worlds and life by themselves, and since they're immortal they've learned to deal with solitude so friends are unnecessary.
The only things these powers value would be things created by even stronger powers or natural treasures that they can use to make themselves even stronger.
u/serge_cell [+4] (10 hours later)
It can be assumed that stars are actually high-level practitioners while stellar nucleosynthesis catalyzed by their cultivation. Black holes are practitioners of dark arts.
u/Mountebank [+8] (10 hours later)
In Ze Tian Ji people cultivate by absorbing the essence of their own unique star or something like that. The position, distance, and quality of that star determined that person's talent.
u/RMcD94 [+7] (3 hours later)
But wait if there is comparative advantage, that is training at one thing makes you better at that thing then there would be even more reason to trade because everyone would be highly specialised
u/Jakkubus [+3] (12 hours later)
By the way do you know any interesting rational Xianxia fiction?
u/TwoxMachina [+5] (19 hours later)
Hmm, I would recommend "Forty Millenniums of Cultivation". It's semi-rational Xianxia, where there's a functional civilization whose citizens consist of a lot of Cultivators.
u/vallar57 [+3] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (3 days later)
There are far more ways of doing that btw.
Ascention - to become truly immortal you have to leave the world for a higher plane of existence, a common feature in Xianxia.
Sects - alliances of cultivators, protected by...
Formations - ways of channeling powers from different sources to create a single, but powerful effect capable of "jumping levels".
Monsters/Demons - when humanity is under threat, pettier conflicts will be frowned upon.
Etc.
u/TempAccountIgnorePls [+11] (14 hours later)
Does teaching count as an infinitely perfectible ability? If so, we can get an infinite positive feedback loop going where each successive generation of teachers can bring the next generation up to their level faster than they learned themselves
u/jiaxingseng [+14] (4 hours later)
I think that your question is phrased wrong... or there is some problems with it. Wuxia is not a fantasy world... it exists in a parallel world where people from our world, who have regular jobs and everything, also have this extraordinary side.
Wuxia is, by definition, over-the-top melodramatic. It is always about characters who are laughably, unrealistically perfectionistic and prideful... unless they are very Buddhist and gain power from their enlightenment. Without that unrealistic melodrama... it's not wuxia. The act of rationalizing this removes the key element of the drama.
Wuxia usually revolves around clan rivalries in which the clans are more concerned about honor than anything else. Frequently the genre takes on other undertone meanings; resistance against the Jin/Yuan(Mongols)/Qing(Manchu); conflict between Orthodox sects (ie Buddhist / Daoist Han people) and Heterodox cults (ie. not Han people, Zorastrian / Animist religions). You make this rational, you just have racism, ethnic cleansing, etc.
As for fighting techniques... most pre-modern settings of wuxia depend on knowledge of the flow of Qi, which can be learned from a book or activated by accident. Fighting technique means nothing if Qi is not sufficient. You make this rational... you just have wushu (kung fu)
Much of modern day wuxia is based off the serialized works of Louis Cha in the 1960s. He borrowed some fantastic elements (the Qi force, fantastic jumps, etc) from Chinese martial arts fantasy from previous eras. But most of what he wrote was heavilly influenced by Alexander Dumas. Reading his books is a lot like reading Three Musketeers, with a Chinese fantasy sheen over it. If you go back to the Three Mustketeers and make that rational... you just have a grim dark historical novel. Which could be very cool. But has nothing to do with the swashbuckling adventure genre of the original books.
u/ShiranaiWakaranai [+5] (11 hours later)
Either a big brother scenario or destroyed. It really depends on the choices of the oldest (and hence strongest) people. If they decide to take over the world, no one can stop them, and they can simply forbid anyone from training and use their super senses to catch anyone that tries. That way you have a bunch of super powerful old people ruling over the rest of humanity and keeping them at human-level power.
If they don't do so, the outcome is actually worse. Countless people with unlimited growth in power? Eventually some omnicidal nut will use his strength to punch the planet, breaking it apart and killing everyone. Except for the few ridiculously old people who have gotten so powerful they don't need air/food/water and can survive the horrible vacuum of space and the extreme temperatures resulting from flying into or away from the sun.
u/TwoxMachina [+6] (19 hours later)
Hmm, Forty Millenniums of Cultivation has an interesting take on Xianxia Cultivators & regular people (as in, rarer forms where they co-exist & support each other)
u/narfanator [+4] (2 hours later)
There's a book kinda like this called the "Practice Effect". It's definitely not the same, but is a bit related.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)
It's kind of the flipside. Things are perfectible, not people. It's also a great rational voyage-of-discovery novel.
u/Izeinwinter [+4] (a day later)
.... Much less conflict prone than most vuxia settings? A high level cultivator is a formidable combatant, but also an insane investment of time and resources, and conflicts between cultivators would be just throwing that away, so on a society level, the nation that manages to have the most people cultivating effectively and the least internal strife wins.
I.. would kind of expect the end states to be really, really strange. I mean, for example, why would a society of immortal cultivators have children at all? Either they do not, or there is some expansionist quasi-pyramid scheme going on..
u/clawclawbite [+3] (21 hours later)
Once you have special techniques and early training, than cultures, civilizations, towns, and families would be driven to specialize. Young children would be pushed to show special potential at a young age. The question of training them if they don't fit the local specialty is important. Do you train them despite skill, get them trained despite knowing they will not keep up, or send them off to someone/somewhere that can fulfill their potential?
Then you have the conflicts between the kingdom of swords, the kingdom of bows, and the kingdom of scribes? Balance of direct vs. indirect power.
In any case, very unstable as power shifts as an elite few act, learn, or get old/ill/defeated.
u/LimeDog [+2] (a day later)
White Collar Cultivator and Dao of Magic both take rationalist approaches to the wuxia genre.
u/trekie140 [+1] (a day later)
This is really just an outline for a science fantasy setting with the trappings of transhumanism, but I think some of the ideas could make for interesting rationalizations of magic. People can increase in power indefinitely as they improve their mind’s link to the nanotechnology that makes up their environment.