How about?

December 6th, 2013 at 8:16:14 AM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
How about a story about an immortal being who is intent in preventing the universe from ever ending?

The idea is interesting, but very hard to develop. I can easily imagine a being thousands of years old. But someone millions of years old gets extremely difficult. Would it be possible to get tired of living? Would it be possible to learn everything there is to know, or everything that is known? Does a brain have a limit to how much it can remember?

Stories like that in Babylon 5 get away with such beings by not showing us much of them (Lorien in B5 was billions of years old).
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
December 7th, 2013 at 9:34:10 PM permalink
Pacomartin
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 1068
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Quote: Nareed
I can easily imagine a being thousands of years old. But someone millions of years old gets extremely difficult.


In Requiem for Methuselah ( February 14, 1969) Star Trek TOS Flint confesses the he was born on Earth in Mesopotamia in the year 3834 BC. He was Da Vinci, Brahms, Solomon, Alexander, Lazarus, Methuselah, Merlin, Abramson, and others.

But someone born 6000 years ago would still share the basic characteristics of someone today.
December 8th, 2013 at 6:00:49 AM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Quote: Pacomartin
In Requiem for Methuselah ( February 14, 1969) Star Trek TOS


That's one of the few eps I've managed to miss thus far.

Quote:
But someone born 6000 years ago would still share the basic characteristics of someone today.


Oh, yes. That might be a concern. If you live millions of years, eventually you won't be of the same species as anyone else. But that was not what I meant. Consider how much one genius can achieve in a lifetime. Take Newton or Einstein as an example. Now imagine either living for "just" one thousand years. What else would they come up with? What areas of knowledge would they explore besides physics or science?

Now imagine a smart person short of being a genius. Someone like William Herschel, say, who was more of a systematic plodder with the best tools at the time. Yet he advanced Solar System astronomy a great deal. What would such a person be able to accomplish or develop in a long, long, long time.

Or take people in other areas of life. Hell, what if Alexander the Great had lived merely a normal life-span? Imagine an immortal Julius Caesar, or Shakespeare, or Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Marie Curie, Maria Montessori, and so on.

It gets mind-boggling.
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
December 8th, 2013 at 11:02:26 AM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18633
Quote: Nareed
Shakespeare, or Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Marie Curie, Maria Montessori, and


Barbara Cartland
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?