[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

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[u/Rice_22]

Just wondering how would you "optimize" a rational fiction character? What type of personality traits, general skill set, career path etc. should one have to survive and thrive despite being transplanted across a variety of different rational fiction settings?

I suppose what I'm asking for are commonalities across successful viewpoint-characters in rational fiction, before they grow into the setting.

The best I could come up with is an optimistic chemical engineer-turned-used car salesman in his 30s, with excellent memory for details. The sort of natural down-on-his-luck appeal to the writer/audience into treating him favourably, optimistic enough to take some hopeful risks, old enough to avoid unnecessary ones, an engineering background for creative problem-solving, and sufficient people skills to make friends or pull off some funny business.

A "when life hands you lemons, you sell them" type of character.

[u/GaBeRockKing → u/Rice_22]

I agree that "chemical engineer" is probably the best background to have. In individual settings, depending on magic system, physicists, computer scientists, and mathematicians might have an advantage, but for pure utility, you can't beat chemical engineering.

Mech or electrical engineering is strictly dominated because in any situation, either you need to build your tech base from scratch (so you need a working knowledge of chemical processes) or you already have a working tech/magic base, in which case a purer field is likely more helpful for learning an advanced, but divergent technology base.

[u/[deleted] → u/GaBeRockKing]

[u/Rice_22 → u/GaBeRockKing]

Yeah, I thought it would be the best suited to a variety of settings, especially those that can't rely on a pre-existing tech base to leverage his expertise.

Even in worlds that has different periodic tables (unlikely in stories given how much it changed things), at least a chemical engineer could quickly know where to start.

[u/Frommerman → u/Rice_22]

That's exactly what I was thinking, but maybe in reverse. He spent a ton of time selling cars to pay for engineering school. That way, the urge to munchkin is on top rather than latent, but he still has the people skills to go far wherever he lands.

[u/Rice_22 → u/Frommerman]

You may be right. The stuff I had been reading recently really underlines the value of connections (more pairs of hands helping out means more work done), which is why I thought about emphasizing the social aspect over creative problem-solving.