>
>>It's less that there aren't anacronisms in the warfare sections and
>>more that you don't think about them in context, so don't give a shit.
>
>Mmm. Maybe, but... the thing is, all the stuff you describe still
>involves a setting that is more technologically and (in some ways)
>socially advanced than we are right now. We can't make jets that fly
>in space, 1960s-looking or otherwise. Or construct giant city-smashing
>robots. It would require materiel sciences that are well beyond state
>of the art and are, in effect, magical.

...you missed the very, very important part of that phrase which was "Like Planes." Think the difference between B5 (They flew like spaceships! Kinda!) and Star Wars ("Let's have WWII Dogfights in SPACE!")

>The point is, that stuff is all still head-and-shoulders above what we
>have right now. It's not like you have, say, Destroid squadrons that

Erm, again, not really. The machines being used, sure. The actual effect? Not so much. From what we've seen, infantry tactics (and heck, armour tactics) seem to still be, basically those from the 1950s. They're recognizable to us as warfare. And I'm saying that, to someone from the 1600s, much of what we do today wouldn't be. The concept of airstrikes? Of fire control? Heck, the concept of suppressing fire is less than a hundred years old. Again, it's not that these are anachronistic so much as this isn't something you give a shit about, so you don't look at it too closely, so it doesn't bug you<1>. Heck, characters in UF regularly use SWORDS as personal combat weapons in firefights.

>have to communicate with each other using signal flags rather than
>highly encrypted burst transmissions. Sometimes it seems like people
>in UF are walking around with less everyday tech on them than I am
>right now in 2014 (or at least, using it less well) and on occasion
>that's bothered me.

Yeah, 'cause I totally know what an acoustic dampner web is, and my robot buddy always opens a little drawer on her head to use like a flashlight. Also, look at it from this direction: I can't take my phone to CANADA without hassle, and you want me to take it across dimensions?

--
-Pasha <1> I should note here to Gryph that, while I like hard mil SF that tries to do this sort of thing, I also like pulpy SF that says "Fuck it, swords in a firefight, that's cool!
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."