I kind of wonder if this served as inspiration, for Eliezer to create dath ilan...
“Listen carefully, because I will only say this once. Look. Emiya Shirou has no chance of winning if it comes down to fighting. None of your skills will be any use against a Servant.” [...] ”In that case, at least imagine it. If it is an opponent you cannot match in real life, beat it in your imagination. If you cannot beat it yourself, imagine something that you could beat it with. —After all, that is the only thing you can do.” [...] I should not forget those words. I think that what this man is saying is something that should never be forgotten—
For those unfamiliar with Fate/stay night, imagining something that you could beat it with is a veiled reference to an actual important technique, which Shirou eventually figures out.
Anyway, it is plausible that one of the best ways to get something done that is new, complicated, ambitious, and requires many people’s cooperation is to imagine it in detail and lay out how it might work, in fiction. Draw the end state and let that motivate people to work towards it. Of course, it’s not guaranteed that things that appear to work in a fictional universe would actually work in practice, but the fiction can make its case (there’s wide variation in how thoroughly works of fiction explore their premises), and if it turns up something that seems desirable and plausible, readers can take a serious look into its feasibility.
I kind of wonder if this served as inspiration, for Eliezer to create dath ilan...
For those unfamiliar with Fate/stay night, imagining something that you could beat it with is a veiled reference to an actual important technique, which Shirou eventually figures out.
Anyway, it is plausible that one of the best ways to get something done that is new, complicated, ambitious, and requires many people’s cooperation is to imagine it in detail and lay out how it might work, in fiction. Draw the end state and let that motivate people to work towards it. Of course, it’s not guaranteed that things that appear to work in a fictional universe would actually work in practice, but the fiction can make its case (there’s wide variation in how thoroughly works of fiction explore their premises), and if it turns up something that seems desirable and plausible, readers can take a serious look into its feasibility.