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My next theory rant is about a topic that's near and dear to my heart: science-fiction. I remember getting a VHS box set of the Star Wars trilogy (original) as a child and being almost scared to watch them, for fear of being disappointed. I love rocketships, I love lasers—even today I'm a huge fan of lightsabers—and the robots don't hurt, though to be honest I've never thought of robots as being anything but metal humans. (In his recent review of WALL-E, my favorite author Orson Scott Card lambasted the movie for portraying robots with emotions. He thinks it's unrealistic. I say, let him deprive himself of such things if he really wants.) In any case, Star Wars obviously worked out for me; around the same time, I had also been hearing awesome tales of some TV show called Star Trek. And then I met TNG and DS9 and Babylon 5; and by the time the new Battlestar Galactica and Firefly had hit the scene, my fate was long sealed. But in recent years I've started to look at Star Wars, and to a lesser extent Star Trek, as having been some of the worst things to ever happen to the genre. Let's talk about the "perfect", or perhaps the "ideal", science-fiction story. And forget all that crap about robots, lasers and rocketships—let's get down to the bones. Why is it called "science-fiction" anyway? Where, precisely, is the "science" in the technobabble of Star Trek, or the obsession with CGI seen in the Star Wars prequels? What on earth does that have to do with the hypothesis-formation-and-testing system that characterizes our understanding of science? What does a "rotating EM pulse" or "midichlorians" have to do with empirical truth about the world (especially as neither makes any sense, even within their own franchises)? So, let's reduce science-fiction down to its most critical, basic and important components, in an effort to get back to its roots and figure out why we need it. Because we do. Trust me, we do. 1) The story involves the expanded application of current science and technology. For purposes of easy reference, we'll call this expanded application "New Tech." This "New Tech" can be just about anything—people were writing about robots (Karel Capek), cyberspace (William Gibson) and powered battle armor (Robert A. Heinlein) long before they actually existed—but whatever it is, we need it. If the story is just about modern medicine or science or technology, it's just _______-fiction, the purview of the John Grishams and Robin Cooks and Dan Browns of the world. (There's nothing wrong with being them; just that we're trying to be someone else.) Science-fiction is not about where we've already gone with the science we have, it's about where we could go with the science we have. Obviously, this is where the robots and spaceships and lasers come in, but you can also have perfectly legitimate science-fiction that involves none of those things—especially now that biotechnology, genetic engineering, information technology, holography and nanotechnology are moving into the forefront of public consciousness. You could write a really good science-fiction story about somebody introducing a synthetic petroleum replacement and how this overturns our modern oil economy. (How would George W. Bush respond if it were introduced during his tenure as president?) 2) The "New Tech" should be consonant with our existing knowledge of science. This is mostly to set us apart from fantasy. You could make an argument that the magic seen in Harry Potter represents a new and previously-unheard-of form of technology—especially since the word itself comes from two Greek words: logos, meaning discourse or lecture, and teknos, meaning "craft", "creation" or, most broadly, "the work of human hands and minds." Law, under this definition, is a technology; magic would certainly be one. So our explored technology, whatever it is, needs to be scientific: it needs to fit into our current understanding of how the world works. And since we don't currently have an understanding of magic, it can't be used as science-fiction. (This is not to say that you can't have sci-fi that has magic in it; for that matter, I've read a really good fantasy/romance, Joan D. Vinge's The Snow Queen, that has interstellar travel through wormholes, and a planet that's about to undergo a technological regression because it orbits a binary sun, whose period is about to take it beyond the reach of aforementioned wormhole travel, meaning the offworlders are fleeing in droves and taking their high technology with them. I call it a fantasy because of its approach: the first characters introduced live in pre-civilization settlements, journey by canoes, exclude first cousins from the incest taboo and seek knowledge from fortune-telling sybils; the technology, though it later comes to dominate, is still introduced second. There is room for overlap. The question is where it starts as.) 3) The story involves a human struggle to cope with the consequences of aforementioned New Tech. This is critical. It's all well and good to have nifty new stuff to do, but how does it affect us? What does it do to Everyday Joe and Everyday Jane? How will this New Tech change the world around us? 3.1) This and Rule #1 combine into a corollary: science-fiction has to be set in a world different from our own. This world can be different only because of the New Tech, or it can be completely different (for instance by introducing multiple New Techs or multiple applications of it). But there has to be some quality that sets it apart from "reality". And it is that quality we are going to explore. So. With these three rules in mind, let us construct the most basic, stripped-down science-fiction stories possible. How about a story in which somebody has the ability to erase memories? He's developed a New Tech which lets people selectively delete things they'd rather not remember. And a man comes in to have memories of a failed relationship wiped out, only to realize (as they disappear) that maybe he still wanted them... Did you know that Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind was science-fiction? Because it is. How about a story in which somebody has the ability to turn a man into a commodity? He puts this kid in a completely-fabricated town, trains cameras on him 24/7, and turns his entire life into a highly-successful "Reality Television" show. Only, this man starts to realize what's going on, and decides he wants out... Did you know that The Truman Show was science-fiction? Because it is. Nary a robot, laser or rocket-ship to be seen. And yet these two movies are, arguably, the purest examples of science-fiction to have been released in the last decade. Because they take a new technology, apply it to human life, and then stand back and see what happens. (As you can see, this lecture on science-fiction is secretly Applied Realism Pt 3.) It doesn't ask what it would take to create the new technology; that's a question for the engineers to decide. It doesn't ask, Can we. It instead asks a far more important question: Should we? And that's why we need science-fiction. The Truman Show is particularly apt in this case, having come out a bare two years before the explosion of Survivor, the first modern "reality" TV show. It asks whether it's right to turn a human being into a product, to package him and sell him, to expose his fears and private moments and turn his life into a circus. Its answer is a resounding No. And the thing is, it's not a technical question or a scientific question; it's a philosophical one. It's about what kind of lives we want to live. The reason science-fiction is important is because it's the intersection of imagination and morality. It's the place where we envision what we can do with our immense, unfathomable capacity to dream... And then try to predict what it might cost us to make those dreams a reality. Even more than that, science-fiction, because it occurs in a time and place different to ours, can be used as commentary on our times. There are many things in this world that we can't discuss straight-on because they're too explosive, too political; we need a buffer between them and us to dull the pain. The science-fiction (or fantasy) setting acts as such a buffer. This means that, sometimes, science-fiction is the only place you can say the things that really matter. And I'm sure you can think of some issues that really matter to you right now, but which you can't talk about because if you do you might get thrown in jail by one president or another. (That's part of why Battlestar Galactica has been so successful: it's safe to comment on Guantanamo Bay when you're in a spaceship light-years from Earth. In this area, it is only following in the footsteps of Ron Moore's previous project, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in which the Cardassian occupation of Bajor was directly analogized to Nazi concentration camps.) The third place these issues can be discussed in relative safety is comedy; but we're here to talk about the sacred responsibilities of science-fiction. The stand-up comedians and cartoonists will have to wait for another day. With that in mind, I cringe to myself every time I realize (and I realize this quite often) that when your average Everyday Joe thinks of "Science-fiction", he thinks of robots, lasers and rocket-ships—which are not the point, which are so not the point. In fact, they're the opposite of the point. Science-fiction is not a celebration of robots, lasers and rocket-ships; if anything, it's a warning about the price we might pay for employing them. (Which is not to say that science-fiction is wholly pessimistic; only sometimes.) Nonetheless, the public face of science-fiction is not about moral questions, but rather laser guns and explosions. And, if you ask me, this is because of Star Wars and Star Trek. Now, to be fair, neither franchise was always that way. At the heart of Star Wars, beating and present no matter how hampered by George Lucas' inept dialogue and direction, is a story of failure and redemption. Star Wars is about how one man was dragged down into depravity by love, but also delivered into light and redemption by it. It's not a coincidence that the real turning point of Return of the Jedi is when Darth Vader turns back to the Light Side: Anakin Skywalker is the main character of the story; Luke, merely the lens through which he is viewed. If you treated "love" as the New Tech, you could say that Star Wars is about its impact on the human person—how it can drive us to evil, how it can drive us to good. And Star Trek... Well, my God. Gene Roddenberry's love and hope and optimism shone through in every episode of the first two series. I don't think it's a coincidence that teleivision's very first interracial kiss was on The Original Series. I also like to quote Patrick Stewart's report of an interview Roddenberry gave, in which someone asked him why they hadn't cured baldness by the 24th century. According to Stewart, instead of some long-winded explanation, Gene gave this reporter a look and merely said, "In the 24th century, they wouldn't care." And I don't think it's a coincidence that, in our real world, two pioneering manned spacecraft have been named Enterprise. That name is emblematic of the human spirit: curious, forward-looking; not always perfect, surely, and often making mistakes; but also capable of great generosity, wisdom and boldness. Because of The Great Bird of the Galaxy, the Starship Enterprise is the symbol of our greatness. I was a Trekkie once, and would be proud to be one again if the franchise ever gets its ass back in shape. ([EDIT] Thank god for J. J. Abrams.) But Voyager sucked—it wasn't able to follow its own rules, which (as you've noticed from my previous rants) is a cardinal sin to me. The ship never looked beat up, no matter how often consoles would explode. It had only six shuttlecraft but managed to lose seventeen, one of which was later replaced with a large yacht whose interior set was larger than that of the hangar it was stored in. And, of course, in the series' second episode, Tuvok states that Voyager has exactly 38 photon torpedoes, and once they're expended, there's no way to make any more. Yet by the end of the series Voyager had fired a bare minimum of 93. Now, obviously, Tuvok was wrong: there is a way to make more of them. But then why wasn't that made an issue?—or, even better, the subject of an episode? There's nothing wrong with changing your mind; writers do this all the time; in fact, one could make an argument that the heart of most fiction is characters doing what was formerly thought impossible (or extremely difficult), meaning that most writers who declare something impossible are doing so with the express intent of having someone do it later. Chekhov's Gun. But if you're going to retcon like that, do it out loud. Don't lie through your teeth that you said no such thing. Come on. As for Star Wars, by the time of the prequel series it had gotten obsessed with its props. By 1999, people were expecting lots of grandiose action sequences and explosions from their science-fiction—action movies set in space, basically—and, ironically, many students of film trace this tradition back to Star Wars itself, as well as Steven Spielberg's Jaws, which they say shifted Hollywood's focus from storytelling to spectacle. These people claim that the "blockbuster mentality" so prevalent in moviemaking these days can be laid directly at Lucas' and Spielberg's feet. And frankly there is no reason to disbelieve their theory, especially after looking at the direction science-fiction itself has taken. Many within the genre have taken to calling this action-movies-in-space crap "scifi", pronounced "skiffy", because we need a completely different name to separate it from the real stuff. Action movies have their place; I'll be the first to admit that I enjoy explosions and spectacle every now and then. But explosions and spectacle with a plot is way, way better; my favorite action movies are Mission: Impossible III and the most recent version of Casino Royale, both of which are completely character-driven. I agree with Orson Scott Card, crazy Mormon though he may be: we (read stories) (watch films) (watch TV) (read comic books) get involved in storytelling, and listen to stories being told, because we want to learn how to live. We want to see what choices other people have made, and what those choices brought them. Science-fiction is the place to talk about, not only the choices people have made, but the choices we might need to make some time in the near future. It's a sacred responsibility. Science-fiction is not about robots, lasers and rocket-ships for their own sake; it's about what those things do to us. And that's a far more important dream than the things for their own sake. |