Big Ideas in SF

Science fiction provides a very wide canvas for painting stories about alternate futures and histories that portray the use of current and hypothetical technologies.  Over the last year I've read a few articles about how science fiction isn't portraying big ideas anymore or how popular dystopian futures are.  There is certainly plenty of that, but the amount of SF being produced is also greatly expanded these days so there is still positive stuff out there.  I'd only say it is probably easier for many writers to produce drama with a not so perfect future and it resonates with their audience these days (zombie outbreaks, new plagues, controlling governments).  During the Cold War, there were plenty of post-apocalyptic stories set recently or long after a nuclear WW III.  When I was young I ate that stuff up.  There were great books like the Breaking Earth, Emergence, Breaking of Northwall, Empire of the East, Vault of the Ages, Damnation Alley, In Iron Years, The Postman, etc.

Flight of Fancy

For myself, I prefer a brighter future for everyone, even if some type of danger threatens it in my stories.  Technology is an enabler and I think I would like to see how positive it can be rather than negative (after all, both the bad guys and the good guys are going to use it).  It would be nice to see more stories set with massive technological enterprises at their core.

Examples of big technology for SF would be:

• Construction of FTL Spaceships or Seeder / Generation Ships for space exploration and colonization.
• Realistic new space colony stories in space or on new planets done right - not lets shove them out the door and they revert to a 19th century lifestyle - kind of stupid if you have high tech.  No space westerns. We should see terraforming at work.
• Wormhole or instantaneous travel gateways.
• Construction of space elevators or alternate methods to get into Earth orbit.
• Construction of orbital colonies.
• Construction of massive solar energy collectors in space to beam energy to Earth.
• Development of new types of cities or arcopolis.
• Any kind of massive save the world project from some kind of impending doom like global warming, alien invaders, asteroid strike, super flares from the sun, cosmic shockwave heading our way, etc.
• Environment re-engineering to restore ecosystems on a massive scale.  The world's first weather control system.
• Space mining of resources - sounds boring, but the possibilities are out there.

Examples massive tech change on society would be cool too:

• Integration of technology and humans playing a central role - but not trans-humanism.
• Machine intelligence integrated with a society that feels like it could work.
• What does cheap energy do to humanity if we actually had it?  What does this do for the global balance of power?  I actually thought this was interesting in the movie Elysium as the rich in space seemed to have everything.  If they could actually do all of that, couldn't they have solved more problems down on Earth at the same time (energy must have been cheap).
• What if we all doubled our lifespans in good health due to medical advances / nanotech / gene therapy, etc?  What will happen to the family, career, marriage, overall employment, etc.What kinds of medical tech changes would be needed to do this?
• What if education worked better?  Do we still have classrooms, teachers, text books?  What is the new way of learning and then what happens outside of the learning process?
• Cheap robots and their impact on human society, but I think this one is going to play out in real time so it almost isn't SF any more.
• Positive mass benefits of nanotech to society like cures for cancer and other diseases.  Augmentation of humans to be prettier, stronger, smarter, healthier, etc. 

All of these things are very interesting even without a dystopia. So I invite anyone reading this to submit a story / novel / movie they think is big science and not dystopian in the comments below!


Quick update to the Neo Ace novel status.
I have finished the final edit for the first 10 chapters.  Only 23 more to go.  Sorry to anyone who is still waiting patiently.  I'm still working through the health issues that hit me in January.  Full recovery won't be until the fall, but I'm still plugging away and planning the next book.  All I can say is that I'm glad the universal coverage provided by the Canadian Health Care System works well.  I have now benefited from it twice in my life for major life events.  One was the premature birth of my daughter years ago (up to $100K personal cost in the USA even with insurance) and now the cancer treatments I am going through now (seems like I'm always reading about a fund raiser for some artist in the USA too (see Stan Sakai's wife)).  I've had great service that hasn't cost me a penny, but it was paid for my taxes over the years.

BTW, I wanted to share this article as our health care system is always being criticized.

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/13/danielle-martin-richard-burr_n_4958164.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

And everyone, have a great day and don't travel into any dystopias on your way to work.


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