SciFi writers always describe in details life in spaceships or space stations. But there are a few real things they might not have thought about. You want to be realistic ? Talk about the recycling of “biological matter”. Or weight allowance. There could be a fun short story just describing a regular trip from Earth to a Moon domed city. Check this story, it is full of very interesting elements about tourists in space.
A tourist loses her camera while taking vacation shots in the ocean. A few years later, the camera is found in China, and given back to its rightful owner. But with the nice memories from summer break and parties with friends, a few pictures are puzzling. It looks like a domed city. And some strange creatures. All the sudden, the camera owner’s life becomes a nightmare : who wants to get the pictures back and eliminate all those who have seen them ?
(inspired by this true story)
No more oil in the ground ? No problem, get it in the sky. Since now bacteria could extract our next fossile fuels from carbon dioxide, let’s just imagine what it will be a few decades from now. Flying oil platforms, with huge turbines to get the air in, and reject it once the CO2 is extracted. Big air tankers, transporting the fuel to refineries on ground level, all the workers in these air extracting stations. So many plots which could take place in there. Steampunk and Cyberpunk will most likely have here a very exciting background scenery, and maybe new stories to be told.
James Bond’s movies producers and directors know it : hard to use the same actor for decades to play an iconic role. Actors age, and even though makeup is now an art, there comes a point when miracle work is impossible. Could you imagine Sean Connery replacing Daniel Craig in next movie ?
But technology has an answer. With the amazing progress of computer generated images, tomorrow’s actors might be replaced by virtual ones. Actors that never age, and that generations of fans can follow throughout the ages. We might even find a way to give them a primitive form of AI, program them to answer Oprah’s questions…
Tomorrow, actors will be virtual and you won’t see the difference.. Scary thoughts. Maybe a good story ?
What if we already met Aliens but didn’t know we did ? We tend to look for quite anthropomorphic features in potential Aliens, even when we imagine them as monsters. They have either a bipedal shape, or a technology which makes them similar to us. Lots of scifi stories have examined the possibility of contacts with truely alien species, but there was always a possible interaction in the end, some common ground. What if there is no common ground possible at all ?
Today I read this story on Daily Galaxy’s website, and it made me ponder. Let’s say intelligent life developed on a nearby solar system, but the species is looking like headless worms, communicates by telepathy and uses a technology which makes their landing shuttles look like autumn leaves. We wouldn’t even notice them. And maybe their explorer crew would end up as baits on the hook of a local angler.
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