The story behind the story: Box 27

Posted by Colin Sullivan | Categories:

In this week’s Futures story, Kevin Lauderdale presents Box 27. When not wrestling with the thorny issue of species definitions, Kevin has found himself writing essays and articles for the Los Angeles Times, The Dictionary of American Biography and McSweeneys.net. You can find out more about his work at his website. Here Kevin reveals what inspired his latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Box 27

The 1980 TV series Cosmos, hosted by Carl Sagan, affected me greatly. I was in grade school when it aired. Although I’d always been vaguely interested in science, this brought home to me the magnificence of the Universe and the wide breadth of what people who worked in the sciences studied.

In the penultimate episode, ‘Encyclopedia Galactica’, Sagan pages through an imaginary compendium of information about billions of worlds. We see entries for three representative planets. Among other information, we read about each planet’s age, its sun’s composition, its technology level and its ‘Society Code’ — its nickname, if you will. Sagan shows us the entry for ‘We Who Survived’, a planet only a little more advanced than Earth. Then there is ‘We Who Became One’, a super-civilization that has harnessed the power of supergiants and pulsars. And finally, Earth: a planet with no extra-planetary colonies, that’s still using fossil fuels and nuclear weapons, and that has only a 40% probability of surviving the next 100 years. Our Society Code is simply ‘Humanity’.

That idea has intrigued me for 36 years now. In the Universe Sagan imagined, how did we chose that name to be known by? Who chose it? Or was it imposed on us by the Encyclopedia’s writers? A few months ago, I began thinking more and more about this. What were some of the other options for labelling us Terrans? What might work and what would not?

Originally, my story had a different ending. Even though I was inspired by Sagan, I didn’t have my hero settle on ‘Humanity’ in the end. But as I fine-tuned my story, I became less and less satisfied with that ending. I sat down and watched much of Cosmos again. I quickly saw how right Sagan had been in making his choice. Thinking back over the whole of the series, I rediscovered the idea that we need to work together in order to solve our problems. Luckily, it is our natural inclination to do so. We are humans, but Humanity means we were not alone. I rewrote the last third of the story to fit the now-correct ending. (An ending that had been correct since 1980. Protip: you can’t improve on Carl Sagan.)

If this story speaks to you in any way, you owe it to yourself to go watch Cosmos. Maybe for the second time, maybe for the first. Celebrate Sagan’s vision, brilliance and, yes, humanity.

 

The story behind the story: Melissa

Posted by Colin Sullivan | Categories:

Troy Stieglitz makes his debut in Futures this week, with the touching tale of Melissa. By day, Troy is an environmental chemist, but he kindly took some out to explain the origins of his latest story — as ever, it pays to read the tale first.

Writing Melissa

A recent article on time dilation had me thinking: what if interstellar travel was commonplace? Of course there would be implications regarding relativity, but how would that affect the lives of a crew aboard a starship? A few months’ ‘ship time’ could mean that years had passed on Earth. The world that the crew returned to would be very different from the world that the crew had left.

The science of time dilation and space travel were not explicitly discussed in the story, but the story would have been impossible without these two concepts in the background. The plot passed my litmus test for proper science fiction: if the science were removed from the story, could the story still exist?

My goal when writing Melissa was to explore the aspects of a character’s life that are usually behind the scenes in other science-fiction stories. For example, the protagonist is the captain of a military starship, but the adventures associated with that profession are not the focus of the story. The true focus is on what the captain leaves behind each time he departs from Earth.

I considered how time dilation might affect the captain’s relationships. Would his loved ones resent his absence from their lives, or would they respect the sacrifice he’s making for the good of the planet?

An internal battle between the captain’s feelings of regret and his sense of stoic duty creates the story’s tension and conflict. He realizes that he has a responsibility to his family, but he also has a responsibility to protect the citizens of Earth. How Captain Carter Harrison has chosen to balance these responsibilities has brought him to what could be his final reunion with Melissa.

The story behind the story: Blood will tell

Posted by Colin Sullivan | Categories:

Futures this week is pleased to welcome Tom Easton and Jack McDevitt with their timely story Blood will tell. Jack previously appeared in Futures back in 2006 with a story about a US election called The candidate. In this week’s tale the pair team up to examine a remarkable business opportunity. Here they reveal the origins of the tale — as always, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Blood will tell

We all know that conferences are great places to forge collaborations. Jack and I are old friends, but it wasn’t till we were having lunch at the World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, (far from our homes in Georgia and Massachusetts) that we decided to collaborate at last. I was telling him about the recent work on infusing young plasma into old mice (stemming from older parabiosis work) and finding rejuvenating effects. I noted that researchers are looking for the ‘active ingredient’ and finding candidates. Then I offered a bet that one’s own young plasma would work better than someone else’s. He was telling me about a panel on time travel (remember: science fiction convention) he was going to be on. We looked at each other and said, “Hmmm…”

The idea that autologous plasma would work better than heterologous would not be hard to test using same and different strains of inbred mice. Testing the idea on people would take much longer. But that need not stop entrepreneurs. Just think of cryonics: the idea that freezing your body or head until whatever ails you can be cured (along with freezer burn) makes a certain amount of intuitive sense but it has never been tested. Banking your own plasma when young in the hope that it will rejuvenate you in old age has a good deal more support. In fact I’m surprised that no one has yet set up a company to do it.

Of course, now that Jack and I have described the basic business plan, we do insist on a cut of the action.

And no, we did not miss the possibility that using time travel to get your own (or a relative’s) young plasma could explain vampires.

Do you dare enter the Deep Vault?

Posted by Colin Sullivan | Categories:

Vault950

Nicholas Yochum courtesy of Dead Signals, LLC

Posted on behalf of Liesbeth Venema

Imagine that you and your friends find yourselves in a post-apocalyptic world, fleeing the double threat posed by gas storms and lawless factions striving for dominance. How likely is it that you will find safety in a mysterious underground bunker abandoned by a previous government that had dubious intentions?

Not very, but it is a perfect premise for a horror/science-fiction adventure.

Deep Vault is unlike any thriller you may have encountered before, and its originality lies in the format. Deep Vault is an audio drama produced by Dead Signals, an audio production company made up of Mark Sollinger and Dan Powell. They are among a wave of writers and producers who have rediscovered the power of radio dramas, and who are pushing the limits of the format, doing away, for example, with the traditional narrator voice.

“We wanted to demonstrate to ourselves we could do this,” Sollinger says.

In this era of Game Of Thrones video streaming, it is remarkably refreshing to get immersed in a story just by listening to it. Of course, it takes considerable skill to make an action-packed thriller like Deep Vault — with its fair share of chases and unspeakable dangers — compelling using only sound. Dead Signals pull this off admirably.

“We want listeners to create their own images, which can be more powerful than video,” Sollinger says.

When asked what they find particularly challenging about making the series, Sollinger points to dialogue writing. “We can’t see the actors faces, so there needs to be a lot of personality in the dialogue, yet it can’t be over the top.”

The story’s characters do seem, unavoidably, slightly exaggerated. There is Carson, whose main ambition is to be a ‘badass’; his much more sensible cousin Alex, who has mysterious headaches and hears voices; their geeky friend Jeremy, with a degree in digital archaeology that comes in handy; and then there is Josie, who really does kick ass and hijacks more than a few situations to blame the apocalypse, and much else, on capitalism.

The voice actors are excellent and as the adventure unfolds it feels natural to empathize with the company of unlucky friends facing an array of dangers in the underground bunker. One problem are robots that are programmed to serve, but, in a twist of Asimov’s laws, need to be persuaded that it is a net benefit to keep the group alive.

But there is something truly horrific lurking at the heart of the bunker, a mysterious entity with evil intentions, and I am not so sure this will end well (5 of the 7 episodes are currently out). Although I highly recommend trying this original podcast series, it is not for the squeamish, so be careful not to alarm other passengers with your horrified expressions when listening to this on your morning commute. 

The last two episodes will become available over the next few weeks and the team is releasing a second series of Archive 81, their first podcast thriller, later this year.

The story behind the story: The most important thing

Posted by Colin Sullivan | Categories:

As the US election looms, Futures this week sees Marissa Lingen wonder about what kind of event really makes a mark on a given year in her story The most important thing. Marissa is no stranger to Futures, having introduced us to Maxwell’s Demon and time-travel problems, among other things (a full list of her Futures stories can be found at the foot of this post). You can catch up with Marissa on her website or by following her on Twitter. Here she looks how the US election catalysed her latest tale — as ever it pays to read the story first.

Writing The most important thing

It will be news to precisely zero people reading this blog that the United States is having a presidential election this year. If you have access to the Internet, you can’t avoid election coverage — I hesitate to call most of it ‘news’ — even if you’ve already made up your mind whom to vote for, even if you live somewhere else and would really prefer not to think about another country’s politics all the time.

In the middle of the N-ring circus that was the US electoral primary, some of my dearest friends had babies. And as I was smiling through the Internet at the pictures they were sending, I thought, if you asked my mom and dad what the most important thing that happened in 1978 was, they would say me. Absolutely they would say me. They wouldn’t hesitate for a moment. And because I’m a science-fiction writer, I started thinking about all the other things that can be someone’s biggest moment — one person’s happy diversion or silly entertainment or mildly sad post to scroll past on their social media is the centre of another person’s life.

That’s how this story grew. Everyone’s world has a centre, but they’re not the same from person to person.

More Futures stories by Marissa Lingen

Alloy | Search strings | Quality control | Entanglement | Unsolved logistical problems in time travel: spring semester | The stuff we don’t do | Maxwell’s Demon went down to Georgia | Boundary waters | The many media hypothesis

The story behind the story: Galactic Empire Management Consulting: lessons learnt

Posted by Colin Sullivan | Categories:

This week Futures has been visited by management consultants. Specifically, a team of consultants who, under the guidance of Aidan Doyle, have come to help us sort out the Galactic Empire. Running an empire isn’t easy, and you really do need all the help — and input from stakeholders — that you can get. When Aidan isn’t plotting the empire’s new business strategy,  he can be found on Twitter or at his website. Here, he reveals the nuances of empire building — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Galactic Empire Management Consulting: lessons learnt

In the years I’ve spent working as a computer programmer, I have encountered managers who believe in the Darth Vader style of project management: making dire threats while being reluctant to learn from past mistakes. I’ve also seen projects where a seemingly endless parade of consultants have come, asked the same questions, produced the same documents that no one read, and then left before anything was implemented. There is an episode of the comedy series Peep Show in which Mark protests that he doesn’t know anything about management consulting and Johnson tells him: “In, fire 30% of the workforce, new logo, boom! Out. You are now a fully trained management consultant.”

I love the Project Management Tree Swing cartoons, which show how wide the gap between perception and reality can sometimes be in IT project management. When Star Wars tried to move towards more realism and complexity it resulted in messes like the prequels’ Trade Federation discussions and midi-chlorian pseudoscience, but I thought it would be fun to think about some of the real world issues a project the size and complexity of building a Death Star would encounter.

After the first Death Star was destroyed, I can imagine a manager suggesting that what the Empire really needed to do was build another one but make it bigger this time. I’m sure there were lots of project post-implementation evaluation committees, but no one paid attention to their reports either.

At one of my workplaces we received instructions (with recommendations from the manufacturer) on how to properly use the building’s revolving-door main entrance. I like to think that bored stormtroopers would manage to think of some creative and not-safe-for-work ways to have fun with a tractor beam.

The story behind the story: Simple things

Posted by Colin Sullivan | Categories:

This week, Futures is pleased to welcome back Rebecca Birch with her story Simple things. Rebecca first appeared in Futures with her tale Are you receiving? and later with Ice and white roses. You can find out more about her work and keep up to date with her activities on her website. Here, she reveals what inspired her latest piece — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Simple things

Simple Things was inspired by a visual writing prompt — a tree standing alone on a cliff looking out over a vast forest.  It was clear that the tree would have to play a major role in the story, but I wasn’t at all sure what sort of role it would be until I decided that such a striking tree would probably be important to any folks who happened to be in its vicinity.

As I delved into the story, I found I wanted to explore how people, who had been marooned by science-fictional technology gone wrong, dealt with their solitude.  How the tree became a beacon for one man, the physical manifestation of his hope and optimism.  How the other man, who had lost his hope, managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other, his survival dependent on those simple things, and how he would face his life when he was finally, truly alone.

I hope that through writing this story, I’ve reminded myself of the importance of having an Old Lookout of my own, so that when things get hard, I’ll remember that tenacity and old-fashioned stubbornness can see a person through a great deal — even if that stubbornness is as basic as one step following the next.

Never discount the importance of the simple things.

The story behind the story: The sixth circle

Posted by Colin Sullivan | Categories:

Futures is pleased to welcome back J. W. Armstrong with his latest story The sixth circle. He has previously written a couple of stories for Futures: Reversal of misfortune and A final problem. Here he explains what gave rise to his latest tale. As ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing The sixth circle

I have had two stories previously published in Futures. The ideas for those stories came from illness-induced dreams. The sixth circle, however, arose from a chance conversation.

I was in a social situation and the topic, improbably, turned to artificial intelligence. I know little about machine intelligence and I hope I thus disclaimed. But I ended up restating some classical science-fiction AI ideas, including some standard speculations about the Singularity.

At some point in the conversation, an artist-friend wondered: what would motivate an AI? Her comment catalysed The sixth circle.

I wrote the initial draft in a white heat. It included a tangent about why post-Singularity humans would surely be irrelevant and a brief backstory about Ishmael: why his age mattered and more about his connection with the population of wild humans. (In that first draft Ishmael is a more interesting and nuanced character than the cynical drug dealer presenting in the final version.)

Usually anything I write is too short. That initial draft was, however, too long.

I put it aside for a couple of days. When I returned to it, I did a brutal down-selection of words. My goal was to get it to 900 words by deleting anything not essential to the main idea. Some hints at Ishmael’s background survived this edit, but otherwise I tried to be ruthless. I submitted the revised version to Futures and was delighted at its acceptance!

Finally, a comment on the title. The working title was ‘Addicted AIs’ — an awful choice. I wanted a title that did not give away the plot but would be retrospectively predictive of the story’s content. I consulted with my brother and several alternate titles — some making obscure references to classical literature or contemporary urban slang — were considered and rejected. The final title was the simplest, intended to presage the ‘heresy’ involved in the protagonist’s choices.

The story behind the story: Houston, Houston, Do You Read James Tiptree?

Posted by Colin Sullivan | Categories:

This week, Futures is pleased to welcome Rachael K. Jones with her story Houston, Houston, Do You Read James Tiptree?. Rachael is based in Athens, Georgia, and you can keep up with her work at her website or by following her on Twitter. Here, Rachael reveals the secrets behind her slightly unusually titled tale — as ever it  pays to read the story first.

Writing Houston, Houston, Do You Read James Tiptree?

I have no idea how long our species has engaged in word games, but I’d wager the practice dates back to the dawn of oral communication. Language is more than just our tool. It is our toy, our medium for humour, social bonding and creative invention.

Consider the five components of language: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. For each of these five components, we’ve invented games, many of them so embedded into the fabric of our culture that we take them for granted most of the time. Some of these games aid our children in their language development, such as rhyming games that teach the distinctive  sounds of English. Similarly, semantic games like Mad Libs play with parts of speech and word meanings. Other games double as practical tools to aid communication, such as the creation of acronyms (quick, what does LASER stand for?). The game in my story is a syntactic game, designed to reward creativity with clause formation in English.

Legend  has it Gardner Dozois invented the game featured in my story. Its official name is ‘The Man Who Melted Jack Dann’. However, the rule where you create a synopsis to go with your title is my own addition. Houston, Houston, Do You Read James Tiptree? is itself a title/author mashup, and the story is based on the synopsis I thought should go with it.

Most  of these words games can be enjoyed alone, but I’ve always found them more enjoyable with company. In the same way, when I think about the challenges of extended space travel, I think the social-emotional problems of long-term isolation will be among the most difficult to overcome. We’re social creatures at heart. In the absence of someone else to speak to, we won’t learn language to begin with. Houston, Houston, Do You Read James Tiptree? captures a situation that’s just as much about our psychological fragility  in absence of a communication partner as our physical fragility in the cold, empty void of space.

While we’re talking about linguistic games, try out ‘The Man Who Melted Jack Dann’ yourself! It’s challenging and fun trying to discover new, elegant combinations. If you do give it a shot, send me your best ones on Twitter (#sfmashup). I’d love to see what Nature readers can come up with.

The story behind the story: A perfect medium for unrequited love

Posted by Colin Sullivan | Categories:

Futures this week welcome back Alex Shvartsman with his tale A perfect medium for unrequited love. Regular readers will have seen plenty of Alex’s previous stories (there’s a full list at the end of this post), and if you want to know more about his work, you should check out his website and his Twitter feed. Here Alex takes us behind the scenes of his latest tale — as ever it pays to read the story first.

Writing A perfect medium for unrequited love

Humans have always been afraid of their creations.

From the golem to Frankenstein’s monster, from the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica to the warring AIs of Person of Interest, the message remains: if we create intelligent beings we may not be able to control them and there’s a chance they will turn against us.

Real scientists seem to share this concern. Stephen Hawking recently spoke of dangers of advanced AI. This very journal published an editorial on this subject earlier this year.

And although those concerns are not to be discounted, as a science-fiction writer I was interested in exploring possibilities of AI interacting with humans as neither nemesis nor a benevolent overlord. I wanted to portray such an intelligence as an independent being with its own concerns and desires, and one that showed neither a deep interest in humans nor utterly ignored them.

Jinkochi (which is a loose transliteration of 人工知能 or Jinkō chino, Japanese for artificial intelligence) is capable of filial piety but isn’t consumed with humanity or its problems. And although its goal of “fixing” the planet may coincide with our needs, who is to say that it won’t plant its wildflowers on Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue or London’s Downing Street?

So you see, even in my attempt to write a different tale I have not entirely succeeded in escaping the trope of AI running wild.

Perhaps the most fun concept of the story for me to write was envisioning different media the AIs could use to encode information. I figured databases like actuarial tables and metro schedules would be pretty easy, but what might the limit be for a super intelligence? They could certainly influence crop planting patterns and city traffic would be as simple as controlling the lights at intersections. But could they also figure out a way to influence, say, the migratory patterns of birds? These, dear reader, are exactly the sort of things I enjoy most about being a science-fiction writer, and I hope that some of the examples I’ve come up with will amuse you.

More Futures stories by Alex Shvartsman

Ravages of time | The tell-tale ear | The epistolary history | Coffee in end times | The rumination on what isn’t | A one-sided argument | Grains of wheat | Staff meeting, as seen by the spam filter