The story behind the story: Catalogue of Items in the Chess Exhibition at the Humanities Museum, Pre-Enlightenment Wing

Futures this week gets a sneak preview of a new exhibition courtesy of Alex Shvartsman. In Catalogue of Items in the Chess Exhibition at the Humanities Museum, Pre-Enlightenment Wing, Alex explores the artefacts on show that help chart the demise of Earth culture as we know it. Regular readers will know that Alex is no stranger to Futures, and more of his stories can be found at the foot of this post — although you can also find out more about Alex’s work at his website or by following him on Twitter. Here, Alex kindly reveals the ideas behind his latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Catalogue of Items in the Chess Exhibition at the Humanities Museum, Pre-Enlightenment Wing

I’ve got into the habit of writing chess stories that aren’t about chess at all. Like this one. Or that one. Chess exhibition is no different.

Historically, native cultures have not fared well when they have encountered the more technologically advanced explorers. Who’s to say things will go any better for humanity if we’re ever discovered by an alien civilization? Will small handfuls of people struggle to preserve the human identity while the majority willingly embrace the language, fashions and values of the visitors, until it is only the visitors themselves who are interested in the artefacts of human ingenuity, even if only as gift shop curios?

In this story, the aliens conquer and absorb Earth into their society without firing a single shot, which makes it all the more chilling to me.

Special thanks to Ken Liu for suggesting the idea of the Xiangqi segment. He taught me that xiangqi literally translates as ‘elephant game’ and the word xiang is a homonym for both ‘elephant’ and ‘similar’, making it easy for a foreign scholar with limited scope of knowledge to conclude that the game is called ‘imitation chess’.

More Futures stories by Alex Shvartsman