Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Oddessy, was probably the first (maybe the only) real serious film which dealt with this dream. It showed us how human intelligence would evolve to the stars. Earth will have colonies on the moon and send missions to Jupiter. Space flight will be routine. Eventually, this will be another stage in the evolution of intelligence, and man will be suceeded by an Artificial Intelligence or the transcendant Star Child. (A lot of SF talks about transcendace into a higher form of being, but since it's impossible to really envision or describe, it's a rather murky vision of the future).Less philosophical and much closer to SF's shared vision of the future is Star Trek, where a powerful "Can Do" attitude bends even the laws of physics to serve the ideals of Truth, Justice and the
AmericanHuman Way. Perhaps one of the most influental TV series of all time, Gene Roddenberry's creation gave the public a strong, positive image of science fiction, space exploration and humanity's future. In Star Trek, Technology is a powerful force for good, and is the foundation of a liberal, western-style utopia. This is in stark contrast to the many dark visions of technology and the future served up by SF, of totalitarian (Stalinistic or Klingonian) regimes and global Apocalypse.
In recent years however, science fiction seems to have lost its shared vision of the future. Dystopia and destruction are a bit too depressing to really catch on, especially with so much hope still left, but the wild optimism of the Apollo days and Hard SF has faded, and we aren't certain any longer that humanity is on the brink of conquering space. Things have turned out to be much more complex than we expected.One idea which floated to shore on the Cyberpunk wave was that, at the rate technlogy is changing our lives, it seems a bit naive to expect us to reach the stars with humanity's social attitudes and customs basically unchanged, frozen in a late 20th century western mindset. Technology is going to make people really different! (said writers like Bruce Sterling and Michael Swanwick, Linda Nagata, Vernor Vinge, Greg Egan, Ian Macdonald, Brian Stableford and a whole lot of other people) They'll have weird electronics implanted into their heads, biotechnological modifications, nanotechnological machines crawling around their veins!
The idea filtered quickly to media SF. Hollywood revved up it's make-up department. But would the filmgoing public identify with the actors if they have wires poking out of their eyesockets? Well, let's make them the villains!
Star Trek: The Next Generation is Gene Roddenberry's vision, updated for the politically-correct 90's. The federation had made peace with the Klingons, the crew of the Enterprise were all nice to each other, and the captain actually obeyed the Prime Directive. The effects were nice, but the audience was getting bored. Where was the conflict, the action, the drama? When would we get to see a decent space battle?Enter the Borg. Bad guys for the 90's. The Borg had all the cyberpunk glam and nanotech toys, they were an enemy who could not be reasoned with or negotiated with. They were an alternate lifeform, not an alternate lifestyle. They were a perfect mirror image of the Federation.
The basis of the Federation is the old SF vision of technology serving humanity. The Borg are based on the SF vision of technology transforming humanity. Inventions like automobiles, antibiotics, television, birth control, the Internet, and cellular phones have all radically changed the face of society. Why wouldn't inventions like faster than light travel, matter-conversion, teleportation and unlimited energy make the Federation unrecognizably different from 90's California? The Borg suggest an alternative to that. For all that they are painted as weird, evil, alien zombies, they probably look a lot more like our descendants than Kirk and Picard.
We have met the Borg, and it is us.
- A screening of 2001 (Tuesday) and its sequel, 2010 (Wednesday).
- The HABITAT project examines how we can reach the stars, in daily panels.
- A Star Trek marathon will screen all the key episodes involving The Borg. See The Schedule for details.
- The Way the Future was, on Tuesday, 1600-1700, examines past visions of the fututre.
- Thomas Goodman discusses cybernetics (Wednesday), and Brian Stableford discusses biotechnology (Thursday).