The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

It feels so weird that we're finishing up our SciFi class for the year, I'm really going to miss it. I just felt like it was fitting to finish the course by finally reading the book it was named after, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. I will say I greatly enjoyed the book. While it felt very weird and confusing at times, more often than not I found myself laughing internally (or rarely externally) at the unique style of dry, sarcastic humor that Adams so beautifully weaves into his work.

Now Adams was a real interesting person outside of his writing, and you can see the elements of his life show up in his writing. For instance, Adams was a very outspoken atheist, but he says he finds religion very interesting, and loves to study how it affects human motivation. The anti-religious sentiment shows up in his work, as it seems nothing in the story really happens for a reason. It almost seems to the point that he's ridiculing even the notion that things have a preordained reason for happening, as showcased by many events such as the Earth being destroyed to open a travel route, with no real planning or caution involved.

Adams was also a very ardent conservationist, and campaigned on many occasions to preserve endangered species, which also shows up in his work. His vulgar description of species such as the Vogons shows his distaste for brutal species. There's a fairly good argument that Vogons are supposed to be humans, which would make sense in that he thinks humans are destructive beings and condemns us for it.

Adams is a gifted writer in how he delivers his messages though. He weaves an intricate web of content, somehow making sarcasm and anti-religious undertones appear to be part of the same story, without sounding too preachy. This style allows his readers to enjoy his work, yet still ponder the deep human issues Douglas explored his entire life.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an important piece in SciFi history, and rightfully so. Adams produced a piece that elicits laughs, snickers, and metaphysical debate all in the same train of thought.

Hitchhiking

I thought I knew what a weird book was until I started reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The book is actually pretty interesting so far, albeit very dry. The book comments a lot on how dumb people are, like when the politician is tricked into lying in front of the steamroller himself.

The main character is extremely mediocre and plain as an individual, which really adds to the whole sarcastic feel of the book. No one in the book really shows any rational emotion, and it just gives the book this silly, sarcastic feel as a whole. So far the book is very dry yet somehow funny, and it's a very compelling read. Honestly, I haven't reached much of the book yet, but what I have read is pure, sarcastic genius.

I'm really excited to see where the book goes and I think it brings up some questions about how smart we really are as a species. I'll see ya'll later I have to write my amazing Shrek x Space Jam x Star Trek fanfiction.

Sad-lestar Galactica (I know this pun is bad don't judge)

Battlestar Galactica is a very unique series in my opinion. It’s unique in that there’s not a whole lot of hope.

The story starts kind of abruptly, and it keeps that pace throughout the show. Within an instant and with no real plot development, all humans (except for the ones on the mythical “Earth”) are dead except for 50,000 survivors. This does a really good job of simulating how the situation would progress in real life, with noone having any time to break down or stop to think, lest they want to lose their life. The series does not shy away from death and hopelessness, and uses dramatic irony to exemplify that. Even the one semi-hopeful scene, where the commander claims he knows where Earth is, you realize that there is a cylon agent they don’t know about lurking in their midst.

Besides the pure hopelessness and all of that good jazz, the show is also unique in how it brings up a unique moral question, should we even be saved as a species? The show prompts a very deep moral debate on the subject, which leaves the viewer with doubts about their own species and their intrinsic value. I have heard the series also shows the story from the Cylons’ perspective later in the series, which shows you the other side of the debate straight up. This presentation does something a lot of shows don’t, in that it presents both sides of an issue rather than just the one they know the viewer is most likely to hold.

Galactica is a very unique and morally deep show, despite how it may look on the surface. It isn’t just another space shoot-em-up, but rather a depiction of a possible scenario if some omniscient power decided to take our fate into its own hands, and rather we are even deserving of salvation.

Giant Japanese Robots

As we did an independent study about the influence of various famous science fiction works for our project a while back , I thought it would be interesting to delve into the inspiration for one of the best science fiction movies to come out fairly recently. This movie has enough action for even the most hardcore adrenaline junkie, explosions galore, and most importantly, tons of giant robots. Yep, you guessed it, it's Pacific Rim.

You may have gathered that I'm being sarcastic when I call Pacific Rim one of the best movies to come out in the science fiction genre lately. Although the movie scored an astounding 7/10 on IMDb, it came under harsh criticism for having no plot, and just a stereotypical and underdeveloped story line. I wanted to know what great works were used as inspiration for this $190 million money pit, I was not expecting what I found. I was expecting Godzilla and other monster movies of the sort to be in the mix, but it turns out that the plot was almost a complete ripoff of Neon Genesis Evangelion, an anime series from 1995-96. This brought up an extremely philosophical question rarely dared to be addressed by humans: can anime be science fiction?

As crazy as this sounds, I think it can. I mean, Evangelion is about aliens fighting giant robots, which sounds pretty science fiction-esque to me. It also has strong religious references and mixes them in pretty heavily with the aliens and robots. Now I don't know how you can classify this as anything but Science Fiction, so it is in my book. This perfectly illustrated to me just how broad of a genre scifi is.

Doesn't Red Mean Communism?

Red Mars is not a story of creation, but rather a tale of destruction. The story focuses on the journey of 100 colonizers to a new world ready for development, but it is set upon the backdrop of a world wrought with destruction and corruption.

Throughout Red Mars the Earth is painted as an unstable and decaying place. Corporations have taken over the government, causing global corruption. Wars erupt over the scant resources and millions die regularly. This, at least to me, completely overshadows any progress that is attempting to be made on Mars. The corporations even reach to the new frontier that is Mars, and cause violent conflict on the planet. This paints the message that no matter where we try to escape to, corruption and destruction will follow.

To me this seems like a comment on politics also. From a quick scan of his Wikipedia page, it

seems like Robinson isn't too much of a fan of modern capitalism, which is fairly apparent in this

book. The corruption and subsequent destruction we see in the book is a fairly obvious comment on

the flaws of capitalism. Red Mars seems like a comment and warning on an individualistic

government rather than a tale of exploration and new beginnings.

The Borg

Star Trek: The Next Generation deviates pretty interestingly from it’s predecessors. Where earlier Star Trek series focused on a Socialism-like environment, which seemed to be working well surprisingly. However, The Next Generation seems to cast a rather unpleasant light on Socialism in the Borg.

The Borg are a unified hive mind that show no individuality or emotion at all. This seems like the show is going greatly against governments that encourage that, such as Communism or Socialism, however the star fleet exists in a fairly Socialism-like universe. With the existence of replicators, there is no need for anything, which means no real economic classes. There is a social structure, but it exists purely to keep things working, not to enforce any kind of power or economic imbalance. This contrast is interesting by itself, but the fact that it shows up in an American science fiction show just enhances it for me.

Star Trek has had an interesting history with having undertones of political opinions in multiple episodes, and The Next Generation is a continuation of that trend. The Borg represent a dark side of something usually supported by Star Trek

What a Hiro

We’ve read more than one short story in class in the past few weeks, so I know there’s a lot I can talk about, but I want to focus on “Snowcrash” Today.

I’ve only read 1 chapter of “Snowcrash”, and it was amazing. What stuck out to me though was the author’s satirical depiction of the future world, and it seems there was real meaning behind all the humor. Stephenson seems to have a pretty substantial libertarian following, and his libertarian views show greatly in “Snowcrash”. In the story, everything is privatized, creating a governmental system based on letting the people pay for what they want. I myself am fairly libertarian, as I believe that forcing people to send large portions of their income to an organization that rewards them with almost nothing in return is unfair.

Another thing that stuck out to me was the pretty clear wealth divide that Stephenson depicted. The poor live in storage units and in a land controlled by the Mafia and other gangs, while the middle/upper class live in city-state like suburbs. Stephenson also says a shockingly low number of people would own computers, and we all know how wrong that is.

All in all, what I read of “Snowcrash” was funny and interesting, and at least it didn’t involve weird alien babymaking.

M A S T E R H A C K E R

Neuromancer is an interesting blend of things. I say things because I don’t really know what else to call them. The story is just a melting pot of different cultures, feels, and topics that seem like they would never go together.

The story is a mashup of cowboys, Japanese culture, and AI beings. I want to talk about the Japanese culture aspect of it first. The first part, at least, of the story takes place in Chiba City, part of the Tokyo sprawl. Now this is actually fairly typical, as Japan was making great technological advancements at the time cyberpunk was being written, so many stories in the genre take place in Japan. Admittedly, the samurai and ninjas were pretty unique, so even the main “typical” aspect of this story wasn't so typical. The city also had a very grimy, black market feel, which was also pretty ordinary for the genre.

Now that we’re past the semi normal part of the story, this is where it gets interesting. The rogue-like hackers are called “cowboys”, which brings in a whole new thing. To me, it kind of gives the story a wild west kind of feel that I thought was pretty cool. The story definitely has lots of gratuitous violence that we attribute to the wild west. Another note, one of the main sprawls is BAMA, which goes from Boston to Atlanta. Neither of those places seem very wild west to me, I'm just saying.

On top of all of this, there’s multiple AI beings that take the shape of humans. So many cool things that feel like they would never come together do in this movie, and it happens so perfectly. Oh yeah I forgot, there’s the Panther Moderns, a group of teenage terrorists who think it’s all a funny prank. Back to what I was saying, Neuromancer feels like a young kid’s awesome fever dream (except the weird parts), and I love it. It’s also interesting how there are now “coding cowboys”, who are freelance coders, much like the freelance hackers in Neuromancer.

Overall, Neuromancer was a very interesting book that, while confusing, predicted pretty accurately the level of coding and hacking we’ve reached today.

Cybertron Might Actually Be Real One Day

One development that we have missed is the creation of artificial planets and space stations. However we have toyed with the idea of colonies on other planets, no one has really brought up the idea of us creating our own worlds in space.

This development would arise as space travel increases and the need for suitable rest stops and checkpoints for space travelers arose. While we have Mars in our solar system, we would still need to create a biodome or something of the such to compensate for an atmosphere and make the colony hospitable. Once we expand our field of travel to other galaxies however, we may come across a system that has no solid planets or anywhere hospitable potentially. If we could construct our own world with an artificial atmosphere or dome or something of the such, it could allow a place for human expansion that wouldn’t need generations of preparation.

The signs that this technology is coming are faintly present right now. This advancement is at least a generation or two away, but with our current construction capacity and the rate it is growing, there is progress. If we are able as a species fund our space programs once again, and the size of our spacecraft continue to grow, we should have no problem assembling a very small planet-like object in space. We also have a pollution problem that while somewhat curbed is still a looming threat to Earth's habitability.

Going off of the last sentence, this development would most likely be nothing but helpful. Humans would be able to leave a possibly over-polluted planet and make longer space travel trips as there would be stops in galaxies with no useable planets. I don’t think that this would hurt anyone, as humans would not be interfering with alien species since they would not be settling on any existing planets, and the environment wouldn’t be involved. However, the environment may be disturbed or destroyed in order to process the insane amount of construction needed, and it may be ransacked for animals to bring to the newly built worlds or colonies.

Honestly, this isn’t too likely to happen. Humans will most likely either just opt to build on other planets like Mars, or create some way to preserve our environment and planet from over-pollution. That pollution thing would be fun to explore, but that’s a project for another day.

Harrison the Replicant

What's not to love about Blade Runner? It's got Harrison Ford, gunfights, giant neon screens everywhere, and sketchy forced romance. Okay, that last one is pretty creepy, but overall Blade Runner is a beautifully crafted movie. The characters all have intense motivations, and the constant dark and rainy skies keep the feel of the movie gloomy throughout.

One topic that I found interesting that the movie addressed was the mass growth of technology and commercialism. As for the technology side of it, technology, nuclear weapons specifically, were what caused the destruction of Earth in the background to the movie. The author also shows flying cars and giant screens and some really cool technology, but the overall feel makes me think we aren't supposed to appreciate the giant boost of tech. There are advertisements and screens flying around you and covering apartment buildings, or any building really, causing you to be bombarded constantly with product placement and consumerism.

Technology also allowed for the creation of replicants, who the blade runners are sent to hunt down to prevent human casualties. even after a great war, technological advancements still are threats to humans and need to be contained. Blade Runner painted technology as something that could advance rapidly and bring great achievement, but needs to be contained for our safety.