Zetetic Elench

Just as Childhood's End (first theory) could be viewed as a prelude or explanation of many SF fictional universes (the "Overmind" is the Force in Star Wars, among others) the film AI could be a seen as a mythological version of the founding of The Culture -in particular the "panhumans" described as being abundant in the (well "our") galaxy and beyond.  At the film's epilogue, all the humans had been killed as a result of a new Ice Age but the descendants (so to speak) of the film's "mechas" (intelligent androids) remain. It could be conceivable that a similar event actually happened in Earth's distant past. A race of hominids, perhaps unknown in the fossil record, invented and heavily utilised, artificial intelligence just before their civilisation was destroyed in an ice age. Of course, a few survivors could have left Earth in spaceships before this happened, but the main point is that the AIs which survived were able to crea...

A few statistics on The Culture Orbitals-estimate around four hundred thousand constructed by the Culture by the 14th century Common Era; over two million by the 29th century ("Surface Detail"). Individual Minds-several hundred thousand estimated by Bora Horza Gobuchul in the 14th century, say 150,000. (Probably all Systems Vehicles and Contact Units have a Mind at this point, whereas the Orbitals are just as likely to rely on large networks of individually AI-level computers) General Systems Vehicles-estimate 20,000 constructed in total before start of Idiran-Culture war. General Contact Units-estimate around 50,000 constructed in total before start of Idiran war. Number of Rocks associated with the Culture-estimate 60,000 before start of Idiran war. Superlifters destroyed during Idiran war-estimate at least 80,000. Total warships produced during the Idiran war-estimate between 780,...

Family Guy is really set in Hell! Specifically one of the Hells in the  Culture  novel "Surface Detail". The television programme "American Dad!" is also set in one of these Hells, but different to the one Family Guy is set in. Think about it. The characters never age and most would end up institutionalised if they lived in a normal society. It also, perhaps, makes sense that the creators of these Hells would consider early twentieth century North America, Earth, a suitable place to set these Hells. In Surface Detail the Hells are terrible places where the downloaded  personalities of the dead are maintained. It's denizens are routinely raped by demons (one of whom may be Glen Quagmire ) or forced into arbitrary wars. All rapes result in pregnancy (Hell is a pretty horrible place of course), which is reminiscent of certain Family Guy episodes where unexpected or bizarre pregnancies occur.   

Vulcan Sex: A Fan-Fic-Theory First Contact is set eleven-ish years after a supposed third world war. The reasons for World War Three are not given and there is no real evidence to suggest that the conflict was actually fought with nuclear weapons. Certainly, if it was it seems incredibly doubtful that there would still be any one left alive by the time of Zeframe Cochrane's first warp flight. All we can go on is Riker's statistic of 600 million casualties and Data's estimate of the date by the proportion of radioactive particles in the atmosphere. Perhaps the war sterilised most of the population but contact with aliens was soon enough so that said aliens (the Vulcans) could provide inoculations against the long-term effects of radiation? I would even go further and suggest that the Vulcans indulged in large-scale genetic engineering of the human population. The result being that humans could also breed with members of other humanoid species.  It...

Bit of fan fiction in my answer: say Starfleet resurrect Kirk when Picard goes AWOL in a personal crusade to finally destroy the Borg. The Trek novel "The Return" had Kirk destroying the Borg by switching their on/off switch to "off". The novel was, as it happens, written by Shatner as a sequel to "Generations", allowing Kirk to be resurrected so that he could have a much more meaningful death. But Paramount made "First Contact" instead", which to be fair had the whole "Picard is Ahab" thing and was definitely one of the better post-Shatner Trek films, but the Borg were only thwarted not finally defeated. I think a combination of the two stories would have worked much better, with picard going AWOL in an attempt to destroy the Borg once and for all. Starfleet illegally resurrects Kirk to send him to stop Picard's attempt at genocide. 

#ITV2's # Bromans is probably the sickest, most offensive thing on television! The ancient Romans should not be admired or emulated just to entertain the target audience of drunk-and-or-feeble-minded twenty-somethings. Julius Ceasar was worse than Adolf Hitler. I repeat: Julius Ceasar was worse than Adolf Hitler. Julius. Ceasar. Was. Worse. Than. Fucking Adolf fucking Hitler.  Hitler thought people would forget about the Jews, just like the Armenian Genocide was mostly forgotten. Ceasar would have bragged about killing the European Jewry as some kind of heroic achivement like he boasted abou t exterminating the Gauls. If the Romans had been around in the 1930's they would have made one half of the Jewish population murder the other half just to make a fucking snuff film!

Prelude to and Road to already covered!  🙋 I'd like to cover a background to a hypothetical adaptation of the Dune saga. This background provides a bit of the whys and wherefores of the "Duniverse" in the books. And I'm riffing of " House of Suns " and " Star Wars " 😉. The background is more or less the same conflict occurring in the 4th or 5th millennium as described in House of Suns. The reasons, perhaps, are different but one protagonist represents the remaining nations and corporations based on Earth, it's surrounding space habitats and the Moon. The other is the asteroid Ceres, now an independent nation. Ceres wins and becomes the new hegemon after its armies of clones quell a rebellion by the "thinking machines" of Earth. The causes of the war are various but the result is that Earth is gradually abandoned and the surviving clones are used to colonise the galaxy. During training it was discovered that the clones only...