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Ever since humanity has been able to launch projectiles into space, a major priority has been to communicate with any alien life forms that might come across this space detritus and wonder who shot a space probe right into their upper atmosphere.
I envisioned a species that had no evolutionary imperative towards competitive behaviors, and as such thrived on constant, snail’s-pace communication routines that similarly kept all members of any given community bonded at all times.
Welcome to issue ten of Lightspeed! On tap this month… Fiction: “Saying the Names” by Maggie Clark, “Gossamer” by Stephen Baxter, “Spider the Artist” by Nnedi Okorafor, and “Woman Leaves Room” by Robert Reed. Nonfiction: “You Never Get a Seventh Chance to Make a First Impression: An Awkward History of Our Space Transmissions” by Genevieve Valentine, “Feature Interview: Walter Jon Williams” by Chris Moriarty, “Retro Robots on the Battlefield” by Daniel H. Wilson, and “Immortal Jellyfish and Transhuman You” by Ekaterina Sedia.
With that spark of manifest destiny helping to illuminate your path, there is no stopping you from pulling up stakes and heading out to any of the nearby worlds that are so seemingly destitute of life as we know it that they are practically begging to be colonized.
I decided to make it clear that one of the reasons why anyone would go to space, given that living there would lop years off one’s life span, is that life on Earth is much less attractive in the world of the story than it is in our world.
We’re not talking the fake 3D you saw in your ViewMaster toy, in comic books you read with red and green glasses, or at late-night horror movies. Leith and Upatnieks made holograms that projected light into space so you could look around it.
I do think that children are especially hard on their parents. My theory is that because we are so similar to our parents, we see their weaknesses as magnified versions of our own failings (and hints that we may turn into versions of our parents some day).
Every year there are some films that push the boundaries of art and technology so far that they redefine our understanding of what “real” is.
Can we trust what we see? If we do, and what we see is a lie, what terrible mistakes might we make? And what astonishing heights might we reach, even so?
We all know that eventually, inevitably, humanity is going to develop an AI smart enough to turn into an awkward child actor with feelings all his own.
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