Humanity is the constant, technology is the variable

Roger's Technofiction Section

Technofiction is a branch of Science Fiction in which the emphasis is describing the relation between the human condition and technology.

Technofiction Stories

I love to hear from you when you enjoy these stories, so write me at electronic mailing address telling me what you liked and what you didn't about stories you read.

  • Team Macedonia What if the time travelers who want to change history are shy? (May 06)
  • Mommy, Why Am I here? An innocent enough question; one that has a technofiction answer. (Aug 05)
  • Witch of Devil's Rock What happens when an intelligent parasite infests dawn-of-agriculture humans? (Jul 05)
  • The Ticket Out (Apr 05) My version of Heinlien's Starship Troopers theme. Power Armored mercenaries get stranded after an invasion goes sour.
  • The Bag (Feb 05) Homo sapiens will not always be the Earth's keeper. The story of an astounding archeological discovery of the future.
  • The Domes (Jan 05) After you say, "Oops!" what do you do? The story of a people dealing with a world-shattering biotechnology accident.
  • The Colonists (Jan 05) Most space travel science fiction presumes some form of faster-than-light travel. This is a story of what space commerce is like when only slower than light technology is available.
  • And where does the 500 pound Alien Sleep? (Apr 04) a first encounter story with a really scarey alien.
  • Power Armor (Jan 04) -- an action/adventure story in the form of an Interstellar Agent making his report to a power armor equipment maker.
  • Man's Pride (Nov 03, Honorable Mention in Writers of the Future contest 2007) Life is always full of little surprises... and some not-so-little ones, too. As discovered by this wet-behind-the-ears MBA of the future.
  • The Immortals (Nov 03) What would happen if an Immortal came to Earth? What difference would it make to our world? Here is one possibility
  • The Prisoner's Dilemma (Nov 03) the tale of two very different aliens who must cooperate to escape.
  • Beware Bargain Boards! (Aug 02) a short cautionary tall tale from the early days of personal computers.
  • The Failure (Aug 02) A story of mankind creating a new species, in a surprising way.
  • Wilderness 2053 (Aug 02) Keeping our wildernesses pristine, and enjoying them at the same time. This is how we will do it.
  • Intelitan the Destructor (Aug 02) Interstellar combat with a war machine that's gone out of control... but with a technofiction twist.
  • I am of Man (Aug 02) A "first encounter" story between a hostile alien and a "creation" of mankind. (It is through "creations" that I envision most space exploration taking place.)

Technofiction Essays

These technofiction essays are the first step in a technofiction story. These lay the technology parameters within which the humans are being human.

The HX Encounter Series

This is a series of stories about mankind doing interstellar exploration. At the start of this series mankind is exploring the solar system with newly developed constant acceleration spacecraft when a chunk of a large -- large as in near-moon-size -- alien spacecraft is discovered in the Kuiper Belt. HX stands for huge unknown alien -- which these HX turn out to be.

Some key features of this world system:

  • The HX alien is not just one species, but an ecosystem. An HX ship is the size of a small moon. It is inhabited by a diverse mix of creatures, some are beneficial to the HX, and some are not.
  • What the HX "do" is not known to mankind. Therefore, the actions of the HX ships appear quite capricious to mankind.
  • Mankind has constant acceleration space travel, but does not have faster-than-light (FTL) space flight or communication -- no warp engines, no subspace communicators. This rules out space opera-style "warping" to advance the plot. Instead things take years to happen, and mid-journey spacecraft clocks tick much more slowly than planetary clocks. Instead of plots advancing at "warp speed", the stories in the HX Encounter series are adapted to this more measured reality.
  • The HX are higher technology than mankind, and they do have an FTL travel mode, which mankind calls "blipping". A blip doesn't happen often, but when it does, in or out, it is accompanied by a huge gamma ray burst. In this world system HX blipping is one source of the gamma ray bursts that astronomers first discovered in the 1990's.
  • What is found looting HX ships -- live ones or dead ones -- are advanced technology and devices which are hugely valuable to mankind. But the looting is a dangerous process -- this is an ecosystem, and there are lots of other looters working the HX, too. On live HX there are the HX defenses, as well. Looting is much more difficult on live HX, but the finds are much richer, too. The sub-plot in many of these stories is about the conflict within communities between those willing to takes the risks and those who don't think the risk is worth it -- the death and damage when things go wrong it too great.

The HX Encounter stories span many centuries: from the time mankind first discovers an HX relic to the time when he begins to fully adapt to the HX environment.

  • The Honeycomb Comet -- (Jan 04) The first story in the HX series. In this story John Burnmeshorts discovers the first HX fragment, which is mankind's first evidence of other intelligent alien life.
  • The First Siege of Titan -- (Oct 07) In which Earth and Titan Colony face off over how much HX technology to bring to humankind.
  • Praise Osmore, not Jonas! -- (Nov 07) setting the record straight on what happened at the first HX skeleton.
  • Pressure Point -- (Apr 07, Honorable Mention in Writers of the Future contest 2007) Titan space explorers find something incredibly valueable deep under Neptune's crushing atmosphere.
  • Alien Invasion! -- (Nov 05) Roger's version of the War of the Worlds story. Aliens who have been looting a nearby HX skeleton come to the Solar System and attack Earth!
  • 2nd Siege of Titan -- (Feb 06) A live HX "blips" to near the Solar System. This is hugely devastating, but represents mankind's first chance to deal with a live HX. Some people want to jump on this opportunity, some believe it will kill mankind off.
  • Emperor of Earth -- (Jan 07) Once again, an alien ship comes to the Solar System, but this time it stays.... (Hint: the result is not a War of the Worlds-style story.)
  • Chance Encounter -- (Jan 06) A story late in the HX series. Mankind is thriving in the live HX ecosystem, but there is a surprise waiting...
  • Human Hunt -- (Oct 07) The HX decide they want humans!
  • The First Starship -- (May 07) An alternate time adventure in the HX environment. No Honeycomb Comet, the aliens come to Earth first! (Because there is nothing ultra-high tech or magical in this story, it is also my best guess as to what mankind's first alien contact will be like.)

 

Technofiction Reviews

These are reviews of movies and books from the Technofiction perspective

 

 

The Origin of Technofiction

I have read science fiction since I was a teenager, and written science fiction starting in the late 80's. I wrote, in part because I was getting increasingly dissatisfied with what I read. As part of I learning this science fiction writing craft, I attended many seminars and writing groups concerned with writing science fiction. Over the years I became more and more distressed with the emphasis on strong characterization in science fiction, "Make sure you don't have 'cardboard characters' in your stories." is the perennial admonition from older writers and prominent editors to aspiring new writers.

I listened, and I was dismayed. If I was interested in strong characterization, I would be reading mainstream literature or gothic novels. I was also dismayed as I came to realize that simple morality stories were considered good science fiction -- stories where current day human controversies are editorialized by simply transferring the issues to aliens. The arch-typical example of this is the Alienation movie and TV series -- which are thinly veiled metaphors for racism issues. Morality stories are a time-honored tradition in science fiction, but the tradition is a dull one in my opinion.

It's a dull form because humanity is a constant. Human beings have been acting and thinking like human beings since prehistory. They have the same angers, fears and aspirations that they had in Biblical times. Great stories have been developed about human virtues and vices ever since there was an oral tradition. There is nothing new in humans acting as humans.

What is new to humanity today is new technology. Technology affects how humans act, so, for Technofiction I'm changing the admonition to, "Make sure you don't have 'cardboard technology' in your stories."

Another example: The movie Shakespeare in Love. Here we have a woman engaging in "90's thinking", and activities, as she frolics in Elizabethan England. Why didn't the real Elizabethan woman act like she did? It's certainly not that they weren't human enough, or lighthearted enough! They didn't because the technology of Elizabethan England didn't permit such behavior. Such behavior wasn't survivable in an age when seduction and rape were hard to distinguish, when there was no reliable birth control, and when a woman needed a reliable man to provide for her and protect her if she wanted to live in anything but grinding poverty, and a reliable man wasn't going to have anything to do with a woman who was no longer "virtuous."

Putting "90's thinking" into historical situations and showing it as surviveable is anti-technofiction, it's fantasy. A more technofictionish movie in this genre is Dangerous Liasons, where the bad consequences of risky acts gone sour are portrayed.

Humanity is the constant, technology is the variable

The "human condition" -- human virtues and vices; human motivations and instincts -- has not changed since prehistory, but the technological matrix within which those human feelings and actions play out has changed enormously, and continues to do so.

An ancient Egyptian peasant did not live the same lifestyle that a modern American does. An ancient Egyptian pharaoh didn't, either. It is how technology modifies the "human condition" that is interesting, and this is the center of technofiction.

Examples of technofiction

Examples of not technofiction

Technofiction is closely related to "hard" science fiction. But more than hard science fiction the goal of technofiction is to talk about the future and attempt to reveal it. The goal is to explore the future. The goal is to explore the question, "If we gain a certain technology, what difference will it make to the human condition?"

This is goal of technofiction, and here are some samples of the genre that I have created.