The satellite achieved orbit around the Moon in late June, and will be mapping its surface extensively. The image you see above is of the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium, and it's the first image NASA has released from the orbiter.

A release from NASA explains what you're seeing:

"Our first images were taken along the moon's terminator — the dividing line between day and night — making us initially unsure of how they would turn out," said LROC Principal Investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University in Tempe. "Because of the deep shadowing, subtle topography is exaggerated, suggesting a craggy and inhospitable surface. In reality, the area is similar to the region where the Apollo 16 astronauts safely explored in 1972.". . . Impact craters feature prominently in both images. Older craters have softened edges, while younger craters appear crisp.

Many more images will be coming from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Also, if you want to dig the Moon even more today, here is one of the original movies made of astronauts landing on the Moon in 1969. Apparently it was long believed lost, and has just now been recovered. (UPDATE: A NASA rep denies that the movie below is real, so enjoy it only as a fiction.)

Happy Independence Day!

Moon photograph via: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University

Communist Amerika

Although the United States passionately feared a communist takeover, there is surprisingly little science fiction that imagines what the United States would be like under communism. During the Cold War, there were a lot of movies about communist spies and communist agents and communist invasions, but few stories tried to grapple with what the United States would look like in a long-term communist scenario. The propaganda movie Red Nightmare from 1962, with its grim portrait of small town commie USA, gestured at this idea a little bit. But it wasn't really until the 1980s with the miniseries Amerika that we saw a fully-fledged communist USA. The miniseries imagines what the United States would be like 10 years after the Soviets invade in the late 1980s. Hint: It's evil and must be stopped.

Two books from the 1990s offer slightly more plausible scenarios. In Maureen Mchugh's China Mountain Zhang, the United States suffers an economic collapse in the 21st century, followed by a revolution led by Chinese communists. China has become an economic superpower, while America founders through its own cultural revolution. And in the British short story collection Back In The USSA, Theodore Roosevelt is reelected as a progressive candidate in 1912, thus setting in motion a series of events that lead to a people's revolution in the United States in 1917. Russia, however, remains Czarist. It's a fun thought experiment for people who like to geek out about early 20th century American progressive politics.

Could it happen?
It's telling that Back In The USSA has to reach so far back in history to make its scenario plausible. And McHugh posits a future disaster. The point is that this scenario is an extreme deviation from the country's current trajectory. Sure, anything could happen – there are always black swans. But this possibility feels more like a thought experiment than a genuine possibility.

Fascist Fragments

Americans have feared a fascist takeover perhaps as much as they have feared communism in the past. In fact, the two are often lumped together in political polemics. But in science fiction, Philip K Dick's early 1960s novel The Man In The High Castle set the standard for fantasies of a fascist takeover. In Dick's vision, FDR is assassinated early in his presidency, which results in a weak government that fails to pull the country out of the Depression. So the United States doesn't have the economic or industrial capacity to aid the Allies, Germany conquers Europe, Japan conquers the Pacific, and the United States is broken up and divided among its conquerors. Parts of the nation remain free, parts go to Germany, and most of the West Coast goes to Japan.

Other fantasies about a fascist United States also imagine the country as having broken up. Even the recent television show Jericho depicts (at one point in the series) a post-nuclear apocalypse in the U.S. resulting in its fragmentation into small, authoritarian regions. Obviously there are some alternate histories that imagine a unified United States going fascist, but the idea of a fragmented country falling prey to authoritarians is a common one.

Could it happen?
The United States has sometimes flirted with authoritarianism. Presidents like FDR and Richard Nixon consolidated so much power that many historians would call them proto-fascist. The fact that the United States does not have a parliamentary democracy often makes it appear to resemble nations whose leadership is confined to a small cadre. However, the country also has a history of correcting itself when power is too closely tied to one group. Term limits were set for presidents after FDR died, and the Watergate scandal destroyed Nixon's regime. The question is, would this self-correcting mechanism remain healthy if the country fragmented into smaller pieces? The Man In The High Castle, even after all these years, still makes a persuasive case that a divided America could become fascist.

Corporate Feudalism

Many cyberpunk stories are predicated on the idea that in the near future the United States will be ruled by corporations who are more powerful than governments. This is the premise in William Gibson's classic Neuromancer, Marge Piercy's post-cyberpunk He, She, and It, and is even an important idea in the TV show Fringe. Although a shell of the U.S. Government might remain intact in these scenarios, true power is held by multinationals. Neal Stephenson does a terrific job showing what this would be like in his novel The Diamond Age. Corporations create enclaves with their own cultural norms that function as city-states. (One such enclave adopts Victorian social values and fashions, for example.)

This situation leads to a scenario like feudalism because the corporations become like kingdoms, with an executive class serving as aristocrats and workers as serfs. The world is fragmented economically and culturally, but in many versions of this story the governments remain the same. Still, these governments are more ceremonial than anything else. The world is run by capitalists, not politicians.

Could it really happen?
As we see in the TV show Fringe, corporate feudalism seems as if it has already happened. Although the show is not set in the future, the corporation Massive Dynamic clearly has as much power as the government, if not more. Wealthy companies like Google and Microsoft have more money than many nations. If Google merged with Northrop Grumman and bought Blackwater, could they take over the U.S. Government? Sounds a helluva lot more plausible than a communist revolution.

Since we still live in a democratic society, go ahead and exercise your right to vote. Take our poll and tell the world what you think is going to happen to the U.S. Government.

The National Intelligence Council coordinates research at all US intelligence agencies, and the newly-released report is called "Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed." When the quarter-century rolls around, this report predicts, the power of Western-style democracy may have declined. The outcome of this shift is murky, but one thing seems clear. Governments will be playing a greater role in steering economies.

Says the report:

No single outcome seems preordained: the Western model of economic liberalism, democracy and secularism, for example, which many assumed to be inevitable, may lose its lustre – at least in the medium term . . . Today wealth is moving not just from West to East but is concentrating more under state control [in China and Russia for example] . . . In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, the state's role in the economy may be gaining more appeal throughout the world.

More fascinating, the report predicts "the multiplicity of influential actors and distrust of vast power means less room for the US to call the shots without the support of strong partnerships." You read that right. US intelligence agencies are suggesting the US can't "call the shots" without help from other nations.

The report also includes a science fictional moment: A letter written by an imaginary president in 2020, after global warming has whipped up a mega-hurricane in Manhattan. The president compares the scene to World War II newsreels, with the European devastation of that era transplanted to New York City.

Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed [PDF] (via the UK Guardian)

Opening Atlantis by Harry Turtledove: At some point in the Earth’s geological history, the region from Florida to Nova Scotia has broken off from the rest of North America, forming a separate continent. The paradisial continent, named Atlantis, is discovered by English explorers in 1453 and subsequently settled. Atlantis proves a focal point in the English, French, and Spanish struggles for power. The rest of North America, called Terranova, is subsequently discovered, but Atlantis is an impediment for Europeans trying to reach it.

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson: In world where 99% of Medievel Europe’s population was wiped out by the bubonic plague, Islamic and Buddhist societies emerge as the world’s dominant powers by the 15th century. Chinese explorers discover North America, which they name Yingzhou. And after the Chinese armies conquer Japan, many Japanese flee to Yingzhou, joining their power with that of the native Hodenosaunee federation.

Conquistador by S.M. Stirling: In 1946, an infantry captain accidentally creates a gate to an alternate universe in which Europeans have not yet journeyed to the New World. North America remains untouched by outside forces, but the Aztec Empire has run its course and is crumbling. The captain takes the opportunity to colonize the alternate California, bringing with him modern technology, disease, and an antebellum mindset.

Lion’s Blood by Steven Barnes: Thanks to the Carthaginian destruction of Rome, an Islamic Africa becomes the dominant political and technological power in the West. Africa develops steam power by the year 1000, allowing it to easily reach and colonize the New World. But, by the 19th century, North America, named Bilalistan, resembles a racially inverted version of the United States we know. Mexico remains the province of the Aztecs, but expansion West by Bilalistanis has led to clashes with the indigenous peoples. The lower class is comprised largely of those of European descent, and African- and Arab-descended Bilalistanis can keep European slaves.

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card: Instead of seeking out the New World, Columbus led an army to Constantinople in the Crusades. This act would, many centuries later, lead to the destruction of the human race. So a group of time travelers diverted him to America, altering the timeline. Unfortunately, Columbus’ discovery of America similarly dooms our own timeline, so another group of time travelers is again sent back to alter the political structure of the Europe’s first dealings with the native peoples of the West.

The beauty part of the chart below is that if you go to C-SPAN's website it lays out each debate like this, and you can easily mouse through it and click through quickly to videos and transcripts backing up the chart's claims. I'm telling you, this is pure information crack.

Keywords in the Debate and Timeline [via Information Aesthetics]

He Runs the Conspiracy

Most presidents are content merely to sit in the pocket of the shadowy conspiracy that rules the country, vetoing an anti-corporate bill here and issuing the occasional questionable pardon. But Nixon is no one’s henchman. When he wants JFK gone, he takes the Comedian to Dallas and gives the order himself. When the Secret Empire framed Captain America for murder in its plot to rule the United States, Nixon wasn’t some mere co-conspirator. He was the guy with the number one printed on his freaky black hood.

He Repealed the 22nd Amendment

Why have a president when you can have a dictator? The 22nd Amendment just makes the US Constitution overlong and difficult for schoolchildren to memorize. Fortunately, Nixon realized that once you’ve got superheroes and secret police on the payroll, you don’t need term limits.

He Won Vietnam, Twice

The Vietnam War had raged for ten years by the time Nixon took office in 1969. But he realized something his predecessors did not: an atomic superman trumps guerilla warfare. With the aid of Doctor Manhattan, Nixon handily ends the conflict in a mere three months. Apparently it doesn’t take, because he uses far more mundane means several years later in Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas, bombarding the irrigation facilities in Hanoi and Haiphong and forcing a surrender of the North Vietnamese forces in 1974. The result of this victory, however, is not peace and prosperity, but an advanced arms race and at least eight more years of Nixon.

He Battled Philip K. Dick

In 1974, the entity VALIS, which might be God, told writer Philip K. Dick that Nixon was the leader of an oppressive empire comprised of three great superpowers. Since then, Dick and Nixon have warred across the universes, from Dick’s own Radio Free Albemuth to Paul McAuley’s “The Two Dicks,” with Nixon suppressing subversive literature as fast as Dick can compose it. Dick finally dies at the beginning of Michael Bishop’s Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas, but his ghost takes on the task of bringing down Nixon’s fascist rendition of America.

He’s Unstoppable

Nixon is nothing if not resilient. Lose the presidency? Run for governor of California. Lose the gubernatorial race? Run for president again. Accused of taking illegal campaign contributions? Assure the public that your daughters really love that dog.

Not even death can stop Nixon. Despite taking a bullet to the temple following the events of the Secret Empire, he manages to win reelection in 1976, 1980, and 1984 in Alan Moore’s history. He even manages to claim victory in the 3000 election thanks to the technology that keeps heads alive in jars and a disenfranchised robot voting bloc. When you install Nixon, you get a leader that lasts.

Other candidates may try to wow you with their corporate interests, shady backroom dealings, and public scandals, but only Nixon has an unmarred record of dystopian success. So the next time you need a leader for your warring, fascist, or just plain broken down American nation, think Richard Nixon.

Diaz's character appears to be traveling, with a bunch of other Travelers, down a highway at night, but it's not clear where they're going or why. It's a pretty horrendous existence, that much is clear, and every now the transport stops at a depot and everyone "reforges". Here's the most jarring and futuristic passage:

Since the transport is automated it switches its lights on only when it detects another vehicle or when we're in civilization but at night on the interstates it feels like we're rushing through a corridor of whooshing air as unlit as a vein. We pass cities and zonafrancas and fortress towns and overhead roar fighter jets and gunships and every now and then the transport will squash something on the road. A rumble under the tires and then the return to the lullaby of the whoosh as whatever it is gets spat out behind the mud flaps in ruin.