io9
rant
Posts Tagged “
Politics
”
rant
chart
Do Real-World Politics Affect Star Trek's Prime Directive?
The cardinal rule in the Star Trek universe is the Prime Directive, which forbids the super-advanced Federation from interfering with the development of less-advanced cultures. Of course every crew breaks it regularly, but some crews have broken it more than others. Since Star Trek often tries to make reference to current U.S. politics, we decided to see if there was a relationship between these imaginary violations and what the US was doing in the world. Click through for a comparison of U.S. overseas troop levels and Star Trek's meddling, which may surprise you. More »
larry niven
Larry Niven Tells DHS to Spread Organ Harvesting Rumors
There's a small group of science fiction authors who call themselves SIGMA and offer the U.S. government advice on futuristic scenarios. Many of them are invited to conferences and events where they dispense wisdom to security types, and just recently one of them — Larry "Ringworld" Niven — offered the Department of Homeland Security some of the creepiest advice we've ever heard about how to handle problems with overcrowding in hospitals. More »
battlestar galactica exclusive
Why Battlestar Galactica is the Best Political Drama on TV
This exclusive new preview clip for Battlestar Galactica season 4 reminds us why the science fiction series' violent moral ambiguity has made it the most compelling political drama on TV. Sure the show is about humans fleeing for their lives from cyborgs in space, but it has a realistic, ripped-from-the-headlines urgency that 24 could only dream of. Even the basic BSG premise sounds familiar: Separatists with a burning desire for religious purity have launched a coordinated nuclear attack on our heroes, who are themselves struggling in a mire of corrupt political leadership and a military gone mad with power. It just so happens that the separatists are cyborgs called Cylon and the heroes are from a star system halfway across the galaxy from us. More »
jericho
Jericho Predicted The Blackwater Scandals
This week's episode of post-apocalyptic drama Jericho pits our hero Jake Green against Ravenwood, the government security contractor he used to work for. When the producers were originally coming up with ideas for a TV show about the collapse of governing institutions after nuclear attacks, they did a lot of research into contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater operating in the chaos of post-invasion Iraq, producer Carol Barbee revealed at Wondercon. Jericho's portrayal of unaccountable contractors presaged the Blackwater scandals, which hadn't yet come out. More about the politics of Jericho, after the jump. More »
4:38 PM on Sun Feb 24 2008
By Charlie Jane Anders
1,936 views,
7 comments
Latest by MyEasyTV: And technically that horrible movie "The Siege" predicated that Muslims would be harassed in the future. more »
Law And Torture In Battlestar Galactica
Ronald D. Moore and David Eick sat down and went over the different types and social systems and moralities they've created for the new Battlestar Galactica, including the need to the government (and not just the military) to bring down the heavy hand of torture from time to time, and how the legal system works in the BSG-verse. These audio interviews are the kind of geekery you usually only get when fans debate these facets of the show in a forum somewhere, but they wax poetic for over 30 minutes, and that's not even including their thoughts on the politics, economy, and the fight for Cylon rights in their show. Hit the above links for the audio files, and keep staring at the clock until new episodes air. [Concurring Opinions]
Ronald D. Moore and David Eick sat down and went over the different types and social systems and moralities they've created for the new Battlestar Galactica, including the need to the government (and not just the military) to bring down the heavy hand of torture from time to time, and how the legal system works in the BSG-verse. These audio interviews are the kind of geekery you usually only get when fans debate these facets of the show in a forum somewhere, but they wax poetic for over 30 minutes, and that's not even including their thoughts on the politics, economy, and the fight for Cylon rights in their show. Hit the above links for the audio files, and keep staring at the clock until new episodes air. [Concurring Opinions]
entropist
How the Military Conquered the Natives of Subterranean Earth
It's another installment of Entropist, a scifi culture column by futurist design maven Geoff Manaugh, author of BLDG BLOG. You stumble on a cave in the mountains of Slovenia. Rumor has it this place inspired Dante's descriptions of Hell in his Divine Comedy. Called the Postojna Jama, it's a real cave. Let's say, then, that you join a group of people milling about at the cave's entrance before you all descend into the deep. At a point that clearly isn't the bottom, you're told to turn around. But why stop? you think, looking ahead into the darkness. Is there something down here we shouldn't see? In an utterly cheesy, but nonetheless enjoyable - even impossible to stop reading - novel called The Descent, author Jeff Long presents us with a very similar premise. It involves nuns and the U.S. military and Himalayan mountaineers and a weird parallel branch of the human species, some rogue sub-race that went literally underground so many tens of thousands of years ago - and is only now coming back into the light. More »
9:00 AM on Fri Feb 1 2008
By gman
3,643 views,
12 comments
Latest by lukeoneil47: this sounds great, but it is even remotely literary,or too genre-y? yeah, i know, maybe the wrong website to have that sort of preference, but i have different standards for novels than i do for comic book, tv and more »
science fiction politics
Cloverfield has everybody talking about the way science fiction is dealing with the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, but that giant monster movie is hardly the first SF creation to tackle terrorism, high-tech surveillance, and governments run amok in the post-9/11 era. As the United States has cracked down on civil liberties at home, and invaded nations abroad, in the name of national security, a crop of futuristic and fanciful tales have sprung up to satirize and justify "the war on terror." These tales generally deal with one of five crucial post-9/11 themes, which we've enumerated (with examples) for you below.
More »
Five Ways 9/11 Changed Science Fiction
Cloverfield has everybody talking about the way science fiction is dealing with the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, but that giant monster movie is hardly the first SF creation to tackle terrorism, high-tech surveillance, and governments run amok in the post-9/11 era. As the United States has cracked down on civil liberties at home, and invaded nations abroad, in the name of national security, a crop of futuristic and fanciful tales have sprung up to satirize and justify "the war on terror." These tales generally deal with one of five crucial post-9/11 themes, which we've enumerated (with examples) for you below.
More »
poll
What Pressing Social Issues Do You Wish Scifi Would Tackle?
Now that an Omega Man remake has made it big, the time is ripe for some 1970s-style "message" science fiction. We need more ripped-from-the-headlines science fictional stories that deal with the issues we're all freaking out about. But we need more than just parables about global warming and ebil corporations. Click through to vote for the relevant issues you're dying for SF to speak up about. More »
the host 2
Host Sequel Has Multiple Monsters
A forklift driver tries to block a monster coming out of the ground in this early concept art from The Host 2, which starts filming this summer. The sequel to the best monster movie in ages will feature multiple monsters, says writer Kang Full. And it sounds as though it'll be even more political than the original. Click through for full image and more details. More »
clinton era sf
When the movie Independence Day aired in theaters in summer 1996, audiences always cheered when aliens blew up the White House. Finally a journalist asked the White House Press Secretary about this strange audience response, and he replied that people were cheering because "they knew that the president had gotten to safety." The 1990s Clinton Era was a strangely science fictional time, an era when the President insisted that Camp David receive the SciFi Channel and White House press conferences dealt with Will Smith movies. With the possibility that another Clinton will be in the White House this year, it's time to go back through the mists of time to contemplate the five biggest themes in Clintonian scifi, or scifi created during the first Clinton's regime. We've laid it all out for you.
More »
The Five Marks of Clintonian Science Fiction
When the movie Independence Day aired in theaters in summer 1996, audiences always cheered when aliens blew up the White House. Finally a journalist asked the White House Press Secretary about this strange audience response, and he replied that people were cheering because "they knew that the president had gotten to safety." The 1990s Clinton Era was a strangely science fictional time, an era when the President insisted that Camp David receive the SciFi Channel and White House press conferences dealt with Will Smith movies. With the possibility that another Clinton will be in the White House this year, it's time to go back through the mists of time to contemplate the five biggest themes in Clintonian scifi, or scifi created during the first Clinton's regime. We've laid it all out for you.
More »
9:15 AM on Thu Jan 10 2008
By Annalee Newitz
7,600 views,
52 comments
Latest by craigdawson: @Annalee: I guess some of it could be Libertarian paranoia. But Libertarians almost by nature have an intense distrust of BIG government.... whether it is the ineptitude of a big bureaucracy or an all-powerful big government controlling everything.I also have more »
infoporn
Doctor Who: Revolutionary Or Tool Of The Man?
Why didn't the Doctor do anything to fix the oppressive alien society he met in the Doctor Who Christmas special? Because most of the time, the Doctor only tries to preserve the status quo. But occasionally he visits a dystopia where he launches a revolution and smashes the system. Click through for our chart showing the Doctor's waxing and waning revolutionary tendencies over time. More »
climate change
Toxic Emissions Theater in Bali
Over the weekend, the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali came to an action-packed conclusion. The United States got bitchslapped by a delegate from Papua New Guinea — who told the US to "get out of the way" if it wasn't going to be a leader in reducing toxic emissions — and the delegates stayed up all night to produce a document promising to produce more documents in 2009. So what's the real upshot? Will San Francisco be submerged in 2020? More »
re-animator
