SCIFI
EARTH / Handbooks
Parable of the Sower
1976
Set in the 2020s where society has largely collapsed due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed.
The story centers on a young woman named Lauren Oya Olamina who possesses hyperempathy – the ability to feel sensations she witnesses.
As a teenager growing up in the remnants of a gated community near Los Angeles, she begins to develop a new belief system – Earthseed, a religion based on the idea that God is change.
When the community‘s security is compromised, her home is destroyed and her family is murdered, and she travels north with other survivors. Society outside the community walls has reverted to chaos.
Lauren believes that humankind‘s destiny is to travel beyond Earth and live on other planets, forcing humankind into its adulthood, Earthseed is preparation for this destiny.
She gathers followers along her journey north and founds the first Earthseed community, Acorn, in Northern California.
The story centers on a young woman named Lauren Oya Olamina who possesses hyperempathy – the ability to feel sensations she witnesses.
As a teenager growing up in the remnants of a gated community near Los Angeles, she begins to develop a new belief system – Earthseed, a religion based on the idea that God is change.
When the community‘s security is compromised, her home is destroyed and her family is murdered, and she travels north with other survivors. Society outside the community walls has reverted to chaos.
Lauren believes that humankind‘s destiny is to travel beyond Earth and live on other planets, forcing humankind into its adulthood, Earthseed is preparation for this destiny.
She gathers followers along her journey north and founds the first Earthseed community, Acorn, in Northern California.
COVER_public domain
All that you touch you change,
all that you change changes you.
The Book of the Living
all that you change changes you.
The Book of the Living
Why is the universe?
To shape God.
Why is God?
To shape the universe.
The Book of the Living
To shape God.
Why is God?
To shape the universe.
The Book of the Living
Lauren develops a new belief system – Earthseed, a religion based on the idea that God is change.
The word “Earthseed” comes from the idea that the seeds of all life on Earth can be transplanted, and through adaptation will grow, in many different types of situations or places.
The beliefs of Earthseed are recorded in „The Books of the Living“. Earthseed is a religion of the present and the future, of the living, not of the dead or the past.
The word “Earthseed” comes from the idea that the seeds of all life on Earth can be transplanted, and through adaptation will grow, in many different types of situations or places.
The beliefs of Earthseed are recorded in „The Books of the Living“. Earthseed is a religion of the present and the future, of the living, not of the dead or the past.
COVER_public domain
FURTHER
Octavia E.Butler
1947 – 2006
1947 – 2006
American science fiction author, multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards, MacArthur Fellow 1995.
I‘m comfortably asocial – a hermit
in the middle of a large city, a pessimist
if I‘m not careful, a feminist, a black,
a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive.
Octavia E. Butler
I‘m comfortably asocial – a hermit
in the middle of a large city, a pessimist
if I‘m not careful, a feminist, a black,
a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive.
Octavia E. Butler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler
IMAGE_Butler in 2005, Nikolas Coukouma, CC BY-SA 2.5
IMAGE_Butler in 2005, Nikolas Coukouma, CC BY-SA 2.5
FURTHER
Kindred
1979
... is a deconstruction of the time-travel narrative, a time travel story from the perspective of an African-American woman.
Gerry Canavan: Dana ultimately discovers that she is pulled back in time because she has a white ancestor who is an enslaver, Weylin.
It is almoust comedic as the story goes on, Weylin constantly is getting himself into near death experiences, where Dana has to emerge out of nowhere to save him.
Over time she gets more and more embroiled into his life as he gets older and older, because she has to make sure that she is going to get born.
Wired: So she becomes complicit than, in these crimes of history, because if she changes anything, she would not be born, no matter how bad the things are that he does, she has to help save him.
[...] Gerry Canavan: She wrote stories about collaboration not about victory not about defeat, but about this uneasy middle ground.
Gerry Canavan: Dana ultimately discovers that she is pulled back in time because she has a white ancestor who is an enslaver, Weylin.
It is almoust comedic as the story goes on, Weylin constantly is getting himself into near death experiences, where Dana has to emerge out of nowhere to save him.
Over time she gets more and more embroiled into his life as he gets older and older, because she has to make sure that she is going to get born.
Wired: So she becomes complicit than, in these crimes of history, because if she changes anything, she would not be born, no matter how bad the things are that he does, she has to help save him.
[...] Gerry Canavan: She wrote stories about collaboration not about victory not about defeat, but about this uneasy middle ground.
Wired, geeks guide to the galaxy, 2016 12, Gerry Canavan
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/geeks-guide-gerry-canavan/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindred_(novel)
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/geeks-guide-gerry-canavan/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindred_(novel)
COVER_public domain
The Word for World Is Forest
1976
Several centuries in the future, humans from Earth have established a logging colony and military base named New Tahiti on Athshe, a tree-covered planet.
Athshe, has a few islands completely covered in forests, and is home to a humanoid race, the Ashtheans which the invading humans call “Creechies” and enslave, since they think they are incapable of intellect.
The Athsheans, small, green-furred, big-eyed inhabitants have formed a culture centered on lucid dreaming.
They see the „dream-time“ as a world just as real as the „world-time“.
They see the „dream-time“ as a world just as real as the „world-time“.
They live in a complexly balanced society that unites the whole planet that is based on the principle of dreaming to confront and process an individual’s negative feelings.
In order to protect their planet, Athshean people who have never experienced such violence in their towns before which are governed by women, decide to attack them under the guidance of Selver, who has escaped from yumens enslaving him.
COVER_public domain
FURTHER
Ursula Le Guin
1929 – 2018
1929 – 2018
American fantasy and science fiction author. She has won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award.
Her work has often depicted futuristic or imaginary alternative worlds in politics, natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality and ethnography.
She is the daughter of the anthropologists Theodora and Alfred L. Kroeber.
Her work has often depicted futuristic or imaginary alternative worlds in politics, natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality and ethnography.
She is the daughter of the anthropologists Theodora and Alfred L. Kroeber.
FURTHER
Wintermarket
1986
Rubin finds the materials of his art in the street and makes them it into mechanical sculptures that are “worth a lot of money in galleries in Tokyo and Paris“.
Lise is the human equivalent that Rubin picks up for re-use. When Rubin comes upon her she has let her batteries run down and is lying in the alley, waiting for death – she needs an exoskeleton to move and is also addicted to a designer drug that will soon kill her if nothing else does the job first.
This time, however, it is not Rubin but Casey who discovers in Lise the potential for new and marketable values. As an editor he cuts electronically stored experiences that can be inserted into a consumers nervous system.
Casey, decides to jack straight across with Lise the first night he meets her. He enters into the horror of her condition - and realizes that her suffering is so intense that it has enormous commercial potential.
The worst agonies are also the most valuable, in the marketplace of sensations.
Lise insists that Casey edits her experiences, as it becoms obvious that she becomes a star with higher production expectations.
Caseys attraction to Lise does not make anything easier either.
Lise is the human equivalent that Rubin picks up for re-use. When Rubin comes upon her she has let her batteries run down and is lying in the alley, waiting for death – she needs an exoskeleton to move and is also addicted to a designer drug that will soon kill her if nothing else does the job first.
This time, however, it is not Rubin but Casey who discovers in Lise the potential for new and marketable values. As an editor he cuts electronically stored experiences that can be inserted into a consumers nervous system.
Casey, decides to jack straight across with Lise the first night he meets her. He enters into the horror of her condition - and realizes that her suffering is so intense that it has enormous commercial potential.
The worst agonies are also the most valuable, in the marketplace of sensations.
Lise insists that Casey edits her experiences, as it becoms obvious that she becomes a star with higher production expectations.
Caseys attraction to Lise does not make anything easier either.
COVER_public domain
There‘s a segment on
Kings of Sleep;
it‘s like you‘re on a motorcycle at midnight, no lights but somehow you don‘t need them,
blasting out along a cliff-high stretch of coast highway,
so fast that you hang there in a cone of silence, the bike‘s thunder lost behind you.
Everything, lost behind you.
. . . It‘s just a blink, on Kings, but it‘s one of the thousand things you remember, go back to,
incorporate into your own vocabulary of feelings. Amazing. Freedom and death,
right there, right there, razor‘s edge, forever.
What I got was the big-daddy version of that, raw rush, the king hell killer uncut real thing,
exploding eight ways from Sunday into a void that stank of poverty and lovelessness and obscurity.
And that was Lise‘s ambition, that rush, seen from the inside.
It probably took all of four seconds.
And, course, she‘d won.
Wintermarket, 1984, William Gibson [Burning Chrome, short stories]
Kings of Sleep;
it‘s like you‘re on a motorcycle at midnight, no lights but somehow you don‘t need them,
blasting out along a cliff-high stretch of coast highway,
so fast that you hang there in a cone of silence, the bike‘s thunder lost behind you.
Everything, lost behind you.
. . . It‘s just a blink, on Kings, but it‘s one of the thousand things you remember, go back to,
incorporate into your own vocabulary of feelings. Amazing. Freedom and death,
right there, right there, razor‘s edge, forever.
What I got was the big-daddy version of that, raw rush, the king hell killer uncut real thing,
exploding eight ways from Sunday into a void that stank of poverty and lovelessness and obscurity.
And that was Lise‘s ambition, that rush, seen from the inside.
It probably took all of four seconds.
And, course, she‘d won.
Wintermarket, 1984, William Gibson [Burning Chrome, short stories]
William Gibson
1948
1948
American-Canadian sci-fi writer.
His early works are noir, near-future stories that explored the effects of technology, cybernetics, and computer networks on humans.
He coined the term “cyberspace” for “widespread, interconnected digital technology“ in his short story “Burning Chrome” (1982), and later in “Neuromancer” (1984).
He coined the term “cyberspace” for “widespread, interconnected digital technology“ in his short story “Burning Chrome” (1982), and later in “Neuromancer” (1984).
Oryx and Craig
2003
The story is told from the perspective of Jimmy / Snowman, whos friend Glenn / Crake a bioengeneer creates the Crakers – peaceful, gentle, herbivorous humanoids.
Another of Crakes project is a Viagra-like super-pill called BlyssPluss, which also promises health and happiness, but secretly causes sterilization in order to address overpopulation.
Another of Crakes project is a Viagra-like super-pill called BlyssPluss, which also promises health and happiness, but secretly causes sterilization in order to address overpopulation.
In Jimmy and Crake‘s world, little is left to the imagination. Almost everything can be watched, for a price.
Their world is one of spectacle.
The need to look good is necessary as nearly everything is broadcast and everyone wants to look his or her best.
The need to look good is necessary as nearly everything is broadcast and everyone wants to look his or her best.
After Crake‘s wonder drug BlyssPluss is widely distributed, a global pandemic, deliberately caused by it, breaks out and begins wiping out the human race and causing mass chaos.
Jimmy realizes that this was planned by Crake all along.
Crake’s environmental utopia consists of a planet rid of damaging human influence.
Is the ecological imperative even possible?
COVER_public domain
Margaret Atwood
1939
1939
Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, inventor, teacher and environmental activis.
Atwood‘s works encompass a variety of themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power of language, climate change, and „power politics“.
Atwood‘s works encompass a variety of themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power of language, climate change, and „power politics“.
The machine stops
1909
“Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her.
There were buttons and switches everywhere – buttons to call for food for music,
[...] There was the button that produced literature, and there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. “
[...] “Very well. Let us talk, I will isolate myself. I do not expect anything important will happen for the next five minutes-for I can give you fully five minutes, Kuno.
Then I must deliver my lecture on “Music during the Australian Period”.” [Vashti]
There were buttons and switches everywhere – buttons to call for food for music,
[...] There was the button that produced literature, and there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. “
[...] “Very well. Let us talk, I will isolate myself. I do not expect anything important will happen for the next five minutes-for I can give you fully five minutes, Kuno.
Then I must deliver my lecture on “Music during the Australian Period”.” [Vashti]
The people in Forster’s future live alone in small podlike rooms in a honeycomb of vast, multilayered underground cities spread across the globe. The physical comforts of food, clothing and shelter are all taken care of by the global and revered Machine, along with numerous opportunities for one-to-one and one-to-many electronic communication, in real time with voice and pictures.
“People never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete, owing to the Machine.”
But the quality of life is not getting better.
The music is losing fidelity. The air is not as fresh as it should be. The water has a ... smell.
[...] What happens in a self-repairing system when what needs repair chronically exceeds the repair capacity?
“People never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete, owing to the Machine.”
But the quality of life is not getting better.
The music is losing fidelity. The air is not as fresh as it should be. The water has a ... smell.
[...] What happens in a self-repairing system when what needs repair chronically exceeds the repair capacity?
COVER_public domain
E. M. Forster
1879 – 1970
1879 – 1970
English novelist, short story writer, essayist.
Nominated for the Nobel Prize in 16 different years.
He valued personal relationships above all else, and for whom the motto “only connect” applied as much to his private life as to his novels. Foster was homosexual.
Nominated for the Nobel Prize in 16 different years.
He valued personal relationships above all else, and for whom the motto “only connect” applied as much to his private life as to his novels. Foster was homosexual.
Associational
Earth
evolved -4.500.000.000 years ago
evolved -4.500.000.000 years ago
Biosphere
The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be termed as the zone of life on Earth, a closed system (apart from solar and cosmic radiation and heat from the interior of the Earth), and largely self-regulating. The Earth’s biosphere extends down to at least 19 km below the surface, and up to at least 76 km into the atmosphere.
Life
evolved -3.500.000.000 years ago
Bacteria
A 2016 genetic study concluded that the last universal common ancestor may have lived in deep-sea hydrothermal vents 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago.
evolved -3.500.000.000 years ago
Bacteria
A 2016 genetic study concluded that the last universal common ancestor may have lived in deep-sea hydrothermal vents 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago.
Transatlantic telegraph cable
1858
The first transatlantic cable cable was laid by an iron sailing steam ship.
1858
The first transatlantic cable cable was laid by an iron sailing steam ship.
Fungi
evolved -600.000.000 years ago
[on land] -460.000.000 years ago
They were probably aquatic organisms with a flagellum. Fungi first colonized the land at least 460 million years ago, around the same time as plants.
in 2019 a fossilized fungus was discovered [Ourasphaira giraldae], that may have grown on land – 1.000.000.000 years ago.
evolved -600.000.000 years ago
[on land] -460.000.000 years ago
They were probably aquatic organisms with a flagellum. Fungi first colonized the land at least 460 million years ago, around the same time as plants.
in 2019 a fossilized fungus was discovered [Ourasphaira giraldae], that may have grown on land – 1.000.000.000 years ago.
IMAGE_Roberta Lima
Vertebrates
evolved -550.000.000 years ago
[on land] -460.000.000 years ago
The tetrapods [four legs] give rise to all amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
evolved -550.000.000 years ago
[on land] -460.000.000 years ago
The tetrapods [four legs] give rise to all amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
Switchboard operator
1898
From 1898 on companies used manual telephone switchboards, witchboard operators connected calls by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks
1898
From 1898 on companies used manual telephone switchboards, witchboard operators connected calls by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks
Land Plants
evolved -460.000.000 years ago
[vascular] -430.000.000 years ago
vascular plants: defined as land plants that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. Evidence for the beginning of the terrestrialization of the land is found in the form of tetrads of spores with resistant polymers in their outer walls.
These early plants did not have conducting tissues, severely limiting their size. They were, in effect, tied to wet terrestrial environments.
evolved -460.000.000 years ago
[vascular] -430.000.000 years ago
vascular plants: defined as land plants that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. Evidence for the beginning of the terrestrialization of the land is found in the form of tetrads of spores with resistant polymers in their outer walls.
These early plants did not have conducting tissues, severely limiting their size. They were, in effect, tied to wet terrestrial environments.
Insects
evolved -460.000.000 years ago
[flying] -400.000.000 years ago
evolved -460.000.000 years ago
[flying] -400.000.000 years ago
Submarine Cable Map
Realtime submarine communication cable map.
routes and details
The first fibreoptic cable was laid 1988.
Realtime submarine communication cable map.
routes and details
The first fibreoptic cable was laid 1988.
Trees and Ferns
evolved -360.000.000 years ago
By the Late Devonian, forests of large, primitive plants existed. Most of these plants have true roots and leaves, and many were quite tall.
By the end of the Devonian, the first seed-forming plants had appeared.
This rapid appearance of so many plant groups and growth forms has been called the “Devonian Explosion”.
evolved -360.000.000 years ago
By the Late Devonian, forests of large, primitive plants existed. Most of these plants have true roots and leaves, and many were quite tall.
By the end of the Devonian, the first seed-forming plants had appeared.
This rapid appearance of so many plant groups and growth forms has been called the “Devonian Explosion”.
Ship tracker
Realtime ship tracker.
routes and types of vessels [Passenger vessel, Cargo vessel, Pleasure craft, Tanker, Fishing, Tugs&special craft, High speed craft].
Realtime ship tracker.
routes and types of vessels [Passenger vessel, Cargo vessel, Pleasure craft, Tanker, Fishing, Tugs&special craft, High speed craft].
Mamals
evolved -160.000.000 years ago
Homo erectus: -1.800.000 Y
Homo Sapiens: -300.000 Y
evolved -160.000.000 years ago
Homo erectus: -1.800.000 Y
Homo Sapiens: -300.000 Y
Cuneiform
created -3200 years ago
writing system [Sumero-Akkadian]
e.g.
Neo-Assyrian ligature KAxGUR7
1.The surrounding KA sign was a Sumerian compound marker.
2. GUR7 is itself a ligature of SÍG.AḪ.ME.U, meaning „to pile up; grain-heap“ .
created -3200 years ago
writing system [Sumero-Akkadian]
e.g.
Neo-Assyrian ligature KAxGUR7
1.The surrounding KA sign was a Sumerian compound marker.
2. GUR7 is itself a ligature of SÍG.AḪ.ME.U, meaning „to pile up; grain-heap“ .
Satelites and debris tracker
Realtime artificial satelites and debris tracker.
orbits and details
Realtime artificial satelites and debris tracker.
orbits and details