As I get older, I find myself becoming more and more interested in the areas of science and science fiction. It’s fascinating to see how the results of study help us to better understand ourselves or the world around us. Or in the case of science fiction, the possibilities of what we can strive to be.
My current science fiction addiction is taking the form of the television show Caprica. Envisioned as a prequel to Battlestar Galactica, Caprica shows an alternate world in it’s golden age, 58 years before robots known as cybernetic life form nodes (cylons) rise against their human creators and the shit hits the fan.
Karl Schroeder once said good science fiction needs to be a combination of familiar and unfamiliar. In the case of Caprica, we see the all too familiar behaviors of racism and stereotyping against different peoples, as well as religious extremism being used to justify acts of violence. All of this on top of normal human daily interactions and conflicts. It reminds us, though we really don’t need to be, that we’re far from being ideal.
But on the flip side, we see where humans as a species can be if we could just get past some dated conceptions. Homosexuality and same-sex marriages aren’t just tolerated, they are accepted as part of life without any question. There are no arguments over what the bible says, because there is no bible. Passive technology (read, not the robots that want you to die), also shows us great things to come. Paper-thin computers that can be folded and carried with us anywhere. Public transportation gets a reinvention of sorts. Rail is everything, with magnetic levitation trains and electric rail cars being being used extensively. Gone are the clunky, bumpy, gas-eating buses.
Episodes of Caprica can be found on their site or at hulu.