Premonições

"This will distress you," said Karellen. "But remember that your standards no longer apply. You are not watching human children."
Yet that was the immediate impression that came to Jan's mind, and no amount of logic could dispel it. They might have been savages, engaged in some complex ritual dance. They were naked and filthy, with matted hair obscuring their eyes. As faras Jan could tell, they were of all ages from five to fifteen, yet they all moved with the same speed, precision, and complete indifference to their surroundings.

Then Jan saw their faces. He swallowed hard, and forced himself not to turn away. They were emptier than the faces of the dead, for even
a corpse has some record carved by Time's chisel upon its features, to speak when the lips themselves are dumb. There was no more emotion or feeling here than in the face of a snake or an insect. The Overlords themselves were more human than this.

"You are searching for something that is no longer there," said Karellen. "Remember-they have no more identity than the cells in your own body. But linked together, they are something much greater than you."

"Why do they keep moving like this ?"

"We called it the Long Dance," replied Karellen. "They never sleep, you know, and this lasted almost a year. Three hundred million of them, moving in a controlled pattern over a whole continent. We've analysed that pattern endlessly, but it means nothing, perhaps because we can see only the physical part of it-the small portion that's here on Earth. Possibly what we have called the Overmind is still training them, moulding them into one unit before it can wholly absorb them into its being."

(...)

So this, thought Jan, with a resignation that lay beyond all sadness, was the end of man. It was an end that no prophet had ever foreseen - an end that repudiated optimism and pessimism alike. Yet it was fitting: it had the sublime inevitability of a great work of art. Jan had glimpsed the universe in all its awful immensity, and knew now that it was no place for man. He realized at last how vain, in the ultimate analysis, had been the dream that had lured him to the stars.

(...)
For he knew, as no-one else had ever known, that Karellen spoke the truth when he had said: "The stars are not for Man."


Arthur C. Clarke, The Childhood's End, 1953

56 anos depois, isto e isto.

Vintage Pollack

Sempre fui um fã de Star Trek. William Shatner (capitão kirk) foi um actor genial na série, sempre a exagerar a actuação sem razão aparente. Foi por isso, alvo de algumas impressions. Esta já tem vinte anos, altura em que a tripulação da nave espacial embarcava num novo filme (ST 5), e uma nova série com novos actores entrava na televisão (TNG - The Next Generation). Pollack pega em Kirk e em vários actores famosos da época e coloca-os como fazendo parte da sua tripulação. Hilariante!!

Quem me consegue dizer o nome de todos os actores representados?

Sci-Fi Quickies VI

Dear Emma.

How are you my love? And how has Stuart faced his first day of school?

Well, for me it's been five days now and I'm very excited. The people around trust me, and I've been assigned to this enormous task: I'm with this team which is mapping the uncharted waters and recifes, to draw the coastline of the entire inner sea! Yes, it's that good. Imagine now, I'll be granted the pleasure to study all the riches of this environment, so wealthy of different cultures, so full of commerce and resources. I couldn't ask for more, this is what every geographer dreams to do. I'll travel by boat and record every mountain, island, river, city, town, village, forest, desert, every landscape.

So many myths envolve this sea, dear, so many legendary heroes, semi-gods and even gods themselves. And it feels that way too. Here the weather is calm, the climate perfect for agriculture. The temperature right for human settlement. No wonder all the great cities of this world evolve around this sea. No wonder they call it the core of civilization. No wonder our great Empire is trying to encircle all the coastline of this sea, for it surely is the key to this world.

The only concern I have is this eternal daylight, which is already derailing my methabolyc system. Well, I'l have to do with it. I'm going to start in the Barents, where many changes are still uncharted, tomorrow. I'll update you about my adventures and discoveries, for I know you are full of curiosity as well. I promise to be your eyes and senses in my next letter.

Give a big big hug to Stuart.

With love,
Lewis.

in letter 4335, found in the shipwreck of GSS Beavis Hunter, Arctic Sea, 2244 A.D.

Esclarecimento

Tenho estado ausente mas presente, pouco importa se alguém consegue discernir a profundidade do truísmo agora mesmo escrito. Gostaria no entanto de esclarecer que todos os Sci-Fi Quickies, que ainda agora os reli com algum espanto (coloco artificialmente o meu ego como sempre inferior à minha produção, de modo a sempre me surpreender com o que faço, por mais merdoso que seja. Egocentrismo? Sem dúvida, e da pior. Voltando) são da minha autoria e não citações de livros de terceira categoria que encontrei no saco do lixo. Isto para retirar qualquer dúvida, não de possíveis leitores há muito desleixados pelos criadores do blog, mas de algum fantasma que por aí passe por engano...

Por outro lado, vem-me à memória uma citação porreira no seguimento dos Sci-Fi quickies, coisa oriunda de um dos melhores filmes de ficção científica de sempre, quase o único Star Trek que se salva: The Wrath of Khan (TWOK). James T. Kirk, numa crise de meia-idade, refere-se às suas aventuras e o seu significado:

"I've cheated death, tricked my way out of death, and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing." ST2:TWOK

Vou pensar nisto...

Sci-Fi Quickies V

- You see, science generally consists in an eternal refusal of common sense. For instance, current biochemistry theory states that all life is an expression of the first and second law of thermodynamics. It is widely proven that the universe spontaneously organizes energy and matter in the most complex and non-chaotic of forms if, and only if, such forms are more effective at conducing energy states and thus generate more entropy.
Life is then understood as a true complex form that exists because it generates entropy faster than any non-organized matter, and in the human intelligence we find the ultimate mammoth of entropy creators.

- Yes, those laws are well understood.

- They were widely used to create the technologies we rely on, and acts as the fundamental political theoretical basis for the determination of the best course of action in every local sector's major policies.
And on top of that, if Science can ever give any meaning for the existence of Man, it definitely bases itself on to "grow and multiply"! Now, of course, this philosophy explains the psycho-sociological events Man has gone through the millennia since we spawned in planet Earth. The urge to grow, to produce more, to eat more, to speculate, to work harder, to investigate new technologies, all constitute behaviors of expansionist economics, of increasingly wasteless economics. Alas! There is nothing so much directly relationed with joy than the elimination of waste! The pure machine! And what do we call it? Creation! Technological Breakthrough! Again, to "grow and multiply"... It is embedded in the human nature, in everything we do.
Quite intentionally, we were made to conquer the stars. That is, if we fail to choke ourselves with our own entropy.

Enterview with Noorda Topal, 31st century's philosopher.

Sci-Fi Quickies IV

The first decade of the twenty-first century is the simplest decade to understand. Fear, Stagnation, Decline. The post-abundance era, as it was later called, was very much alike pre-war 1939 Germany: the shilling silence before the storm.
Not that people wouldn't talk brightly about the future, but those were far from their main concerns, which were football, novels, end-of-the-month payback and post-modernist "fracturing" political thematics. Abortion, Euthanasia, Gay marriage and Drug liberalization. It was what big media called "audience politics"- War was a special segment of this phenomenon, completely reduced to premier entertainment, a whooping market of computer games, tv shows, movies and political boxing, An interesting side note that involved all these problems was the almost pragmatic irrelevance of them to the medium class. Wars were fought by the poor, abortions were a problem mostly for the poor, drug addicts and homosexual tendencies were hidden minorities, and euthanasia was rarely discussed by the elders. Rather, the wide debate was played for and from the majority of the people, who discussed the problems of these minorities. While heated debates were frequent, concerned with the "future of civilization" and "values", one has to remember that those people discussing it were not really personally inflicted with those problems. Indignation was the key word to understand the deep psychology behind the hot political discussions between the people, not as a true feeling, but as a technique of argument dismissal. Usually and recurrently, after a heated debate about the future of civilization regarding these fracturing subjects, the tv would shut up about it and a football game started.

The Post-Abundance Era, Kenneth Khan, 2451 a.d.

Sci Fi quickies III

They were well aware of the lesson of the Easter Island. Documents prove inumerous thesis and even television documentaries about the demise of Rapa-Nui's civilization, which was incapable of creating a sustainable economy before the collapse of the island's ecosystem, and only survived for a period of time thanks to cannibalism. To understand the general public's dismissal of the subject one has to do more than gather the recurrent denial aspect of mankind. One has to understand the value of entertainment in this society. Such lessons were only useful as long as they were entertaining. Movies were created showing the weather climate changes, the political war madness or the terrible food diet of inhabitants. Human tragedy, before really happening, didn't cause a wide change of behaviors, but rather a simple and wealthy change of entertainment thematics.
(...)
"Green people" were named those who spent more time concerning whales than price stocks. They preached about the cost of unbalancing an ecosystem so precious because unique as the Earth's; "Peak Oilers" were the group of people who looked upon the demise of global economy; "Jihadists" were the fundamentalist religious who proclaimed that the war to end all wars was about to come; "Warmers" were the ones who predicted the melting of the ice caps and subsequent rise of the oceans. Interestingly enough, every nightmare Man has passed through in the decisive century was well theorized or else rigorously romanticized in dystopian science-fictions. But no science document or dystopia could ever grasp the scope and diversity of situations and lessons Man had to go through. The 21st century poem became a worldwide anthem:

Acid waters to drink,
Hurricanes to breathe,
Hordes to die
Waves to lay,
Hell on earth,
Purgatory on the seas
Even the atheists pray.

Oh tender!
Oh joy!
Small glimpses for you
Confined is even love.
Threaded we have
On our dreams
But not softly.

In Creative Economics 101, chapter two.

Sci Fi Quickies II

Power corrupts, but then again without power, what do we do? Power is, in fact, energy, and given the fact that the end of the twentieth century was awash with energy surplus, would that mean that there was never in the history of the world so much corruption? Will this explain our downfall, our demise? Should have we never accepted the fire of Prometheus, should have we never invented the wheel? These are enough questions for one to understand that simple cause-effect reasoning is never true. In fact, the measure of religious fanatic lunacy is how deep we reason life.

So, where was it? Were we doomed from the start, or was it a 50-50 chance, a coin play among gods of fortune, a mis-chanced arrow inside a vortex of space-time continuum? Have we bet in the losing side of the coin?

If so, Life on Earth is then but a final breath of a dying organism, who failed to give birth, forever dismissed in the course of Natural Selection. Earth is but a bankrupted player of poker who stubbornly insists on doubling bets, a spiral of death, lights and smoke breathe above the table. The barrel poker players listen to the sentenced planet, but still only aiming.

Yes, life is short, we all hope but to die, which is precisely what defines time for us, the unrelenting passing of life against the never-stopping hope for eternity in all life forms. That is why we keep on doubling bets, that is why we try to cheat death until the very end. Fat lady is still silent, like the barrels.

But we see the signs. The sentence was long ago whispered among the barreled guns. Only pure curiosity keeps them from firing. Curious as a biologist with a handicapped insect, "Why does it keep on it? Why doesn't it quit living?" Hope. The quintessential characteristic of all life forms. And I could say "how pathetic of it", and would be only voicing the internal hope of a better result, of a better outcome. A superior choice. A hope, nonetheless.

The far cry of Rapturists and end-of-world religious zealots is instantly recognized. They are gathering now. The sounds of chanting. The bell of rings. Hope? When all else failed, man always turned to God for an answer to death. Without a doubt, the sounds of pure despair.

- That's just cynical, man, what's wrong with having a religion, if one finds peace on it?

- And what peace is that, can I ask you? What good that peace creates? The peace of sheep? The peace of the lamb promised to the wolf? How can anyone sleep while the lions daunt us?

-Oh shut up, we DO need to sleep, if we have to have energy saved for tomorrow, you know? What is life but a hope in the future? What is rest but a trust in time? Do you really consider yourself to be a prophet of mankind's future? Ah! You're so full of yourself! And if you buy what you say, why even bother to breathe, may I ask You?

- Oh, come on, I'm just gloomy today. Didn't mean to...

- You're always gloomy! Have you perchance forgotten the history books? They are full of tragedies and end-of-the-world sets. It is really not the end of the world.

- Fine, I'm gloomy, but with good reason. We have exploited all of the world natural resources, so we are headed towards cavemen again. The wolves will hunt us down again. How's that for a future sight?

- We have to have hope, man. Eating yourself up is not going to better things, you know that.

- I'm trying to find it. I'm searching for it. Probably, it is the last thing that keeps my heart beating. And I couldn't care less of myself. Mankind is in the verge of annihilating this planet's chance of blossoming for perhaps a billion years. Do you reckon the irresponsibility of what we are about to have done to the world?

"One of the mankind's greatest errors of character was always to misinterpret personal subjective perception of reality with the real itself. The inner workings of space-time entropy were yet to be discovered and theorized, its elements still rendered as separate speculations or misguided generalisms. Man could only grasp reality in ephemerous moments, and reported efforts to verbalize them were obviously and quickly dismissed as truisms or tautologisms, self-referenced superstitions. We have to realize that man was only beginning to grasp the barriers of common language for describing chaotic and non-deterministic space-time occurrences.
(...)
Concurrently, scalable events were completely misunderstood, and individual interests alarmingly superseded political sight, without the clear restraint of awareness. A self-created tail-eater tapeworm was the only mathematical solution possible for such a system.
This is the precise essence of why ancient history is so focused in individuality myths and messianic heroic hopes, ultimately leading to the astonishingly tragic events of what was later called the Great Singularity."

From the prelude to the Zhun-Betis Earth History Book.

sci-fi quickies I

Ancient History is rich in contradictions and paradoxes. Bear always in mind the importance to the understanding of Man that it is the main theme of Creative Economics. The fact that there was more than enough awareness, more than enough technology, more than enough man-power and more than enough energy available to avoid the events of the 21st century, and the proven facts that every attempt at it was deliberately deviated and destroyed usually stalls the ignorant student, as the existence of destructive econo-politics is still overlooked and misunderstood by the youngsters. Students have a hard time understanding that a self-destructiveness inside man's unconsciousness is really based in their survival abilities and not a nature's ephemeral mistake. And an even harder time to realize that not only it exists, but that it was the vital characteristic that saved 21st century Earth. Watch the youngsters closely, as they never are quite the same after this class, remember that neither was Man after these events.

Educational notes for the teachers, Al-Jefferson, 2670 a.d.

Capítulo XIII e meio

puro devaneio estilístico.... ah quem me dera saber escrever!

Este planeta era ainda mais estranho do que os anteriores. Nele estavam duas pessoas sentadas nas suas cadeiras conversando um com o outro numa mesa, e pareciam irritados um com o outro.
-Bom dia. Porque discutem um com o outro?
-Ora, respondeu a pessoa da esquerda, porque o meu amigo pensa que o lado direito é melhor que o esquerdo! Quando é óbvio o inverso!
-Porque é óbvio o inverso?
-Ora porque o direito não tem futuro.
-Não lhe ligue, disse o do lado direito. Ele é da esquerda. Tem a ideia ridícula de que o futuro é que define as pessoas, quando é óbvio que é a memória do passado que lhes dá significado na vida.
Estas pessoas pareciam inteligentes ao principezinho, mas a sua conversa era estranhíssima. Perguntou o que eram.
-Nós somos filósofos. Nós damos definições às coisas.
-E para que serve isso?
-Serve para as coisas terem um sentido, eu penso que têm o da esquerda, e ele o da direita.
-Então vocês fazem com que as coisas andem ora para a esquerda ora para a direita?
-Isso é impossível, não fazemos as coisas andarem para um lado ou para o outro. Dizemos para onde elas vão, mas temos de ser inteligentes o suficiente para perceber onde elas próprias vão. A minha função é dizer que vão para a esquerda, a dele que vão para a direita. E tentar convencer o adversário da nossa razão.
-Que ganham com isso?
-Ora, quando as coisas vão efectivamente para o lado que defendemos, obtemos o reconhecimento em como as coisas foram para o nosso lado. No entanto, se o contrário se verificar, não convém reconhecer o valor do nosso adversário.
-Isso, diz o outro, porque depois o outro fica convencido de que tem razão, e isso sei eu que não tem! É complicado, chama-se retórica.
-E o que isso interessa às coisas que vocês definem?
-Ora, essa conversa não é para aqui chamada.
O principezinho foi-se embora daquele planeta, convencido cada vez mais de que os adultos são mesmo estranhos.

2056 - velhos

Acordo numa manhã cinzenta de domingo. Vejo-me ao espelho com algum terror: estou velho. Felizmente, na minha casa de banho encontro as minhas pomadas e cremes, e após me barrar com eles, sinto-me mais novo. Se antes me sentia com 94 anos, agora sinto-me com 54, embora tenha de facto 74. Tenho é de sorrir pouco, pois é bem sabido o mal que os sorrisos fazem a estes cremes.

Saio para a rua. Vou trabalhar pensando que os meus pais a esta idade já eram reformados, que engraçado. Cumprimento a D. Fátima que passa ao meu lado, aparentando os seus 50 anos, mas sabendo eu que pertence à minha geração. "bom dia"
"bom dia." "Então a sua irmã como vai?" "Bem, melhor agora. Sabe que os serviços hoje em dia são mais dignos que nunca. Ela na semana passada andava algo esquisita, e quando começou a espirrar, os filhos fizeram o que deviam."
"ahh pois. E correu bem, então?" "Sim, embora ela parecesse algo triste. Mas o serviço convenceu-a de que a sua morte seria digna. Também o que ela queria? Já pouco trabalhava, andava tristonha pela casa... e depois o espirro!"
"Pois... são já os sinais, não é?" - faço eu um esforço enorme para conter a minha alergia súbita. Estes perfumes matam-me.
"Os serviços são bastante úteis: dão uma lista precisa dos sinais a ter em atenção. Eu claro, nunca os tive. E quando os tiver, darei o passo condignamente."
"Claro claro, D. Fátima!"
"O senhor é que me parece um pouco branco, sr. Luís"
"É do tempo, está acizentado, e este ano evitei a praia..."
"Evitou a praia? Porquê? Está doente? Mas sabe que os novos protectores são ainda mais eficazes do que a camada de ozono..."
"Não, não, é... foi do trabalho sabe..."
"Ah, pois. Eu é que não abdico, gosto de ir à praia e bronzear o meu corpo. Olhe que no outro dia vi uma fotografia antiga, do meu avô - sabe aquele que disparatou imenso quando lhe propuseram o serviço, era louco - na praia, e fiquei enojada. Não é que aquela gente tinha cá umas coisas a sair do seu corpo, umas listas, como se fossem todos gente pobre..."
"Sim, as banhas, os pneus..."
"Mas não era só isso, era horrível, como se a pele ficasse às borbulhas, as mulheres cheias de pêlos. Horrível horrível. Admiro essa geração pela sua coragem, mas não admira que fosse um pouco louca..."
"Claro... bem, gostei muito de a ouvir. Vou para a estação. Para onde a menina vai?"
"Vou ver a minha menina. Foi fazer uma desinfestação de 5 semanas, só então é que se apercebeu..."
"... que estava grávida."
"Que maneira você tem de falar, parece um pouco como o meu avô. Bem, foi a quinta vez este ano, e tenho de lhe dizer que isto tem de acabar. Nem sequer sabe controlar o seu corpo? Basta tomar um comprimido nas manhãs seguintes... vem ela e diz que quer sentir a coisa mais natural... é compreensível."
"Bem, eu vou andando, tenho de ir para o meu ateliêr. Vou desenhar um «desinfestador». É o que hoje mais se desenha..."

E lá fui eu, tentando não sorrir e escondendo a cada vez mais constante tosse. Nem sei porque o faço, pois se significasse que os sinais me fossem dirigidos, não teria eu a coragem de fazer o que é digno? Talvez não. Sou um cobarde! Ah, enfim quanto não me valem os amigos dignos que me cercam e me aconselham sobre o melhor que é preciso fazer.

In the Pirkinning

Deparei-me no outro dia com uma pequena maravilha da auto-iniciativa, humildade e devocação extrema e sensibilidade humorística como até há bem algum tempo não testemunhava.

Falo de uma personagem Finlandesa que, fã de ficção científica desde a sua idade de puto, e em especial de Star Trek's e Babylon 5's , vai já em mais de dez filmes caseiros completamente inventados por si próprio. Enquanto que os primeiros fazem lembrar as animações do Spectrum 48, os seguintes vão enriquecendo na sua forma e técnica à medida que Samuli Torssonen - o autor - vem crescendo na puberdade.

No penúltimo, Samuli, que conta já com uma plêiade de amigos que o seguem nas suas aventuras cinéfilas, introduz uma revolução nos seus filmes: o ecran azul e os cenários virtuais.

Aqui mostro-vos, porque o merece, o seu último produto: Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning, uma sátira tanto a Star Trek como a Babylon 5, onde James T. Pirk, o herói interpretado pelo próprio Samuli enfrenta num combate sem tréguas o comandante Sherrypie da estação Babel 13. Convido o atento leitor a assistir, com queixo caído ou olhos esbugalhados à discrição o que um orçamento realmente a zero, (gastando-se os mínimos nos uniformes e nos próprios computadores...), actores completamente principiantes (o que se denota claramente) e uma personalidade ingénua e infantil mas com uma preserverança estóica de ver o seu sonho realizado consegue realmente fazer!

Imagine-se o leitor, apenas com um desejo e a formalizá-lo desta maneira! Eu não me imagino, bem entendido! No entanto, assiste-se de certeza absoluta a um fenómeno novo: a democratização em massa da produção e realização de cinema! Ou pelo menos o seu potencial...

Bem, clique aqui e divirta-se, pois pelo menos merece um grande sorriso este esforço estupendo e simples: http://www-fi3.starwreck.com/index.php