Happy New Year!
I am looking through my Science Fiction memory to see what great events we have missed by 2007.
It must be noted that some of these extrapolations were rather conservative: a generation that saw the first heavier-than-air flying machine (1903) develop into a supersonic jet (1947), reasonably imagined interstellar passenger flights becoming routine after an equal interval.
While we might be glad to escape certain of the wars and disasters, all loyal fans of SF should pause for a moment of Avery Brooks-style flying car angst.
(I have updated the list with helpful items from comments–readers are encouraged to remind me of great missed events I missed. I want to include only SF where the author gave an actual date in the text that has since passed.)
- The Eugenics Wars, during which Khan Noonian Singh takes over Asia. This was supposed to have happened in the Twentieth Century, so it is now six years over due. Glad we dodged that bullet. (Star Trek.)
- 2004. The death of Rhysling in a atomic drive chamber while working the Venus run. (Green Hills of Earth.)
- 2001. Spaceship DISCOVERY launched, complete with working cryonics and a fully intelligent AI, able to speak and hear English, not to mention read lips. (2001 Space Odyssey.)
- 2000. The USA and USSR combine to form the CoDominium. Sorry, no; we won, heh-heh. (Jerry Pornelle’s future history.)
- 2000. An alien being discovered in Antartica explodes, topples the Earth’s axis 90 degrees; climate disaster drowns most costal cities. (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
- 1999. An alien spacecraft crashes on Macross Island, putting an end to a ten year Global Civil War (Super Dimensional Fortress Macross).
- 1999. Moon blown out of Earth’s Orbit by atomic waste dumps on the far side. Fully functioning moon base. (Space 1999.)
- 1999. Development of memory recording and experiencing equipment, including a black market in the same. (Strange Days.)
- 1998. World Convention establishes a World Government. Subsequently establishes the Amalgamated Regional Militia (ARM) as its police force. (Larry Niven’s Known Space.) Dodged that bullet, too. Niven also had cryonics and overpopulation by this time.
- 1998. The last child was born (PD James, Children of Men)
- 1987. NASA launches the last of America’s deep space probes. In a freak mishap “Buck” Rogers is blown out of trajectory into an orbit which freezes his life support systems. Gee, I wish NASA would launch the first of its manned deep space probes.
- 1984. World collapse into totalitarian dictatorship. Ingsoc rules England, and Eurasia has been at war with Oceania, and has always been at war with Oceania. While this did not happen, Newspeak was voluntarily adopted as the official jargon of our chattering classes here in America. (Nineteen Eighty Four.)
- 1984. Adam Wayne becomes the governor of Notting Hill, and reintroduces medieval notions of love and loyalty to one’s hearth and home. (Napoleon of Notting Hill.)
- 1983. Launch of the suborbital passenger rocket Spindrift, which falls through a spacewarp and lands in the Land of the Giants. Boy, I really wanted one of those suborbitals back when I was a kid. It had both lifting surfaces for atmospheric flight, and nonairbreathing rockets for outer space. Where is my suborbital aerospace rocket plane? (Land of the Giants.)
- 1979. Bacteriological plague reduces mankind to nocturnal vampire-like cultists, with only a single known survivor. (Omega Man).
- 1978. LeCroix becomes the First Man on the Moon. (From Heinlein’s future history.) For once, an underestimation.
- 1969. The Crazy Years. (From Heinlein’s future history.) Well, those actually happened.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
