Paradox Point

            Abiotarians             Awhiles back I read a blog discussing veganism and vegetarianism. I wrote in to say that there are many entirely logical arguments for it (health, economic, etc.) but the moralism around it is sentimental. I asked; why valorize animals over plants? I called it “neurochauvinism”. This got me to thinking. Could it be possible to one-up the Vegans? Here’s my scenario:           The Space Marines find a way to ‘live off the land’; namely, the Artificial Food Machine. You feed it some dirty ice from a comet or an ice-moon; it processes that into a bland fibrous nutritious paste. Fibrous for regularity, of course, and it has every essential nutrient. The machine has no biological components; for the admirals did not want their troops’ life-support system to itself need a life-support system.   ...

When Four Worlds Collide             This essay confronts, by pairs, these four science-fictional worlds:           “Star Wars”, by George Lucas;           “Babylon 5”, by J. Michael Straczynski;           “Star Trek”, by Gene Roddenberry;           “The Culture”, by Iain Banks.             Star Wars Meets B5           Minbari goldfish-ships outclass most Imperial ships. The Death Star is evenly matched with Shadow or Vorlon planet-killers. The Force is, to B5, just teeking; B5 concentrates more on teeps.           Morden: “What do you want?” Emperor: “Power!” Morden grins.     ...

Dear Iain Banks:   I write you about your “Culture” series. I have a modest proposal for how the Culture, acting in character, can retire from the Galaxy without leaving the Galaxy. It is Liquidity; a third way between materiality and Sublimation.           In the Culture’s metauniverse, civilizations sometimes Sublime; that is, disappear from the material universe, with only mimimal interaction from then on. The word ‘sublimation’ is from chemistry, meaning a phase change from solid to gaseous without passing through liquid. Evidently Sublimation is akin to the gaseous state, and materiality to the solid state.           In a solid, the molecules connect to each other in a dense rigid orderly lattice; in a gas the molecules are disconnected, mutually distant, moving at high speed and at random. There’s something un-Culture-like about either state; they’re not into either rigidity or...

                 Dear Iain Banks: I write you about your “Culture” series. I have a modest proposal as to how the Culture might, acting in character, apologize to their Chelgren frenemies.           On the one hand you have the Chelgren, predatory, aspiring to civilization, furious over Culture meddling, egged on by techno-ghosts bent on a blood-price of five billion deaths, to ransom five billion Chelgren in techno-limbo. On the other hand you have the Culture, moralistic, guilty about its inept meddling, whose citizens are bored, eager for games, even dangerous ones, and wealthy even unto techno-reincarnation.           I think the solution is obvious. The people of the Culture will gladly die five billion times for the Chelgren, if it’s part of a game.           I therefore propose a simple gau...