Modern and Classic Science Fiction And the Likes of It
COLUMBUS
THE FUTURE IS WRITTEN
© Forlaget Columbus og forfatteren 2024
1. udgave, 1. oplag
Forlagsredaktion:
Katrine Cohen
Grafisk tilrettelæggelse og omslag: Helle Hjorth @grafiskhelle
Tryk: Tarm bogtryk Printed in Denmark 2024
ISBN: 978-87-7970-860-0
Denne bog er beskyttet i medfør af gældende dansk lov om ophavsret. Kopiering må kun ske i overensstemmelse med loven. Det betyder f.eks. at kopiering til undervisningsbrug kun må ske efter aftale med Copydan Tekst og Node.
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Bogens hjemmeside: www.forlagetcolumbus.dk/ the-future-is-written
4_ Forord
6_ A brief introduction to the world of science fiction
13_ A brief history of science fiction
26_ Your go-to sci-fi encyclopedia
0 1 Body and Mind
30_ The classic: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (novel excerpt, 1932)
46_ Anonymous, ”The Shortest Science Fiction Story Ever Written” (short story)
50_ Eileen Gunn, ”After the Thaw” (short story, 2011)
62_ T. Coraghessan Boyle, ”The Relive Box” (short story, 2014)
82_ Jo Harkin, Tell Me an Ending (novel excerpt, 2022)
0 2 Artificial Intelligence
100_ The classic: Isaac Asimov, ”Reason” (short story, 1941)
119_ Alan Aster, ”My A.I. Girlfriend” (poem, 2022)
122_ Daniel H. Wilson, How to Survive a Robot Uprising (non-fiction excerpt, 2005)
138_ Dilman Dila, ”Red_Bati” (short story, 2022)
152_ Owen Harris (dir.), ”Be Right Back” from Black Mirror (TV series, 2013)
156_ Louisa Hall, ”How We Feel About Robots That Feel” (non-fiction, 2017)
0 3 Into Space
166_ The classic: Philip K. Dick, ”Mr. Spaceship” (short story, 1953)
186_ George W. Bush, ”Remarks on US Space Policy” (non-fiction, 2004)
194_ Tim Dudenhoefer, ”Settled In” (short story, 2016)
204_ Dave Filoni (dir.), ”The Mandalorian”, Episode One, Season One of The Mandalorian (TV series, 2019)
210_ Tillie Walden, On a Sunbeam (graphic novel excerpt, 2018)
FORORD
Bogens titel The Future Is Written spiller på det faktum, at science fiction-forfattere utallige gange har forudsagt fremtidig teknologisk og videnskabelig udvikling med imponerende og ofte foruroligende nøjagtighed. Science fiction-litteratur kan derfor være en go-to krystalkugle, når vi gerne vil vide, hvordan verden kommer til at se ud for fremtidige generationer, eller måske bare os selv om ikke så mange år, da den teknologiske udvikling i øjeblikket går rasende hurtigt. Selvom titlen lyder meget skråsikker, er science fiction dog et felt, hvor både håb og frygt trives. Det kan gå begge veje – i retning af enten dystopi og utopi. Science fiction hjælper os blot med at få øje på potentielle scenarier, hvilket selvfølgelig også giver et handlerum, hvor en uhensigtsmæssig udvikling måske kan vendes. Science fiction handler nemlig i høj grad også om, hvad der sker lige nu.
Som undertitlen antyder, beskæftiger bogen sig ikke kun med fiktion. Der er også enkelte non-fiction tekster, som sammen med skønlitteraturen kan bidrage til elevernes etiske refleksion over, hvordan den teknologiske udvikling påvirker os som mennesker og som samfund.
The Future Is Written indledes med en introduktion til genren, dens udvikling, begreber og troper. Denne viden sættes løbende i spil i forhold til teksterne, som er inddelt i tre tematiske kapitler; “Body and Mind“, “Artificial Intelligence“ og “Into Space“. Bogens fokus er på nyere science fiction, der ikke tidligere er antologiseret. Dog begynder hvert kapitel med en klassisk sci-fi tekst, som de nye tekster og samfundet i dag kan spejles i og som sikrer et vist historisk og litteraturhistorisk perspektiv.
Første kapitel hedder “Body and Mind“ og indeholder tekster, der kredser om teknologisk og videnskabelig udvikling og opfindelser, der kan ændre vores kroppe, vores gener og vores måde at tænke og huske på. Skal vi nødvendigvis fortsætte med at have de samme kroppe og hjerner? Kan vi leve uafhængigt af vores kroppe? Og kan man i øvrigt få et helt modul til at gå med kapitlets (og verdens) korteste novelle på kun 9 ord?
Herefter følger et kapitel om artificial intelligence, som måske er den udvikling, der optager flest mennesker, herunder eleverne, lige nu. Vil den kunstige intelligens skabe nye muligheder, fx i forhold til kærlighed, og måske endda redde verden – eller er det tværtimod et monster, vi har skabt, som kan betyde vores egen undergang? Uanset hvad, så tvinges vi til på en ny måde at forholde os til, hvad det vil sige at være menneske, når den kunstige intelligens kommer på banen.
Endelig er der et kapitel om rummet, som nok er det de fleste umiddelbart forbinder med science fiction. I skal naturligvis ikke snydes for aliens og rumvåben, men kapitlets fokus ligger på Mars, drømmen om at nå til den røde planet og på konsekvenserne af en mulig kolonisering af rummet og terraforming. Der trækkes tråde fra John F. Kennedy over George W. Bush til Elon Musk og til fiktive galakser beboet udelukkende af kvinder og non-binære.
Man kan selvsagt også sagtens læse på tværs af kapitlerne, fx med fokus på genretræk. Ved at gå på tværs af kapitlerne får man fx også rigere mulighed for at favne flere genrer og medier, herunder film og en graphic novel.
Da A.I. er et af bogens temaer, har det været nærliggende også at gøre kunstig intelligens i form af ChatGPT til en del af bogens didaktik. Det bliver således indirekte et tema, hvad den teknologiske udvikling kan bruges til i en undervisningssammenhæng, og eleverne sættes til at reflektere over teknologiens muligheder, såvel som dens begrænsninger. Hovedparten af opgaverne skal dog fortsat løses ved hjælp af menneskelig intelligens, og der arbejdes både analytisk og kreativt, med litteratur, sprog og samfundskontekster. Der er til alle tekster et væld af øvelser, så man frit kan plukke ud og tilpasse det til sine egne behov og klasser. Der er knyttet skriftligt arbejde til alle teksterne, og endelig har det været et mål løbende at inddrage opgaver, der får eleverne op af stolene, helt bogstaveligt ved bevægelse i undervisningen, men også billedligt talt ved at de forhåbentligt provokeres, inspireres og får mange engagerede og gode diskussioner om teksterne og emnerne.
Antologien er tiltænkt 2. og 3. g på de gymnasiale ungdomsuddannelser og håbet er, at den vil kunne gøre litterært-mindede elever mere nysgerrige på naturvidenskab, og elever på naturvidenskabelige studieretninger mere interesserede i litteratur, uanset om det så sker ved blot at arbejde med bogens tekster eller ved et egentligt samarbejde på tværs af faggrænser.
Som altid skal der lyde en stor tak til min redaktør Katrine Cohen for grundighed, overblik og skarphed. Tak også til Bo Clausen. Jeg har savnet dig som skrivemakker, men du har altid stået på sidelinjen med råd og ideer, når der var behov for det. Endelig skal Radoslava takkes varmt for tålmodighed og god sparring i tide og utide.
Jesper Kaalund November, 2024
THE FUTURE IS WRITTEN
A brief introduction to the world of science fiction
“The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.“
Sci-fi writer William Gibson (The Economist
, 12/4/2003)
What is science fiction?
Science fiction (sci-fi) is a thought experiment, all the WHAT IFs. It’s the books, films, comics or computer games we turn to as our crystal balls when we wonder how the future might turn out. But how do we define sci-fi? In a simple definition, science fiction is stories about science and technology and how this affects humankind and society. While a genre in its own right, sci-fi adheres to narrative structures from thrillers, classic odysseys, westerns and, perhaps most notably, detective fiction with its uncovering of truths.
In this chapter, you will learn more about science fiction, what characterises it, how it works and how it has developed.
Science fiction, our crystal ball
The world we know today was in many ways foreseen and inspired by science fiction writers a long time ago. Technology, science and inventions we now take for granted, such as credit cards, bionic limbs, mobile phones, video chatting, tablets, antidepressants, smart watches and drones, to name but a few, were all envisioned in sci-fi books and films before they became a real part of our everyday lives. Scientist Steve Perlman has, for instance, openly admitted that he got the idea for one of his inventions, namely Quicktime, a popular Apple multimedia program, when watching the science fiction TV series Star Trek
Over the years, science fiction has also been a major inspiration for the development of weapons of mass destruction and consequently bears a heavy burden of historical guilt. Often, however, technologies are neither good or bad per se , it all depends on how we use them. Science fiction can help us see the pitfalls as well as the possibilities as science fiction is all about predicting or discussing how technological and scientific inventions might affect society, human beings and human relationships, our moral compasses, bodies, minds, etc.
Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World
At the end of the day, science fiction always seems to be asking the question, will the technology of the future be a tool of liberation or enslavement for humankind? For instance, science fiction writer Aldous Huxley, best known for his dystopian novel Brave New World from 1932 , believed that
“people will come to love their oppression, adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.“
In today’s world, excited about the wonders of artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, Huxley’s concern, voiced almost a century ago, seems to have more resonance than ever. Will the human brain stop evolving now that we have got others to do the thinking for us? Will we, as a result, see evolution in reverse (devolution) as in H.G. Wells’ Time Machine or Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos in which humans devolve and eventually crawl back into the sea we originally came from as mindless creatures? Another major concern is that artificial intelligence might simply escape our control and put an end to humankind by outsmarting and replacing us. These are all possible scenarios, especially if we go ahead without the planning, management and regulation that the A.I. industry itself is calling for. Scientists have publicly been telling politicians that we need more control if we want to avoid a worst-case scenario. On the other hand, artificial intelligence might also end up saving planet Earth and humankind by helping us fight future pandemics and other diseases, and perhaps even solve or at least curb the looming climate crisis.
1) Discuss with your classmates if you are mainly optimistic or pessimistic about the future.
2) What role does technology/science play in your vision of the future?
3) Discuss Aldous Huxley’s quote above. To what extent do you agree/disagree?
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.“
Frank Herbert, Dune (1966)
DILMAN DILA Red _ Bati
SHORT STORY, 2022
Dilman Dila (b. 1977) is a writer and filmmaker from Uganda. In his own words, he is “an all round storyteller“ and a social activist who works with human rights issues and “believes that stories are an important tool in creating a better world“.
PRE READING
1. If you had to design and program a robot for elderly people, either a kind of helper, a friend or a pet, what would you make sure the bot could do and perhaps not do? What needs would the bot have to meet and how could this be achieved?
2. In the story, you will meet ‘service_bots’, ‘dumbots’ and ‘forebots’. Find a name for your bot (question 1) by means of a prefix or a compound noun and make a short advertisement for it, either a video or an ad for printed media.
3. Discuss with your neighbour what is going to happen to the bot when the elderly person passes away.
FOCUS FOR YOUR READING
1. Note down things we learn about Red_Bati and how we learn them.
2. What have the humans done to make themselves secure? Make a list of the safety measures.
3. Make a list of technical terms and what they mean.
flicker flimre vanish forsvinde boundary grænse twig kvist
rustling
lave en dæmpet lyd fra tørre blade cricket græshoppe dampness fugtighed static knitrende lyd flinch lave hurtig nervøs bevægelse resurrect vække til live porch veranda zero gravity
vægtløs tilstand predator rovdyr jerk lave en hurtig, pludselig bevægelse clamp klemme pin fastlåse
RED_BATI
Red_Bati’s battery beeped. Granny flickered, and the forest around her vanished. She sighed in exaggerated disappointment. He never understood why she called it a forest, for it was just two rows of trees marking the boundary of her farm. When she was alive, she had walked in it every sunny day, listening to her feet crunching dead twigs, to her clothes rustling against the undergrowth, to the music of crickets, feeling the dampness and the bugs, sniffing at the rotten vegetation, which she thought smelled better than the flowers that Akili her grandson had planted around her house. Now, she liked to relive that experience. With his battery going down, he could not keep up a real-life projection and, for the first time, she became transparent, like the blue ghost in the painting that had dominated a wall of her living room. Akili’s mother had drawn it to illustrate one of their favorite stories.
Granny laughed at the memory. “That ghost!“ she said. Her voice was no longer musical. It was full of static.
He could not recharge her. He had to save power, but he did not want to shut her down because he had no one else to talk to. He did not get lonely, not the way she had been so lonely that she would hug him and her tears would drip onto his body, making him flinch at the thought of rust. She would hug him even though she complained that his body was too hard, not soft and warm like that of Akili. He did not get lonely like that, but Akili had written a code to make him want to talk to someone all the time, and he had not had a chance for a conversation since the accident, twelve hours ago.
He had resurrected her after her death, while he waited for a new owner. He used all recordings he had made of her during their ten years together to create a holographic imitation of her so he could have someone to talk to. It was not like walking with her in the mango forest, or sitting at her feet on the porch as she knitted a sweater and watched the sun go down. Technically, he was talking to himself; but it was the only chance he had for conversation.
“I would have enjoyed being an astronaut,“ she said, floating a few feet in front of him, her limbs kicking in slow motion the way humans moved in zero gravity. She was careful to keep behind the shelves, out of sight of the security camera. “This is the-“
She stopped talking abruptly when white-cell.sys beeped. A particle of ice was floating about like a predator shark. If it touched him, he would rust. He jerked, like a person awaking from a bad sleep, though the ice was ten meters away. Steel clamps pinned him onto a shelf. He could not get away.
The half-empty storage room looked like a silver blue honeycomb. They had dumped him in it after the accident ripped off his forearm. The Captain had evaluated his efficiency and, seeing it down to 80%, tagged him DISABLED. They could not fix his arm on the ship, so they shut him down and dumped him in storage until he got back to Earth. Entombed alive. Left to die a cold death.
“You won’t die,“ Granny said, laughing. She sat on a fuel pod in a cell on the opposite shelf. “It’s just a little ice. It’s not even water.“
He had lived all his life dreading rust, watching his step to avoid puddles, blowdrying his kennel every hour, turning on the heater all the way up to prevent dew from forming. He knew it was irrational, for his body, made of high-grade stainless Haya steel, was waterproof. He never understood his aquaphobia. Had Akili infected him with a program to ensure he stayed indoors on rainy days? Very likely. Granny liked playing in the rain as much as she liked walking in the mango forest. Yet every time she did, she got a fever, sometimes malaria. Akili might have written a code to force Red_Bati to stay indoors on rainy days, and so Granny, who used him as a walking aid and guide, stayed indoors too. Red_Bati could have searched for this code and rewritten it to rid himself of this stupid fear, but he did not. He loved it, for it made him feel human.
“I’m not worried about the ice,“ he said. “It’s the temperature.“
He was in Folder-5359, where temperatures stayed at a constant -250º C to preserve fuel pods. Technically, the cold would not kill him. He had a thermal skin that could withstand environments well below -400º C, but it needed power to function. Once his battery ran down, he would freeze and that would damage his e-m-data strips. Though these could be easily and cheaply replaced, he would lose all his data, all the codings that made him Red_Bati and not just another red basenji dog, all his records of Granny. He would die.
“That won’t be a bad thing,“ Granny said, chuckling. “If you were a true dog, you’d be as old as I am and wishing for death.“
He was not a dog. He was a human trapped in a pet robot.
Granny chuckled again, but did not say anything to mock him again. She watched the ice and tried to touch it, but it passed through her fingers and floated upwards. lt would not touch Red_Bati, after all. He relaxed. If he had flesh and muscles, this would have been a visible reaction. Instead, white-cell.sys reverted to sleep mode, the red light in his eyes vanished and his pupils regained their brownish tint.
His battery beeped, now at 48% for white-cell.sys had used up a lot of power in just a few seconds. In sixteen hours and forty-three minutes, it would hit zero, and then he would die.
“You’re not a human in a dog’s body,“ Granny finally said, still watching the ice as it floated towards the ceiling.
storage room depot honeycomb bikage, vokskage entombed lagt i grav fuel pod beholder med brændstof puddle vandpyt kennel hundehus dew dug thermal termisk basenji dog hunderace, livlig lille hund revert vende tilbage til tint tone (farve)
agoraphobia fobi for åbne pladser og for at forlade ens hjem memorabilia ting forbundet med minder contract lave aftale med asteroid småplanet pounce kaste sig over
“I am,“ Red_Bati said.
“Humans have spirits,“ Granny said. “You don’t.“
“I do,“ Red_Bati said.
“You can’t,“ Granny said.
“Why not? I’m aware of myself.“
“Doesn’t mean you have it.“
“Why not?“
“You’re not a natural-born.“
Red_Bati wanted to argue his point, to remind her of things that made him human, like agoraphobia; to remind her that he got consciousness from a chip and lines of code, just as humans did from their hearts, and brains. He was not supposed to be conscious, much less super intelligent; but Akili had wanted Granny to have more than just a pet, so he installed Z-Kwa and turned Red_Bati into a guide, a walking aid, a cook, a cleaner, a playmate, a personal assistant, a friend, a doctor, a gardener, a nurse, and even a lover if she had wanted. She could live her last years as she pleased rather than suffer in a nursing home.
After she died, Akili had put him up for sale along with all her property and memorabilia. For a moment, Red_Bati had feared that Akili would remove Z-Kwa and wipe his memory, but Akili contracted a cleaning firm to get rid of Granny’s property and either forgot or did not care to tell them about the chip. Red_Bati was too smart to let them know he was more than just a pet. Nor did he show it off to the people who bought him, Nyota Energy, an asteroid mining company that, rather than buying miner-bots, found it cheaper to convert pets into miners. They gave him a new bios and software, a thermal coat, x-ray vision, and modified his limbs and tongue to dig rocks. They did not look into his ribcage cabin so they did not see Z-Kwa, otherwise they would have removed it. When they shut him down after his accident, Z-Kwa had turned him back on, aware that if his battery drained, he would die. He had self-preservation instincts, just like any other living thing with a spirit, and he wanted to tell her all these things, but she was draining his battery.
“Sorry,“ he said. “I have to conserve power.“
“That’s okay,“ she said.
He blinked, and she vanished. His battery life increased by two hours.
He examined the three clamps that pinned him to the cell. They had not expected him to awake, so they had not used electronic locks. With his tongue, he pushed the bolts on the clamps, and they snapped open. He could escape. The room had only one camera, at the front, to track crew who came in to pick up fuel pods. If it saw him, the ship would know he had awoken and service_bots would pounce on him and remove his battery. To hide from it, he needed the identity of another robot.
He checked the duty roster he had received before the accident. He did not expect the fuel roster to have changed since his accident only affected the cleaning roster. The next pickup was due in an hour, a karbull dragon-horse. It would not do. Six hours hence, it would be a tomcat, and then in thirteen hours, a robot that looked like him, a basen ji dog. He wrote an identity-stealing app and hibernated.
He awoke ten minutes to time. His battery was down to 35% and would last for another ten hours. He slipped out of the cell, staying behind the shelves to hide from the camera. He floated to Shelf-4B and hid inside Cell-670, where he could see Cell-850, which had the fuel pod to be picked up next. He heard the outer door open and close. Then the inner door opened. The two doors ensured the temperature of Folder-5359 stayed at a constant -250º C, while the ship was a warm 16º C.
The basenji floated into view, riding a transponder tube. lt saw Red_ Bati but did not raise any alarms. It adhered strictly to its programming and ignored anything out of the ordinary, assuming the ship was in total control. Astral-mining companies stopped sending self-aware and self-learning robots many years ago after a ship had developed minor engine trouble and its crew, seeing their chance of returning safely to Earth had dropped to ninety-nine percent, landed on an asteroid and refused to move until rescue came. Fearing to incur such needless losses, the miners resolved to send only ‘dumbots’ incapable of making vital decisions without human input.
For a moment, Red_Bati wondered what had happened to the owner of this basenji. Its jaw was slightly open, its tongue stuck out to imitate panting, a design that little boys favored. He hoped its owner had only grown tired of it and had not died. He did not feel empathy the way Granny felt whenever she saw a dead ant; she felt so terrible that she would bury it. Granny had thought a dead child more horrible than a dead ant and Red_Bati wanted to feel as she might have felt.
He waited until the basenji turned its back to him as it positioned the tube to suck the pod out of the cell. He turned on his x-ray vision to see the basenji’s central processor and the comm receptor chip, both located just below the backbone, and on which the basenji’s serial number and LANIG address were respectively printed. Two seconds later, his app was ready.
It would take ninety seconds for the pod to enter the tube, and in that time, Red_Bati had to take over the basenji’s identity. He aimed a laser beam at the other dog’s left ear, which was its comm antennae, to disable it. He activated his comm receptor at the same moment that he fired the laser beam. There would be a delay of a thousand micro-seconds, between the basenji’s going offline and Red_Bati’s assuming its identity, but the ship would not read that as strange.
duty roster vagtplan hence fra nu tomcat hankat hibernate gå i hi transponder enhed til modtagelse af radiosignal adhere følge astral-mining minedrift på stjernerne incur pådrage sig panting puste comm = communication backbone rygrad
Comprehension
1. Make a timeline of the events in Red_Bati’s life. Choose 8-10 events.
2. Compare your list to that of a classmate.
3. Who made Red_Bati, and what was Red_Bati originally designed and coded to do?
4. What is it that Red_Bati needs to do on the spaceship?
5. How is Red_Bati able to outsmart the crew and the other bots?
6. Which of the things Red_Bati does to fool the crew and the other bots do you find most ingenious and why? Discuss in class if you chose the same thing.
7. What are Red_Bati’s goals after the hijacking?
Working with the text
1. What type of narrator does the story have? First- or thirdperson? If first-person, is the narrator reliable? If thirdperson, is the narrator omniscient or limited? What is the point of view? In conclusion, what is the effect of having this type of narrator?
2. Analyse the style of writing in the paragraph below. Consider, for instance, the effect of short sentences and the use of simile. “The half-empty storage room looked like a silver blue
honeycomb. They had dumped him in it after the accident ripped off his forearm. The Captain had evaluated his efficiency and, seeing it down to 80%, tagged him DISABLED. They could not fix his arm on the ship, so they shut him down and dumped him in storage until he got back to Earth. Entombed alive. Left to die a cold death.“
3. In groups: You are in the editor’s office. Someone has suggested that the story would benefit from a revised beginning starting with the paragraph from the previous question. Discuss the pros and cons of having this opening instead of the original one.
4. In action movies, the ‘zero hour’ trope refers to a race against the clock, a plot structure where the hero needs to deactivate the bomb that will go off in, say 60 minutes, and saves everybody after 59 minutes and 59 seconds. Discuss to what extent the ‘zero hour’ trope has been used in “Red_ Bati“ and its effect.
5. How is the setting described? What does it add to the story that the story is set in space? Moreover, discuss in what way Earth, and Uganda in particular, still plays a role in the story.
6. Characterise Red_Bati. Part of your characterisation must focus on Red_Bati’s sense of identity, phobias, disability and his coding.
7. Why do you think his name is spelled with an underscore? What is the effect of this?
8. When talking to Granny he is “technically [...] talking to himself“ (p. 140, l. 30). Explain why. Do you mainly see Granny as a part of himself or as a separate character? What are the implications of your interpretation in general, and more specifically when she is mean and calls him a “metallic dog“? (p. 148, l. 23)
9. Consider and explain the line “He could not be sure anymore if it was all code. Humans, after all, imagined spirits into existence.“ (p. 148, ll. 19-20)
10. Red_Bati believes that “he got consciousness from a chip and lines of code, just as humans did from their hearts, and brains.“ (p. 142, ll. 9-11) Using your answers above, discuss if robots like Red_Bati are essentially different from human beings. Find other quotes from the text to support your answer.
11. Does Red_Bati adhere to Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics? (see p. 19). Give reasons for your answer.
12. The mango forest appears at the beginning and at the end of the story. What does it represent to the grandmother and to Red_Bati? Does it work symbolically? Why is nature included in the story?
13. Discuss the last two lines of the story. Is the ending open, ambiguous or does it provide a solution? Do you see it as optimistic, pessimistic or ambiguous? Give reasons for your answer.
14. What are the themes of the story? Pick 2-3 and discuss what is suggested about them.
15. Is Red_Bati as a character as important to the story as the themes and the setting? Why/why not?
16. In the introduction, we learned that Dila “believes that stories are an important tool in creating a better world.“ Might a story like “Red_Bati“ help make a better world? How/why not?
17. Moreover, discuss if you would market the story as hard SF or soft SF or something else. Give reasons for your answer.
Putting the text into perspective
In this section you will compare the short story to other stories you have studied in class. If there are stories you have not yet read, you may skip the questions or save them for when you have.
1. In Brave New World, Mr. Foster says that the “Epsilon mind was mature at ten, the Epsilon body was not fit to work till eighteen. Long years of superfluous and wasted immaturity. If the physical development could be speeded up till it was as quick, say as a cow’s, what an enormous saving to the Community!“ (p. 40, ll. 5-9). In “Red_Bati“, we hear that the VR printed robots “would be fully functional adults at birth“ (p. 147, l. 38). Do you think Mr. Foster
would prefer the robots to the Epsilons if they had been invented? Give reasons for your answer. Moreover, discuss the similarities and differences in the use of Epsilons in Brave New World and the use of dumbots in “Red_Bati“.
2. How to Survive a Robot Uprising tells readers what to be aware of in case of rebellious bots. Is it possible that Wilson’s advice might have helped the Captain stop Red_Bati? How/why not?
3. The article “How We Feel About Robots That Feel“ discusses the pros and cons of creating robots with feelings. Which arguments for or against do you find most relevant to what happens in “Red_ Bati“?
4. The Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back“ features a griefbot. Might the holographic Granny be seen as a griefbot? If not, why not? If so, how similar are the two and are we as readers/viewers meant to think the same about them? Give reasons to support your answer.
5. “Red_Bati“ as well as “Settled In“ and “Mr. Spaceship“ all deal with the possibility of starting a new life away from Planet Earth. To what extent are the stories optimistic about this possibility and what might come from it?
Written Assignments
1. In the end, Red_Bati heads out to the asteroid belt to start a new life which includes building more of his own kind, and he wonders
“What life would his kind have?“ (p. 148, l. 3). Write an outline for a sequel to “Red_Bati“ (500-900 words) that provides an answer to this question, whether it be utopian, dystopian or something more ambiguous. Red_Bati remains the protagonist and knowledge about him from the original story must be included, and you might consider whether or not he ends up writing new code, as he considers at the very end of the original story.
2. Write a popular scientific article (700-900 words) about Red_Bati, including why he was built, how he was coded and reasons why it did not go according to plan. Consult your list of technical language from Focus for your reading, but avoid technical jargon and make sure that everything is easily understandable for the reader who is someone interested in science but not a scientist themselves. Use examples, analogies or comparisons. Outline the possibilities of the technological advancement as well as the dangers, all based on what you have learned in the short story. Use short sentences for clarity and tell a story around the facts to guide the reader. Make it clear why the topic is relevant and interesting, and make it clear what field of science the story deals with. Moreover, your article must include a heading (brief and captivating), subheadings and an illustration with a brief explanation of what it shows.
