talkpolitics | Entries tagged with fiction

Hey everyone,

I'm in the mood for some truly rewatchable sci-fi - movies that are so thought-provoking, stylish, or layered that once you finish them, you immediately want to go back and experience them again with fresh eyes.

To give you an idea of what I'm into:

Arrival - Loved the emotional core and how the non-linear storytelling unfolds differently on rewatch.

Blade Runner 2049 - The atmosphere, the questions it raises about identity and consciousness, and that haunting score keep pulling me back.

If you've seen any sci-fi films that made you pause, think, or just feel something deeply - and especially ones that reward a second or third viewing - I'd love your recommendations.

Thanks in advance!

kiaa

Having read through Liu Cixin's 2nd book from his trilogy Remembrance of Earth's Past, The Dark Forest, I've come across this take on the Fermi paradox:

Dark forest hypothesis (wiki)

The dark forest hypothesis is the idea that many alien civilizations exist throughout the universe, but are both silent and paranoid. In this framing, it is presumed that any space-faring civilization would view any other intelligent life as an inevitable threat,[2] and thus destroy any nascent life that makes its presence known. As a result, the electromagnetic spectrum would be relatively silent, without evidence of any intelligent alien life, as in a "dark forest" filled with "armed hunter(s) stalking through the trees like a ghost".

There's also a nice Kurzgesagt video on the subject (their vids are always awesome):
Youtube link

( Read more... )

kiaa

Liu Cixin has become something of a sensation in the world of sci-fi. His trilogy Remembrance of Earth's Past is considered a masterpiece sample of modern Chinese literature, and HBO is planning on filming it. The Chinese have already done the 1st season of their own version of the TV series, and I've never seen a movie being so faithful to the source material. Here's a Eng-sub trailer, I strongly recommend this:

Watch on YouTube

abomvubuso

It's exciting, modern sci-fi from Liu Cixin, a Chinese author. The trilogy is called Remembrance of Earth's Past, highly recommended: Wiki

HBO is also making the 1st season of a TV series. The only problem I see is, it's gonna be done by D&D who really screwed up with the Game of Thrones final season: IMDB

But why wait for this, when the Chinese have actually released the original TV series (now with English subs). I've never watched a movie being so faithful to the source material:
PLAYLIST

Also worth mentioning, the core premise behind the story is explained in this about the Shooter hypothesis vs the Farmer hypothesis.

nairiporter

Case in point:
AI-Based Predictive Policing on the Cards for South Africa?

Scientists and law enforcement agencies are using data mining and machine learning for "predictive policing". The field derives its name from the fact that many crimes - and criminals - have detectable patterns.

I know, this instantly brings Minority Report into memory. I would argue that when that movie came out back in 2002, it was both the best and worst thing to happen to predictive policing technologies.

Why? Well, when algorithms intended to help police anticipate crime burst onto the scene all that time ago, people quickly began invoking the classic Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller to point out the dangers. It was an excellent example of what has become something of a cliche in any discussion about futurism: arguing that science fiction gives us the tools to talk about policy around emerging technologies. Critics of predictive policing have been eager to point to Minority Report as an example of how technology could be flawed, how it could entrap the innocent.

( Read more... )

mahnmut

I know the monthly topic is cyclical history, but let's go on a slight tangent here. Which, in your opinion, are the most fascinating movies or TV series that feature alternate history scenarios? Be it drama, comedy, sci-fi or whatever.

Over the top of my head, I'd go past the obvious ones like The Man In The High Castle, or Abraham Lincoln the Vampire Hunter (what's with Americans' obsession with zombies and vampires anyway), and go on a limb and say Forrest Gump was one. While actually never altering big events or changing history, there's quite a few historical moments that are slightly modified to include the main character.

I'll also mention one fave of mine, District 9. It's a brutally honest re-read of Apartheid from a curious, sci-fi angle. You should totally watch it in case you still haven't. Here's a trailer:

Watch on YouTube

Anyway. Your picks?

mahnmut

"You don’t need to know the books to be able to enjoy the series and that’s one of the most exciting things about it for a big audience".

...I'd say it's even recommendable that you don't.

BBC's The Watch 'shares no DNA with Terry Pratchett's work', says daughter
Rhianna Pratchett joins fans unhappy with the forthcoming TV adaptation of her father’s Discworld stories about Ankh-Morpork’s City Watch

Watch on YouTube

From one comment: "This show is to Discworld as one of CMOT Dibbler's pies is to actual food; an unpalatable forgery liable to cause nausea and vomiting."

kiaa

(Click to enlarge)

edelsont

After Robert Mueller spoke on Wednesday, I was left, like a lot of people, with more questions than answers. But unlike most folks, I have access to the Wayforward Machine. So I logged in there, and poked around, and found something that cleared it up for me.

It's a published interview with him, which will appear [redacted] years in the future. After I read it, I felt that I understood the current situation a lot better. Maybe you will, too.

It's in PDF format, and on a different site. Here's the URL:

people.well.com/user/edelsont/politics/mueller-speaks.pdf

I hope this helps. (Seriously. All kidding aside, that's why I wrote it.)

Mood: awake
Location: [redacted]

$dancesofthelight: A fractal curling and uncurling in a loop (Otherwordly things)$

dancesofthelight

One of the more amusing aspects of the craze built around that HBO adaptation of the A Song of Ice and Fire series is the view that Daenerys Targaryen, the heir of the family that conquered a continent with trained Kaiju that are essentially l living, breathing nuclear weapons ala Godzilla and Rodan having an ugly redheaded lovechild left to a Catholic priest, was ever heroic.

https://truthout.org/articles/daenerys-targaryen-was-never-a-liberator/

( cut for length and number of links )

If the real life dead massacred by living and dead empires are not worthy of true concern, or even the hollow gesture of an official apology, why should fictional dead be any different? Why the feigned shock that a tyrant who conquers areas and leaves them worse after the fact does not change her stripes in a new territory that is still more crucial to empire dreams? Real empires have done this worldwide, their victims sufficient to raise blood to drown the oceans. And it is no different to make heroes of Leopold III, Hernan Cortez, or Paul Bremer than it is to do so for a fictional dynasty of imperialists. As in fiction, so in reality. What people make of stories is the mirror of truth and seldom in a way intended or desire, perhaps, in either case.

airiefairie

Suppose you live in the world of Game of Thrones, and you had to incorporate a technology from the modern world.

Which one would it be, and why? =)

(By the way, here is an attempt to analyse why Westeros still hasn't had an Industrial Revolution).

dreamville-bg.livejournal.com

Which GoT house/family/dynasty would you compare to the following countries?

1. USA
2. Russia
3. Japan
4. France
5. Your own (other than the US)
6. Some obscure country of your choosing

:-)

https://d1ai9qtk9p41kl.cloudfront.net/assets/db/14543535534530.jpg

( My take... )

mahnmut.livejournal.com

Hey guys, can you recommend a nice sci-fi TV series that would involve all the usual stuff like interplanetary travel, spacecraft, space battles, possibly aliens... but also with mystery elements like time travel, parallel universes, etc? Series that I've watched of this genre are Fringe, Continuum, 12 Monkeys, The Expanse, Dark Matter, and of course classics like Battlestar Galactica and the StarGate franchise. I'm curious about other similar suggestions. Would be very grateful if you have some ideas. Thanks!

abomvubuso.livejournal.com

Could the Planets in Star Wars Actually Support Life?

Turns out, most of them no - at least not in the way shown in the movies.

One important planet that was omitted was Coruscant, the city-planet and capital of the Galactic Republic. Even if we put aside questions like, is a 100%-urbanized planetary society sustainable, the question remains how is it possible for humans to live on a planet that's located so close to the galactic core (you know, enormous radiation due to the dense stellar population in such regions, etc).

ddstory.livejournal.com

I've been re-watching the X Files series as of late, and I was thinking about this fictional hypothetical situation, where, being presented with the whole truth of that alien conspiracy in the movie, the group of "initiated" humans would have to make a fateful decision that would affect all humanity.

So here's the deal. You've got a mighty extraterrestrial civilization whose capabilities exceed ours approximately the way the capabilities of modern humanity exceed those of, say, cattle. For some reason they want to appropriate our resource-rich planet, and since we're the only thing standing in the way, they want to swiftly remove us from the face of Earth. In other words: exterminate us.

Now, enter a bunch of renegades from that same civilization - an alien group, which for the sake of convenience, we'll be calling The Rebels. They've been at odds with their original civilization (which we'll be calling The Metropoly), they're running away from them and want a new home. And possibly an army of super-hybrids to help them keep their former oppressors at bay.

So the Rebels come here to Earth, and they secretly get in touch with a group of the human elite (The Syndicate), and they strike a bargain with them: the Syndicate will allow the Rebels to use a limited number of humans to perform genetic experiments, in hope of creating hybrid human-alien supersoldiers who'll be fighting their war for them against the Metropoly. In return, they'll do their best to keep the Metropoly at bay, and protect the human race from extermination. Oh, and occasionally provide us with technological know-how.

( Now here's the dilemma )

sophia-sadek.livejournal.com

Two of my personal favorite works of politics in entertainment involve a single character portrayed in two separate imperial venues: London and Washington. The American version of "House of Games" portrays the political gamer as a social climber of the nouveaux riche who mirrors the original British character, a Tory "aristocrat." It is fitting that the same political thug comes from disparate origins on either side of the Atlantic.

British version inside
The character in both cases uses his sexual charm to manipulate a liberal journalist towards illiberal ends. The American wife runs a fake philanthropy with more interest in its own growth than in being a benefit to humanity. The British wife is obsessed with securing a comfortable pension for herself after her scheming husband's demise. In both versions, the wife are happy that her husband uses his stud appeal in the interest of family gain.

American version inside
The story line on both sides of the "pond" is pretty much the same. The political gamer pulls strings and levers to manipulate his colleagues to his own advantage. Since British and American strings and levers differ a bit, the stories vary accordingly. Both share in the basic framework of intrigue, conspiracy, and brutal tragedy.

nairiporter.livejournal.com

Much on topic, comes this inquiry of mine. Could the audience please recommend some otustanding political fiction titles? I would be very grateful.

So far what I have been recommended (or have read) boils down to this, somewhat lengthy, but in no case exhaustive list:

( See list )

underlankers.livejournal.com

The year is 1956. A scientist named Yuri Tchaikovsky is disintegrated in a top-secret physics department in experiments to prove the prospect of contacting other dimensions. A sequence of bizarre, otherwordly phenomena involving unintentional anatomy lessons and screaming muscled skeletons follow for several months until a reconstructed, glowing version of Dr. Tchaikovskys body reappears. The Superman now exists, and he's a devoted follower of Soviet communism and dedicated to truth, justice, and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact. How does the work adjust to Comrade Atom and the presence of a superman who can transcend ordinary reality as we know it, when the guy's a Soviet and not an American?

Does he accelerate and deform Cold War tensions? Does the presence of a real-life superman render the superhero genre obsolete? Do a great many Americans die trying to duplicate the accident and create a Dr. Manhattan to show the benefits of Truth, Justice, and the American Way? Does the simple invalidation of everything we used to know about physics and biology cause either a massive crash of the existing sciences, a more limited retooling of those sciences, or lead to a great wave of religious hysteria that makes the Crusades and the Jihads of medieval times look like a junior sibling?

Or alternately does he just grow bored with humanity after sleeping around and go to Mars when he finally has enough?

Personally I think that if a real superhuman existed that this would throw our entire premise of reality out of whack and we'd find out very quickly that the Superman works best in fiction, not in real life. No matter which state, which ideology, or which society these supermen came from. I think, however, that if one showed up as a Soviet around the time of the Sputnik launch that this would have also put US culture of the time into a Red-Baiting Frenzy to end all frenzies and that from a detached popcorn-on-couch approach this would make great TV on both sides. I also think that one superhuman ain't anywhere near enough to fix the rotten Soviet system or to save it, but that's my own cynicism.

TL;DR: What if the Watchmen universe happened but Dr. Manhattan was a Soviet? Things would go much the same but from the opposite POV.

underlankers.livejournal.com

Namely the really far end of the scale. This is called on the Alternate History Internet communities the Alien Space Bat (read Sufficiently Advanced Alien) continuum. This one is a very simple point of divergence: suppose that in the present we discover the existence, proven, of the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics in one of the more flamboyant/sci-fi esque possibilities where a portal opens and people step out of another universe. Following this initial contact, we discover that there are truly infinite universes where everything that has ever been or ever will be can exist and does exist. Suppose also that in this process we discover non-human intelligences that are bizarrely alien to us (and we to them) and that this goes for them, too.

Now, as the quantum theory is infinite, we would discover that a staggering number of universes contain no life at all, and we would discover all the myriad ways that a general nuclear exchange or earlier detonation of the Yellowstone supervolcano could happen and reduce civilization as we know it. We would also discover equivalent universes to both our fiction and to that of the aliens of other dimensions. We would of course also discover a tremendous number of timelines where the religions, ideologies, and cultural systems we take for granted do not exist and are never likely to exist in the immediate, the medium, or the far future. What would be the cultural impact of this discovery?

Personally I think a great many science fiction fans would be ecstatic at first until they realize that in a truly infinite universe, things like the Domination of Draka (perhaps the most dystopian of all science fiction series, making 1984 look like Paradise), Galactus, and all the mythological Gods, Demons, and Eldritch Abominations of fiction *also* exist. I think religious fundamentalists would herald these dimensions as demonic illusions and advocate exorcist experiments to destroy them. Which of course would not work. I think also that it would force a fundamental revision and broadening of our understanding of reality, especially if people started using technology from the more bizarre universes to accelerate the technology of our own artificially, presuming such a concept would work. I also think that this kind of contact would lead to new ideologies, including new versions of nihilism that would hold that since everything happens somewhere, and that since parallels of individuals in this world also exist in great quantities that whatever they do does not matter, as there are parallels of themselves who would be far superior to them as individuals.

What say you?

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Talk politics.

A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods.

Entries tagged with fiction

Friday offtopic. Sci-fi gems to recommend

A frightening take on the Fermi paradox

Friday off-topic. Three-Body

Friday off-topic. Anyone into The Three Body Problem?

Minority Report come true?

Friday offtopic. Alternate history movies

Friday offtopic: Also, Americans ruin everything

Friday offtopic. How time travel works

Mueller fanfic! (No, not that kind.)

'Let Westeros Burn, let King's Landing bleed', or why fictional imperialists should not be heroes:

Friday fun. GoT inquiry

Hypothetical GoT/RL parallels

Friday offtopic. Sci-fi series inquiry

Nerd mode on

While we're about fiction...

Monthly Topic: Political Gaming

Friday fun: Your fave political fiction books?

And now for an even more sci-fi (but familiar to some people who've read a particular graphic novel

Now for the more sci-fi variety alternate history scenario:

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Links

June 2025

Summary