Science Fiction and Social Awareness

 

Can science fiction function as a means of creating social awareness around technology and its future developments?

In advance of my interview on #SCIFICHAT on Friday, April 12, 2013, I thought I would write a quick article about my interests in science fiction, fantasy and how I use my love of the genre to promote and pursue ideas around science, scientific achievement, technology, social development under the guise of science fiction (and occasionally fantasy). I happen to agree with Ray Bradbury and believe a little fantasy hiding underneath one’s science fiction never hurt anyone.

I am a writer of all kinds of genre fiction including hard science fiction, social fiction, space opera, fantasy, urban fantasy, sword and sorcery, epic fantasy, and a bit of pulp and horror when no one is looking. I grew up reading the required classics from Asimov to Zelazney: Dune, Foundation, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Chronicles of Amber, The Eternal Champion Sagas, Xenogenesis, Lord of Light and The Hyperion Cantos.

My guilty pleasures included the hard science styling of Ben Bova and Larry Niven, the wild space romps of Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat, Steve Perry’s The Man Who Never Missed and Jack L. Chalker’s space operas, The Well of Souls Saga and the Four Lords of the Diamond series and so many others…

The failures and the cowardice of modern science fiction

Though I missed the conversation a few years ago on the internet which talked about the failings of science fiction in recent years, I could completely relate to the idea that science fiction wasn’t taking the risks it once did. Its protagonists were mostly white, mostly male and moving further away from being accessible to the readers. Some of those failings included:

• social/racial inequalities in the writing the marginalizing other social groups.
• the rewarding of primarily white men as the best writers of the genre and as the main protagonists
• A failure to acknowledge writers from minority groups who may have different views of the future
• a failure of the genre to address near-future issues due to potential scientific complexity
• science fiction becoming more like fantasy or westerns in space
• losing the exploration of scientific ideas 
• the increasing marginalization of the genre due to lackluster efforts of writers to explore more risky ideas
• the increasingly doom-centric orientation of the genre and the preponderance of dystopian fiction
• the lack of ideas of working toward a positive future
• The lack of scientific interest in the potential audience which reduces the potential quality of stories

As a long time reader of the genre, I am aware of how science fiction has been used to address a variety of social ills. Many such works exist. A quick sampling include:

• The Left Hand of Darkness - deals with a world where gender is almost non-existent except for periods of reproduction. Considered a work of feminist fiction, it addresses a world where many of our planet’s polar extremes of behavior simply don’t exist.

• The Handmaid’s Tale - a tale where the rights of women are completely removed when a neo-Christian movement takes over the government and uses religion to brutally subjugate women.

• Nineteen Eighty-Four - a world of perpetual warfare, psychological manipulation, mind control and the creation of a surveillance society.

• Brave New World - promotes a society which at first glance resembles a utopia, where want has been eliminated along with a segment of free will. Population is regulated, children born in artificial wombs, a caste society is instituted with regimented behavior, drug use and recreational sex being the norm of the society.

While I don’t as yet consider myself in such august company, I have tried to use science fiction to address a variety of social ills and challenges facing humanity today in my collection of short stories called Hayward’s Reach:

• Genetically Modified Organisms -  in my story of the same name, I posit the idea of our constant experimentation with GMOs without a real understanding of how such interactions might affect each other over time. Reinforcing of genetic traits could lead to an alteration of human consciousness.

• Suicide Seed - In a similar vein, I posit the idea of transgenetic mutation of plants by corporate entities using transform viruses. These viruses while originally designed to affect plants cross over into human populations, potentially rendering the human race sterile in the same fashion as large agro-corporations want to do to control seed development and food production.

• The Great White Spot - a story in which I posit an Earth whose runaway greenhouse effect cause by global warming creates a storm similar to the Great Red Spot on the surface of Jupiter. A storm of immense size, ferocity and because of the inability to cool off, eventually erases all life on Earth.

• Pax Cyridian - a tale where genetic engineering of insect-like lifeforms results in new forms of life able to work and live with humanity in relative peace. Instead of an industrial age, the people of Cyridia use organic life to perform the work of machines until a military leader decides to create new lifeforms adapted for war and conquest.

• Paper - a world where the internet has become infected with self-replicating virus programs, information held in books is now more important than ever. A young man in Mexico finds a cache of old magazines and has been selling them to bidders anonymously. His brother’s selfish greed puts them both at risk when he reveals the cache of reading materials and tries to sell them to a criminal enterprise.

• Hub City Blues - in one of my largest projects I am experimenting with creating a positive near-future world where humanity is trying to put off the future of impending global warming by creating a variety of new world arcologies. These super-cities use the most advance sciences known to man in an effort to create a new way of life utilizing a variety of alternative energies. Much of the technology used in Hub City is based from technology being created daily such as programmable matter, diverse solar and wind technologies, new underground building and waste management technologies.

• The Last Divide - I am not above using a variety of different memes to address ideas around our modern world such as the proliferation of social media and its complete invasion of all levels of our society. This piece plays with the idea of social media after death; who maintains our social profiles, could we pre-program our responses after our passing? Could programs be written to approximate our social media habits and continue them, extending our social media existence?

I have to admit I was a bit embarrassed to be writing stories such as these because they are so far removed from much of the science fiction I see being written today.I’m not disparaging such science fiction because it is both popular and from a writer’s perspective quite profitable. I keep hearing the litany of the writers everywhere: Readers don’t want challenge, they want escapism. So if you make them work too hard, they will put your book down. I just don’t happen to agree with it. Eventually, I believe they will want more. So I write and wait.

Can we as science fiction writers make any changes in our society through our work?

Once upon a time science fiction propelled engineers and scientists to create ideas and technologies which are only now becoming a reality.  Look at our cell phones, submarines, computer monitors, space craft, and wireless technologies, many of these started in the minds of early writers of the genre fiction. For a time, successful science fiction television inspired an entire generation of scientists, astronauts and engineers. We see far less of that today, with science fiction instead promoting a fear of technology or a return to superstition rather than embracing scientific curiosity.

Can science fiction tell potential stories about the human condition and potentially guide policies toward the effective use of science in society?

Some of our science fiction has lent itself to predicting trends in human behavior such as Nineteen Eighty-Four prediction of a surveillance state, similar to the one we find ourselves approaching in 2014. There does not seem to be quite as much of that kind of writing today. I believe part of the reason is the breakneck pace of scientific advancement. It is hard to write a novel about a piece of technology or a technological idea because by the time you finish the novel the idea has been superseded by a more advanced piece of technology in two years it took for you to finish your tale. I think it is a risk few writers are willing to risk their careers on.

After reading Should Science Fiction Die, and other such screeds on the failure of science fiction writers to innovate, to solve problems, take risks, ask questions, challenge the status quo and include complex themes within their body of work, I feel much less like I am on the wrong track and instead just working on a different kind of story-telling.

I’m done being embarrassed about asking questions or trying to find answers with my science fiction. I’m quoting one of my favorite space westerns, Firefly’s Captain Malcolm Reynolds: “So no more runnin’. I aim to misbehave.”

Other related articles: 

Science Fiction Goes McDonald’s: Less Taste, More Gristle; Huffington Post, 2013, Athena Andreadis, Ph.D.

Should Scifi Die?: In the plane of the ecliptic, 2009, Jetse de Vries

Racism and Science Fiction; The New York Review of Science Fiction, Samuel R. Delany

Where is the World in the World Fantasy Awards?: World SF Blog, 2009, Lavie Tidhar

Superficial Darkness and Luminous Ink: World SF Blog, 2013, Athena Andreadis; originally posted at Starship Reckless

Stranger and Happier: A Positive Science Fiction Platform; Strange and Happy, Jason Stoddard

What is Human Wave Science Fiction?: According to Hoyt, Sarah A. Hoyt

Barbarian Confessions; Asimov’s Science Fiction, Thought Experiments, 2006, Kristine Kathyrn Rusch

Mundane Science Fiction; founded by Geoff Ryman

Megastructures: Artwork by Steve Burg © 2012-2013

E-waste Explosion Continues…

Having talked about E-waste in past articles on Open Salon (Forget About Saving the Earth… and on the Good Men Project in Gadgets: A Perfect Storm of Wrong) this recent info-graphic embodies more up to date information from the EPA reinforcing the idea we are not handling the development of technology in a responsible manner for the simplest of reasons: No one is being held economically culpable for the development of new devices without concern for the disposal of the old technology.

What should happen from the development of any portable technology is a disposal fee built right into the cost of the device. The provider pays a part and the customer pays a part. When it’s time to dispose of the tech it is sent to a facility to maximize its safe disposal rather than shipping it overseas and allowing the lowest paid labor to handle the disposal in the most toxic method possible, usually by burning it, releasing long-lived and deadly dioxins into the atmosphere.

Remember, this info-graphic only discusses e-waste produced in the United States. As other countries ramp up their production, these numbers will continue to skyrocket. The only thing we know about e-waste for sure is eventually it will be coming to a landfill or garbage disposal facility near you. You won’t have a choice unless we start handling this problem today.

Prescient Inspiration: Play once a day or as necessary…

Charlie Chaplin’s Speech at the end of The Great Dictator (1940)

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an Emperor, that’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that. We all want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in;
machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.
Our knowledge has made us cynical,
our cleverness hard and unkind.
We think too much and feel too little.
More than machinery we need humanity,
more than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.

Without these qualities life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say: do not despair.

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators will die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die liberty will never perish.

Soldiers: don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder!

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men,
machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts.
You are not machines!
You are not cattle!
You are men!!
You have the love of humanity in your hearts.
You don’t hate, only the unloved hate.
The unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers: don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty!

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written:
- “The kingdom of God is within man.”
Not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men: in you!

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power, let us all unite!
Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security.
By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people.

Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers! In the name of democracy: let us all UNITE!”

I have, until I heard this, never knew anything or heard anything which espoused my personal belief in human potential, in human virtue, in the strength of what is good in humanity in such a clear and focused way. I keep thoughts like these to myself because I fear most people would think I am too optimistic about people, that I don’t recognize what terrible things humans are capable of. I tend to think differently in that regard. I think of what we could do if we harness our energies for good, the same way we harness them for greed or fame or dominance over our fellow man. I will live this way even if no one but me can believe it is possible to harness the good in men. I think of movies today and find them mostly banal, filled with little to stir men’s hearts, but this, this is an anthem worth remembering.

The Overblown Death of the PC (part 2)

“The PC Market is collapsing.” –Business Insider

“Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have taken the world by storm. Apple launched theiPhone six years ago. Three years later came the iPad. Google sold its first Android phone in 2008, five years ago. Is the PC dead yet?” –Yahoo Finance with the Business Insider

In Part One of The Overblown Death of the PC we talked about the reasons people believed the personal computer to be on its way out. I disagreed with almost all of them.

But that conversation on LinkedIn continued and the overall message shifted to virtualization, thin clients, and the much ballyhooed “Bring Your Own Device” or BYOD premise of bringing whatever you prefer and just connecting it to the company network.

Bring Your Own Device is not a silver bullet. BYOD is just one of a new strain of network security concerns which continue to abound in our modern age. Malware and other denial of service attacks continue to increase and are working on more sensitive integrated systems every day. As the technology for smarter devices continues to develop and as fast as new apps are being developed, malware is just as quickly propagating across this new interconnected and completely open environment.

What I hear far too little of is an understanding of the new technological ecosystem being developed. In addition to the growing iOS and Android playgrounds where few if any environmental monitoring is being done, almost no malware protections are being enacted and neither security processes, nor human awareness have kept pace with the potential for hackers to invade the privacy of billions of potential devices which lie unprotected for the most part.

Adding to this tech-soup of potential vulnerability are the complexities of virtual computing and remote desktop environments, as well as thin client systems are all becoming dependent on cloud computing technology, wide area networks and client-managed environments. Few are discussing the increasing complexity of these environments where hardware is centralized but use is distributed through a multitude of virtual environments without concern for operational capacity, network stability, and Internet connectivity.

We are seeing more outages of the Internet daily, so much so, there are applications which monitor traffic to let you know which services are currently available:http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/ . Though this tool is primarily for popular web services, Amazon has a version which is also accessible through the internet:http://status.aws.amazon.com/ . Each tool like these is predicated on the idea that no system of computer operation is infallible and the more interconnected we become the more likely we will find the opportunity to see first hand:

For Want of a Nail
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a nail.

The death of the desktop computer is built around the idea we have managed to supersede what the tool has given us.

• That we have managed to secure our environments, to create infrastructure which will support wireless technologies, metropolitan area networks, and the inevitable planetary-area networks we are designing.
• That we are able to effectively isolate and route around failed areas of the largest network which connects us all, the internet. The jury is out.
• That we have greater control of our soon-to-be completely necessary planetary network in such a way, hacking vulnerabilities are a thing of the past, every system which is put on that network is aware of how to deal with potential threats, without human intervention and will do so in a fashion so humans can simply be informed without having to worry about restorations of a failed environment, first.
• That scrupulous use of said planetary network ensures no one will be using it to unlawfully monitor its users, manipulate the users or their data, socially engineer user behavior for profit, perform acts of vandalism or terrorism, using said network as part of a control system and structure for acts of military warfare or sabotage.

So, is the desktop dead? Is that even the right question?

Perhaps the question should be: Is the desktop computer being killed by corporations who want to manipulate users into a cycle of:

• Regular planned obsolescence – creating underpowered devices which need constant upgrade to deal with software bloat, development issues and a constant need for upgrades.
• Consumerism – the technology is really being structured around pushing products, dependence and reliance on said devices (extending the reign of television advertising in the new medium).
• Development Control: by getting rid of users ability to create information this creates a more passive audience waiting for new “products” and “fees” for receiving them. 
• Health issues: The long-term effect of using said devices in terms of user health (eyestrain, inattention, psychological distress) and destroying the environment to feed the engine of gadget production.

Is the death of the PC being artificially hastened to sell portable digital technology, even when financial, economic, social, and technological safeguards for that technology are not currently in place? Oh yes, I would say so, just from watching the industry and its lust for profit.

The PC is not dead. But we are sealing it up alive in the coffin for profit’s sake. Think of how much money can be made while new interfaces are being developed. Think of all the planned obsolescence inherently built into each device, replacing it after only 6-12 months. Imagine all of that technological churn being done, the billions spent on advertising new versions of old devices with only minuscule differences making corporations like Apple some of the most profitable agencies on Earth. Think of the ever-expanding app industry estimated to grow to $25 billion dollars in 2013 and continuing to grow. There is so much money to be made by Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, and other device manufacturers I can’t see them NOT promoting the device/gadget over desktops. The potential profitability is absolutely astounding. Charge as much for a handheld device as you do for a laptop with 1/10 the functionality, but call it mobile. “Make a gadget cool, and the sheep will follow.”

If the PC is dying, I suspect someone is killing it; for a profit. And it’s not the butler.

See Also: Gadgets: A Perfect Storm of Wrong – Where I discuss the environmental issues around the constant proliferation of gadget/device technology.

Perspectives on Cybersecurity

As the head of United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) and the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, General Keith Alexander is at the front lines of many aspects of American national security. While online life has improved many aspects of public life, it has also opened up a entirely new realm of possibilities for those wishing to do the US harm.

The Overblown Death of the PC – Part 1

A month ago Regina Pilkington posed the question “Do you envision desktop computers as obsolete in a few years?” on LinkedIn and I waited before I answered, curious what others would say. I didn’t have to wait long. What I heard surprised me. And my response will surprise you.

Most of what I heard was:

• The PC is dead or so in decline, it may as well be dead.
• It has no future, it is being replaced by digital devices.
• The PC is a dinosaur and is being replaced by BYOD and virtualization.
• In a decade or less, there will be no market for PCs, look at their inevitable decline in the market.
• Apple is getting out of the business, Dell is shifting markets, HP is foundering, the PC’s reign is over.

There were a few more moderate voices:

• “The obsolescence of the desktop in my opinion is held back by the effectiveness of the desktop interface.”
• “The form factor will survive over the next 5 – 10 years. The ease and size of the system is not possible in the tablet for now.” 
• “My feeling is it will never be obsolete, it will be one of many different ways (just not the only one) to compute.”

And then one other voice rang out with the question, I think everyone was dreading:

• “How long ago did that dinosaur called the mainframe disappear?” (He clarified saying he was being facetious because mainframes are still not dead.)

This question irks me when I see it making the rounds on the tech journals and publications because of the weak premise and lame assumptions used to prognosticate the Death of the PC and as if to make it worse, these tech pundits want to make predictions as if they were any better at predicting long-term technology trends than religious leaders are at predicting the end of the world. Let me save you the trouble. Manufacturers are scrambling and technology is changing but it is safe to say, the personal computer will be around for quite some time to come even if it doesn’t look quite like you remember it.

My response: No. The PC era is not over. Not by a long shot. Not even in a decade.

No matter what form it takes, no matter what it will look like, (smartphone, tablet, head-up display) the era of the PC (Personal Computer) is not over and not likely to be any time soon. If it is based in silicon, it is still a personal computer.

“Big boxes of mostly air” (as they are known by PC technicians) may fall from grace for those people who think smaller and more mobile is better, but those are the same people who will be complaining when network connectivity and data transfer rates can’t keep up with the increasing demand being placed on networked devices and the networks that serve them.

Add to this equation the varying reliability of the cloud infrastructure and people who depend on their portable device for computational ability will be sorely disappointed as more devices means interruptions in service due to demand load, poor design of software and hardware, incompatibilities of design and infrastructure, malware, viruses and good old-fashioned human error.

Despite the Microsoft and Apple compulsion to squeeze out new OS every two years or less, the software infrastructure for PCs is still more robust, stable and better defended than the portable OSs being used right now.

Those portable OSs are ripe for attack because they are being developed faster than they are being protected. Yes, someone will get around to writing tools for protection, but since there is little agreement on standards and protocols, hackers and their ilk will have a field day while such agreements are being forged. If you think the transition to portable devices will be smooth and seamless, you will be disappointed, no matter what pundits predict.

On top of everything else, those more portable devices are still not as powerful, not as expandable, not as configurable as a current desktop or well-made laptop, nor do they offer as many options for use.

• They cannot be used in tandem, compounding their power and effectiveness. 
• You will not see a server farm made with iPhones any time soon. 
• They cannot be programmed or developed from, easily, if at all. 
• They are primarily tools of data use, information viewing and consumption 
• Devices are the digital equivalent of a television, a phone, and a piece of paper. 
• Until they get an interface which integrates voice and gesture into an effective interface, they will always be substandard tools to do any advanced work such as design.

What smaller devices offer flexibility and portability. They are still PCs, now more personal than ever. They will still require powerful servers to coordinate their data, access search engines, and store data for use by these smaller RPC (remote personal computers). The PC era is not dead and will not likely be dead until such time as we are producing computers that are biological in nature and do not require the use of any technologies which currently resemble anything we do today.

The PC is transformed (again) it is now the Remote Personal Computer, it is the Server Computer, it is the distributed computing system (another aspect of ‘the cloud’.) This penchant for imagining the death of the PC is the same as when cars appeared and the death of the bicycle or the train were predicted. I still see trains and they are as vital a technology as they have ever been. I am still running over bike messengers on my way to work.

Instead of alarmist (and futile) predictions of the end of the PC as we know it, let’s instead predict how the PC will be transformed into a tool of greater utility and diversity, how we will make it easier to store, utilize and share information effectively without creating larger, slower, less efficient networks. Then we can talk about creating the next generation of computers which might truly lay the PC as we know it today, in all of its iterations, to rest.

The Science of Science Fiction (1)

I find myself both a writer of science fiction and a questioner of science fact. When I find a question which intrigues me, I am compelled to try and answer. Today’s questions deal with the issues of ugly aliens in modern media and the question of alien languages. To start this off, let’s watch a video of some of the Earth’s ugliest animals. Believe me, it is relevant.

To be fair, some of these animals are pets and chosen because they were ugly, a couple were damaged due to car accidents or surgery, and at least one was premature in its development. The point of the video is for all of those who were NOT unnatural in their representation, they are as varied and diverse as could be. Yet they all share the same root DNA. And with that let’s ask:

Why are aliens in media so ugly?

Earth has been home to millions of different species in the time that it has existed in the known universe (an estimated 4 billion years, give or take). As far as we know, all life exists due to the existence of DNA/RNA interactions. Yes, there are some exceptions but for the most part, life as we know it, and almost as we define it, utilizes DNA as part of its makeup. Bear with me.

We as humans, have no idea what other potential forms of life can exist in the universe, because we have no information regarding the basis for that life. Does it use DNA? Does it use carbon chains? Is it even based in carbon at all? Look at all of the potential forms of life which Earth has spawned. Almost all of the ones considered common to most people reside in only three or four of these phyla listed below: plants, animals, algae and fungi. Within those four phyla are millions of potential aliens waiting to visit the Earth.

Writers take the liberty of creating aliens partially as metaphor, partially as mirror, partially as allegory, of the idea of the Other. That which is outside of us (Humanity). Since Earth has been host to millions of lifeforms it is safe to say that Aliens will be different than us, and depending on where they hail, will certainly NOT resemble us, television not withstanding.

Remember television has production issues and one of them is costuming, so our aliens must resemble us or their production costs become prohibitive. In writing Aliens, we have the liberty of making them different. Indeed, we have a responsibility as writers to make them different from us, because they WILL be.

They have been born of another star, another planet’s life-giving chemicals in combination with billions of years of their own evolutionary, environmental, and potentially cultural information creating a creatures as unique, potentially fascinating and if they can cross space to get to us, as complex as we are.

We will probably find them difficult to look at, think about all the life on Earth we are not thrilled to see, snakes, frogs, bears, spiders, insects in general, because they are so different from what we consider the norm, our upright, bipedal, bilaterally-symmetric form with our endo-skeleton, squishy organs and folded brain inside of our cranium, our jelly-filled eyes, our fragile and easily punctured skin which contains our miles of nervous tissue, many yards of intestines and sponge-like oxygen capture system; not to mention our mechanically pumping cardiovascular system and electrically charged neural activity.

I don’t believe aliens will look like us. We share our genetic heritage with every living thing on Earth and yet there are millions upon millions of different forms of life on the planet. We share 94% of our genetic material with an octopus. That 6% difference has created a vastly dissimilar life-form. A 2% difference gives us chimpanzees or other simians. A 1% difference gave us the now extinct Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, and most of the modern football players of today. What will a creature from another world, that may or may not use DNA look like to human eyes? It may be more terrible than we an even imagine.

Our concepts of beauty are written into our DNA (our acceptance of the golden ratio, a natural evolutionary pattern of development used by plants and animals for leaf and branch development, nervous system density, and even the distance between our eyes, nose and mouth that we find pleasing to look upon,) so we may be repulsed by their appearance without even understanding why because their “golden ratio” may be different than our own.

In my opinion, if First Contact is a physical one, visible to the general public, and the aliens are not anthropomorphic (resembling humans in a bilateral symmetry, bipedal with a similar physical appearance), the human reaction will be directly related to what the human mind will associate the appearance of the aliens to creatures in our own environment. Humanity’s innate fears and revulsion will likely prejudice their responses if the aliens appear too non-human. If they appear to resemble insects or some extremely divergent form of life, for example (as the aliens in District 9 appear to) humans may not be able to even consider them as intelligent or sentient. On Earth, natural selection seemed to favor insects; there are physically more insects on Earth than any other kind of animal combined. (Don’t think about it, you will only want to go out and buy more Raid.) It is not too hard to see insectoid intelligences being a possibility as an alien visitor. If they resembled terrestrial insects, they may also have a completely different outlook on life or individualism as a whole, since insects have more of a collective intelligence than an intelligence based on individual thought or action. Each acts as part of a greater whole. Would such a society value individualism? Would they consider us intelligent at all?

To us, anything that isn’t us, isn’t normal. How traumatic it will be for us as a species to find other sentience out there that did not evolve into what we consider to be the ultimate expression of intelligent life on Earth. Of course we would consider it ugly. It isn’t us. It mocks us, likely by resembling some other member of our planetary phyla and reminding us that we aren’t all that special. Some other creature might have made it to the top of the food chain; and on their world, it wasn’t us.

What would an advanced alien language look like?

If anyone were being honest, the answer would be: We have almost no idea of what an alien language would look like either in appearance, structure, delivery, interpretation or nuances.

But we are not honest so we presume to have an opinion about what aliens might use for language. But the only creatures we could use as a reference point would be aliens whose physical characteristics, biome limitations, and species similarities would make them in most ways like us. They might communicate using written variations similar to languages used on Earth with written and vocal components. But reference the Kung! people for a variation outside of the norm of most people. (See Click consonant:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_consonant)

As humans we can barely conceive of a language which is encoded in flashes of light, potentially dependent on frequencies we cannot see, or on positions of the lights on the body of the alien, which could convey any number of concepts or notions, or depending on the medium of the light being emitted or the delay between entities giving subtleties and nuances about how the message should be received or what to do with the message after it has been interpreted.

We would be hard pressed to imagine a language from a creature with a four lobed brain (potentially capable of thinking or processing information in ways we have yet to conceive of) with multiple arms/tentacles who might use the position of their tentacles the same way a Chinese cuneiform might embed a particular meaning within the structure of the position of those tentacles, and the movement of the tentacles, and the positions between each character could convey a series of information about how the second character should be interpreted and implying what the next character may portend.

If the creature in question embodied information delivery the same way cephalopods on Earth change color, it could be another layered conversation taking place in the color transitions as well as the arm placements.

If the species in question lives in water, it may also take advantage of the medium’s enhance propensity for sending vibration to encoded sub-aural information as infra-sound, either as a completely separate information stream, or as a data supplement to arm position, and skin color information. Such a creature could conceivably attempt to communicate with us in three different formats and we would still have NO idea we were even being spoken to!

Humanity must admit when considering conversation with alien species, we will and should throw out all of our preconceived notions about what form or appearance such communication will take place in. It may simply be more fantastic than we can begin to imagine.

My answer to: Why are aliens so ugly? first appeared on Quora.com. © Thaddeus Howze 2013. All Rights Reserved [ @ebonstorm]

The New Age of Malware (courtesy of BYOD)

BYOD: We can't repel malware of that magnitude! -- Admiral Ackbar

As I have mentioned in other articles, [http://exm.nr/x8dv4p] malware is not going away. If anything it is going to explode in the coming years due to the continued erosion of IT standards in the workplace. Technologies such as cloud computing, social media and memes such as BYOD (Bring Your Own Device [to the workplace]) are prepared to compromise enterprise security by:

1. Allowing devices that cannot be managed or secured into the workplace environment and allowing users to store company data on those devices. Such devices can easily be lost, stolen and the information vulnerable due to a lack of viable security measures or even the ability to be wiped remotely.

2. Devices such as smartphones or other mobile technology often has limited wireless security or protection, making grabbing data from such technology the next logical step from the cracking community. Do you remember Firesheep? A tool that allowed a remote hacker to grab information from Mozilla browsers in unsecure environments such as coffee shops. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firesheep]

3. As the rise of BYOD continues and resistance to standardization grows, malware will continue to be a rising threat for Android and iDevices alike, [http://zd.net/w20FMG - Android users hit by scareware scam], for the simple reason that apps created for both devices, while monitored loosely, are not absolutely guaranteed of being without sinister purposes in addition to providing whatever resource information they APPEAR to be providing. So while it may be providing you a map to downtown Boston, it could also be monitoring your credit card or online bank information at different locations as well.

4. Social media has not stopped being both a productivity time sink, costing the nation billions in lost productivity (neither commenting for the good or the bad of this, noting it, nothing more) and a vector for virus transmission, personal information gathering, and credit information hacking. Facebook, Twitter, Sony, Google and Amazon have all experienced theft, leaks, loss or outright sale of personal data in 2010-2011 and this trend show no sign of slowing.

5. While the cloud offers the option of being a means of creating virtual environments that are claimed to be safer than your current environment, it means relying increasing on an internet whose services are either being turned into commodities (allowing their prices to be changed, usually higher, without warning or recourse) or those services will be subject to powerful new government interventions such as SOPA or Protect IP [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act], which may make working with materials and providers who will be forced to increase the costs of their service to offset their increases caused by having to improve monitoring of their technology for copyright infringement. This cost is always directed at the user of the technology.

6. Nor does SOPA actually ensure you are any safer from hacking, indeed it may simply be another way such activity is lost in the shuffle as hackers are far more agile in their ability to develop their responses to technology than mainstream users. During the transition to SOPA standards, systems will be more vulnerable than ever.

7. It appears IT is losing the battle for standardization as a means of protecting the enterprise. New technologies such as virtualization promise the ability to deliver the PC experience to any device but most of those are also dependent on the Internet as the deliverer of service. This only means one thing. The cost of protecting your enterprise will increase as the vectors — devices, browsers, clients, cloud, virtualization, continue to proliferate.

In summary: Our enterprise networks have never truly been safe. The threats ranged from:

• Inadequate layered defenses against attacks: There are still numerous environments especially in small to medium size businesses that do not have firewalls of any kind, any sort of data protection, backup, or redeployment procedure in case of equipment failure, anti-malware, or anti-virus technology in place.
• Social engineering: manipulating users in an environment to release information about the systems they use to make hacking easier
• Poor Password Management: Not creating standards for the effective use, configuration or dissemination of difficult to crack passwords
• Poor standardization of environments: reducing the number of potential holes in the environment by reducing the number of different versions of operating systems, programs and infrastructure support systems
• Poor policy management: The inability of environments to create usable, enforceable policies designed to make repair, replication, storage, service agreements, backup and responsible use of the office technology to protect company assets from theft, loss, or accidental erasure.

There are many other threats, but our environments have been safer than before many of these ideas were enacted, but the truth of the matter has been our virus software is always at least one day behind the release of any new virus, malware or exploit. Indeed, the zero day release of a virus or exploit could allow thousands or even millions of devices to be infected before anyone is aware the problem has occurred.

In days to come, the already existing suite of issues will only be added to with the continued threat of cloud computing downtime, legitimate accessibility as well as unwanted attacks from outside sources, rising costs both in terms of energy use and costs from service providers and the increasing vulnerability BYOD will bring to the enterprise as hackers/crackers begin to exploit the weaknesses of said devices while under-staffed, overworked and under-appreciated IT departments attempt to stem the tide while providing these new and highly desired services and technologies users feel empower them, without understanding the consequences of that empowerment. It empowers the Dark Side as well. [http://www.csoonline.com/article/print/696325]

@ebonstorm – Thaddeus Howze Atreides

Hearing Loss by the Numbers

Personal Music Devices Causing Deafness?

A study suggests that increased usage of portable music players and earbuds has led to significant hearing loss in today’s youth. Many contend that hearing loss is being exaggerated and people are not going deaf any faster than they have in the past. I will make a case for the idea that not only are we going deaf faster than we have in the past, but that our technology has a direct effect on that loss even if you are not a regular user of personal music devices. The simple answer is yes, Personal Music Devices such as the iPod or Zune do contribute to hearing loss and will continue to do so in the future until people understand the nature of hearing. Yes, we use them more than we did in the past, their sales are skyrocketing and there is no end in sight. This is a problem because the earbuds direct sound right into the ear canal effectively destroying hearing at the source. As to what I would do about it, I do not own one. My hearing is safe…

Lets get a bit deeper into the subject, shall we? 

• Is the use of Personal Music Devices such as the Zune or iPod a cultural trend that will pass or is it something that will continue growing greater with each year?
• Why the need to play music all the time–are such music listeners avoiding personal growth issues by simply drowning out the need to listen to internal dialogue that might be beneficial for personal development?
• Why are so many young people unaware of the damage they are doing to their hearing listening to music at 120 to 140 decibels directly into their ear canal?
• Whatever the actual reason the problem is only going to get worse and the results of that problem are able to be described in a few paragraph for all of you suffering from short attentions spans.

When you lose your hearing (notice when, not if), you will lose an entire world of abilities that you currently take for granted: 

You will lose your music, the thing you loved so well, you played your iPod or Zune or (insert brand name here) until it deafened you. You will never hear those sounds again. You may feel the vibrations if you get close enough to a loud speaker, but subtlety of sound is lost to you. Gone will be one of the greatest artistic expressions of the human species, second only to speaking; music. 

You will never hear a Gregorian chant, a symphony in D minor, the acappella sounds of African tribes who sing like angels, the sonorous majesty of a bagpipe on the moors, the roar of an African lion on a veldt that you won’t get to see for another two decades from now, long after your last hearing has vanished completely. 

You will never hear your child’s voice or your grandchildren asking you to pick them up or run with them. No sound so sweet will ever grace your ears. You will lose the ability to drive, because you cannot hear the sounds of emergency vehicles, or the sound of horns warning you of impending danger. 

You will never receive a phone call without the use of some form of teletype or close captioning technology. You may not consider that much of a burden with the advances of technology and the prevalence of texting, but your hands (and your thumbs) will not be young forever, repetitive stress WILL catch up to you… 

You will never hear the sounds of running water. If you haven’t stopped to appreciate it, get out to a water fountain in a park and sit and listen to it. I know you are busy, but slow down and just sit there for a half an hour. Feel the calm that washes over you. That will be gone as well. You will never hear the sound of your lover’s voice, or their breath in your ear. If you know what I am talking about, (and sooner or later you will) nothing will ever replace THAT sound. 

The sounds of your friends voices will be gone, the sounds of your television will be gone, the sounds of your movies will be gone. If you doubt those sounds are important, you can get a set of sound cancellation headphones and wear them for a week. Wear them everywhere. Notice how empty your world will appear. Everything is still there, but you simply won’t be participating at the same level. 

Don’t forget to learn to read lips (if you are a spy, you are already ahead of the curve), because most people will not know sign language; oh, I forgot to mention, you might want to learn to sign, since you are now considered disabled and might need an interpreter for legal documents, or medical procedures, or to even speak to anyone with any speed. 

And many of you will say, SO WHAT! I hate my life anyway, that is why I listen to ThrashPunkSoulDestroyer at 150 db (decibels) in the first place! It is to you I say, you may not always hate life. And what a terrible price it would be to discover that you love life only to realize that you will never hear it again. 

For those who have gotten this far, I wanted to say, thanks for reading on. I believe that such noise generating technology only adds to the overwhelming amount of noise pollution already being generated by our world at large. If you live in an industrial or urban area, just walking the street exposes you to approximately 80-90 decibels of sound before you do anything else. Most people will put on their ear-buds (which channel the music directly into the ear canal) and turn it up loud enough to drown out the external noises. This means you are getting a full dose of sound, powerful enough to damage the ear drum at 100 decibels. That is the equivalent of a railroad train passing you at 5 feet!

It is a proven fact, the longer you listen to high intensity sound, the more damage you do to your eardrum. Human ears were designed (use that word loosely, I don’t want arguments over WHO designed the human ear) to listen to the sound level of a human voice or human voices in limited numbers. Most of our technology exceeds the threshold of the human voice with almost no effort. This includes lawnmowers, motorcycles, airplanes, and my personal nemesis (for which I see almost no utility whatsoever,) the Sunday morning, I am trying to sleep in, god-dammit I am hung over, sleep destroying from 100 meters, leaf-blower!

Okay, lets get to some facts.

1. Once hearing is lost, it can never be recovered.
2. The human ear can hear a range of sounds.
3. As the ear takes damage, the range of sound is diminished.
4. A condition called tinnitus (also known as ringing in the ears) is the ear’s way of letting you know that you are losing access to a range of sounds.
5. When sufficient ranges are lost, hearing loss is said to be occurring.
6. Hearing loss is natural in humans, even those that live in rural settings due to the lessening of effectiveness of the ear’s sound generating mechanism, but this process should take many years and would normally not be an issue until the early 60′s.
7. With the preponderance of high intensity, steady-state noise most people are subjected to, we have seen a loss of hearing ability, earlier and earlier even in people who do not use personal music devices.Within the PMD crowd, we are expecting to see catastrophic numbers of people losing some range or possibly nearly all range of conversational hearing capabilities, due to their listening to music at catastrophic volumes equivalent to a high level rock concert for at least 4 hours a day (120-130 decibels, the equivalent of 12 to 14 times greater sound energy than the normally safest range of sound for the human ear!)

The science of sound: 

A simple definition of noise is – any unwanted sound. Yes, this means you with your iPod playing at 11 and I can hear you across the subway train that I am riding on. Yes the subway train at 110 db, and I can still hear your music more than 15 feet way from me. Yes, I hear your crappy rock band and wish I could be somewhere else but in nearly ever direction is someone else doing the same stupid thing. My only consolation is that in 15 years, I won’t have to put up with this because all of you will be deaf, and my stock in hearing aid companies will be skyrocketing!

Noise is measured in decibels and the scale often employed dB(A) is weighted to the range perceived by the human ear. The decibel system is frequently misinterpreted as it is based on a logarithmic scale. This means that a sound level of 100dB(A) contains twice the energy of a sound level of 97dB(A).

A rise of 10 dB in sound level corresponds roughly to a doubling of subjective loudness. Therefore a sound of 80 dB is twice as loud as a sound of 70 dB which is twice as loud as a sound of 60 dB. Correspondingly, the 80 dB sound is 4 times louder than the 60 dB sound.

Distance plays an important role in the perceived sound level. Sound levels decrease by approximately 6 dB every time the distance from the source is doubled. Sound levels inside a property will be approximately 10dB less than those outside, even when a window is open.

Noise not only affects hearing. It affects other parts of the body and body systems. It is now known that noise:

1. Increases blood pressure
2. Has negative cardiovascular effects such as changing the way the heart beats
3. Increases breathing rate
4. Disturbs digestion
5. Can cause an upset stomach or ulcer
6. Can negatively impact a developing foetus and possibly contribute to premature birth
7. Makes it difficult to sleep, even after the noise stops
8. Intensifies the effects of factors such as drugs, alcohol, carbon monoxide and ageing
9. In fact research now suggests that noise may be causing 2000-4000 deaths annually as a result of an increase in cardiovascular disease

Example Sound Levels

With all of this new science around how sound affects us, it is not a surprise that the term “noise pollution” is gaining traction as a viable source of potential problem for most urban dwellers.

It is difficult to say whether this trend can be stopped. Most people simply do not know enough about hearing to be worried about its potential loss. They believe hearing aids will restore their ability to hear (they won’t, they cannot give you back ranges of sound you have lost, they simply move the sound into a range you may still be able to hear, but there is quality lost) or that science will find a cure for this inconvenience. It may, but no time soon, definitely not in time for our Generation Y and Millenials to have hearing after the age of 40 or so. Likely no scientific research on the restoration of hearing at this point will be helping the deliberate loss of hearing that will be occurring in epic proportions in the next twenty to thirty years. Once it is gone, it is gone forever. Buy stock in hearing aid companies, I see big business soon!

In closing, I say to you this: You do not have to value your hearing. You can dispose of it just like you would any other natural resource that you started life with — your liver, your kidneys, your heart, your brain; you are free to do with those things what you like, they belong to you. But remember, once you lose the natural bounty that is yours; your senses, your means of interacting with the world and all of the inherent things that make life worth living will seem a little less bright.

And yes there are people who live without those senses right now, but not by choice and most would gladly trade places with you for an hour of what you have thrown away, simply because you were too unaware of its value to consider it important. Like most things human, you won’t miss it until its gone.

The Destruction of the Universe and the Comic/SF Genre

I have a problem with comic universes and science fiction storylines that offer the destruction of their universes by a single threat, no matter how powerful that threat may be. It may make for compelling storytelling in theory, but when you look at the science behind it, its just lazy storytelling. Destroying the universe is really a lot harder to do that you might think. As humans, we are simply not aware of the scale of power that is potentially available out there, so we jump from nuclear bombs, to destroying the universe without really looking at anything in between.

The cliff notes might look like this: muscle power (tentacle power, whatever), muscle with rock, thrown rock, bigger rock, add velocity, create rock or stick propelling device, add more muscle, store energy then propel matter, chemically propelled matter, explosively release chemical energy, explosively release nuclear energy, fuse nuclear matter then release energy, propel asteroids at planets, collect stray gaseous matter into stars, compress super amounts of matter until star heats, fuses and explodes in shortened lifespan then run from supernova, smash neutron stars together for galaxy-spanning gamma ray pulse, annihilate matter with anti-matter, add stellar masses until a super gravity field forms, create singularity (black hole), create super-massive black hole then trap other stars until galaxy forms, consume other galaxies, compress billions of galaxies into quasar, compress all matter in known universe into tiny super-singularity, release for Big Bang or alternatively, allow for membranes between universal branes to bang together, releasing an entire universe worth of energy disrupting previous universe, erasing all existing matter and start again overlapping previous universe. Surely somewhere in between the rock and the big bang we can find a story worth telling.

Galactus, Destroyer of Worlds

Creative License or “I reserve the right to destroy the Universe…”

To give you a summary of the article is to say this, plain and simple: The Universe is too damn BIG for Thanos, Galactus, The Kree, Skrull, The Infinity Gems, Master Order/Lord Chaos, Darkseid, the Anti-life Equation, The Anti-Monitor, Access or anything else, for that matter, to destroy in a single effort. Any creature or creatures powerful to know how to destroy the ENTIRE Universe would probably be too sane to do it or allow such knowledge to fall into the hands of creatures who would. And the logical problem to be derived from that though process is, what do you have them protect when saving the universe becomes routine? Other universes, perhaps even the Omniverse (the sum of all universes, no matter where or when they are, including all related multiple universes, timelines, or realities).

(For the record, I have the same problems with the Green Lantern Corp only needing 3600 members to patrol the entire Universe. Given that our galaxy alone has 100 billion stars, it means that each member of the Corp in our Galaxy alone had 2,777,778 stars to patrol!)

I know what you are saying, writers reserve the creative right to destroy the universe or to have heroes “patrol” the universe, if it will carry a plot; but I say fey. Writers have a responsibility to work to make their stories good, not to rely on lazy writing plots like “the destruction of all life in the universe” to make it seem important enough for the heroes to save it. I see this so often it almost seems that the universe is imperiled at least twice a year.

I want to give you a scale to work with but I need to give you a science lesson, so hang tight. (for the record, the numbers I am going to give you will quickly be beyond the realm of human comprehension, and that is exactly my point.)

Light is the fastest known thing in the Real Universe that we know of. It is capable of moving in normal space at 186,282 miles in one second. This means that to cross the distance between the Earth and its nearest neighbor, the Moon, (240,000 miles away) takes about a second and a half. While it may appear instantaneous at extremely short distances, say – in your room, space is so big that time actually passes between when you hit the switch and when it arrives somewhere.

To cross the distance from the Earth to the Sun at 93,000,000 miles or so, takes approximately 8.5 minutes. Can you imagine the fastest thing in the universe taking a whopping 9 minutes to cross between the Sun and the Earth. Seems like a slug when you look at it like that. No, what it really means is that space is really big. But lets look further. It takes nearly an hour for a beam of light to reach the planet Pluto from the sun (Pluto is 5,913,520,000 km from the Sun). This is the fastest thing in the Universe and yet takes an hour to reach a planet in the same solar system. But in one year, a beam of light can travel 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers for you English blokes).

What does this have to do with the destruction of the Universe, you might ask? Plenty so read on.

Space is Big…

For a beam of light to travel to the next nearest star to Earth, Alpha Centauri, light takes 4.2 years. Alpha Centauri is approximately 25.5 trillion miles from the Earth. A radio message from here to there would take 8 years for a single exchange of “hello, is this thing on?”

The Universe is so large that it must be measured in lightyears because miles and kilometers are simply too small to do it justice. So our basic unit of measure is the lightyear or 6 trillion miles. Unfortunately the Universe is so large that we must still augment the Lightyear a bit further. The next unit of measure is called the parsec. It is considered to be approximately 3.3 lightyears long. This is the most common measure of interstellar or intergalactic distances.

This is a huge distance and we believe that even if the universe is flat and finite, that this would mean that the Universe is incredibly large. Its actual size is a difficult thing to explain but lets assume that we are not in the middle of the Universe but that everything in the Universe is receeding from us, we theoretically measure the Universe to be 75 billion lightyears from “center to edge”.

Stellar Cosmology

The most basic building block of the Universe is the star. 90% of all stars in the universe are called red dwarfs (sorry, Superman). They are approximately the same size as the Earth give or take 10 to 200%. The remainder of stars are a variety of sizes and energy output from small burned out white dwarfs (hunks of transmuted carbon burning with incandesent heat, literally hunks of space-charcoal) to blue-white supergiants who burn themselves out in a stellar flash of 75 million years. There are stars estimated to be equal to the size of our inner solar system! (VY Canis Majoris). Stars are the basic expressions of the Universe’s ability to convert matter to energy through the fusion of hydrogen to helium. This produces a byproduct of energy and recombinated matter. This fusion will occur until the star cannot transmute matter any further (yes, that means it will convert and fuse atoms until a star turns into IRON, a non-reactive, stable metal). The main sequence of stars chart (show below) notes the different physical characteristics of stars, their lifespans and galactic percentages.

The Earth’s Sun (a G type star) produces totally per second 4×10 to the 26th power Watts of energy per second into space. Every second, it produces an amount of energy equivalent to the detonation of about 100 billion 1-megaton nuclear weapons. It has an internal core temperature of approximately 15 million degrees, cooling to a meager 6000 degrees at the surface. At these temperatures, most matter cannot even exist under normal conditions. Its internal pressures are greater than 20 times the density of iron or 150,000 kg/m3.

Occasionally a star with 9 times the mass of our sun, (a relatively uninteresting and underpowered specimen as star’s go) explodes creating a supernova. This explosion is a magnificent representation of the power of stars and is responsible for the final transmutation of all the heavy metals in the universe. All the gold, silver and other super-heavy elements are formed in the supernovas of stars. The next time you think about any heavy metal, including the ones that make up your body, magnesium, iron, calcium, know that a star was destroyed to produce it.

Massive stars after they explode, their remaining matter collapses upon itself to form a singularity or black hole. This means that all of the remaining matter of that star is now shrunken to a single point in space, with an intense gravitational field surrounding it. This gravity is so great that, not even light can escape it. As an expression of natural phenomenon, it is one of the ultimate forms of power in our universe and a lynchpin holding entire galaxies together with the force of its gravity. It emits no form of radiation so it cannot be detected directly at all, only by its indirect effect on its environment.

Enough with the basics, now on to the good stuff!

The Good Stuff: How Aliens Do It…

A paper on the idea of intergalactic intelligence suggests that a civilization goes through several stages before it attempts to leave it’s planet and expand into space.

Stage I is when a species utilizes it fuels on its planet to power its ascent into space. The most likely of these fuels are going to probably be radioactive, solar or geothermal in nature, but other alternatives might also be available. On planets that have superheavy gravity, other means may be necessary to achieve spaceflight. (Humanity in most superhero comics is a species of this nature.)

The Marvel’s Universe’s Kree Civilization

Stage II – Once a species achieves spaceflight, they will attempt to harness more of their next greatest power source, their star. In the beginning they will probably harness solar radiation by capturing it and directing it toward the planet or converting it into other forms of radiation. As their technology improves they will move into stage III.

(Most of the Marvel Universes races are at a stage between level 2 and Level 3. The Kree (shown to the right), Skrull, Shiar, all appear to be Level 2 to 3 even with the advent of other technologies such as faster than light communication and travel. Their planetscaping technologies and energy production/harnessing technologies seem primitive in comparison. Most DC races share a similar condition even in the 30th century of the Legion of Superheroes.)

Stage III is when a planet has harnessed all the energy of their star by destroying all the planets in their solar system and creating around their star a means of absorbing all of the energy of their star. This device was theorized by a scientist named Freeman Dyson and has been called a Dyson’s Sphere. This world on the interior of a ball would be thousands of times larger than anything this civilization had ever known and could possibly support their species’ energy needs for the lifetime of their star. (This is an incredible feat to destroy all your planets to create a new superenvironment around your sun to harness all 10 to the 38 power in Watts of energy being emitted by a star like the Sun every second.)

(Galactus would seem to be an example of a Level 3 life form since it has been theorized that his Worldship possessed an engine powered by a star in a manner similar to a Dyson Sphere. Tyrant also possessed similar technology but few other species have been seen to possess such advanced technology. Curiously enough the New Gods, who seem to have technology with the capabilities to create Dyson Spheres have not. It would seem that they have chosen to tap energy from the Source instead of harnessing it from the environment. Darkseid seems to use the geothermal energy of Apokolips but how it is converted to his personal use is as yet unknown.)

Stage IV is when a species is able to create such worlds around other stars to harness their energy as well or to utilize energy conversions that are more potent and/or efficient than stellar conversions. This would include the barely known quantum phenomena or matter/antimatter interactions. Even these feats, if they could be performed would not allow for energy creations too much greater than natural ones because the environment that would allow for their creation would be too difficult to maintain. (The Markovians from Jack L. Chalker’s Well of Souls Saga could qualify as Level 4 intelligences; so could the “Q” or “Trelane” of Star Trek fame.)

I write all of these things to say that if a civilization has the power to perform feats that allow them to move their entire civilization while they terraform their entire solar system, it still does not all them the power to destroy the entire 17,662.5 billion light year area that our Theoretical Universe takes up.

Back to Destroying the Universe…or I’ll have Black Holes and Quasars for $1,000, Alex….

If a species can harness a single black hole’s incredible gravitation power and use it for evil, they still could not destroy the entire universe. I know where there is already a black hole a million times stronger than any single one formed from any single supernova. And it is right here in our galactic backyard.

A representation of the Milky Way galaxy (we are here…)

At the center of most galaxies is theorized to be a supermassive black hole with the mass of at least a million suns. It is the superglue that holds galaxies together. Harnessing the power of such an object would make a species incredible, the 100 billion or so stars plus the power of the supermassive black hole at the center of it would be an incredible species indeed. But still not enough to destroy the entire universe, since the entire universe has an estimated 100 billion galaxies, each galaxy with at least 100 billion stars, each having at a conservative estimate 1000 planets with potentially intelligent life. There are super-large cannibal galaxies with over a trillion stars!

The farthest object that we have ever clearly detected in our Universe is a QSO-quasi-stellar object at 4,700 million parsecs away from us! This is a distance of almost 5 billion parsecs or 15 billion light years! This QSO or quasar is immeasurable powerful. It generates the energy output of a million galaxies, each with the energy of a 100 billion suns in a area that is less than 2000 parsecs in size! The brightest quasars consume the equivalent of 1000 solar masses a year.

If a species was able to generate the power of a single QSO, they still could not destroy the Universe, considering that we already know where a 1,000 of these things are and the Universe is still here. QSOs are so powerful, you can use them as navigational beacons between galaxies because they define the edge of the known universe and do not move in relationship to anything else. Creatures of the DCU’s fifth dimension who seem to possess the ability to modify the reality of the third dimension, still seem to have inherent limitations to what they are able to do, no matter how seemingly fantastic they can be. The entire species of the “Q” or entities from the Fifth dimension could utilize all of the power from an energy source as a QSO and still have plenty of power left over for millions of years.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of the stakes being high when I am reading a story, but no matter who the antagonist is, when I look at the Earth and understand how truly insignificant it is in the overall scheme of things, (a solar prominence on the sun could swallow the Earth totally destroying all life on Earth with the force of 100,000 nuclear warheads in less than a second) I find it hard to argue that Thanos could destroy “all that there is” in a single second. On the other hand I do offer a couple of handy outs.

You can’t destroy the Universe. Its where I keep all my stuff…

Our local galactic star-group (shown above) is about 1000 Kiloparsecs in size. It includes the Milky Way galaxy and about 20 other local galaxies including the Andromeda Galaxy. I believe that if a device or weapon or tool, of an incredibly advanced technology, far greater than any we have seen in the Marvel or DC Universes (I might make a case for the Wildstorm Universe, seeing how they have technology that has claimed to have captured a “fledgling or baby universe” at the moment of its “birth” and are using it as a powersource for the Authority’s “Carrier”, this is the only technology I have seen that might impress me able to rewrite a section of the local galactic space, a tiny area, in the overall scheme of things) I might offer that a species might have the ability to devastate a portion of Universal space similar in size to that. This would effectively “destroy the Universe” as we know it and still not make a dent in the overall Universal structure.

As a matter of fact, there is a scientific premise that might be exploited for this purpose. At the galactic level, there are several regions of intergalactic space at appear “empty” meaning apparently devoid of any intergalatic materials. These regions are called ‘voids’. Galaxies are not generally found in isolation, nor are they randomly distributed throughout the Universe. Most are surrounded by a swarm of satellite galaxies and are themselves embedded in larger aggregates called groups or clusters. These large concentrations of galaxies form part of even larger scale structures such as the galactic filaments and sheets which contain millions of galaxies. Between these enormous walls of galaxies lie regions which are very sparsely populated – these are known as ‘galactic voids’. From a storytelling point of view could have been local galactic clusters gone ‘bad’ due to the meddling of a powerful superspecies that could harness the energy of something greater than a QSO. The true origins of galactic voids are still being discovered and it is hinted that dark matter may be involved.

As for events such as DCU’s Crisis storylines, I do not for a single instant believe that the entire Universe was rewritten. Instead, I consider that the fabric of their local universe (a 2-5 million light year region) was remade while the rest of the Universe was unaffected by the DC Universe’s reconstructive surgery. This could include all of their parallel timelines, quantum realms, and nearby dimensional realms like the Fifth Dimension or the New Gods dimensions. I don’t care what DC says, the universe should not be as easy to destroy and recreate as blowing my nose and thinking about it.

I think that nature abhors a vacuum and would allow the fabric of space to fold over the regions that were obliterated by poor management and incorporate them back into the Universe at large, managment free, at this point. I understand that in Marvel and the DCU are both trying to keep their characters fresh and their universal continuity somewhat stable but I believe a tiny bit of science might make their stories and ideas more palatable without having to destroy the universe every ten or fifteen years.

Now all of this is “in my humble opinion” and I have used a few planet destroying, solar system destroying and even galaxy destroying (very small, petite galaxies, 10,000 stars at best) storylines for my roleplaying games and writing, but I have only tried one time to tell the tale of the end of the Universe, and it was being used as a backdrop, not as an element the players needed to affect. I understand the high stakes gambit, but it is up to a good writer to find a way to increase the stakes without going just too damn far.

As an added feature, I have included a shockwave flash file called the Scale of the Universe. It takes a second to load, but once it does, it will take you on an interactive trip from the quantum foam of the structure of the universe to the very edges of our perceivable universe. An awesome trip putting everything into its proper place and perspective.

The text of this article is © 1998, 2010,Thaddeus Howze, All Rights Reserved

ebonstorm@gmail.com - A Matter of Scale

Originally published for the Metahuman Information Database.

All images are the products of their respective publishers – Walt Disney Company, Marvel Entertainment, DC Comics and Times Warner Entertainment.