I write mostly military based science fiction and fantasy. It is my preferred niche. I think that the conflict really drives the story. What would a fantasy story be without conflict other than My Little Ponies? Science fiction can have other forms of conflict; man against planet, against space itself. Some people even believe that once we get established in space humankind will give up its warlike ways. I really don’t believe it. We are hard wired to be aggressive and territorial, just like the apes we came from. We’ve taken it to a whole other level of course. Most apes don’t kill within their own species, while that seems to be out preferred method of operation. Now we are carnivores, or at least omnivores. Are herbivores capable of intelligence? And if they are, can they be aggressive? I think anyone who has seen a charging rhino or a snorting bull would agree they definitely can be aggressive. Are all intelligent species aggressive? I guess they really don’t have to be until they run into a truly aggressive species and then it’s either learn war or go under. And can we actually change our natures through nurture. Can humanity become a totally peaceful species through psychology or drugs? And would we really want to make ourselves so helpless?
One of my favorite Larry Niven stories came from the known space series. Mankind has become the peaceful we don’t study war no more species that many flower children wished it to be. Anyone who used a fist on another person was brought in for treatment and reprogrammed. History classes were even censored, and only certain qualified people were taught about past wars, lest the delicate sensibilities of the rest of the race be disturbed (and maybe someone get ideas about conquest of fellow humans). So some of these peaceable humans, who happen to include one of those who took the forbidden history courses, are in a feeble sublight Bussard ramjet on its way to one of the human colonies, pulling a tenth of a gravity acceleration. Up comes a big hawking sphere decelerating at two hundred gravities, which means the aliens either have much superior tech to the humans, are much tougher, or both. Their tech is really superior in some respects, and the humans believe that any species that advanced must be peaceful. Switch view into the alien spaceship, which is manned by three meter tall, one thousand pound catlike creatures called the Kzinti. Kzinti are not peaceful. Their whole rationale for living is to hunt and to conquer. They prefer their foe to give them a good fight for the sake of honor. But they’ll take their subject races as they find them, and this looks like a perfect subject race. Too feeble to win a war, but with enough acumen to become good slaves in a high tech society. The humans win by a fluke. They use their com laser to cut the alien ship in half before the Kzinti realize it is a weapon, and the humans send a signal back telling the home world that the good times are over.
I do believe there will be conflict in space, whether it is between humans or between humans and aliens. Despite all of the talk of morality by the world’s religions, the morality of many people is simply to get what they can by whatever means possible, including force if they can get away with it. I am sure that many alien species will have representatives of the same kind of moral code. There was a saying that was popular back in the sixties and seventies that it took two to make war. Actually it takes two to make peace. It only takes one to make uncontested conquest, with armies rolling over the borders to take life, property and freedom. If the invasion is contested then it takes two or more, and the name of the activity is then called a war. I don’t think many people or groups will allow themselves to just be steamrolled without a fight. And from that determination will come armed conflict, now and in the future.
Kzinti
All posts tagged Kzinti
Hollywood have given us so many high budget, spectacular special effects movies recently, it’s almost hard to remember that it wasn’t always like this. Science Fiction movies used to be mostly B grade low budgets specials with maybe a guy in some kind of monster suit and spaceships suspended from visible wires. I recently did some research on movies and found that while there were a lot of bad scifi movies dating back to the twenties, there weren’t that many fantasy movies. I guess the effects were so bad that most producers wouldn’t take a risk on fantasy, or else scifi was just more popular. I think the old movie that really went over the top for me was Forbidden Planet. Made by Disney, it had ground breaking special effects and big name stars. It still took a couple of decades before that became the norm. Now we have Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the Star Trek movies. There are even TV shows with great sets and effects, and all the big name actors seem to jump at the chance to get a role in one of these spectaculars. Now there are still a lot of great books out there that have yet to be made into movies, while Hollywood goes through a remake cycle of old movies that can be updated by new effects. It saddens me that they keep ignoring so many good books. Especially the one I really want to see, Larry Niven’s Ringworld.
I would think that most true hard science fiction fans know the work of Niven. His Known Space series is his most famous setting. And Ringworld is the most well known novel within that setting. Now Hollywood likes to wow us with special effects. Death Stars, miles long spaceships, huge asteroids falling from the sky. Ringworld is so big that the crew of the Death Star would die of old age before they caused appreciable damage to it. It would take a thousand Enterprises beaming their entire crews to the surface to explore even a significant fraction of the surface. What could be more spectacular than a ring built around a sun, with thousand kilometer high walls along the edges to keep the air in as it rotates around the central star. Three million times the surface area of the Earth, with tens of thousands of species that evolved from, well, us. With enormous shades orbiting between it and the sun, mimicking the day/night cycle. Huge Bussard Ramjets using the plasma of the sun to keep the ring centered. Even the defense system is huge, magnetic lines on the floor of the world pulling gas from the sun and turning it into a huge gas laser. Sprinkle in advanced technology and aliens; a half ton carnivorous feline (Kzinti), a two headed herbivore (Puppeteers) and the ultimate killing machine which is what we are supposed to become (Pak) and you have one of the greatest cast of characters in scifi history. And the technology is there to make all of this come to life. There have been many rumors through the years that Ringworld was coming to the silver screen. None have materialized. There is a current rumor going around that it will be done, but I will believe it when I see it. Maybe it is that Hollywood can’t come up with a good enough script dumbed down for those who know nothing about science fiction, the oh wow crowd who goes to see mindless action. It is a shame, but I can see a lot of people coming out of the theater shaking their heads and wondering what all that was about. I do know that I will pay to see this movie, probably a couple of times. And then I will buy the blue ray, and then the extended blue ray, and watch it over and over again. Because even though the wow factor is cool, the wow factor combined with love of the material is the ultimate cool.