Story idea: Resurrection Machine
This came to me in a half-dreaming state, so it is somewhere between brilliant and ridiculous.
It is after World War 3. Not so much post-Apocalypse, as post-war boom, a kind of post-post-Apocalypse.
But the Earth’s population is now a tiny fraction of what it used to be. In contrast, technology has taken an incredible leap forward, if not moral righteousness. And the Resurrection Machine is created. At first it is just immediate family that is brought back. But then we start going further and further back. We repopulate the earth until it can no longer contain us. Then we begin to colonize space.
This is not a horror movie. This is genuine wonder and celestial dream, mixed with the Law of Unintended Consequences and humanity at its extremes. It is the Future meets the Past, and how we work that out, and both are understood and taken seriously.
That is my problem with Star Trek, for all its tech, you rarely see the consequences of really revolutionary tech, apart from an occasional transporter accident involving evil twins.
Alas, this all requires a knowledge of history, to do this properly, that far outstrips my own humble education.
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
G.
February 7, 2023
Lol. Employers breaking strikes by cranking up the ol’ resurrection machine. Very scifi, your concept.
G
February 8, 2023
Exuberantly peopling the universe via resurrection is so cool
Zen
February 8, 2023
I imagine a ne’er-do-well bringing back Napoleon, who can’t wrap his mind around what has become of France, or Hitler, who discovers the rest of his eternity is running from anyone who knows who he is.
Perhaps Ghengis Khan will learn that territory is most easily acquired with space exploration and diligent terraforming, and he really needs some college to do that.
Let’s get the forces behind WWI together and look back over how that turned out.
What will a colony of 1800’s Germans do differently on Mars than ancient Egyptians? Vikings vs Maya?
People who were big in history, many of which, will fade immediately away in this new environment. Others will thrive for a time. And who will that be?
Such potential.