Futures

Despite Colorado's best efforts I did end up getting to watch Heroes last night. In a spirit of desperation I sent Megan a Facebook message before I left work yesterday and at 7pm I had just resigned myself to watching the “Jesus is My Friend” video repeatedly when my phone rang. Nota Bene: I don't own a TV, so I need to find a regular Monday night venue for watching Heroes.

To the tune of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” I sped to Safeway, picked up some peanut butter M&Ms and a bag of caramel apple suckers (a personal favorite) I headed out to the Martin place where I enjoyed the last 15 minutes or so of the Heroes live premier party (which is not live if you live anywhere but in east coast time, stupid Colorado) before the Heroes two-hour season opener began. Thanks again Megan.

Spoilers Ahead, Seriously

Let me just say before I get into the thick of things that Heroes is the best thing on TV right now. If you've never seen it before you need to do some illegal downloading, move it to the top of your Netflix list, or head to your local Blockbuster and get caught up. Also, if you have to start halfway that isn't a problem. The three “volumes” of Heroes are all different stories, so feel free to start at the beginning of season 2 or 3 and rest assured that the fans are just as in the dark about most things as you are.

Not only does the world need some solid science fiction (though its “solidity” is definitely debatable), but the writing and storytelling are just plain good. Heroes doesn't play the same game as Lost, giving you 15 minutes of new footage per episode and then spending the other 29 on recaps and flashbacks. And, thought to the novice it may seem scattered, the greater Heroes storyarc is usually complete by the end of the season, leaving only a few unanswered questions (like why did they have the same guy who stole Claire's Nissan Rogue at the beginning of season two go down to Mexico only to be killed by Sylar without any real explanation?).

As for the premiere itself, it was pretty well done. It did, however, seem strange that in the first episode they spoon-fed viewers the answers to questions they've been asking since season one; like, what is Angela Petrelli's power? If Sylar does ever nab Claire's power, will she live through the process? If powers can theoretically be taken away, couldn't they also be given? And most importantly: Does Sylar actually eat brains?

But, the first two episodes also gave us some great new questions to ask: How is Claire “different” from the other heroes? Does that Rafiki-like fellow who found Matt have Isaac's power? Will present-day Peter be able to use his normal abilities in his new body, or will he be limited to “sound manipulation”? If your DNA determines how your ability manifests itself, why is it that Tracy can freeze things, whereas Nikki and Jessica have super-strength? And most importantly: Since when does Hiro not actually stop time? Because if that speed-demon girl can still move then evidently he's just making things go really really slowly.

Lastly, a few thoughts on where the season is going and a couple of predictions. Heroes is a great show because it generally resists prediction – mostly because the writers monitor fan forums and make sure that the best guess is never the right guess – but I always have to try. I think the real fun of “Villains” is not so much going to be that the escapees from Level 5 need to be tracked down, but that our favorite heroes will find themselves being manipulated into doing more harm than good and the fate of the human race will be entrusted to the more peripheral characters.

What do I mean? Let's establish our groups.

Typical heroes: Peter, Claire, Hiro, Mohinder, Matt, Micah
Typical zeros: Ando, Claire's dad, Angela Petrelli, Nathan, Maya, Elle

So, where do we stand? Well Peter is already confined to the body of a villain. Ando kills Hiro in the future and I'm betting it's because Ando is in the right and Hiro has been led astray by doubt and a desire to fulfill his destiny. Mohinder, out of a desire for power, has given up his standard role as the show's moral compass, Claire is more troubled than we have already seen her, Nathan has found God, and Angela Petrelli is finally taking some responsibility for her actions.

I'm guessing that present-Peter is going to spend half the season incapacitated (as usual), future Peter is going to do more harm than good, Claire is going be soul searching and dying (repeatedly), Angela is going to have do everything in her power to save the work of the company, Ando is going to get an ability and do his best to win Hiro over, Maya is going to try to hold back Mohinder and probably just cry and say “Dios mio” a lot, Elle will prove her worth, Nathan will become the show's moral compass after either getting the best of ghost-Linderman or discovering that he's a useful ally, and ultimately Sylar will be converted. Yes, that's right, Sylar will be converted. It has to happen sooner or later.

To wrap it up: zeros become heroes, heroes become villains, and villains change their stripes.

As long as they don't “bring in the Phoenix,” as the expression I just invented goes, I think they'll do fine.

The Future Freaks Me Out

Today I went into work to finish putting together progress reports. After finally filing copies in triplicate and getting a third meal of out the leftovers from pizza Friday (the PTO buys teachers pizza once a month), I headed home to kick back for a bit and finish Dune.

In Defense of Sci-Fi

Dune was great.

I absolutely believe that Science Fiction is the last custodian of prophesy, speculative fiction, and the "fairy story" model, as practiced by J.R.R. Tolkien and George MacDonald. Frank Herbert, the author of Dune, packs into one book the most complete understanding of Western civilization that I have seen since Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. He combines a deeply Roman sense of politics, depicted in the Bene Gesserit (Latin for "he/she manages it well"), a secret society of women who are shapers of history and custodians of the art of politics, with a feudal Galactic Empire reminiscent of the Carolingians, and a superb understanding of Old Testament prophecy and Jewish mysticism depicted in his desert-dwelling Fremen. A large portion of their prophesy is in the form of direct quotation from the book of Isaiah, the Psalms, and the Pentateuch.

Dune also introduces the most complex and complete picture of an alien society that I have ever seen, and in doing so shows us what a future looks like when politics, commerce, religion, and poetry are only practiced by small and exclusive groups.

Science Fiction, as a genre, fills a vacuum left by several now extinct genres. It fills the void of Utopia Fiction, showing us how a paradise, such as that in Huxley's A Brave New World or Thomas More's Utopia, is not always what it seems. Terry Pratchet and Piers Anthony take up where Sterne and Juvenal left off with the genre of satire. Allegory, too, now seems to be the sole possession of Science Fiction.

Most importantly though, while we may not have flying cars yet, or be in imminent danger of succumbing to the rule of Big Brother, we need books like 1984 and shows like Heroes to tell us what might be coming, so that we have time to prepare, both physically and morally.

On September 10th the powers that be flipped the switch of the Large Hadron Collider. In recent years we've actually seen a lot of fruit from the world of "mad science," that is, science without any specific purpose or direction. While knowledge is obviously a good thing and we should absolutely be probing the depths of the natural world at all times, we should do so with deliberate care. Science Fiction, again, gives us a window into the future to see what the result of such labors might and will be, and, as raw science frequently forgets to do, ties these developments directly to humanity, and its detriment or advancement.

Without the permission of the author, here is a great example of amateur Sci-Fi/speculative science at work:

Through a very powerful telescope, like Hubble, we see images of stars, solar systems, and galaxies as if they are young, fresh, and in the process of creation.

But that is not so. We are merely seeing the images that have taken millions of years to get here. By now, these stars may be dead, the solar systems swallowed up into red giants, and the galaxies vanished into the black holes they are surrounded by. Humanity will never see this though, as our solar system and galaxy may indeed swallow itself up before the images of the slow deaths of these distant objects make their way to distant Earth.

In that same sense, if we could get beyond our own solar system's curb of light emmittance, by device or reflection, we could witness the birth of this planet. We could see first hand the creation of the oceans, of the continents separating, and with enough magnification, we could see the dinosaurs, watch the D-Day in real time, watch the Kennedy Assassination, watch our own births. We could see the face of Jesus.

From the right spot and with the right tools every moment of history is still accessible to us. Waves are everywhere, always just waiting to be intercepted. As we send our media, transformed into frequencies, into space, directed at satellites, a large amount of the information bypasses the satellite and just floats out into space. Somewhere, intelligent life in the next solar system might be watching the world premiere of Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time," or just getting the news that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.

Science is beautiful and frightening, and just as it was the duty of learned men in simpler times to study the stars for their meaning, to practice their Latin grammar and learn the lessons of Virgil by heart, to learn the art and the beauty of rhetoric, it is our duty to look to the future and prepare for what lies ahead.

Science Fiction keeps this spirit of philosophical and moral speculation alive, because, sooner than we imagine, the questions these books ask will actually be set before us. Will we be ready to answer?

Oh, and don't watch all of this, but here's a clip of what the SNL cast of '79 thought Jeopardy would look like in 1999:



Also, keep in mind that we're only a week or two away from all the big fall premiers and I need someone to host a viewing of the Heroes season opener. You provide the the TV, I'll bring the Man Nachos.