Station Eleven

A tale of a faster, deadlier pandemic…
Kirsten: It was a woven tale.
Miranda: Meaning?
Kirsten: It started in the present, or at least, a present, jumped forward and back. Characters died and came back to life in earlier times.
Miranda: I read the premise: a post-apocalyptic story about a virus which almost eliminates human life.
Kirsten: Yes, yes. Takes out 99% of the population and kills in a day or so. Not like Covid which is much less lethal and almost languid.
Miranda: Reading such a book in the middle of a pandemic?
Kirsten: Unsettling. Highlights the fragility of human life, and the unsustainability of our civilization.
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Voice-over
“Survival is not enough” is a theme of Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven. Published in 2015, it seems as prescient as scientists warning that Covid is just a precursor of pandemics yet to come.

Three-liners from the Big Three of science fiction

Best Three Sci-Fi Writers’ Best Three-Liners

Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov, meet at a conference.

Isaac: How about a competition? See who can come up with the most memorable quote.

Arthur: You think there will come a time when people will remember us by our one liners, not our books?

Robert: Even politicians can do one-liners.

Arthur: How about three-liners?

Isaac: I can see where this is going. Problem, alternative hypothesis and null hypothesis?

Arthur: Well, just three lines that reveal a story. Like, “New ideas pass through three periods: (1) It can't be done. (2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing. (3) I knew it was a good idea all along!”

Robert: Bravo! OK, how about this? “Theology is searching in a dark cellar for a black cat that isn't there.”

Isaac: Three concepts, but only one line, Robert. Sorry. How about this to control robots? “Law 1: A robot may not injure a human. Law 2: A robot must obey human orders, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Law 3: A robot must protect itself as long as this protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

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Voice-over

So, the Big Three sci-fi writers have a three-liner competition! Arthur C. Clarke’s quote hints at his ability to prophesy. Robert Heinlein reveals his fondness for philosophy and metaphysics. Isaac Asimov dazzles with his mathematical logic. Who wins? Perhaps Asimov in this case eschews wit to attempt wisdom.

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Handshaking protocols

The visitor arrives at the Virtual Center.

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Supervisor: Find your way all right?

Visitor: Something of a journey of uncertainty. But I’m here. Nice office.

Supervisor: I feel lucky to have it. It’s a new building. I thought we’d begin by going upstairs and you can meet Carl. His unit handles the machine translation coding.

Visitor: Sounds fine.

Supervisor: In here. This is Virtual Carl, he handles the translation side of things. He’s working on a modification to Unicode. He can tell more about what this unit does.

Visitor: Virtual Carl. Nice to meet you.

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Voice-over

Getting to the point when introducing people who share an interest but have never met can follow a simple protocol to establish a connection. Something like fax machines or computer modems beeping at each other to establish connection speed, coding, interrupting procedures, etc.

In this case, the supervisor uses a location, identity, task, wh3 approach:

Where (“In here”),

Who (“This is…”),

What (“he handles…” and “he’s working on…”).

“He can tell you…” is the handover for the drill-down phase into the detail substrata.

Interesting that stories of the future (eg scifi) generally still have humans using present-day lexis, grammar and pragmatics. For an example, read the script of 2001 A Space Odyssey.

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