BLOGS

As a SyFy novel, it's not for the faint-of-heart, nor slight of attention span, as in you really need to know your Trek Universe. Without giving up too much of the plot, it does raise some interesting caveats: it points out in its fictional realm authoritarians typically want control over others, and fight any change - Warp Drive or 1st Contact, even the kind that insures the survival of the species. This Zephram Cochrane is more like the one in TOS versus the TNG/Borg Paramount version. It's kind of like reading The Pursuit of Happyness, and then seeing the movie (I did). As in "Pursuit," both remarkably different from each other, but each deeply satisfying in their own right.

How does it relate to this post? One way is the well worn cliche "life imitates art," but the other that concerned me as I flew through this enjoyable novel: what forces would try to resist this next "giant leap for mankind?" If I've learned anything, science is political, and our current in-species prejudices could quickly (and disastrously, I'm afraid) become xenophobia.

I'd love to live to see this happen. Wars are either fought over limited resources, or in our nature. Initially, a Moon or Mars base, then further out like Titan, a candidate for microbial extraterrestrial life as well as Terraforming; also a base of operations further from the sun's gravity well, like growing crystals on the ISS in Earth orbit could lead to physics experiments essentially macro scale versions of what's proposed above.

The world (and the universe) would indeed become a very small place.

Thank you Dr. Mae Jemison and Dr. Miguel Alcubierre.