Sci-Fi Fuel #3
Short Story Title Reveal, Hidden Tribes, Space Dasani, Weird News & POD Giamatti
— This is a longer post than usual, so if you’re reading this via email, you might want to hop on over the the web version here to read the full thing! —
In This Newsletter:
Intro to Sci-Fi Fuel #3: Short Story Title Reveal + 3 Sentence Challenge!
Quantum Quote: A cool quote of the week + quick analysis!
Attack of the Jokes: Weird science/tech news + jokes!
Newstopia: Weird science/tech news minus jokes!
Incoming Transmissions: TV/film/video/podcast recommendations
Welcome to Sci-Fi Fuel #3! —
— an Alternate Timeline series highlighting news from the realms of science, tech, history, and pop culture that will help fuel your imagination.
Hi all! Sorry for the delay in posting this. I intend for issues of Sci-Fi Fuel to go out on Sundays — however, life will occasionally interrupt the flow of writing time. I’m also currently debating whether Sci-Fi Fuel should be bi-weekly. I’ll settle on that by the start of next month.
Speaking of months, I’m working hard on a short story that will be posted here at the end of October. For uninitiated new subscribers — Alternate Timeline was originally created as a space for me to 1) beef up my sci-fi prose writing skills, and 2) have each of those stories reflect the news.
The title of this month’s story is (drum roll please)—
OUSTED
—and if don’t know why, just search for the name “Kevin McCarthy.”
You can look forward to a new story at the end of each month AND the title of next story at the beginning of each month moving forward (just because that gives me that much more pressure to write it.)
But, seeing as how purpose Sci-Fi Fuel is to give you fuel for your imagination (or as
calls it, “brain petrol”), I challenge you to comment with a three sentence sci-fi story using “OUSTED” as the theme! I’ll share some of my favorites in the next newsletter.Now, let’s go ahead and rummage through some brain tingling headlines and quotes from last week!
QUANTUM QUOTE:
Adam Goodheart wrote a piece for The Atlantic that dives into the history of what was long considered to be an “uncontacted tribe,” known to outsiders as the Sentinelese (Link). However, through research, Goodheart learned that the tribe was once visited and tormented by a British man named Maurice Vidal Portman in 1879.
This haunting quote from the final paragraph stood out the most (for context, John Chau was an American Christian missionary killed by the Sentinelese in 2018) :
…Unable to capture their own footage of the Sentinelese, the filmmakers had hired animators to depict Chau’s fatal encounter. As I watched the sequence, I marveled that 10,000 miles away, the islanders were going about their daily lives, blessedly unaware that simulacra of them, several times larger than life, were flickering on a wall high above Sunset Boulevard—revealing them once more as unwilling participants in a global culture that, since Portman’s day, has wanted to know them far more than they want to know it.
Quick Sci-Fi Analysis:
The article (which has a sliver of the information contained in Goodheart’s new book, The Last Island) is a difficult read because of the brutal details it unfurls about colonization, but worth dissecting because those same details highlight its alien nature.
Proving that pictures say a thousand words, this photo of Maurice at the center of the tribe (which likely required hours to take) feels alien. Like… sci-fi alien, doesn’t it?:
In the documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, writer Tananarive Due repeats the phrase “Black history is Black horror.”
Its important to remember that science fiction is often world history, only slightly abstracted. And in writing, we have a choice of which historical perspective we’re catering to.
Where does a franchise like Avatar truly land on that scale?
And how does that compare to 2022’s Prey?
Prey is an important cultural touchstone because of the simple fact that it is rooted in American history—taking place in 1719, well before manifest destiny swallowed the bulk of the continent. Watching it is not unlike the strange dissonance described by Goodheart in the final paragraph of his Atlantic piece. We watch it in the present, with a firm grasp on what colonization has done to the indigenous population, but are also gifted with a distilled sci-fi allegory. A simulacra of the exact era the characters are living in, and we are the result of.
ATTACK OF THE JOKES:
A few weird science/tech news items made it into my daily joke series over at Letters from African America last week:
Meta is paying the celebrity faces behind its AI chatbots as much as $5 million for 6 hours of work. Clearly, the only reason to chat with these bots is to ask, “Hey, can I borrow some money?”
Its important to note that the chatbots aren’t pretending to be the celebrities, but rather — the celebrities are playing chatbot characters. As Business Insider explains “…Kendall Jenner's likeness is used for Billie, who is portrayed as a big sister to give users advice… Tom Brady plays Bru, a chatbot for debating sports.” — and we can only assume Tom Cruise will play Joey, a chatbot who gets a little antsy whenever you type a word that begins with “S.”
Scientists have extracted a secret from the `Mona Lisa’ about how Leonardo painted the masterpiece. Word of advice: Don’t ask how science concluded that he painted it in the nude.
In the next few years, the computers that power artificial intelligence could consume as much electricity as some countries do now. If that sounds daunting, there’s a simple workaround that involves turning yourself into a battery for a super-powered A.I. matrix.
The Matrix Resurrections (2021) Business Insider profiled a three-year relationship between an AI chatbot and a 47-year-old man. The couple says the secret to their longevity is:
Love
Forgiveness
And the fact that he can’t figure out how to delete the app
Space dirt retrieved from an asteroid includes clay minerals that could explain how Earth got its water. NASA scientists were thrilled by the discovery until they found a clay piece with a Dasani logo.
A “ring of fire” solar eclipse is traveling across the sky this weekend. And since the eclipse starts in Mexico and then crosses over to the United States, MAGA supporters have started shouting “Build the Space Wall!”
Okay—they weren’t all bangers. But mash that comment button if you’d like to tell me which was your favorite.
NEWSTOPIA:
Headlines and brief quotes that might get your brain moving.
October 9, 2023 — via Newsweek
'Godfather of AI' Just Issued an Ominous Warning for the Future of Humanity (Link)
October 9, 2023 — via Newsweek
The Sun Is About to Send Earth on an Electric Roller Coaster (Link)
October 9, 2023 — via Wired
Activist Hackers Are Racing Into the Israel-Hamas War—for Both Sides (Link)
October 9, 2023 — via Newsweek
14,300-Year-Old Tree Reveals Apocalyptic Warning for Today's Humans (Link)
October 10, 2023 — via Popular Mechanics
How 500 Fish Species Rapidly Evolved in One Lake (Link)
October 10, 2023 — via Newsweek
Asteroid Size of 8-Story Building To Fly Closer to Earth Than Moon (Link)
October 10, 2023 — via Wired
A Doctored Biden Video Is a Test Case for Facebook’s Deepfake Policies (Link)
October 11, 2023 — via Newsweek
Space Storms Have Weird Effect on Birds, Scientists Discover (Link)
October 11, 2023 — via Wired
This First Peek Inside NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Capsule Is a Glimpse Back in Time (Link)
October 11, 2023 — via Popular Mechanics
The Army Finally Fielded Its Drone-Killing Laser Weapon. It Could Reshape Today’s Battlefield (Link)
October 11, 2023 — via Newsweek
Toxicologists Reveal Popular Weed Killer May Harm Teenage Brains (Link)
October 11, 2023 — via Newsweek
Penguin Colony Eaten to Extinction by Foxes Returns After 30 Years (Link)
October 11, 2023 — via Newsweek
Giant Ice Planets Smashed Together in Blaze of Light—'Complete Surprise' (Link)
October 12, 2023 — via Wired
Artificial Intelligence Is Seeping Into All of Your Gadgets (Link)
October 12, 2023 — via Newsweek
Roads Can Be Built on the Moon, Laser Experiment Shows (Link)
October 12, 2023 — via Popular Mechanics
Unmistakable Evidence Shows That Mercury Just Keeps Shrinking (Link)
October 12, 2023 — via Wired
A New Tool Helps Artists Thwart AI—With a Middle Finger (Link)
October 12, 2023 — via Wired
A Groundbreaking Human Brain Cell Atlas Just Dropped (Link)
October 12, 2023 — via Wired
The Chatbots Are Now Talking to Each Other (Link)
October 13, 2023 — via Newsweek
Coffee Prices Could Rise Due to Loss of Insects (Link)
October 13, 2023 — via Wired
The Annular Solar Eclipse Will Decimate US Solar Energy Output (Link)
October 13, 2023 — via AP
NASA spacecraft launched to mysterious and rare metal asteroid in first mission of its kind (Link)
October 13, 2023 — via Newsweek
New Ancient Shark Species Discovered Hidden in World's Largest Cave System (Link)
INCOMING TRANSMISSIONS:
SCI-FI BOOK RECOMENDATIONS: From
If you’re seeking great sci-fi book recs, look no further than
’s Transfer Orbit newsletter. I’m so glad it exists that I’ll likely be linking to his posts here each week!https://transfer-orbit.ghost.io/october-2023-book-list-harrow-sanderson-mcu-kuang/
Image: Andrew Liptak
PODCAST: Paul Giamatti’s CHINWAG with Stephen Asma
Paul Giamatti has a podcast, and for the life of me I don’t know why it isn’t called POD Giamatti. Anyway, much like Christopher Columbus, I recently discovered it despite the fact that many others have already been listening. A great episode to start with is this one, with Patton Oswalt in which they explore the Mandela effect.
YOUTUBE: Why Does Attack of the Clones Look Like a Video Game?
That’s all for now. These updates will get better and more comprehensive as the weeks go by. But I also want to make them interactive. If there are any recent, weird science/tech news that you wish I listed here, drop it in the comments!
See you next week with more…
Meta Insider, Space Dirt, and Business Insider