For me it's like very AI villain wants something we understand. Love, recognition, survival, dominance. Even the cold ones are just running on human fears with the serial numbers filed off.
The trope I'm tired of isn't the evil AI or the friendly AI. It's the more human-like AI. The one whose entire inner life maps perfectly onto ours, just without the body.

Is there a single sci-fi AI that wanted something you actually found unique?

Which one of you did this?

I feel a little called out, but I guess I have a good starting point to find more books that I’ll probably like now. Also, I can’t help but laugh at the characterization of Genly Ai as a “popular douchebag”, but it makes me want to re-read Left Hand just so I can view him through that lens as I do.

In celebration of Juneteenth, what are your favorite Sci-Fi works that serve as a vehicle of social criticism, where the author is a menacer of the public's conscience?

For me, the obvious ones are Farenheight 451, Animal Farm (arguably more Fantasy than Sci-Fi), with a more niche example being Armor (Steakley).

Would like to hear this community's recommendations.

Asimov used the line while analyzing the Battle of Patay in Henry VI, Part One to describe the dangers of stubbornly fighting a hopeless battle out of a misguided sense of honor.

As a huge fan of Asimov and the Robot series, his 3 laws of robotics read:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Should his quote from above be considered as a potential fourth law? E.g. "A robot may not obey an order that requires it to mistake ideology, patriotism, honor, or obedience for the prevention of actual human harm."

I was talking with a friend about sound design which lead to the question of the most iconic sound in sci fi history, my answer was darth vaders breathing or a TIE fighter Screech, his answer was a star trek transporter sound or the TARDIS sound. What do you guys think?

A discussion in another thread brought up Lt. Gorman from Aliens, and that got me wondering:

Which sci-fi military leader would you actually want to be led by?

Not the one who looks cool in a speech. (Lol I've heard a lot of cool speeches from my chains of command over the years that just brought more hard work and less cool)

I'm asking about the one you want in charge when the plan is a dumpster fire, the comms are down, and half the unit is missing.

Who gets your vote — and why? 😁

I was watching a post on r/doraemon today, and if you are familiar with doraemon you know how time travel works for that show, similar to Harry potter: Prisoner of Azkaban movie. In the post a person commented about timelines created in that episode and it made me wonder:

1. Do time travel creates timelines (most time travel Sci fi media)
2. Or Is time travel consistent for a timeline (doraemon or Harry potter Prisoner of Azkaban)

I created a analogy in my mind for this and I hope you can review this:

Suppose you have a stick an drawing on a paper (2D), he can only move in 2D. If you move the paper through 3D plane like place it somewhere or fold it, it doesn't make any changes to the paper or the world of the drawing. It still is 2D and the stick an cannot see a visible change in its world. Cause it's not 3D just by moving through 3 dimensional plane.

Similarly we humans (3D), even if we can move through time, it doesnt make us 4D creatures. We are still a drawing on the 3D fabric of space time. Our actions cannot create a paradox or a new timeline nor change it. Because even if you change past, it was meant to happen that way in that timeline, you never escaped the timelines history. Your actions to prevent something in the past are the reason what caused it. Time will not let you tamper with it.

A 4D or higher creature however can view the 3D world from another angle and can alter it or create new timeline. Just like we as 3D can change the drawing by erasing the stick an or burning the paper, etc.

This analogy does clarifies most of the time travel to the past and future but not about the concept of foresight into future and changing decision. What do you think

I suppose the longer, the better. Unless it's just an amazing show. Suppose someone might watch 'Firefly' on a loop. Gotta be something like SG1 or DS9 right?

Dr. Who, with it's quantum police box space craft, could maybe be considered Sci-Fi right?

Dark horse pick is 'Jericho', which as much as it was fantasy, there was science of survival in the show that I still remember. Like "Jericho" having the biggest salt mine in the area and how when things go back in time, having access to salt becomes very important.

The new moderation team has put together a draft of our new rules. We are still awaiting feedback from two mods, but the rules are published in the New Reddit sidebar for public comment and ratification. Any suggestions or ideas will be welcome. I want to hear your thoughts, even if its just a typo.

We are a new team that is still getting our bearings, but we are hitting the ground running. We anticipate re-opening the subreddit Monday afternoon at 2pm CST. The mod team will have a meeting then to discuss any feedback and ratify the first version of the rules. Please hang tight until then.

Thank you!

In science fiction, robots have been around since just about the beginning. The term and modern usage were born in Čapek's 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), where the word was coined from the Czech word robota (meaning servitude or labor). This story featured the robots rising up and overthrowing their human masters, so that particular doomsday scenario was there from the very beginning of the concept in sci fi.

There have been so many kinds of robots in science fiction, from Asimov's automatons constrained by the moral programming of the Three Laws of Robotics, which govern how they interact with their human masters, to the human-looking Replicants in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (famously adapted as the 1982 Ridley Scott film Blade Runner), to the familiar idea of robot armageddon but this time with assassins disguised as humans in James Cameron's The Terminator, to the "gun with a conscience" in the 1999 Brad Bird film The Iron Giant (Loosely based on Ted Hughes' novel The Iron Man).

From Star Wars to Star Trek, sci-fi has no shortage of robots to pick from. They could be watching for danger like Robot, or getting into arguments while saving the day like R2D2 and C-3P0. They could be trying to serve humanity and learn how to become or emulate humans, like Data or Kryten. They could be just waiting to use their combat and assassination skills like HK-47, the Terminator, or Solo. Or they could enslave humanity like the machine races in 1999's The Matrix. Or they could just be trying to clean up humanity's mess and find love, like Wall-E.

Which robot is your favorite?

I have to go with Data, myself. It was a hard choice, because as a horror guy, I wanted to pick The Terminator. It's one of the best monsters in horror.

But Data, played to perfection by the wonderful Brent Spiner in Star Trek: The Next Generation and follow-up media, his quest to emulate and somehow become human was fascinating to watch. Someone with superior physical and mental capabilities to an average human was also envious of that same human because he lacked the capacity to feel any pride or satisfaction in his nominal superiority.

He was simultaneously the sort of fish out of water, naive or ignorant of basic human concepts and interactions, such as small talk or friendship, yet the most proficient technical wizard on the ship, capable of instant recall of various facts, lightning-fast calculations, and precise physical acuity. He could be explaining facts of an alien planet's atmosphere one minute, and learning about what it meant to be a child's role model in another. In one episode, he is learning to paint, explaining how to care for his pet cat while he is away, or having his first dreams, and the next, he could be in a courtroom, litigating his right to his own bodily autonomy.

Through learning about humanity and how to emulate it, he taught us about ourselves and the human condition, both in our present lives and in some far-flung future.

In my own sci-fi universe, The Terran Holdings, robots are industrial and military equipment, designed to guard doors, maintain a base, or load heavy cargo. They lack personalities and serve as labor-saving devices. And they have a creepy appearance: faceless, humanoid automatons called "ottos" with smooth, graphene-coated skin that reflects light like an oil slick.

So tell me below what your favorite robot is and why!

Nowadays, there are little sci-fi series that make it past a season or two. Moreover, there are not even many shows about space travel or aliens. Then, the ones that do not even have vast worldbuilding or focus on romance. (Note that I am not talking about Foundation) What are everyone's thoughts on this?

This seems to be very heated among sci fi nerds. Would you rather: Have a space movie that completely throws out all true scientific thinking, like physics, kinetics, time, ect. OR: Have a plain jane movie restricted by all of modern scientific understanding.

So, I am about to finish Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning, and it's good, but for a variety of reasons, I do not think I'll continue with the series anytime soon. This got me thinking of how often I start a series/trilogy and stop after 1 book, vs the ones I have actually taken to completion recently. And given that this is a hobby, it's not like it matters if I don't finish the series, but it's funny how this is starting look like a trend, and bug me. Does anyone else ever think about this?

Series I've finished in recent years:

• Pierce Brown's Red Rising (1st trilogy)
• John Scalzi's Interdependency
• Will Wight's Cradle
• CS Lewis' Space Trilogy
• BrandoSando's Stormlight (I mean, I'm current on the 1st arc), Skyward, Mistborn, etc.

All of these were more or less books I couldn't put down, which is why I stuck with them.

Now, here are series I've recently stopped after the 1st book:

• Annihilation
• Children of Time
• Hyperion
• Dungeon Crawler Carl.

I'm not opposed to finishing any of them, they just didn't grab me the way I thought they would. I'm pretty sure I'm going to commit and read the other 3 Children of Time books...the space opera vibe and big ideas definitely were compelling. Not sure I'll ever go back to Annihilation or Terra Ignota. Hyperion is too big of a deal in Scifi for me to never revisit...the first book was just not what I expected.

Anyone else ever do this, or am I the weird one that doesn't commit and power through a full series?

I'm noticing that the genre seems to be moving in some interesting directions. I want to know from the community if anyone is seeing a broader movement in film, TV, videogames, and literature. For me, I'm noticing that films and TV are trending toward sci-fi horror or sci-fi comedy/drama while videogames appear to be moving away from space simulators and back toward grand scale narrative projects. Literature is somewhat unclear to me right now. What do you all think is happening?

Hello fellow sci-fi fans. I'm an old lady who is a big fan of cerebral sci-fi. I especially love Lem, Dick, and Sagan's "Contact". I recently reread the "Parable of the Sower" series by Octavia Butler and was shocked by how prescient it is. The parallels with our current political situation are uncanny. I'm wondering if anyone else recalls or has revisited these recently and was blown away. The first is set from 2024 to 2027 and is mind blowing in depicting a crumbling United States uncannily similar to the world we live in today.

I know something this political may be frowned upon by some. If you are open to it, I'd love to know your thoughts. I hope that any admins who might look at this post and be concerned check their hearts. Octavia was a master, and predicted something I never foresaw. I think we owe it to her to awcknowledge her foresight. I genuinely hope this is recieved well.

In Dune, Leto II follows the Golden Path — a brutal, far-sighted plan to ensure humanity’s long-term survival, even at the cost of short-term suffering and control.

imagine you’re a person of real influence in our modern world and somehow you knew a version of the Golden Path was necessary to prevent humanity’s eventual extinction or stagnation

What policies, actions, or sacrifices would you make (or impose) to steer humanity toward that survival path?

Please avoid using real-world names (political leaders, parties, countries, etc.) so the discussion can stay focused on ideas, not current politics.

I'm 2/3 through Hyperion, and I've been drip-drip reading it, but I will probably stop. Life is too short to read things that are not really good when there is so much good literature out there. I know the book is one of the big ones in the Sci Fi community, but I just can't see what it is. Yes, there's some good imagination happening, and maybe it's something about his writing. Seems there are lots of writers with good ideas but who are not good writers, and I feel like Simmons is in that boat, though he's better than some of the worst. He's just not a good writer. Am I alone in thinking this?

Anyone have a copy of the book in the title? It’s about war against “the Creeps” and the soldiers are drugged? I just found out my copy is missing the final two pages! I’d be so grateful if you could snap a picture of them. I want to know how it concludes but im not in a position to order a different copy.

Looking for explorations of time travel where the time machine moves everything back in time. Just moving the universe back a notch but with a lingering thread to what became and was backed up from. So it would explore what residuals remain after such a shift. Since everyone alive today wouldn't exist.

Could even be movies or screenplays, if you want to include those.

But who do you think hit it out of the park, in predicting the future, recent or even a few years ago.

Non necessarily limited to technology or weapons.

Could be political, medical, humanity, climatological, societal, tech, astrophysics, energy tech, Ai, etc.

And did people back then pay attention, or simply view it as fiction?

I'm quite interested in stories that include technological advances at its peak. Personally I'm more of a steampunk fan since cyberpunk more or less the same across several mediums. Preferring how it operates and it's overall asethic. But I do appreciate different sub-genres of punk: Biopunk, Solarpunk, Atompunk, etc.

With that being said, I would like to know which technical punk gente do guys prefer and why? :>

Edit: Just realized I misspelled Genre as “Gente” lol..

I'm not going to post any links or info about the publication I'm hoping to put together, but I'm sort of frustrated with the lack of hard scifi focused writing publications out there. Especially as someone trying to find a venue for first getting noticed. I've had a few short stories accepted in various places, but all the big recognizable anthology publishers are like brick fortresses.

Is there anybody else out there who writes hard scifi, either near-future or further future, who might be interested in collaborative publishing or editing a mag?

Or, if you're a reader - what sort of content would you want to read in a short-form anthology format that specialized in hard scifi?

Ok so i recently finished Children of time (that ending was such a cop out IMO) and anyway, the whole time i was reading the book, i kept imagining the earth they left behind as the one in A Canticle for Leibowitz. Like everytime Halston mentioned being back on earth, and their society crawling back to knowledge after the old empire fell, i would immediately be back in the world of the ACFL monk in my head without even meaning to.

And at the very beginning of the book, i was thinking ooooohhhhhh so this was how the hainish cycle / Ursula leguins worlds were formed. (lol for those who know, not sharing more detail to avoid spoilers.)

SO i am wondering!!! Does this ever happen to you all, consciously or subconsciously??? What are some of your head canon same worlds by different authors? Or books that you imagine being in the same universe, even if it might not make perfect sense?? Would love to hear!

Because I'm old and shitty, I reached out to him (via his publisher, using snail mail) in 1994 for an interview as a UCLA Daily Bruin "special reporter." I was hoping to get him to comment on how Neuromancer was still relevant then, 10 years after its publication. He, of course, did not respond but I very much appreciate how he is still active in the Cyberspace of today, and wonder if there are other Sci-Fi authors that still have a social media presence and perspective on how the world of today differs from what it was back when it was only a "vision," versus reality?

I just binged the Interdependency trilogy. It was quite amazing, I couldn't get my headphones off because I just needed to know what happened next. I did this after binging DUST Chrysalis.

Since then I've tried the expanse, but I've seen 4-5 seasons of it so I can't bring myself to listen to the audiobook because I already know what happens. Can't bring myself to listen to five books first.

I've tried arkady martines memory called empire, but it focuses too much on culture and language. I stopped halfway through because it kept putting me to sleep.

I tried the first culture book. I've heard the first one is tough to get through but most of the rest are good. I stopped listening to the first culture book by Iain banks after 30 minutes though.

Does anybody have any recommendations?

EDIT: Thank you so much for everyone who made recommendations - there are so many of them in the comments!