Author Archives: Stan Caesar

Stanley’s proposal draft

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ENG 2420

I chose genetic engineering as one of my topics because genetic engineering can be expanded to brainstorm so many vivid ideas that give a bigger eye opening on this world regarding science fiction. My first idea that came to mind with genetic engineering is the rumor of a mainstream artist named Gucci Mane that was supposedly supposed to be cloned when he was released from jail. This topic is brought to my interest because it is amazing how genetic engineering in a science fiction realm can do things such as cloning people for the better. It is all within the government making these controversials actions and nobody ever says anything about it to the public. There is a reason behind all of it, because if society was to be aware of how cloning and genetic engineering exactly works, the government feels as if the world will never generate in the way they want things to go. People will get a hand on the equipment and probably come up with astonishing projects to make someone think twice how they are potentially about to change the world.

 

My other topic was ‘ Changing Ages’ because I always had a big interest on how humans went from looking like homosapiens at its first form to how we appear to each other now. There has been a big difference on what has happened in the past few decades in the way we look. Science Fiction and genetic engineering comes into play in this type of conversation because the only way evolution occurs in a world like this is genetic engineering and people who call themselves Hard Science Fiction authors that come up with controversial ideas on how to evolve humans as a whole. Our brain is developed to pretty much be able to do anything you can possibly think of, but obviously we are not capable of everything, but our mind definitely lets us explores these ideas and find ways to make it happen which is where Science Fiction role comes into play.

 

Class Notes 11/27

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Today in class, we attended The Third Annual City Tech Symposium on Science Fiction. We were presented with a panel from students that read the book named ” Shaping the Future: A Student Roundtable on Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower”. Below is the notes that was taken about the book during the panel discussion. 

 

Main character name was Keith that lived  behind a gated community. Lived in an dystopia where people attacking each other was normal.The setting of the community has not rain in years and the crime is at its highest. They call that area the  survival of the fittest. Throughout the book before he went into the world of reality, everything was spoon fed to him. The sister in the family named Lauren has a lot more say in the family than Keith. Keith went through a situation where he stepped outside the community and took the important keys that opened the gate to the community. These keys he took was so crucial and essential to the story, he went outside and put the lives of the people in the community at stake. He wants to be the man of the house but he has not faced reality yet, he went outside and was badly injured. He was taken for all his clothes and other valuables, and Keith is shown selfish. He went back out again and brought his father’s gun, he goes back out and joined a gang and paid his price for his consequences

MARVIN – PAST OF LIFE ( Lauren’s life )

People relied on God for everything

Lauren was aware of how messed up the world was

She prepared for it

Took manners into her own hands

Started to question if God is real

Put people in guidance that leaves a lot of confusion throughout the progress

She wrote down journals

Went up north to look for freedom

She did not believe in the religion everyone else believed in

She went places to find a job , and nobody would give her a job

Her friends and family is gone, so she followed God guidance’s through all her situations

NEW FAITH COMES WITHOUT 

Everything you touch changes

Taylor Franklin Banko ( Lauren’s love )

People would rather live in fear  and not be aware of what is going on

DUB 

Class Question:

What would you do when the world is pratically over ?

Dystopia/Utopia

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Stanley Caesar

ENG 2420

Professor Belli

11/13/18

 

Dystopian/Utopian

 

In the show, “ The Handmaid’s Tale”, which took place in the 1980s, but not exactly in the 1980s, but more of an alternative present day. It integrated a few additional notions of the way we live now. A dystopia is a community where there are a load of undesired wants occur and people are frightened about what goes in this small society. Once Alfred introduced herself while she was sitting in a small caged room, it gave me the idea that she was put somewhere that she did not want to be and had to obey by someone else’s rules. It was all in her tone with the way she talked about her life and where she had ended up. The difference between a Dystopia and Utopia is that in an Utopia, you are free to express yourself in your appearance while in a dystopia, you are forced to abide by the dress code depending on what your occupation is. Alfred felt because she resides in a dystopia now, she is not allowed to even say her real name, instead she has to live with a name that was given to her not at birth(5:00). –

 

The director made sure to make it known to the audience that nobody in this society is able to do anything of their wants. Alfred is forced to stay with this other female who is her “ spy” , and not her real friend. They never been acquainted with each other either. In a scene where Alfred and Martha is walking past a school full of kids dressed in the same exact clothing, Alfred gets a vision of seeing her and her family spending quality time at the beach, but it was just all of a dream (13:02). . That is what a dystopia does to one’s mind, it messes with you mentally and brainwashes your memories to forget them. A person with a pure mind and strong mindset will never forget their memories truly, so eventually, they become defiant with their doings. As watching through the show, I realized that men are allowed to dress how they desire, while women are forced to wear a long oversized dress with a white hat over their head to cover their hair. In the Jewish religion, the same concept is being taken and I see the comparison between the Jewish religion and a dystopia. Sexuality is not allowed in a dystopia either, “ Ofglen detected three bodies and noted one of them was a gay man and looked down upon it(15:42). As a society, it gives everyone the ability to see what is wrong in the society and I partially feel as if this was to go on as a social experiment for a targeted audience, it would give the world a good change in certain aspects.

 

As Far As It Goes

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In this text, ” August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” that was written by Ray Bradfury in the year 1950. This modern-based home is located in Allendale, California. Bradfury made sure his audience is aware that this home is a mind-controlled state where people are oblivious to what is really going on. No one in the house seemed to build any type of relationships with each other while there was so much going on at once.

“And the voices wailed Fire, fire, run, run, like a tragic nursery rhyme, a dozen voices, high, low, like children dying in a forest, alone, alone. And the voices fading as the wires popped their sheathings like hot chestnuts. One, two, three, four, five voices died”(Bradfury 4). This reminds me a lot of a scene that happened in “Metropolis” when the Machine stop working and everything collapsed and left everyone to die at ease while trying to escape the tragedy. Everyone inside that modern-based home was so focused on working and believing that there is nothing else in this world to focus on, but this one home that was so important to them. 

“The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, attending, in choirs. But the gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly”(Bradfury 2). This also relates to ” The Machine Stops” where Vashki stayed in this one room where she has communication with over 10,000 people in this one machine that she has access to at all times. All of these people were servicing for one objective or belief, which is demonstrate humanity in their own perspective because of their higher Gods or religion. 

This one place took over a whole population of people to believe in one thing and not even get the chance to live their own life

 

Science Fiction Class Notes on 10/8

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Announcement: 

The whole class we presented our presentations on our top choice magazine from the City Tech archive. 

The Midterm will be covering most of the content we covered already in class like vocabulary and aspects of reading a science fiction text.

Partners

Justin/Pedro: Amazing Stories(1926) Paul Ferman

Karen/Sheng: Lexumbourgian American

Chris: Archive.org/ Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 

Xishal/Phoenixx: Fantasy & Science Fiction ” IF ” Issue ( Maintained over 30 years) 3 Hugo Awards

First issue was published 1952

Terms:

Feminist ( SF)

Cyberpunk

New Wave

Golden Age( 1960s) 

Age of the Pulps

International Fiction

Afrofuturism

A Walk Into The Time Portal

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As my first time being in the City Tech archive, it was pretty amazing to be able to step inside and see what it is that has many ages to it. I never was really interested in what is contained inside of an archive, but taking a step inside made me see things differently. Some of the objects I seen inside are extremely old and so fragile that if you pick it up, it can possibly rip apart. I also saw a typewriter machine inside that people were using during the yellow journalism time period to write fake news. What was also great about the archive Is that it had a grand selection of stuff to choose from to do our assignment. It was difficult because I did not have much knowledge about science Fiction so I had to choose based off the cover art. Majority of the books I saw had great cover art also. If I ever had a research project, I would make sure going to the archive is the first place I attend.

Reading Response

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In the text,” The Machine Stops”, there are two different characters named Vashti, Kuno’s mother, and Kuno, Vashti’s son,  that have a different perspective on a way to life. Kuno is more of the direct one where he enjoys someone’s physical company rather than Vashti and how she likes to communicate through a Machine. The author made sure to portray a sensation of separation between them two to show what technology can make of someone.

In the starting point of the text, Kuno requests that Vashti pays a visit to him since he has not seen his own mom for quite some time now. His mom denies the request because she feel as if she should not have to travel to her son and enjoy the physical company, while the ‘Machine’ exists and can just see him through this Machine. As of today,society rely on technological advances to become their 3rd hand which is what is occurring with Vashti and the Machine that is deterring Kuno from seeing his mom in person. Throughout the text, Vashti encounters a problem with having direct experience with others because she never physically talk to anyone in person before. Vashti is shown to be more explicit and Kuno is an implicit type of guy for the simple fact that Vashti have no remorse in telling Kuno she does not care too much for the physical pleasure.

Technology as a whole can change the way people take a look on life due to its features and how society has consumed it to do everything from social to business aspects. It takes away the nature of wanting to spend quality time with someone in person regardless of who they are. It creates a sense of cognitive estrangement between people after a while. The author stated,” You talk as if a god had made the Machine.” cried the other. “ I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is much, but it is not everything”( The Machine Stops, page 2). The author is illustrating Kuno’ s frustration with Vashti’s obsession with the Machine and believes that this Machine is a technological advancement that came from God. Kuno wants his mom to understand that depending on technology to do everything for her will not last for too long. The best form of communication is to meet and the only way them two can meet is if Vashti boards the Airship.

Towards the middle of the story, Kuno’s mother finally takes the chance to go meet with her son and gets on the Airship with other passengers she never met. Vashti realized once she arrived to Kuno’s room that she should have came to see her son sooner when she was notified as to why it was so important that she come see him. Kuno was facing homelessness due to him going to the ‘Outside’ which is the surface of Earth. All he wanted to do was see what is life like on the outside of his world where people do not know what it is like outside of the dark world. That is exactly where cognitive estrangement comes into place in the text.