so i had an idea.
a history of science fiction throughout the gaming industry. science fiction has a huge genre base in gaming and has spawned many different franchises and cultural hits.

how has science fiction as a genre influenced and shaped the gaming industry as it is today? from basic 8 bit games such as asteroid, the the engine based games of today such as destiny, video games were made for science fiction. what i would like to look at in my presentation and paper, is how in the history of gaming has society been influenced, and the cultural backlash that many games have had on it. what is considered science fiction as a genre in gaming, seeing as there are many SF themes in many games. how has SF grown and changed in gaming meaning what has gaming changed for SF. what sort of advancements have been made as a result of a demand SF genre games.

i would like to find out how Science fiction has redefined gaming over the years. how it has affected the gaming and regular community, and why people love it so and still demand it. i want to answer these questions as best i can and find out for myself the impact SF has had on my games. this is something that hits close to home for me.

I’d like to discuss the idea of Megastructures within science fiction. I’d like to research their origins within the genre, their influence on today’s society, and the concepts and ideas of futurists that challenge what is conceivably possible. I’d start with the ideas of mega cities, seemingly contemporary in construction, but covering exponentially larger areas. Next would com the idea of Arcology or “architectural ecology”, which are essentially self-sustaining (ideally zero-waste) megastructures that house large populations. Then comes a shift into outer space, talking about space elevators and habitats. Lastly I’d like to cover artificial planets, Ringworlds, and Dyson Swarm. Mixed in with the research, I intend to give my own analysis on these ideas, and possible reasons as to why such ideas have come about in the first place.

Oh well, why not include some content on multiple universe theories, fractals, alternate dimensions, and chaos theory. I’m joking of course, but it would be interesting to draw parallels between all these concepts.

I wouldn’t be covering large numbers of works for this project, just key texts that illustrate each milestone. For example, I might use metropolis to talk about mega cities and use resources on real cities to make connections between science fiction and reality. How the former influences the latter. If possible I’d like to draw from different mediums of science fiction besides printed text such as, games and movies I’ve played or seen.

I seems to me that reality or our knowledge and perception of it, can’t keep up with our imaginations.“Now that we know that this is possible, what comes after?” “What else is possible, based on what we know?” We keep asking those kinds of questions until we reach a point where concepts of what is possible become too intangible for us to socially and/or scientifically conceive. Then we just have to wait for reality to catch up. This line of thinking is what I’d like to demonstrate by megastructures evolving from mega cities to interstellar(or galactic) constructs in science fiction.

In terms of the deliverable, I’m not sure exactly how it might look. I’m leaning towards a paper, but I’d like to include images and diagrams to better convey the concepts. I would still need to think on this aspect. What I can do right now, is collect the resources I would like to use in this project.

After bouncing though with many ideas i decided to go with creating a world where the advancement of technology continued with steam. How would it differ from current technology? How would society change? Would the most basic things we take for granted change minimally or drastically.

Sources would be scarce since Steampunk is a genre of science fiction that is rarely explored. This is mostly due to not really having fancy FUTURE tech. That being said the sources are out there. One film is wild wild west with Will Smith. One question that could be explored is the reason why steampunk is not that popular.

It will mostly come into fruition as a basic research paper. But the presentation is still up for debate. It will somehow include video to show examples. I was thinking of doing something like Cosmos by Neil Degrasse Tyson guiding you though these worlds.

I decided to move away from my original idea and decided to pursue a section of science fiction that I also love, space. Outer space has always had a connection with science fiction, mostly because of the possibilities for fantastic stories such a setting provides as well as the technology associated with it. I plan to do research into why science fiction has ventured into space and claimed it as its own. Whenever a story is set in space it is automatically a science fiction story and I want to know why. This may still be too broad a topic, but I know I want to do something related to do this. Perhaps I will focus on methods of space travel and how these methods affect the worlds they are in. Perhaps I can do it on how technology levels differ from civilizations. I think I can work with these.

While such a topic may consist of a paper I would like to do something more than that, but I am not sure what exactly. Writing a story may be something I want to do, but I don’t want to commit to that idea just yet.

For my 2nd project idea, I wanted to take a focus into one of my big passions which is music. I wanted to try and create an analysis of the importance that music has played in science fiction, and also, the equally important role science fiction has had on the development and construction of electronic music. If you take a hard look, it’s a lot more prevalent than you think. Many of the early modular synthesizers and sound generators were in fact developed not only for experimental research, but also to create music soundscapes for a genre of entertainment that was really starting to take off…sci-fi.

Many of the sounds we’ve been accustomed to associate with aliens, spaceships, and robots all come from sound modulators. Think of that classic sound from “The Day The Earth Stood Still,” all came from the development of an electronic instrument called the theremin, where you basically move your hands along an electro-magnetic field to create sounds. Also important to note is the importance of classical music as well.

Now vice versa, science-fiction has done a lot to push the boundaries of electronic music and the musicians that make it. Just off the top of my head, huge albums like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, David Bowie’s Space Oddity, Rush’s 2112. All of these 70’s albums have themes and concepts that deal with outer space, robots, aliens, time, etc. What these albums also have in common is a big amount of electronically synthesized instruments and sounds. The two just go together and are so important to one another when you step out of just the literary genre.

I’ll probably flesh this out a little more, but these are just some of the ideas I want to explore.

Here’s some videos of some examples.

Theremin instrument

Dark Side of the Moon Full Album