Jean Luc Picard, spiritually drained from another battle won, still 3 minutes, 15 seconds of show time before the credits, and time for the denouement. The Captain of the Starship Enterprise arises from the seat of command, makes halting steps waving off the advance of Doctor Crusher always hoping help, chagrined by his refusal she turns away wringing her wrists. The door to his ready room opens, and he approaches the Replicator. “Earl Grey and a slab of Bolognium.” The Replicator dutifully responds, creating chains of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates which, when correctly proportioned with water and other inorganic chemicals bring the food we eat, to fruition. But there is a problem. The replicator cannot find Bolognium in its directory of foods, body parts, living things, anything. It shudders emitting clouds of acrid smoke and dies.
What happened? Why the Bolognium problem? Was there a Bolognium agenda of some sort? No. The answer is simple. Bolognium does not exist.
In fact, science fiction sprinkled as it is with Bolognium often appears more like fantasy than science. Some stories have none. The real hard Sci-Fi. The Martian. All real, available science. An exciting story nonetheless results and the audience is drawn in without a hint of boredom.
Some have a little. Ursula LeGuin created the Ansible, a device that allowed instant communication. With travel bound by Special Relativity[i], Kingdoms could handle multiple star governance quickly (as long as the governors stayed loyal.) This was one helping of Bolognium, OK. Her stories were still fantasies (or were they?) but, OK. Sci-Fi still borrowed the device and called it other things and justified it many ways including quantum entanglement. BTW, there is a proposal out for serious study to develop such a system. Maybe de-Bologniumizing instant distant communication.
Then come Star Trek, The Next Generation, and science gets shot to hell. Continue reading “Economics, Star Trek Style”