About Futuristic Fiction

(meta-considerations, around our setting here)

All stories about the future invite us to consider a hypothesis that may even be farfetched but is never necessarily false. Some part of it could end up becoming true, it is all extrapolation of what we have experienced in our past.

We are living the prologue of the Second Great Navigations right now, in 2025. Whatever happens in the dispute for power between the Unipolar Order under the rule of United States and the Multipolar Order proposed by BRICS. Technology is advancing to the point that makes mining and metallurgic industry in orbit of Earth and on the Moon viable. The first step in that path is still too high to be reached today, but surpassed that we reach a completely new scale of access to resources.

Game changes completely. The only analogy I can think about is the effect of Caravels in European Economy, during the Great Navigations. However, the scale here is much larger. Even considered the difference in population. The resources available once we start mining outside Earth are, if you excuse the term used in this context, astronomical.

The correlation with Great Navigations is not 1 to 1. If we have far more resources per capita in that new Great Navigations, we, on the other hand, lack native populations to “civilize” and “educate” in our ways. In this setting there are no slaves available in the market for Earthlings to explore, waiting for us on Mars or somewhere under the surface of oceans in the Moons of Jupiter. No ancient civilizations with their own roots, literature and architecture. Only ram materials. Ram materials, sunlight, and space. Lots and lots of space, open to exploration.

One thing to keep in mind is that in this fictional setting the cost to bring things from outside Earth to de surface of our planet it naturally far lower than the cost to move things from the surface to orbit. Because, in this hypothetical universe, Earth gravity is very powerful, and pushes things down.

Once they have mining operations going on, metallurgic industry operation in industrial scale, and solar panels taking advantage of solar energy outside the filters of Earth atmosphere. The considerations of economic viability change. Completely.

On Earth the cost of materials drops, and large-scale projects that are now beyond reason became viable. The expertise needed to make the orbital industry viable helps in the exploration and occupation of lands bellow the oceans. Cities protected by domes under the sea and on the frozen continent of Antarctic became viable. The knowledge obtained by experience in those large-scale projects on Earth is used in the construction of larger and saver orbital habitats, and cities on the Moon.

Mars is a logical next step. However, by this point, this is no longer a run of all humanity in one single direction. Because we are no longer pushing resources in Space Exploration for the sake of competition between nations in a dispute of egos and publicity. This is the most lucrative industry we have. Accordingly, it is expanding in all directions. Moved by private and public investment, both.

Baby Steps Age is near futuristic. It prepares the frame for something that is pure, hard-core, fantasy. Without stepping out what we broadly accept as being nature.

The invitation here is this: imagine you are living in a world where you know human population will neither decline nor remain what it is in the near future. Our specie will not even grow 2 or 5% in the next 25 years. For the point of view of those standing in the early days of Baby Steps Age (just a few decades from our time) seems self-evident that each generation will be at least 500 times more numerous than the generation that came before. Possibly more numerous than that.

They are correct in that assumption. That will remain correct for the more than 800 years of Baby Steps Age, and beyond.

Now, if you think like me first thing in your mind when I ask you to look at the world from that position is “how?”. The technical details about how to find shelter for all that people. Food, energy. However, this is not the point here. Assume those layers of the situation are taken care of.

In this instance, they are. By technologies that are mere extrapolations of things we already have. Other, fancier, things will come latter. Deeper in Baby Steps, even. Not yet.

In any case, those practical details are our of our way. Point here is: how would people deal with it? As people. The political and the private aspect of things. How families solve their conflicts under those new contingencies? How people plan for this sort of future?

Oh, there is this too: the future. People start having a lot more of it, and that is a big change that naturally takes a couple of centuries or more to start feeling “real” for the average individual. Medicine of Longevity gives us biological immortality in the early days of Baby Steps. No select circle of soulless billionaires kept it for themselves, no sucking the lives of young people is required.

Consider this. If the Medical Sciences advance in the next 75 years only as much as it advanced in the 75 years that are behind us today, in the year 2025, most of those born in the first year of present century will reach the second decade of century XXII. Active and in good health. Now, on top of that, let’s admit: is exaggerated pessimist to suppose that Medical Sciences will only advance as much in the next 75 years as it has in the previous.

Because 75 years ago human population was far smaller than it is now, and the percentage of humanity able to contribute with the advancement of hardcore sciences was also smaller. Also, because back them there was no personal computers. The sharing of information between scientists in different nations was much slower, and in many cases, geopolitics made it almost non-existent.

Medical Sciences, Engineering of Materials and Computer Sciences influence each other. Advancements in any of those three make more likely for the other two also improve.

We may be on the verge of World War 3, and the answer for that popular question “war, what is it good for?” is obvious for any intellectually honest person who looks at History. War is good for speed up scientific discovery and technological advancement. Having their survival at risk people and nations became far more motivated to make efforts. Scientists and engineers are no exception. Neither are doctors.

Is not implausible for many of those born in 1950 who are still alive today to reach 150 years. The Project Genome was officially finished in the year 2003, but that was institutional fake news. It only concluded its task in 2021. Nevertheless, it is concluded now. We should see improvements as this knowledge starts being digested by the Medical Community, and translated into practical applications. Having AIs to speed up the processing of large volume of data will, obviously, help.

This places people born in 1950 in the scope of Baby Steps Age, or very close to that. They may be among the first Biologically Immortal people. Some of them, at least. Medicine improves gradually, and does not spread uniformly. Nevertheless, it improves and spreads.

Everybody is biologically immortal now. Like many things it will change in the future, but for the moment no one can see that particular change coming.

Biological immortality do helps that populational jump. Not as much as we could assume, actually. People die from many causes, only some of those are related to old age. Fatal diseases of all kinds are disappearing too, gradually. They will be a distant memory by the end of Baby Steps, but people still die from some diseases. Specially during the first half of Baby Steps.

For those who saw it all start, the last people born and raised when the idea of biological immortality still had a taste of surreal implausibility, the fact that people still die from diseases must feel a lot less noticeable. That the fact that aging is no longer a certainty.

All this people are not on the surface of Planet Earth. That is obvious. Earth population is growing fast, but the number of artificial satellites in orbit of our plantes, with artificial gravity sustained by rotation, grows faster than human population. There is place for forests and mountains inside those artificial habitats. Cities and more cities too.

That is going to be soon the way of life more familiar to the vast majority of humanity.

Planets will be occupied. Cities are groin on Mars and on the Moon. This is just the beginning, really.

What is important to notice is that self-replicating space-stations are surpassing the reproductive capacity of humanity. Basically, there is more new homes, food and energy being created. Than new humans being born to live in those homes, consume that food and take advantage of that energy. It means a large population of people must pack their stuff and leave Earth every day.

Same will be the case for every one of those Space Stations, planets and natural satellites. Soon enough their populations reach natural limit, and expansions are needed. However, expansions can only go so far without compromise the forest and other planed “wild” areas. Eventually, people must move away.

This is a cruel reality that will take some getting used to.

“Where to go?” is a decision, not a problem. Space is really not a scarce commodity nowadays. For most practical purposes, it is infinite. So close to that, that makes no difference.

Nevertheless, people need to keep moving. What means they need to keep stablishing new nations. With new laws, and moral doctrines.

We are not living a Star Trek situation here. There are no aliens and no faster than light travel. Equally important: there was no unification of humanity under a Global Tyrant. Benign or otherwise. We still have, pretty much, separated countries, each one with its laws. Borders, and military forces to protect their territory.

Nations make alliances to explore and populate the space. By default they try to keep their colonies under control for as long as possible.

However, with floating territories on space is a matter of time. Independence Day is coming, sooner of later. Everybody starts to realize that, about the same time when they are realizing that biological immortality is not just an improvement in longevity. It is, likely, actually never decline by old age again.

Not just people are growing in numbers. Political ideologies too.

There is internet still, mind you. Is possible, and easy, to find people who think like you about most sensible subjects. When you need to move soon, to space, and that is the same situation many people find themselves in. Everywhere. Well, is only natural to choose a destination that allows you to be close to the people who share your morals and points of view. Nations of all sort of extremist and seemingly unpractical core fundaments are popping into existence every day.

Too many to count. Most will fail, some will end tragically in generalized **** or their members, wars impossible to win, or something else. Nevertheless, those experiments are preparing the ground for the more steady Solar System of the Second Fase of Baby Steps.

In individual level, people are constantly suffering with separations. Because the population grows, space is endless. Your friends are likely to choose or need to move at some point. Or possibly you will. People keep following different directions. You may still keep contact by internet (although, not in real time if your friends happen to be at some distance from the orbit of Earth. Adapt to that reality is necessary now.

Not long after humanity reach biological immortality and the multiplication of independent nations start between Earth and the Moon. Talking animals started popping up.

Many nations forbid that research, and its fruits. Most of the Earthling Nations find it disgusting. However, there are many places where this application of DNA technology is celebrated and welcomed. In different ways.

Uplifted “animals” became a thing, recognized as fact. Before they get the humanoid aspect that becomes predominant in the next centuries.

You can ignore those new talking individuals. The debate about if their existence recreates slavery or not, and if it is something to avoid or not, may remain merely academic to you. Specially if you are living on Earth. The debate about whether or not the seemingly self-sentient AIs are literally self-sentient or not is even easier to ignore. Most people leave it to specialists, and those seldom agree about the most important points.

What you cannot ignore is how fast life is changing now.

You have more children, grandchildren, and gran grandchildren than any of your ancestors from before Longevity Sciences. More than you imagined possible a few decades ago, likely.

Each one of your children is having dozens if not hundreds of children.

Almost all couples choose External Womb for most of their pregnancies. The services of “Hive Womb Companies” are easily affordable in most countries, governs help to make it accessible. The External Wombs are still too complex and expensive to be seem in private houses.

In a near future, they will become part of the essentials found in every residence. In many nations. That’s not the situation, yet.

So, this is the situation. Not on Middle Earth or Eternia.

Your city, your neighbourhood, and your very house are in this setting. In fact, we are talking about a period so close in time that is plausible for you to be still living where you live today. Alive, thanks to the initial steps of Longevity Medicine having arrived soon enough to you.

Retirement is out of the table. Economy is pretty crazy right now, upside down in many aspects. What could be taken for granted in the past no longer is on the table.

What was impossible, is now pedestrian reality for most.

Nevertheless, people are still people. More importantly: you are still you.

When you look at a window somewhere, and see this world. How you deal with it?

Are you satisfied with this optimistic, expansive, perspective of new generations? Do you plan to move from Earth to somewhere, where people who share your existential preferences have congregated? Or do you plan to stay and keep things as close as what they used to be as possible? Something in between?

Which fights are you likely to choose? What your plans for the next year, decade (and century?) looks like?

For starts, I believe that is an interesting step: how far away are you planning your future now?

A larger human population means more scientists, more doctors, more artists, more philosophers. More engineers. More fields of study than ever before. Specific sub-areas of Physics and Mathematics that would have been understood by hardly a dozen specialists in the near past, now have millions of scholars dedicated to them. Soon, this will escalate to billions. That change is scale changes the nature of many problems.

Science and technology improve faster than ever.

It may be important, or irrelevant. For some it is reason for hope, for others the very opposite.

What about you?

From the moment we share today, 02/21/2025, is still uncertain if the “Rules Based International Order” where United States dictates its will and everybody else must cow down will prevail or not. In the case of Earth Universe in Sharitarn Multiverse we had the unification of humanity in one nation, under one law. Like happens in Star Trek setting. Here, we have the opposite. Baby Steps Age is a time when sovereign nations remain sovereign, and the right of self-determination of each people prevails over the desire of having one common moral frame applied everywhere.

In this world the Universal Human Rights have, in a sense, lost. However, it was not an unconditional surrender, by any stretch of imagination.

The sense of a common humanity survives. To grow into a deep obsession later, as Baby Steps advances, the Hearth of Humanity is build and the Consensus of Alexandria takes place in Egypt. Preparing the stage for Exploration Age.

Nevertheless, the dominant tone in this period is self-determination. What means you have significant difference between the laws in your nation and those in other countries. No authority able to punish crimes beyond national borders without the cooperation of other nations, and no one capable to **** that cooperation everywhere on the globe. For the individual that opens the possibility of migrate to the nation with laws that better suit personal convictions.

Not necessarily an easy thing to do, since nations have borders and do control those borders following their on national interest. Still, possibility exists.

In most parts we have moved back to traditional families. Not the “nuclear families” around one heterosexual couple, but actual traditional families. Those formed by three or more generations living side by side and surrounded by a community that shares similar cultural roots, moral values, religion and nationality.

In little more than 100 years the ideal of equal distribution of power and same social role for both sexes resulted in the morbid consequence of birthrates bellow the necessary for replacement of those who die. We have the strange situation where populations with access to food and water, even medical assistance, are declining. Without the help of bombardments or biblical plagues. That is the reason why most populations in Baby Steps Age abandon gender equality, in some degree. However, the degree in which they do so, and the justifications they elect to present to themselves, change from one place to the next.

Some nations leave education entirely in the hands of families, trusting the families have all the necessary tools to teach their children de basic. Thanks to computers and ever advancing AIs. Some nations invest in full time education and favour internal schools.

There is strong pressure for both, as a larger portion of humanity starts having larger and larger numbers of children. Parents in most parts will choose some children to keep home and educate themselves, and send the rest to full time schools. Administrated and paid by the State. Mostly.

Churches also have their educational institutions, nowadays. In this setting some religions have accumulated experience in education. And are not too lazy to take advantage of that expertise and history.

Private companies also have their schools.

There is competition between the three models, but no exclusion of two in benefit of one of them, necessarily. We may find nations that elect one alternative and close the door for the other two. Many other nations allow all three, and only have favour one or another in small and discreet ways.

No nation has the geopolitical obligation to be, neither in reality nor in name, a “democracy” anymore. No international “community” is imposing it since the early days of proper Baby Steps. Nevertheless, many nations are self-declared democracies. And they may, likely, by more sincere in that now than they where back in the days when democracy was an obligation imposed by a metaphorical gun pointed at the heads of all nations.

Once more, it means your decision of where you live, and how much you will involve yourself with politics matter more nowadays.

What you choose to teach to your children, if you choose to educate them yourself, may end up being the core principles of some future nation in space. If that happens, there is a serious risk that you will live to see the consequences. In person or in internet.

That is a kind of responsibility we are not used to, right now. How each one of us will deal with it, during those first decades of Baby Steps?

This is the exercise of imagination implied by the stories in Baby Steps Age period. Where would I stand in this time, and what I will be doing there?