This week the world of science fiction lost three of its greats.

On December 4th Forrest J. Ackerman, founder and first publisher of the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland passed away in his home in Horrorwood, Karloffornia. He was 92. Ackerman, who coined the term sci fi was an inspiration to nearly everyone who ever made a science fiction or horror film, wrote a sci-fi or horror novel or who was just a fan of the fearsome and fanged. Uncle Forry, as he was known to his fans, discovered such science fiction luminaries as authors Ray Bradbury and A.E. van Vogt, and acted as their literary agent. He was a renowned collector of science fiction and horror film memorabilia and generously opened his home, the Ackermansion, to fans who wanted to see his collection.

The following day, December 5th, the world lost Beverly Garland. A versatile actress, Garland had roles in numerous films and TV shows from her debut in 1950 up until 1998. Many will recall her recurring roles in the TV shows My Three Sons and Gunsmoke, although, to me, she will always be the one person who stood up to the horrifying Venusian walking cucumber in Roger Corman's cult classic It Conquered the World. Garland died in her Hollywood Hills home aged 82.



On November 30th, Koichi Takano passed away in his home in Tokyo, Japan. Although Takano's name isn't nearly as well-known as either Ackerman's or Garland's, to me his loss is much more personal. He used to be my boss. Takano was a special effects director who was initially hired in the 1950's by Eiji Tsuburaya, the special effects director of the classic Godzilla films. After Takano had worked in the background on a number of Godzilla pictures, Tsuburaya hand-picked him to direct the effects for his groundbreaking television series Ultraman. Takano continued to direct special effects for hundreds of science fiction and superhero television shows and theatrical films until complications from emphysema forced him to retire five years ago. Although no longer active as a special effects director, Takano continued to appear in numerous documentaries and making-of TV shows and specials to talk about his legendary contributions to the field. Some in this country have derided his work as cheesy — his preferred method for depicting a city-smashing monster was to put a stuntman into a rubber dinosaur costume and have him thrash through a miniature replica of Tokyo. But I challenge anyone to find examples of special effects work done in the US on a similar budget and time frame that is anywhere near as meticulous, detailed and fun to watch as what Takano accomplished.

All three of these legends will be missed.

What is the coolest thing you could possibly imagine ever in the history of the cosmos?


If, like me, you imagine Stephen Hawking writing science fiction books for children, then boy oh boy, are we in luck!

The renowned astrophysicist's first foray into fiction, George's Secret Key to the Universe, will be released on Thursday in French and in English the following week. It is slated to be part of a trilogy, the second book of which will be released next year. Hawking's daughter Lucy and another physicist, Christophe Galfard, assisted in the production.

Forgiving the slight against the genre I love, I am pretty excited about this. In the book, young George and his friends travel through the cosmos aboard an asteroid, checking out black holes and other totally neat stuff. Hawking eschews a lot of the neomagical tropes of speculative fiction in favor of science and reason. I can't speak for Hawking's native Britain, but here in the States, children's books like George's Secret Key to the Universe are a breath of deionizing air in an atmosphere of science education charged with political and religious fervor.

I hope he releases a corresponding album of children's music.

Flux isn't ashamed to admit that she teared up when she read about Stephen Hawking's expenses-paid zero-gravity flight back in April.

By now, bitching about the current remake trend in the film industry is like mocking President Bush: it may feel good, but it's, like, so five years ago. Still, indulge your humble Geek Editrix:

Keanu fucking Reeves, the man partially responsible for what may be the worst text-to-film adaptation in the history of science fiction, Johnny Mnemonic, is set to murder another SF classic. 20th Century Fox is "re-imagining" The Day the Earth Stood Still, the Cold War-era tale of an alien come to admonish a warlike Earth, with Theodore Logan as Klaatu.

Most heinous, to borrow a phrase.

I know we're supposed to consider the Matrix cycle as some sort of redemptive crucificative act (I, for one, was not too impressed with the series, but I am kind of an asshole about, well, everything), but can't Science Fiction personified (I like to imagine Ursula K. Le Guin in a toga for this) serve him with a restraining order against the genre?

Klaatu barada nikt-whoa.

Still, I suppose there is something in the stilted, spacey acting of Keanu that suggests extraterrestrial origins, and he does kind of look like something David Icke dreamed up on a three-day bender. The best we can hope for is that Fox keeps to the original storyline. The progressive, pacifist themes of The Day... might be muddled if Klaatu, clad in a black trenchcoat, started dodging bullets aided by some sort of space kung-fu.

Speaking of nerds and the movies, yet another college professor is offering a class on physics in film.

Costas Efthimiou, a physicist at the University of Central Florida, says that movie scenes blatantly in violation of the laws of physics have "a dumbing effect on viewers" and contribute to a "culture that fears science." In protest, he has decided to teach a course examining science in cinema. The worst offender? Efthimiou calls out the 2003 film, The Core, which is fucking awesome. Seriously, y'all. "Unobtanium." You can't make this shit up.

In response:

Thanks, Bob. Yeah, nerds! Get a life!

Flux likes to get hammered and laugh at movies with improbable physics. Sometimes in just her underpants!

The eighties were an interesting decade at the movies for science fiction fans. After Star Wars pretty much created the science fiction blockbuster movie event, studios scrambled to feed a newly-discovered audience that hungered for more. Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, and Troy Mcclure’s unforgettable The President’s Neck is Missing! all came out before 1982, and it looked like we were in for a sci-fi renaissance at the movie house.

For the most part, Hollywood delivered films as diverse as Back to the Future and Aliens, satisfying mainstream audiences and geeks alike, but some studio executives, their faces buried in a star destroyer-sized pile of blow, filled future car wash bargain bins with craptacular derivative hybrids, like sci-fi/comedy, sci-fi/horror, and the most enduring offender, sci-fi/action.

After exhaustive research (read: a week spent watching a big pile of movies so I can convince my wife that I’m “working”), I’ve realized that most films of the eighties which claim to be science fiction are equal parts awesomely awful and awesomely awesome, and none of them are purely sci-fi; they’re all some sort of hybrid.

If you’re of a certain age, and you spent any time at all browsing the science fiction/horror section of the video store on Friday nights in high school, you may recognize some of these Sci-Fi Guilty Pleasures of the 80s. They are presented in order of release, and are unranked.


Scanners (1980)
Hybrid: Sci-Fi/Horror
The Pitch: Creepy looking Canadians can read your mind . . . and blow it up, eh?

The Plot: Two years before he did Videodrome and five years before he did The Fly David Cronenberg gave us Scanners, a film about telepathic telekinetics and the obligatory scary corporation which seeks to control or destroy them. Michael Ironside, Stephen Lack, and Patrick McGoohan (that’s right, Number Six is alive and well in 1980) all turn in great performances in a movie that isn’t nearly as gory as we all remember it.

Awesomely Awful Because: We know what’s going to happen before the characters do, an annoying problem which is exacerbated by the painfully slow pacing of the film. Also, someone in the prop department must have had access to a bunch of shotguns, because everyone in the film uses them, to an extent that quickly becomes ridiculous.

Awesomely Awesome Because: Though the science fiction elements are outrageously dated (listen for the whirring data tapes whenever a ConSec computer is accessed) it actually lends the film an awesome surreal quality. Michael Ironside is fantastic as the maniacal Darryl Revok, and the prosthetic make-up effects, which are a little too obvious in this era of giant CGI robots, were groundbreaking - and totally gross - at the time.

Drinking Game: Whenever a scanner “scans” someone, take a drink. If it has really gruesome results, chug.


Escape from New York (1981)
Hybrid: Sci-Fi/Action
The Pitch: New York City is a police state, filled with criminals and weirdos. No, it’s not a documentary about the 2004 Republican Convention.

The Plot: Written during the Watergate era, but unmade until the Reagan era, John Carpenter’s Escape from New York -- set in the far-off future of 1997 -- is one of many cult favorites to emerge from the eighties. The story is pretty simple: crime is so bad, the island of Manhattan has been turned into a maximum security prison, where everyone convicted of a serious crime in America is sent to rot. Everything’s working out just fine until the president’s plane crashes in midtown, dropping him off in a Mork-like egg that protects him from the crash, but not from the marauding band of criminals - lead by a pre-Super Adventurer’s Club Isaac Hayes - who take him hostage.

Enter world famous war hero-cum-felon Snake Plissken, who is given a chance to earn his freedom by finding and rescuing the president. It seems fairly easy, but he only has twenty-two hours to . . . Escape from New York!

Awesomely Awful Because: It’s all a little too easy. Out of thousands of prisoners, Snake instantly finds a guy who not only know who Snake is, but knows a guy who knows a guy who knows where the president is. And if the government was really serious about cutting Manhattan off , wouldn’t they blow up the bridges and tunnels instead of just (rather ineffectively) mining them?

Awesomely Awesome Because: Dude, Issac Hayes drives a car with fucking Tiffany lamps on the hood. And how can you not love Borgnine? Silly retrofutrakitsch aside, the soundtrack is fantastic, it’s a really dark film (visually and thematically) and it has some classic SF themes about authoritarianism and totalitarianism in it that are as relevant ever. And let’s be honest, okay? Snake Plissken is a badass.

Drinking Game: Whenever someone tells Snake that they’ve heard of him, take a drink. If they follow up with “I thought you were dead” before you finish your drink, you have to chug.


Night of the Comet (1984)
Hybrid: Sci-Fi/Comedy
The Pitch: A deadly comet turns everyone on Earth to dust, except for a couple of valley girls. Also, there’s, like, zombies.

The Plot: Take three parts Valley Girl, one part Fast Times, mix with some truly awful pseudoscience, add a dash of Miracle Mile, garnish with Dawn of the Dead, and you’ve got Night of the Comet. Release it just before Halley’s Comet makes its first return to Earth in a century, and you’ve got a cult classic.

When Earth passes through the tail of a comet, just about everyone in Los Angeles stands outside to witness the pseudoscientific event. Unfortunately for them, the comet turns them all into little piles of dust. The few who aren’t instantly turned into dust are turned into zombies, who eventually turn into dust. The only true survivors are three teenagers who were protected from the comet’s deadly dust-creating wrath by the shielding power of metal, and a few insane survivalists who built an underground lair, stocked it with medicine, weapons, and computers, and are slowly turning into zombies because some genius left a window open.

Our heroes deal with the challenge of being the only survivors in the world in true teenage fashion: they go shopping. But Zombielarity ensues, and the survivalists chase them down to harvest their blood. Jesus Christ, guys, as if being a teenager isn’t hard enough already!

Awesomely Awful Because: For a film that advertises a bunch of comet-created zombies, you’d expect to see more than seven of them in the entire picture.

Awesomely Awesome Because: It’s actually a hell of a lot of fun, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and has a good heart. Atlantic Records had a big (heavy) hand in releasing this film, so 80s pop music (by artists who weren’t heard from before or since) plays pretty much non-stop throughout the entire film. I thought about making the drinking game relate to 80s references, but they are so prevalent in this film, you’d be passed out before the comet even shows up.

Drinking Game: Whenever younger sister Samantha complains about not “making it” with a dude, take a drink. Whenever you want to punch a survivalist in the neck for being so goddamn annoying, take a drink. Whenever a zombie appears, chug.


They Live (1988)
Hybrid: Sci-Fi/Action
The Pitch Rowdy Roddy Piper chews bubblegum and kicks alien ass.

The Plot:1980s wrestling icon Rowdy Roddy Piper is a homeless construction worker looking to make a dollar out of fifteen cents in Los Angeles. He ends up living in a shanty town just outside downtown that doesn’t have sanitation, but does have lots of television.

Through a series of events that’s not nearly as convoluted as you’d think, he discovers that thousands of hideous ghouls are living side by side with normal humans and are slowly taking over the planet. No, it’s not Dick Cheney and the neocons, it’s alien invaders from outer space. They keep humans “asleep” by overwhelming them with subliminal messages like OBEY, MARRY AND REPRODUCE, DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY and CONSUME. The messages are embedded in everything from billboards to magazines to money (which carries the message THIS IS YOUR GOD).

Rowdy Roddy Piper can see all this, including the actual ghoulish appearance of the invaders, by wearing some nifty (for values of “nifty” do “totally fucking lame”) sunglasses that let him see things as they really are. This leads him to go on an action movie style rampage of extraordinary magnitude, joining the underground resistance, and eventually infiltrating the alien invaders’ underground lair.

Awesomely Awful Because: John Carpenter took twenty minutes of story and added in seventy minutes of filler, including a five minute-long back alley wrestling match that doesn’t involve a single folding metal chair. What could be a brilliant commentary on the excesses of the eighties tries way too hard to be funny. When you find yourself laughing at the satire instead of with the satire, something isn’t quite right.

Awesomely Awesome Because: If you set aside the filler, and just focus on the story, They Live is so prophetic, it’s kind of disturbing. It’s sort of like Ishmael for popular consumption. On a less deep note, the outrageous fights and snappy one-liners that are so annoying to sci-fi purist geeks also make this movie absurdly entertaining.

Drinking Game: Whenever Rowdy Roddy Piper delivers a witty action hero one-liner, take a drink. If it’s particularly cringe-worthy, chug. When it’s the line (you know the one if you’ve seen the movie) you can play a mini-game: shotgun a beer, and the loser has to draw alien ghoul makeup on their face. No, I will not play this game with you.


Honorable Mentions: The Last Starfighter, The Philadelphia Experiment, Life Force, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, The incredible Shrinking Woman, Innerspace.

Wil Wheaton blew it all up, you maniacs.

It's the Fourth of July and most American readers are out shedding a tear for our once great country while getting drunk, blowing shit up, and listening to Sousa, so we're going with a repeat column today.

I've been thinking about summer reading lately, and posted about it on my personal blog yesterday, so I dug through the archives and found a column which may be useful for any of my fellow geeks who need a starting point for their own summer reading.

This column originally ran in November of last year, and was picked by our fearless leaders for inclusion in the first issue of the SG magazine.

Long before we wrote our blogs, long before we argued about the finer points of the Prime Directive on UseNet, even before we nervously waited for ASCII porn to download at 300 baud from Fidonet, geeks buried our faces in books.

Maybe it's because we were easily bored by television and movies (or without the Internet to facilitate arguing about them) or maybe it's because we were less likely to be tormented by a cool kid if we kept our faces safely buried in the pages of some novel, but books are important to every geek I know. We all have huge libraries of well-worn novels, often fighting for shelf-space with our action figures.

This week, I took a walk through my personal library, and picked out five mostly-sci-fi books that I think all geeks should read, if they haven't already. I chose these books for various reasons, including their contributions to the genre, how well they hold up over time, how fun they are to read, and how significant they were to me in my development as a geek. Those of you non-geeks who have a geeky significant other can also use this list as a starting point to eventually understand exactly why your geek looks at Google News and says there's a Seldon Crisis brewing, but this list is by no means comprehensive (Fahrenheit 451 and Flowers for Algernon are conspicuously absent, for example,) but I had to keep it concise; please add your own recommendations in the comments.


I, Robot
Author: Isaac Asimov
Published: 1950

Though published in collected form in 1950, the stories in this volume date all the way back to 1940. It is just astonishing to me that Asimov could come up with the three laws of robotics, and create so many different types of robots (domestic robots on Earth, science robots on Mars) at a time when the zeppelin had just been retired and airplanes were still cutting-edge technology. I'm not talking about canals on Mars, or fantastically spun tales of a journey to the moon—I'm talking about stories and creations that, sixty-six years and countless iterations of Moore's Law later, appear prescient and remain relevant.

Most of the stories in this collection deal with the consequences of the three laws of robotics, but all of them (notably Robbie) challenge the image of robots as one-dimensional servants with flailing arms and stilted speech. Asimov created characters readers could care about and relate to, and balanced the science with the fiction as well as anyone ever has.

Oh, and don't waste your time with the Will Smith movie, if you're expecting anything resembling a faithful adaptation.

Readers may also like: The Foundation Trilogy, The Caves of Steel.


Neuromancer
Author: William Gibson
Published: 1984

Its opening line is one of the most repeated and well-known in the geek universe, "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." Of course, when Neuromancer was written, that meant the sky was a dull grey color, perhaps broken in places by swirling eddies of darkness in the clouds, but if it were written today, it would actually mean the sky was a clear, bright blue color, creating quite a different mood in the heavens above Chiba, and for the entire novel.

While much attention has been paid to Gibson's prediction of the Internet, and his coining of the term "cyberspace," Neuromancer endures because it's a fucking brilliantly imagined novel. It's a tightly-knit, clever (without being too clever) story with smart dialogue, set in a very plausible near future. It's populated with characters that geeks love: they're smart, they're sexy, (they actually have the sex, too, and it's pretty hot) and they're cool. It's one of the few sci-fi books on my shelf that actually gets better with each reading, the same way Watchmen does, revealing new connections and uncovering new layers every time I open its cover and jack in.

Readers may also like: Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Ringworld
Author: Larry Niven
Published: 1970

Larry Niven's Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel follows Louis Wu, a 200 year-old man who's grown bored with life, as he is recruited by Nessus, a Pierson's Puppeteer, and travels with fellow human Teela Brown, and fearsome Kzin Speaker-to-Animals to the eponymous Ringworld, a solid structure one Earth-orbit in diameter, orbiting a star and teeming with life. After crashing on the ring's surface, Louis and his fellow travelers must find a way back home, and figure out exactly who built it, and why.

Ringworld is, like all of Niven's books, dedicated to exploring advanced theoretical concepts and may turn off readers who are intimidated or bored by so-called "hard science fiction." It also has a significant flaw (the Ringworld is unstable) that is so undeniable, he wrote a sequel in 1980 to correct his mistake (and the Ringworld's lack of stability.)

What I (and my unscientific poll of two friends) find so compelling about Ringworld is its sheer size and scope: with the surface area of three million Earths, it could be Science Fiction's original Big Dumb Object. But beneath the mystery of the Ringworld and the Engineers who created it, is a story that's compelling and engaging, and is just begging to be made into a movie.

And all the damn kids today who play Halo can thank Larry Niven; the game takes place on a structure that was clearly inspired by his creation.

Readers may also like: Tales of Known Space, The Ringworld Engineers.


The Hacker Crackdown
Author: Bruce Sterling
Published: 1992

In 1990, the Secret Service launched a series of raids called Operation Sundevil, a nationwide crackdown on computer hackers. A great deal of attention was focused on Phrack, an underground e-zine co-created and edited by Craig Neidorf, (aka Knight Lightning) who faced 31 years in prison for allegedly stealing what Bell South called the source code for its E911 service, valued at over $80,000. At trial, it was proved that the document was not source code, but was more of a memo about the service, and not only was it not valued at over $80,000, but could be purchased from Bell for $13. The charges were dismissed, but the case, and what was eventually determined to be an illegal raid of Steve Jackson Games, lead to the founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Bruce Sterling, one of the founding fathers of the Cyberpunk genre, and editor of the definitive Mirrorshades anthology, investigated both of these cases and the entire underground hacker and phreaker culture of the late 80s. The result of his research is The Hacker Crackdown, a highly-readable, comprehensive, entertaining, and fascinating look at the computer underground at a time before the Internet was widely available, when information was traded via "philes" on BBSes, hijacked long-distance phone chats, and in magazines like TAP and 2600.

The entire text of the book was made available, for free, by its author, and has been online in one form or another since 1994.

Readers may also like: Cyberpunk, The Cuckoo's Egg.


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Author: Douglas Adams
Published: 1979

Every single self-respecting geek in the world has read this book, at least once, likely more, and has also played the Infocom game based upon it, though many of us never got past the goddamn babelfish puzzle.

Douglas Adams' hilarious 1979 novel is the first (and best) of the five books in the incorrectly-and-unapologetically-described Hitchhiker's Trilogy, and introduced generations of readers to Vogon poetry, The Heart of Gold, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Marvin the clinically-depressed Android, Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and the ultimate answer, but not the ultimate question, to life, the universe, and everything.

Geeks love this book for the same reasons mundanes don't: it is filled with complex layers of satire and absurdist humor, and its confirms that the world is just not . . . normal.

Like I, Robot, there is a film adaptation, which I personally found quite disappointing and my wife (who hasn't read the book) found confusing. Your milage may vary, but I'd recommend checking out the original radio plays, or the BBC television series, if you want to experience HHG in some non-literary form. Just don't forget to take your towel with you.

Readers may also like: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Good Omens.


As I said, this is nowhere near a comprehensive or even definitive list of geeky reading, but all of these titles bring me joy every single time I pick them up, or even glance at them on my shelves while I'm looking for something else. They are all a big part of who I am today, and I suspect many of my fellow geeks can say the same thing about at least one or two of them.

Now tell me why I'm wrong, and tell me what I missed.

Wil Wheaton is a hoopy frood who knows where his towel is.

Saturday night, I was given the tremendous honor of inducting Gene Roddenberry into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in Seattle. For the three of you in the back who wandered in from Rob Corddry's column looking for the cash bar, Gene created Star Trek. I was lucky enough to know him, and too young to appreciate it at the time.

I've given plenty of speeches before, in front of crowds as large as 5,000, in places as varied as a Holiday Inn convention hall to the Royal Albert Hall in London, but this speech was the most personally important speech I have ever been asked to give. Not only was I given the privilege of presenting Gene's induction, but it would be accepted by Gene's son, and my friend, Eugene Roddenberry, Junior. Rod, as he is known to his friends, has spent the bulk of his adult life getting to know his father. Gene died when Rod and I were still teenagers, and there was a vast generation gap between Rod and Gene. I've always admired Rod. He could easily sit back and cash checks from Paramount while drinking Courvoisier from the hollowed-out skulls of the vanquished, but instead he has worked tirelessly to honor and preserve Gene's legacy. Rod, like his father, appreciates and embraces the legion of Trekkies around the world who are such an integral part of what Rod calls "The Trek Nation." We are, in many ways, spiritual half-brothers who genuinely like each other, but only cross paths once or twice a year.

I worked on my speech for two weeks, to ensure that I hit each note perfectly. I felt that it was important to honor and remember Gene correctly, and put his accomplishments into the correct context. In some ways, I felt like a Speaker for the Dead, and I wanted to ensure that I earned the distinction.

I went through everything I've ever written about my love of Star Trek and science fiction and about my admiration for and relationship with Gene. It took many late nights of massive rewriting and just a little bit of panic, but I finally ended up with something that I was proud of . . . about three hours before I drove to the airport for my flight to Seattle.

* * *

Neal Stephenson emceed the event. We were all supposed to act like it wasn't a big deal, but my inner geek – no, this time it was My Inner Geek – got the better of me when he said that my blog was "more readable than most blogs out there." Not exactly a ringing endorsement of blogs, granted, but it implied that he not only read a bit of my blog, but thought it didn't suck. I took the stage to polite applause and, before I'd realized it, said, "Wow! Being introduced by one of your idols is great, but when he praises your writing, it's even cooler."

Ah, good one, genius. Good thing you practiced the speech so much so you could get up here and act like a fanboy in front of everyone. Stick to the script, Chachi.

I have no idea why my inner critic speaks with Dennis Miller's voice as performed by Dana Carvey, but it always seems appropriate. I looked back at my notes, and out at the crowd.

"Hi," I said. "I'm Wil Wheaton, and I forgot to pack a tie."

A wave of giggles started at a table in the back and spread out around the room.

See? Now get to it.

I smiled, and began my speech.

"Star Trek: The Next Generation turns twenty this year. If my math is correct, this means that it is almost old enough to get a drink in Ten Forward. Even more shocking to my fellow cast members, it means that I am old enough to run for president in 2008."

Another wave of giggles rippled across the room.

"I have already articulated a strong anti-drug policy which some of you may be familiar with, from the first season episode ‘Symbiosis.' "

I cocked my head to one side, affected a Wesley Crusher voice, and quoted myself from 1987."Escape? How can a chemical substance provide an escape? I'm confused, Tasha."

Real laughter erupted, mostly from a table near the back with some local Star Trek fan club members, all of them in very cool homemade Starfleet dress uniforms.

"To celebrate this milestone, Paramount is releasing the Really Super-Awesome Trust Us You Totally Need To Have This One Even If You've Already Bought All The Other Ones DVD box set."

The audience laughed again, and I realized how important these first few beats in a speech are. While it's good to relax the audience and get them on my side, it's also good for me to spend two paragraphs with what is essentially "throw-away" material while I relax and get out of my own way.

"I'm hosting one of the special features, which looks at the people and places that have been affected by Star Trek: The Next Generation over the last two decades," I said.

I deliberately looked up from the podium. "We are some of those people, and we are gathered tonight in one of those places. When we were here a few weeks ago to shoot footage for our documentary, I discovered that this museum is more than just a collection of cool artifacts from the final frontier and beyond. It is an affirmation of why I, and so many other people around the world, love science fiction, and why science fiction endures – whether created by Jules Verne in 1864, or Gene Roddenberry in 1964, or some hot new stereovision writer in 2064 – with a relevance that transcends generations.

"There are countless examples here of the real power that science fiction has to address current events in a way that's safe and acceptable for most audiences, while speaking very seriously about them to those who look beyond the spaceships and rayguns to the ideas behind the stories. Whether it was written one hundred years ago or just published last month, science fiction can give us warnings about the future, hope for the future, or just blissful escape into the future, visiting fantastic worlds that are light-years away – and as close as our bookshelves and televisions.
"I wasn't even a glimmer in my father's eye in 1966, but a few minutes on the Internet – Gene's 'library computer,' on a scale that would have amazed him – gave me a pretty clear picture of what things were like back then. LBJ announced that American soldiers would stay in Vietnam indefinitely and increased troop levels to 250,000, turning an unpopular foreign war into the worst domestic conflict since the Civil War. Huge demonstrations exploded across the country. Racial and religious tensions were high, and bigotry was common throughout America. John Lennon said The Beatles were more popular than Jesus."

I paused, but there was no laughter. Huh. I thought that was funny. Oh well.

I took a breath and noticed just how dry my mouth and throat were. I wondered if I'd ever reach a point where I can get on stage in front of a bunch of strangers and not feel nervous.

"It wasn't a particularly optimistic period for our nation, and there wasn't all that much going on to feel good about. Then, on September 8, 1966, a new show debuted. The network thought they were buying ‘Wagon Train to the stars,' but just two commercial breaks into the show, it was clear that this was something new and different. As episodes aired over the following weeks and months, it was undeniable that this show, set in the future but reflecting so much of the contemporary world, was breaking new ground each week. Like all great science fiction, it held up a mirror and showed us our failings and triumphs – not by beating us over the head with a message, but by making that message easy enough to discover for those who cared to see it. Star Trek dared to do this during an incredibly turbulent time, when it was risky to even acknowledge that the mirror existed, much less hold it up on network television.

"It has been more than forty years since Kirk and Spock first boldly went where no man has gone before, and twenty years since Picard and some kid boldly went where no one has gone before."

I didn't have to pause this time. The Trekkies laughed, hard, and I looked up for a moment to enjoy it. I love it when a joke goes over with the audience the way I hoped it would when I wrote it.

"Today, many of us still dream of living in the Utopian world Gene envisioned, where we play in holodecks, beam ourselves to work, and embrace the crazy notion that race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation are differences to be celebrated and learned from, not feared and destroyed."

Applause started with the Trekkies, and quickly spread to the entire room. That made me feel really good, because of everything Gene's legacy encompasses. I know his vision of tolerance and equality was the one he wanted to realize more than any other.

"Gene's legacy is also tangible in our world: our cell phones look an awful lot like the original communicators, our Bluetooth headsets work like the Next Generation communicators – though they don't look nearly as cool and go in the wrong place, but there's still time to get it right – and our PDAs are like those little PADD props we used to hide complicated technobabble crib notes on. Engineers, inspired by Scotty or Geordi, find ways of solving problems that no one thought possible – ahead of schedule and under budget. The list of significant achievements inspired by Star Trek – including the MRI – are so long, they've been the subject of enough film documentaries, critical articles, and mass-market books to fill a shelf. And the work continues."

I paused briefly, less than a second, while dozens of images flashed through my mind: playing Star Trek on the playground in elementary school . . . listening to a Star Trek adventure on my portable Sesame Street record player in the sheet-and-broomsticks fort my dad built for me in the back yard . . . the first time I auditioned for The Next Generation.

"Even before I wore the space suit, I loved everything that Star Trek stands for," I said, trying to steady my voice. "When I turn on the television today and see medical drama after crime drama after reality series after intelligence-insulting sitcom, I long for the original Star Trek, or the fourth season of The Next Generation. When I turn on CNN, I wish our world leaders would watch a little more Star Trek and a little less 24."

Massive applause, accompanied by some whistling. I was uncertain about getting even a little political, but if Gene wasn't afraid to do it in the 1960s, why should I be afraid to do it now?

"Star Trek is the most important and significant science fiction franchise in history. It brought science fiction into the mainstream and showed that science fiction can inspire while it entertains. Star Trek got an entire generation thinking about deep space exploration, using humanism and optimism to find peaceful solutions to complex problems. Star Trek has turned millions of potential science fiction fans into "one of us" and helped lay the foundation for the great science fiction on television and in the movies since its debut. Star Trek has showed audiences for 40 years – and counting – that there is real hope for our future, if we're willing to work together to get there.

"Ladies and gentlemen." I stepped back from the podium and held my arms over my head, palms out, toward the giant screen that hung behind and above the stage. "The life and work of Gene Roddenberry."

A film that the museum had put together began to play. For the next five minutes, actors and fans towered over me while they all echoed, in their own way, what I said – and what we all believe – about Gene's legacy. It was a very fitting tribute.

When the film ended, I stood at the podium again. "I am incredibly proud to be part of Gene's legacy, and I am incredibly honored to present this award to his son, and my friend, Eugene Roddenberry."

Rod stood. The audience applauded as he walked to the stage and stood next to me. I reached out to shake his hand, and he pulled me in for a hug – just like his dad always did.

"Now that I have you on stage," I said, "I have something personal I'd like to add to this celebration tonight."

Rod looked puzzled, just as I'd planned it. I turned back to my notes and addressed the audience.

"When Wesley was field-promoted to a real ensign at the end of season 3, Gene wanted to commemorate the occasion." My voice grew thick with emotion, and I swallowed to steady myself. "He came to the bridge set one afternoon, gathered the cast and crew together, kicked out the set photographer, and shut down production for a few minutes to present me with the bars he'd received when he was field-promoted to ensign in the real military."

That day, seventeen years distant on stage eight, flashed through my mind, a series of still images and strong emotions.

"I was too young and immature to fully absorb the magnitude of the gesture, but I remember that Gene shook my hand, pulled me into him for a big hug, and told me that, in many ways, Wesley Crusher was as close as he had come to writing himself into Star Trek as a character, so it seemed only fitting."

I could hear Gene's voice and feel the roughness of his ever-present red sweater vest rub against my face as he hugged me and held me, literally and figuratively, beneath the wing of the Great Bird of the Galaxy. I could hear the applause from the crew. I could see the smiling faces of my friends in the cast. At that point in my life, nobody – not even my own father – had made me feel like they were as proud of me as Gene did in that moment. I wanted to look at Rod, but I was having a hard enough time keeping it together.

"Tonight we honor Gene for creating the Roddenberry legacy. But while I only wore Gene's shoes on the set, this man walks in Gene's shoes every day, and they fit him perfectly."

I reached into my pocket, and removed a small, simple, gray box. Inside were two small brass bars, slightly tarnished with age, affixed to the same narrow strip of thin white cardboard they were on when Gene gave them to me so many years ago.

I looked at Rod. Tears welled up in both of our eyes.

"To commemorate this occasion, therefore, I would like to present Eugene Roddenberry with his father's ensign's bars, because he has done more to earn these bars than I ever could have. More than anyone else today, he continues to honor the legacy his father created, and I know that Gene would want him to have them."

"You don't have to do this," Rod said.

"I know," I said. I opened the box and put it into his hand, just as Gene had done for me on stage eight so long ago. I had honored Gene with my words, and it was time for Rod to do what he has done so well: honor Gene not only with what he does, but (and most importantly) how he does it. I left the stage.

Wil Wheaton dances barefoot.

Star Trek: The Next Generation turns 20 this year, and I'm working on a special documentary for the obligatory DVD box set. It's been really fun and cool to look at the impact TNG has had over the last two decades, in consumer products, actual science, and science fiction in general.

Yesterday, I flew up to Seattle to tour the Science Fiction Museum, and talk with a couple of their curators about Star Trek, and Gene Roddenberry's induction to their Science Fiction Hall of Fame later this year.

The SFM (try not to see FSM when you read that, and you'll get a sense of what it was like to be me yesterday) was founded by Paul Allen and Jody Patton in 2004, and contains all the things you'd expect to see in a museum dedicated to Sci-Fci: a recreation of The Day The Earth Stood Still's Gort, props from Star Trek, Buck Rogers, and the original Battlestar Galactica, concept art from classic films and television series, and the definitive collection of Star Wars action figures, on loan from one of the luckiest guys in the world.

The whole place feels magical, without any of the commercialism we've come to expect from installations like Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas (in fact, their gift shop could have a lot more books and DVDs and collectibles in it, but if it did, it would actually be unseemly, I think) and though I was there for just a few hours before I had to get on a plane and come back home, I made sure I took some time to walk around the place (which was closed, and opened up just for our shoot) blurting out "OH MY GOD THAT'S SO COOL!" and "DUDE!" every few feet.

There were costumes from Blade Runner, an original hand-written manuscript of Neal Stephenson's and lots and lots of robots – including the original B9 robot from Lost In Space, which has a conversation with Robbie from Forbidden Planet, using sampled dialog from their respective shows. There was also the Captain's chair and two costumes from the original Star Trek, as well as a model of the sets they built all the way back in 1966 to help block shots and explain to the studio and network exactly what the inside of the Enterprise was going to look like.

While it was truly thrilling to see artifacts from the final frontier and beyond, the museum was more than just a collection of cool things: it was an affirmation of why I and so many other people around the world love science fiction, and why science fiction, whether written by Jules Verne in 1864 or directed by Ridley Scott in 1982, endures with a relevance that transcends generations.

The main floor of the museum is divided into narrative sections that illustrate various SF themes, like Cyborgs, THEM!, nanotechnology, and "What if . . . ?" While I walked around these different areas, I noticed that, regardless of when a story was written or filmed, it reflected the time in which is was created. War of the Worlds, written by H.G. Wells in 1898, was, according to Isaac Asimov, an indictment of colonialism, sort of a hot-button topic of the day. Others say it was a commentary on the creeping modernization of the world by this new fangled steam-driven technology, and Welles' fear that the pastoral simplicity of his country would be lost as a result. While some readers would just experience the fantastic story and heart-pounding battle for survival against the invading Martians, others could see a deeper meaning, as Asimov did. If you look at the first season of the new Battlestar Galactica, it's clearly all about 9/11 . . . or maybe it's just a cool space opera. We don't have to work too hard to see what Make Room! Make Room! -- which was made into the film Soylent Green -- is all about, and 1984 and Brave New World are as horrifyingly relevant today as ever. When my wife and I watched Children of Men (an absolutely magnificent film, by the way) she turned to me about an hour into the movie and said, "This is scary, because it's so plausible." She was referring, of course, not to the infertility, but the surveillance and xenophobia . . . predicted and written about by George Orwell nearly sixty years ago.

These are but a few examples of the real power that science fiction has to address current events in a context that's safe and acceptable for most audiences, while speaking very seriously about them to others. They illustrate why SF endures and resonates with casual and hardcore fans. Whether it was written one hundred years ago, or just published last month, SF can give us warnings about the future, hope for the future, or just blissful escape from the present, into fantastic worlds that are light years away – but as close as our bookshelves.

So where does Star Trek fit into all of this? How does Star Trek's relentlessly optimistic, Utopian vision of the future fit into the larger SF cannon? Why does Star Trek appeal to such a broad audience across cultures and generations? The answer came to me when I asked one of the museum's curators about Gene Roddenberry's induction into the Hall of Fame.

Star Trek, she told me, is arguably the most important and significant science fiction franchise in history, because it brought science fiction into the mainstream. It was, she said, sort of a "gateway drug" for potential SF fans, and helped lay the foundation (she said this without any intentional pun, but I sure heard it) for all the great SF that's been on television and in movies since. As the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry deserved a place next to Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen, and other SF luminaries.

I've always been aware of Star Trek's legacy, and I've always been proud to be part of it, but until she said those words to me, and put Star Trek and Gene into that context, I didn't realize just how grand and important it was, and just how lucky I am, as an actor, but mostly as a geek, to be part of it. While it wasn't the first mainstream science fiction series, it was the first one that realized the potential science fiction has to inspire while it entertains.

I've often thought that Firefly was the best way to introduce normals to the world of science fiction, but after my trip through the museum yesterday, maybe Star Trek is a better – or at least just as good – place to start. If you get a chance to take a normal to the Science Fiction Museum, I highly recommend it. If you spend your quatloos wisely, you may just walk out with One of Us.

Wil Wheaton is not a robot. He's just a geek.

Welcome to the first article in what I hope will be a weekly feature for the SuicideGirls Newswire where I detail all the wonderful fake things from science fiction that we’re closing in on making a reality.

This spring several wonderful things happened to our Future. We begin this Future fucked in merry old England. In early March, the UK upgraded its Skynet military satellite system. Fantastic. Long overdue if you ask me.

If there was one space-based information system that need to be bulked-up, surely it was Skynet. The men in charge were thrilled at their accomplishment:

Why wouldn’t it behave perfectly? It will always behave perfectly. It probably adores the burping, farting carbon-based nerds that blasted it into space and provide it with commands to follow. I think if there’s one thing that Skynet loves more than sending, receiving and monitoring all military communications – it’s taking commands. Long may Skynet serve mankind.

More recently, on our side of the Atlantic, the US government -- specifically The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA -- wants to get cracking on shape-shifting war robots.

Because, what fun is a robot that can squeeze under a door and then have nothing to murder with? I cannot think of any disadvantages to this program. In fact, I hope they only make these machines smarter, deadlier and more difficult to detect. So say we all.

Rounding out today’s trifecta of speculative fiction-turned-fact is another DARPA program –- this one from their cyborg department.

I’m very excited about what’s being referred to as “Luke's Binoculars” after the painted shoebox that Mark Hamill gazed into while pretending to be a moisture farmer in one of the only good Star Wars films.

Essentially the person using this technology would be a cyborg. A lucky cyborg. Just imagine being able to spot the skynet-controlled shape shifting murder robot from between 1,000 and 10,000 meters away. Standard binocs would only give you up to 1,000 meters notice –- barely enough time to shit your pants. The kind of tactical advantage that this new tech would give you should provide the user more than enough time to brown his or her own trousers and actually get moving. Of course, no amount of time is enough to escape the tireless murdering machines of the future but it will make the death much more cinematic and exciting. (Additionally, the thinking is that you won’t care so much about being killed by a robot while you’re waddling away in your own filth.)

So, we’ve started on the more violent end of science fiction’s offerings but I’m sure our finest minds will soon be slaving away on Dr. McCoy’s sickbay bed or Dr. Theopolis.

In the meantime, keep up the good work, science! These robots won’t make themselves. Yet.

See you in the future! (Fingers crossed.)
Gerry

PS -- I know Roy Batty can't change shape. Sue Me.