Retro Science Fiction

The Singularity in historical perspective:

The Brad DeLong Early Holocene Sci-Fi Contest:

Robert G. Seeberger .......Well........I'm declaring a contest myself The Idea is to write a few paragraphs that exhibit what Sci-Fi would be for an early hunter/gatherer:

"As you know, Throgette," said Throg son of Throg son of Throg, "these new flint deposits allow us to make 147% more hand-axes from each flint core. That will be a great help in butchering the mastadon carcasses and preparing for the winter. If only we could build fires on a large enough scale to make the cold of the winter less deep."

"Build enough fires to warm the whole world? There will never be enough people to build enough fires to warm the world by even 1/212 of the difference between the coldness of ice and the hotness of the cloud that comes when you forget and leave the water-pot on the fire too long!"

Or:

"But we can dream dreams. Someday, in the far future, there will be not hundreds of people but hundreds of hundreds of hundreds of hundreds!"

"No."

"And they will acknowledge the leadership of one man--a man from the hot country of the Permian Basin."

"That's just not credible. There's so little water there. Anyone who voluntarily lived there would automatically disqualify himself from leadership by virtue of obvious stupidiy."

"And he will believe that changes in the kinds of plants and animals come about not because of mutation, resulting variation, and natural selection but because they are impelled to do so by the guidance of a Great Spirit!"

"Now you've gone too far--over into complete fantasy."

---

PAT MATHEWS: My own entry:

"Chief, I have foreseen a time when everybody can have all the meat, fat, and sweet stuff they can eat, and they all get fat."

"Shaman, you have had a vision of the Happy Hunting Grounds."

"And, Chief, it is considered a great and horrible problem! People go out of their way to eat leaves and grass and grains, and work very hard to look lean and brown."

"Shaman, you've been eating too many of those strange mushrooms, and are seeing everything backward."

Comments

[MobiusKlein]

Shouldn't it be 1/180th of the difference?

[rea]

"Shouldn't it be 1/180th of the difference?"

No--arithmetic hadn't been invented yet.

[Captain Button]

I recall a real SF story which was a series of letters between various bureacrats of a stone age tribe about the possible utility of this new invention "fire".

- Captain Button

[Paul]

I recall a real SF story about an "ultimate weapon"...which turns out to be the bow and arrow.

[Jonathan Goldberg]

"Shouldn't it be 1/180th of the difference?"

Water freezes at 0F and boils at 212F. Hence, 1/212 for 1 degree (Celcius not yet having been invented).

[mds]

Urm, see, Celsius not yet having been invented means water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, which was MobiusKlein's point. It all just goes to show the goofiness of the scale. Yet, somehow, I remain fondly Fahrenheit.

[Alex Tolley]

How about this (with apologies to A C Clarke):

Fire-Carrier stared at the ashes of the dying fire, and considered which coals he would place in the bundle of damp animal skins to carry to the next resting place. He poked idly at the ashes and saw a gleam. Something that looked liked winter water shone dully in the sand. He poked at it until it was safely out of the ashes. Tentatively he touched it, felt its smoothness, like the eye of the rabbit.

Did the fire create this object he wondered. Could there be more magic in the fire that he had not seen before? He felt a warm glow suffuse his body, almost a religious ecstasy. What if the fire could make make other things, spear points that wouldn't break and ornaments to attach to his mate? He would be become leader and sire many sons.

Fire-Carrier lay back and rested. As he slept, he dreamed many strange things. But most strange of all, he carried a blunt shiny thing, that had fire inside it. It could strike down anything he pointed it at.
What a wondrous weapon it was, making him the undisputed leader of his growing tribe.

[James Killus]

There was an old Saturday Night live routine with Steve Martin as the pre-historic genius who invented the wheel, tamed fire, and at the end was working on a theory that matter and energy were somehow related.

The previous tribal leader (Bill Murray)kills him by smashing him in the head with a rock. "Now Og both strong _and_ smart!" Og says.

[walkingtheline]

Throg stared at the mewling infant before him, a reflexive disgust mixed with awe. He was no dreamwalker, but it took no shaman to see that the past had just died. Or that the world to come was beyond imagination.

The opposible thumb had brought man fire, the spear, and mastery over beasts. Two such thumbs would make him as a God.

[walkingtheline]

hmm... that should have read "opposable".