writing sci-fi
“Hey, how is it that we’ve all managed faster-than-light interstellar travel and it’s relatively commonplace?”
“Don’t you know?”
“I never really paid attention in school.”
“Oh, well, it’s simple, really. All it takes is—”
[LOUD TRAIN NOISES]
“Wow! Really? That’s incredible! What an amazing technology. Thank you for telling me this.”
Alternatively:
“Hey, how are you able to make this interstellar voyage in an amount of time comparable to sailing a ship across an ocean?”
“I have no idea. I sit at the controls, put on a blindfold, and start pressing buttons and hoping for the best.”
“That seems… unwise…”
“It hasn’t failed me yet.”
“How do you make this thing go thousands of times faster than the speed of light?”
“Oh, you know. I just press some buttons and hope the laws of physics look the other way.”
“That’s insane.”
“It helps if I’m really wasted.”
“How do you make FTL travel work?”
“Well, this button sends us into a dimension of darkness and horror inhabited by todash monsters incomprehensible to the human brain, where the laws of reality do not dare to set foot for fear of corruption.”
“That sounds… bad…”
“Yeah. On second thought, let’s stay put. One habitable planet is just as good as the next, I think.”
“Yeah. Space is a silly place.”
“I can’t believe the ancients used to have spacefaring technology. That was thousands of years ago! How did we lose that? Where did we go wrong?”
“Are you referring to the dilithium crystal myth?”
“Yeah. They used them to power their starships.”
“You know ‘starship’ was a euphemism, right? They didn’t actually travel through interstellar space. They just ground up dilithium crystals into a psychoactive ointment and applied it between their legs and the resulting trip probably made them feel like they went to the stars. The idea that they ‘rode’ on ‘starships’ actually just means they used—”
“Stop. I don’t want to hear it. History majors ruin everything.”
“How do you expect to get a ship of this size to the other side of the galaxy in such a short period of time? I don’t see any cryosleep chambers, so I can only surmise you’ve discovered FTL travel.”
“Very astute, my dear fellow. It operates under a simple mechanism that I’m sure you’re already familiar with, in some crude fashion. May I ask you a personal question? Good. Do you accept that the universe is a cruel and spiteful place?”
“Well… I uh… I don’t know. I guess I’m agnostic, when it comes down to it, but…”
“But it sure seems as though the cosmos at large seek at all times to punish hubris, yes? To elevate heroes only as an excuse to dash them against the rocks? Surely you’ve heard the saying ‘no good deed goes unpunished’?”
“Of course.”
“It’s true. Nature abhors a vacuum of retribution. This is the theory I have developed and upon which I have based my life’s work. All the pilot of this vessel has to do is declare, “Boy howdy, I sure am glad this ship will never leave the planet and its crew dragged across the galaxy to land safely on Egoni Beta c! I am too good of a pilot for that to ever happen!” and the universe will take care of the rest out of spite.”
“You’re exploiting the Universal Law of Situational Irony?”
“Exploiting? I am obeying it in the only way I know how.”
“You’re an accomplished starship pilot. May I ask you how FTL travel works?”
“To be honest, I have no idea. The computer takes care of that. Nobody likes to admit it, but there isn’t a human alive who could tell you the means by which we achieved warp speed. Computers have been designing themselves for generations and we don’t really know how they work, just that they do.”
“Oh. Then… then why do you have this control room? You’ve got all kinds of buttons and wheels and algorithms in here! Surely you must do something to make this ship go.”
“It’s all for show. It doesn’t actually matter what I do in here, but pressing buttons makes my monkey brain feel accomplished. You see, the computers take care of absolutely everything for us, but they’re programmed to prioritize keeping the essential human spirit alive through trials and hardship. Nothing too difficult, mind you, but just tricky enough to make us feel invigorated when we ‘solve’ our problems. I’m pretty sure they engineer dangerous situations just so we can rescue ourselves in the nick of time. Otherwise we’ll become complacent, and the spark of enterprising humanity that brought us here will fade. Not sure if I believe that, but the computers do, and that’s what matters. So I press some buttons at random, put on my captain’s hat, spin the wheel, and pretend I am having some kind of effect upon the universe.”
“But that’s so depressing!”
“Is it? Sounds like you just need to press some buttons. Look – they’re bright and colorful and they go ‘beep beep’! What more could you want?”