Category Archives: Mars Colony

Science fiction has great potential to help people reimagine the possibilities of the world. However, the constraints put in place on the medium of videogames, and specifically the genre of action role-playing, can severely limit those possibilities. Games set in the future struggle to demonstrate radical solutions to the institutions and structures they critique and satirize because of the audiences expectations of mainstream games and the financial expectations foisted on them by their outsized budgets. For example: The Outer Worlds and Cyberpunk 2077 are two action-RPGs set in dystopian futures where the player can only rock the boat so much.

Released in 2019, The Outer Worlds comes from Obsidian, the studio of former Interplay/Black Isle Studios developers behind Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II The Sith Lords, Fallout: New Vegas, and Pillars of Eternity. It is set in a future where antitrust laws were never passed in the U.S. in the early 20th century, sogoing into the 24th centurythey own the name, licensing, and governing rights of entire planets and star systems. The Outer Worlds takes place in the atom-punk world of the Halcyon solar system colony, where the Halcyon Holdings Board of Directors (the CEOs of the major corporations operating in the system) govern everything.

The aesthetic seems a bit like if that of Fallout was applied to a different sort of sci-fi future, though arguably theres some Bioshock in there as well. Before I played the game, I thought it was like if the Fallout people made Mass Effect, but aside from some broad similarities around space exploration and the existence of party members, theyre very different sorts of games, even within the action RPG genre space. This spacey aesthetic represents an alternate strand of retro-futurism to that of Fallout or Bioshock, showcasing the anxiety of unfettered capitalism embodied in the cyberpunk genre applied to a narrative that is less brooding and more whimsical in its visual and verbal satire, and in a setting where corporations are even more in control. Corporations dont even need to control the state in The Outer Worlds because theyve effectively become it. The player character has been in cryo-sleep for 70 years on one of two ships sent to colonize the Halcyon systemthe other, the Groundbreaker, is now an independent citadel orbiting the sunand is awakened by a mad scientist that wants to save the colony, whom the Board have named a terrorist.

In the introductory parts of the planet of Terra 2, players can choose either the Spacers Choice company (and the Edgewater Settlement) or the anarchist break-away group known as The Deserters (and the Botanical Labs north of Edgewater). The game is bold in its decision making here by forcing players to make a clear choice; direct resources to one and slowly kill the other. It is empowering and the moment has gravity because only one faction makes it through intact; members of the other group will have to join or die. After making it through the independent space station colony of the Groundbreaker, where you first meet the pirate corporation SubLight Salvage & Shipping, the next planet is Monarch (formerly Terra 1), where three settlements house three factions. Monarch Stellar Industries are a reformist corporation pushed out of the board located in Stellar Bay, the Iconoclasts are a religious anarchic set operating out of Amber Heights, and the SubLight salvage network is in Fallbrook, an outlaw town where the rich come to play.

While Terra 2 presents players with the choice to support the company town or the breakaway anarchist sect, the optimal solution on Monarch is to get the Iconoclasts and the company town to reunite because of resource reasons so that the company town can try to change the Board from the inside. Sublight figures into other quests on the planet, but not into this decision.

Players also meet a young troublemaker on the Groundbreaker that can join the crew. He aspires to join rebels on the planet Scylla. The leader there sends you to kill a deserter, who reveals that the rebel leader is a privateer for the Board who kills anyone that finds out hes a mercenary (a beat similar but not identical to the discovery that the leader of the Stormcloaks in Skyrim was at one point a Thalmor asset). Leading up to this resolution, when asked about the alleged deserters whereabouts, his ex-wife tells the player character that anyone talking about a revolution is probably trying to sell you something. Characters within the world maintaining a cynical perspective is not a storytelling failure. It is nonetheless remarkable, if not entirely unrealistic, that two of the major breakaway leaders aspiring to live in a better world turn out to be frauds.

Violence is always difficult to avoid, and when you enter the belly of the beastthe rich Terra 2 district of Byzantiumeasy to fall into by quickly falling out of favor with the Board. In this way, the game does allude to the violent nature of revolution, and the way that real struggle requires real sacrifice. In The Outer Worlds, the player does end up getting to choose Phineas Welles and a loose conglomerate of people-over-profits organizations to lead a collaborative effort to save the Halcyon colony. However, at the end of the day the players agency is in choosing one of two options: maintain and uphold the status quo by siding with the Board or brave into the wild unknown by siding with the mad scientist and alleged anarchist Phineas Welles. The latter is the more altruistic, humanistic, and world-changing. It just so happens that the path to get there is in line with what you would do in any other action-RPG.

It comes down to a lack of imagination that stems in part from investment requiring that games are made in a way that focuses on gameplay styles that do not mesh with radical action. A budgetary emphasis on developing combat systems means youre not necessarily developing a complex dialogue and character-interaction system that can help you in, say, community organizing, even if the dialog system does allow for branching paths and multiple solutions to problems (usually somewhere on the talk-kill-bribe-intimidate continuum). The player is also not talking to every NPC to learn what they want for their community, rather talking to whoever in the community has already developed a level of importance and acquired resources, then doing errands for them.

In The Outer Worlds, the protagonist character (The Stranger or The Captain) are helping a mad scientist consistently referred to as a terrorist with his plan to liberate the colony, but of course you have the option to sign with the corporate elites instead, and in the meantime you interact with what amounts to local chieftains of various outposts led by Board-affiliated companies, people that have already left those companies, or upstart pirate companies. While the player can help a dock worker waiting on a package, model clothes for a designer, act in a film, or intervene on either side of a work stoppage (through conversation with the strike leader), the plot is motivated by engaging with the powerful-acting upon or defying their wishes.

In Cyberpunk 2077, there is a tendency toward a pseudo-nihilistic radical centrism. By adopting the aesthetic of cyberpunk, CD Projekt RED can make critiques of capitalism and a dystopian late-capitalist trajectory which, while canonically diverging from our timeline somewhere in the 20th century, is not altogether unimaginable from our current course. Nonetheless, your characters choices are hardly revolutionary. The protagonist, V, doesnt have the option to take down the governing corporations, or even to develop alliances among the street-level gangs that might be empowered and incentivized to do so. The player mostly operates as a freelance corporate/police lackey. Its like GTA without the ability to acquire territory, or any manner of RPGs without getting to be the chosen one. Your character is simultaneously anonymous and a catalyst for all sorts of chaos.

In Cyberpunk 2077, the more egregious dissonance comes in part from being a larger release while mimicking the confines of the cyberpunk genre as it has been expressed to mass mediathe games narrative thrives off overlapping neo noir tropes. And its not that it isnt fun; for all the games many problems, Im almost embarrassed to admit how much Im enjoying it. But your protagonist, V, never really escapes the clutches of corporationswhether you start as a nomad, a street kid, or a corpo that is quickly dishonored and disavowed.

The intensified privatization of society in an independent city that is essentially a corporate colony like Halcyon leads to the violent freelancing that is inherent to the structure of RPGs. It makes for fun gameplay and an engaging story but also requires you to become a gunman for the police or for corporate infighting. Its noir, its cyberpunk: the protagonist is operating within the confines of a cynical world, trying to make do. But, for all the problems pointed-out about specific corporations, militarized emergency forces, and the general effects of hyper-capitalism (the corpo life path starts working in counterintelligence at a weapons contractor) theres no option in the violent power fantasy to lead the people in mass struggle.

The critique here is not that these games offer inadequate options for their medium as videogames, but that art made by major corporate entities cant take down the systems theyre part of. That becomes more obvious with games like these; role-playing games purport to give the player power to affect their surroundings, sci-fi dystopias show their audiences the need for change, but mainstream games as they are made today cant seriously critique the capitalist structures they exist within.

Its hard for CD Projekt RED to say that society would be better if corporations were torn down into worker-owned co-ops; its hard for Obsidian not to imagine the best path is somewhere between anarchy and despotism. In a critical moment of late capitalism in real life, art here is too closely imitating life without offering a genuinely radical alternative. This doesnt mean the games are failures (there are other reasons to make that argument, but I think theyre both fun). It just means theyre constrained because of what players have been conditioned to expect from mainstream videogamespower fantasies that dont conflict too strongly with capitalist ideology, even when they want to look like theyre critiquing it.

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Cyberpunk 2077, The Outer Worlds, and Mainstream Sci-fi Games' Lack of Imagination - Paste Magazine

Netflix US will be receiving the sci-fi thriller Tides (also known as The Colony) in January 2022 which will mark its SVOD debut having premiered in the US back in August 2021.

Produced in Germany and Switzerland, the sci-fi action thriller comes from director Tim Fehlbaum and was produced by BerghausWbke, Filmproduktion, Constantin Film, and Vega Film. Despite having been produced in Germany, the film is spoken entirely in English.

The movie marks Tim Fehlbaums big return to movies with his last entry being Hell (otherwise known as Apocalypse) released back in 2011.

Before releasing in both Germany and select North American theaters in August, the film first premiered at various film festivals in early 2021 including the Berlinale. Its scooped numerous awards including awards for best director and best visual effects.

Now, after debuting on PVOD and select theaters, the movie is coming to Netflix on January 11th, 2022 in the United States (other regions to be determined). Itll be the movies SVOD debut meaning its the first time it has been made available on a streaming service as part of a subscription.

Heres what you can expect from the movie if you plan on diving in come January 11th:

In the not too-distant future: after a global catastrophe has wiped out nearly all of humanity on Earth, Blake, an elite astronaut from Space Colony Kepler-209, must make a decision that will seal the fate of the people on both planets.

Nora Arnezeder stars in the lead role as Blake. The actress notably played Lilly in Zack Snyders Netflix 2021 summer hit, Army of the Dead. Shes also set to appear in Paramount+s The Offer.

Iain Glen, best known for his role on Game of Thrones plays Gibson.

Sebastian Roch (A Walk Among Tombstones), Sope Dirisu (Gangs of London), and Sarah-Sofie Boussnina (The Birdcatcher) also star.

Reviews from audiences havent been strong thus far. It holds a 5.4 on IMDb with some reviews pointing out holes in the script however many compare the movie to Waterworld for better or for worse. The movie was equally contentious among critics with it currently holding a 48 on Metacritic.

Saban Films holds the US distribution rights who are also going to be releasing 2021s Zone 414 and Long Story Short onto Netflix US in January 2021.

Will you be checking out this dystopian thriller on Netflix in January? Let us know in the comments down below.

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Tides (The Colony) Making SVOD Debut on Netflix US in January 2022 - What's on Netflix

The first study of marine life on an ancient shipwreck in the Mediterranean found the ship home to more than 100 underwater species, giving researchers an insight on how marine life build stable colonies over decades on archeological artifacts.

A sea battle on March 10, 241 BCE off the northwestern coast of Sicily near the Aegadian Islands saw a fleet equipped by the Roman Republic destroy a fleet from Carthage, ending the First Punic War in Romes favour, according to a release.

In a study published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, researchers examining the shipwrecked remains of a Carthaginian galley from the historical battle found 114 species of marine animals coexisting in a complex community on the galleys bronze ram.

Ancient sea battles often involved battling ships ramming into one another in order to sink the opposing side or to board the other ship to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Rams, often cast of different metals, were placed on the front bow of ships to aid in creating as much damage as possible in the strike.

Shipwrecks are often studied to follow colonization by marine organisms, but few studies have focused on ships that sank more than a century ago, said lead study author Sandra Ricci in the release. Here we study for the first time colonization of a wreck over a period of more than 2,000 years. We show that the ram has ended up hosting a community very similar to the surrounding habitat, due to ecological connectivity free movement by species between it and the surroundings.

The ships ram was recovered in 2017 from the seabed around 90 metres down, and nicknamed Egadi 13. It consists of a single, hollow piece of bronze that is engraved with Punic inscriptions that are so far undecipherable, the study notes. It is about 90 centimetres long, five centimetres thick at the front edge and weighs 170 kilograms or approximately 375 pounds.

The find was cleaned and restored in 2019, and as part of the restoration process, all marine animals living in and on the ram were collected along with hardened biological materials and blocks of sediment. Those samples were then studied, comparing the species on the ships ram with those found in natural Mediterranean habitats, reconstructing how the ram had been colonized over the years.

The researchers found 11 living invertebrate species, including 33 species of gastropods (snails and slugs) 33 species of polychaete worms (marine worms with bristles along their bodies) and 23 species of bryozoans (commonly referred to as moss animals, invertebrates with tentacles who filter feed).

That collection of species is most commonly found in shallow-water habitats, well-lit sea beds, coralligenous reefs and in seagrass meadows, the study says.

We deduce that the primary constructors in this community are organisms such as polychaetes, bryozoans, and a few species of bivalves. Their tubes, valves, and colonies attach themselves directly to the wrecks surface, said study co-author Dr Edoardo Casoli in the release. Other species, especially bryozoans, act as binders: their colonies form bridges between the calcareous structures produced by the constructors. Then there are dwellers, which arent attached but move freely between cavities in the superstructure. What we dont yet know exactly is the order in which these organisms colonize wrecks.

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2,200-year-old shipwreck is a marine life haven - CTV News

Those who plan on watching the second season of Netflixs The Witcher can look forward to plenty of epic monster battles, character development, and Henry Cavill staring broodingly into the middle distance. But season 2 also reveals a lot about the broader world that The Witcher takes place in or more accurately, the many worlds.

Specifically, this darker and more serious chapter in the epic fantasy saga zooms in on a seminal event in the Witcher lore known as the conjunction of the spheres. During the conjunction, which took place approximately 1,500 years before the events of the show, a bunch of different spheres of reality collided with one another, causing elves, dwarves, humans, and monsters to all get mixed up together on the same continent, much to their mutual discontent.

While this cosmic collision is pure fantasy, there is a potentially scientific idea at its core: some physicists have proposed that our universe may really be just one in a much grander multiverse of realities. If thats true, it may even be possible for different universes to interact to some extent. These ideas are wildly controversial, with one camp of physicists arguing that the multiverse is more a matter of philosophy or religion than a fruitful terrain for scientific inquiry. Others say that since we cant rule out the existence of a multiverse, theres no harm in speculating about its nature.

With season 2 of The Witcher dropping on Netflix today, it felt like an apt time for some rampant speculation. To keep things as scientifically grounded as possible, The Verge chatted with University of California, San Diego cosmologist Brian Keating about some of the most mind-bending multiverse ideas physicists have proposed, where pop culture stretches these ideas beyond recognition, and the cosmic horizons we may never see past.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The Witcher is not alone in popularizing the idea of the multiverse. Its a big theme in the Marvel cinematic universe now, its in Star Trek. Some physicists would say the multiverse is nothing but science fiction. But could you tell us a bit about why others think it might really exist?

Yeah. So the multiverse is kind of a natural extrapolation of what we call the Copernican principle, which is that where we are and who we are and what we are shouldnt be significant or aberrant. It should be kind of representative of the properties throughout all of reality. And just as theres many planets, there are many stars, there are many galaxies, and there are many clusters of galaxies, so, too, the logic would have one believe there is no reason to suspect that there should be only one universe. In fact, one of the foremost proponents of the multiverse paradigm, Andrei Linde, whos a professor at Stanford, claims that we shouldnt be biased in favor of a universe. That we should, in fact, start from this [idea] that there probably is a multiverse. And the notion has been extended by other people to really encompass all the different types of possibilities for the existence of more than one universe: A universe that is characterized by laws of physics, constants of nature, intelligent or conscious beings, and so forth.

The multiverse comes as directly as a consequence of two very different branches of physics. One is cosmology, in particular whats called inflation, the theory of the ultra-high energy origin of the expansion of space and time that would later become our observable universe. And also from string theory, which predicts sort of a landscape of possible values for different fundamental constants and forces. So these two different fields, which arent really associated with one another, both imply that there is the possibility for a multiverse. And as yet, there is a vast disagreement as to whether or not the multiverse actually is part of physics, or if its pure philosophy. And if its part of physics, how could one go about testing it or even falsifying its existence?

So to be clear, we have no direct evidence for the existence of a multiverse.

So the question is whether or not its even in principle possible to provide evidence that supports a multiverse. And if such evidence cant be found, is it possible to rule out the existence of the multiverse? Because you might be living in a multiverse, but then you might not be able to detect that youre living in a multiverse the same way that bacteria in a petri dish cant detect that they live inside of a laboratory inside of a building inside of a planet. Its too remote from the sphere of reality that they have access to.

Now, there are people who propose there are ways to measure the possibility that we are in a multiverse. The one particular signature would be looking for an impact, or a collision with another universe, that would produce an observational pattern in the oldest light in the universe called the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is what I study. And that theory, or conjecture, is pretty wildly contested. Its not at all clear if you could categorically detect and therefore motivate the existence of the multiverse.

But theres no doubt in any physicists minds that there are regions of our universe which are unobservable to us. And in that sense, you know, we already believe in a sort of multiverse. But then, extending and adding new features onto that multiverse, from inflation or from string theory, thats where things get very controversial.

As I said a moment ago, weve seen a lot of depictions of the idea of the multiverse in pop culture. I think what makes The Witcher stand out a little bit is its not just positing there are all these different universes out there in their own separate bubbles, but that universes have collided with each other. Theres a historical, cataclysmic collision that sort of sets the stage for the events of the series. In the context of a multiverse, do physicists have any ideas as to whether, or how, different universes might interact?

First of all, physicists arent in agreement that the multiverse is a serious scientific paradigm worthy of discussion. A lot of people believe its not. On the other hand, if you do take it seriously, then you can ask questions about it. But then its not clear whether or not theres any evidence, or set of evidence, that could prove it wrong. Because you could say, well, we thought this was evidence for the multiverse. But actually, in the multiverse, since anything is possible to happen, you can get any range of predictions that you want. And so its kind of unsatisfying. Its like eating cosmic Wonder Bread.

In the context where these universes collide, it could be just as light travels at a finite speed, the Sun could disappear right now, and we wouldnt see it for eight minutes. So its not possible to say something is ruled out just by not seeing it.

So there could be a multiverse. It could be one light-year away from us, in a certain sense, in which case next year well see it. It could be 10^50 light-years away from us, in which case well never see it. So it could turn out, yes, tomorrow we impact a universe thats one light-year away from us. But the thing I would gently push back on is that the notion of a collision nucleating some vast explosion is not at all clear.

For example, we know for sure we will eventually collide with the Andromeda galaxy, which is our nearest neighbor galaxy. Its almost like a twin sister of ours, and it has almost the same number of stars, hundreds of billions of stars. Its even more massive than ours, and its one of the few galaxies were moving towards rather than expanding away from, according to Hubble. That galaxy will someday crash into our galaxy, but its not like every single point will collide and each star will hit another star. In fact, theyll mostly pass right through each other. So if a galaxy, which is billions of times more dense than the universe on average, can pass right through another galaxy, all the more so a universe could pass through another universe in a certain sense.

So I think its artistic license to suggest that that could nucleate some fireworks. But I admit its pretty cute.

Could there be any sorts of interactions between different universes?

Yeah, in fact, one of the ways you might see the impact of a universe adjacent to ours is that it might have a gravitational force that deflects the light traveling in our universe. But all of this would be taking place at the boundary of what we can see just today. In other words, it wouldnt be happening to us. It would be happening 45 billion light-years away from us and we would just be seeing it now [Editors note: 45 billion light years is the approximate radius of the observable universe]. Unless youre talking about some interdimensional wormhole between different universes, and thats incredibly speculative.

And some of the problems with these physical phenomena when applied to science fiction, like wormholes and other things, is that theyre barely at the level of speculation. Theyre completely removed from testability in laboratory settings. Theyre mathematical possibilities. But as I always say, mathematics allows the possibility for infinity. You know, just divide one by zero. But there is nothing that we know about in the universe thats infinite. Nothing that has infinite temperature, density, pressure, energy, etc. So just because something is mathematically possible doesnt mean it has any physical relevance. So I dont want to be a downer. But the reality is, yes, it is possible to witness the effects of another universe interacting with ours. But it would be occurring not here, but a very, very distant there.

So it sounds like a physically plausible story about the multiverse would not have a lot of cool stuff to look at.

Well, yeah, its like saying, you know, a black hole or a wormhole as is possible. Of course, we measure black holes, but we dont measure any near us, right? Theres not one that we can kind of play with and jump into and then pop out, you know, in the Andromeda galaxy, even, let alone in another universe.

And by the way, if the laws of physics change from universe to universe, its not at all clear that the laws of mathematics, or the laws of logic, would be forbidden from changing. In other words, you get into a wormhole in our universe. You pop out in another universe. Well, the laws of wormholes are based on the laws of black holes, which are the consequence of general relativity, which is a consequence of partial differential equations, which is a consequence of calculus, which is a consequence of real numbers. And who knows if theres such a thing as real numbers in another universe? Just as the old joke goes, an old fish swims by two young fish and says to them, Hows the water? And they say, Whats water? They have no concept of it. Its so alien to their existence that they cant even contemplate it. And theres no reason to be chauvinistic, to think it would be like our universe.

I feel like we see that idea represented at least a little bit allegorically in science fiction and this true in The Witcher as well in how when beings move from universe to universe, they often cant survive in the other universe for an extended period of time because its fundamentally so different.

In my first book Losing the Nobel Prize, I made this kind of analogy which I called the petriverse. So imagine theres some bacterium and its in a petri dish and it starts making a colony. That bacterium, if it was very smart, could realize that theres a possibility for another colony really far away from it to exist because it has the agar gel and it has gravity and sunlight and whatever. It could deduce that there is a possibility for another universe in the petriverse, and actually some of these other colonies when they do form, even though they are only a couple of centimeters away, they produce toxins that prevent other bacteria from invading their space. So its like, a barrier that makes it inhospitable and hostile to the existence of hopping between universes, just like what you described.

What sorts of advances in physics could we make in the coming decades that might shed light on this question of whether the multiverse is real?

I think the field that Im studying, which is the cosmic microwave background, the key observable, and what were trying to discover, is unequivocal evidence that inflation took place. And if inflation took place, that would come concomitantly with the multiverse in most physicists anticipation. They go as a direct consequence. If you discover these waves of gravity embedded in the cosmic microwave background, then you would get a very strong piece of evidence that would seem to mandate the multiverse exists. [Editors note: Keating later clarified that this would be perhaps the strongest circumstantial evidence possible for a multiverse.] On the other hand, it may be that inflation took place, but its too weak to produce observable gravitational waves, in which case you might need to wait till a future version of the LIGO [the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory] experiment in space called LISA. And that could potentially take us back and show us evidence of the fundamental origination from, perhaps, the surrounding multiverse.

And I should point out theres other ways that multiverses [could exist]. Theres a quantum mechanical version of the multiverse called the many worlds interpretation. And thats that at every possible moment of time, every possible choice, every possible observable, is instantiated. But we only observe one particular outcome for each observation because were sort of coherently oscillating with those quantum mechanical wave functions, and therefore we can observe them. Those are kind of parallel universes going on right now. So if I turn my head to the right or the left, theres a whole universe where Brian turned his head to the left. So thats a version of the multiverse. Theres also a version of the multiverse where the universe is cyclical in a certain sense; its coming into existence, its coming out of existence in a collapse. Its reemerging, and its kind of growing, and then that universe collapses. So thats kind of a temporal multiverse. And those kinds of models have been around since antiquity.

I would say, its hard to find a model of cosmology that doesnt have some version of a multiverse in it, whether thats temporal or spatial, or spatial and temporal, or quantum mechanical. So there are hopes that one could get some confidence from measuring aspects of quantum mechanics. And then theres the cosmic and gravitational wave experiments that I do. And then, perhaps if string theory were to make much more concrete predictions. So I think theres a lot more theoretical advances that need to be made, a lot more experimental [advances]. But fundamentally, we may never be able to prove it wrong. In other words, you ruled out 10^499 different universes but you didnt rule out this one. And these observations therefore become whats called unfalsifiable. In which case you cant prove that inflations wrong, but you also cant prove that the alternatives are right. And in that case, all hope would be lost. You cant prove it using an experiment or evidence, you can only prove it on Twitter or something.

Sounds like the multiverse is going to continue to fuel physics beef for many years to come.

Yes. I always say, inflation for economists means one thing. But for us, the multiverse ensures full employment for cosmologists for years to come. And for science fiction.

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We asked a physicist whether The Witcher's multiverse could really exist - The Verge

There are lots of potential uses for a Mars colony. It could be a research outpost, mining colony, or even a possible second home if something happens to go drastically wrong on our first one. But it could also be a potential source of what is sure to be one of the most valuable elements in the space economy hydrogen.

A new paper from Dr. Mikhail Shubov at the University of Massachusetts Lowell discussing just such an eventuality. Hydrogen is useful in myriad applications. From creating water to exploding as rocket fuel, the most abundant element in the universe sure has many uses. The problem is its relatively hard to get access to in the broader solar system.

There is plenty of it in Jupiter or even the Sun, but extracting that light of a material from those enormous gravity wells is not particularly cost-effective. Smaller orbital bodies, such as asteroids, have some water that could be used as a hydrogen source, but they are not large enough to provide all of the solar systems needs.

One particular place in the solar system does have an abundant potential source of hydrogen and a relatively weak gravity well Mars. Admittedly the hydrogen on the Red Planet is in water form. However, hydrolysis is a fairly common reaction that requires power and has the added benefit of producing pure oxygen, which is valuable in its own right.

Water has plenty of other uses on Mars, though, not the least of which would be sustaining any colony that would be looking to perform hydrogen export in the first place. However, water recycling will likely be a common technique in the early days of any colony, so once enough water is collected, additional input would only need to match the losses of any water reclamation system.

While it might not seem like it at first glance, Mars has a lot of water. Satellites have detected more than 5 million km3 of ice on or near its surface. If even a tiny fragment of that is exploited for water consumption at a colony, it could indefinitely support tens of thousands of residents.

That leads to another question what to do with the water left on the surface after meeting the colonys needs. It could be used in any future terraforming efforts, but it would likely be more valuable to the solar systems economy in the medium terms if turned directly into hydrogen.

Dr. Shubov suggests doing precisely that but only after the surrounding economy has grown enough to warrant mass use of hydrogen in space. That includes not only orbital infrastructure, like the Gateway space station but also the Mars colony itself. Throughout the paper, one suggestion that he repeats is only starting a hydrogen extraction process when approximately 10,000 people are resident in a future Martian colony. He even goes so far as to estimate the total amount of steel and plastic necessary to build a large enough colony to support all those colonists.

Those arent the only stipulation, though having launch infrastructure on the planet itself is key to making the economic argument to ship hydrogen off-world. One potential infrastructure solution is a mass driver a type of very long rail gun that could potentially launch packages of hydrogen straight from the Martian surface into orbit. While there are even plans to build such a system on Earth, the physics of Mars is much more amenable to the large-scale engineering needed to build mass drivers or other infrastructure that could significantly decrease orbital launch costs.

Its great to get the hydrogen into orbit around Mars, but where does it go from there? To Earth is the most likely answer, at least until other bases in the solar system start to require their own hydrogen. Getting a significant amount of gas to Earth will require not burning some of that fuel. However, various potential cyclical solutions have been discussed, the most famous the Aldrin Cycler.

No matter the solution selected to get the valuable rocket fuel back home, Dr. Shubovs argument of how such a hydrogen export system could work. Were still very far from any need for such a hydrogen market, even on Earth, let alone in space. But that will never stop some dreamers from coming up with scenarios that could fundamentally alter the economics of the solar system.

Learn More:arXiv Feasibility Study For Hydrogen Producing Colony on MarsUT The Bare Minimum Number of Martian Settlers? 110UT How Do We Colonize Mars?

Lead image:Artists conception of an established Martian colonyCredit SpaceX

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A Mars Colony Could be a Hydrogen Factory, Providing ...

By Colm Gorey, Frontiers science writer

Future planetary colonists will experience isolation like no other group in human history, which is why scientists on Earth are attempting to see how we communicate in the most extreme situations. In a paper published with Frontiers, researchers in Russia observed volunteers in isolation attempting to replicate life in deep space to see how it would impact their mood and communication styles. Despite some initial differences, the eventual cohesion of the team offers hope for future moon and Mars colonists.

Elton John famously sang that Mars aint the kind of place to raise your kids, but one day space agencies across the globe hope to prove him wrong by seeing the first human establishing the first colony on the Red Planet, and elsewhere in the solar system.

However, those who make the journey will not only have to survive on a freezing planet with no breathable atmosphere, but live in isolation unlike any other explorers in human history.

At its closest proximity, Mars is still almost 55m km away from Earth, making communication delays and supply issues between the two worlds unavoidable. This requires crew members to effectively cope with stressful conditions by themselves, with limited autonomous resources available on board.

With little chance of conducting a trial run in space, scientists have resorted to more terrestrial experiments to see how astronauts cope with such challenges. A previous isolation experiment called Mars-500 revealed a psychological detachment from mission control among those who took part, raising fears that it could lead to resistance from future crews in deep space to any commands.

In 2017 and 2019, two further isolation experiments dubbed SIRIUS (Scientific International Research in Unique Terrestrial Station) were conducted across periods of 17 days and four months, respectively, in a facility in Moscow, Russia using international, mixed gender crews. These missions studied the effects of isolation and confinement on human psychology, physiology, and team dynamics to help prepare for long-duration space exploration beyond Earth.

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Hello, can you hear me?

Now, researchers have published a paper in Frontiers in Physiology revealing how the crews communication with the outside world in these experiments not only diminished over time, but caused friction initially, and eventually resulted in cohesion.

The crews in such missions tend to reduce their communication with mission control during isolation, sharing their needs and problems less and less, said Dr Dmitry Shved, of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and the Moscow Aviation Institute, as well as an author of the study.

The rare bursts of contacts were seen during important mission events (eg landing simulation). Also, there was a convergence of communication styles of all SIRIUS crew members, and an increase in crew cohesion in the course of their mission. This happened even though the crew composition was diverse by gender and also cultural background, with pronounced individual differences.

Among the different ways the crews behavior was measured included the tracking of facial expressions and speech acoustic characteristics (intensity, frequency and variability of speech) from video recordings.

During SIRIUS-19, the researchers recorded 320 audio conversations with external observers lasting 11 hours in the first 10 days alone. However, this fell to just 34 conversations lasting a total of 77 minutes during the last 10 days.

11 days into the experiment, an artificial communications delay was added similar to what would be experienced by those living on the moon, Mars and beyond. Over the course of four months, the number of video messages sent to mission control decreased from 200 in the first week of isolation to between 115 and 120. The duration of these videos also decreased significantly.

Under these conditions, the researchers also noted differences in communication between men and women participants. In women, there were more manifestations of joy and sadness emotions, while, men were more likely demonstrated anger.

It should be generally noted that, while the male and female parts of the SIRIUS-19 crew showed significant differences in the style and content of their communication with the control center in the first month of isolation, then, during the course of the experiment, these differences were smoothed out, the authors wrote.

Promising for future colonists

According to Shved: Our findings show that in autonomous conditions, the crews undergo psychological autonomization, becoming less dependent on mission control.

Also, the crews in such conditions tend to increase their cohesion when crew members become closer and more similar to each other, despite their personal, cultural, and other differences. So, these phenomena look promising for future solar system exploration or for any teams living and working in isolation on Earth.

Looking to the future, Shved and his fellow researchers aim to analyze more data from the latest isolation experiment, SIRIUS-21, which began on 4 November this year. This, he said, will help in overcoming the limitation of a small sample size that comes with such unique experiments.

Our findings pose serious questions that should be taken into consideration [before sending crews to the moon, Mars and other planets], Shved said.

The promising part is, that the crews seem to become more autonomous and independent from Earth. The increasing crew cohesion should also help them in dealing with various problems during their mission.

REPUBLISHING GUIDELINES: Open access and sharing research is part ofFrontiers mission. Unless otherwise noted, you can republish articlesposted inthe Frontiers news site as long as you include a link back to the original research. Sellingthe articles is not allowed.

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Off-world colony simulation reveals changes in human ...

Hi there. We've got more updates on the AWS outage, and Elon Musk officially sold his last remaining home (next step, colonize Mars).

Let's dive in.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Insider's app click here for iOS and here for Android.

1. The AWS outage could lead to shipping delays ahead of the holidays. The massive Amazon Web Services outage on Tuesday toppled the apps the company uses to talk to its frontline workers, and will likely lead to delivery delays for Amazon packages.

2. Amazon unionizers say a visit from the NYPD quickly turned sour. The unionizers at a warehouse in Staten Island said one was handcuffed and held in a cell, and both received court summonses. They shared their version of the incident.

3. Inside Better's week from hell. America's top startup fell from grace after its CEO laid off 900 people in a three-minute Zoom call. One employee's work email and messaging were cut off so fast he had to quiz ex-colleagues via Facebook. More than 10 now-former employees took us inside the firm that crashed and burned over the past week.

4. Instagram is working to bring back the chronological feed. After doing away with the chronological feed in favor of a controversial engagement-based ranking in 2016, the company has decided to return to its roots, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said. Why Instagram is scrapping the engagement-based feed.

5. Meta has lost at least 18 executives in 2021. As the company (formerly known as Facebook) goes through a major shakeup, some of its longest-standing execs have left the company. Some left quietly and others criticized the company on their way out. Here's everyone who's left this year.

6. You can play video games in a Tesla while driving. Tesla owners can use their vehicle's screen to play video games even while the car is in motion, The New York Times first reported. Here's what you need to know about Tesla's video games.

7. An NBA star is backing a delivery startup modeling itself after Whole Foods. Baron Davis and other investors have put their weight behind Fast AF, an ultrafast delivery service that offers high-end snacks and drinks, as well as cosmetics and exercise equipment. Get the rundown on Fast AF.

8. Another billionaire just launched into space. Japanese fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa was sent on a 12-day space trip yesterday and said he'll be giving away cash to people on Earth while he's in orbit. He also shared footage of his training, which he said "almost feels like torture." You can see the video here.

9. Elon Musk has sold his last remaining home for $30 million. Musk has repeatedly said he plans to sell his possessions to fund a Mars colony and got one step closer to doing so when he sold his 47-acre property on Dec. 2. More on that here.

10. A pitch for a casino in New York features a crypto-trading floor and a flying car landing pad. A Las Vegas-seasoned asset manager is looking to launch a massive crypto-friendly casino and hopes to make it the biggest crypto-trading floor in the world. Get the details on the $3 billion proposal.

What we're watching today:

Curated by Jordan Parker Erb in New York. (Feedback or tips? Email jerb@insider.com or tweet @jordanparkererb.) Edited by Michael Cogley in London.

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10 things in tech you need to know today, Thursday, Dec. 9 - Business Insider

Imran Khan is the nominal prime minister of Pakistan. In reality, he's Xi Jinping's thinly veiled viceroy.

Pakistan presents itself as a great beacon of Islamic democracy and morality. It's actually just a Chinese fiefdom. The measure of Islamabad's political submission to Beijing is quite extraordinary.

Evincing as much, in a last-minute announcement on Wednesday, Pakistan announced that it would not participate in the U.S. democracy summit, which began on Thursday and is designed to align global democracies in support of human freedom. Islamabad, however, got the message from Beijing that it shouldn't attend. The demand put Pakistan in a tough position, risking alienating the Biden administration at a moment when Khan wants to improve relations.

Communist China has different objectives. The regime of Xi is deeply upset about the democracy summit. Its laughable claims of being a democracy aside, Beijing knows that the summit centers unwanted attention on the distinction between the democratic rule of law and its own global hegemonic ambitions . But Khan knows who is boss. Canceling Pakistan's attendance, the pet earned his pat. Removing his "wolf warrior" clothes for just a minute, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian declared that Pakistan's summit withdrawal proved it was China's "iron brother."

Still, the democracy summit antics are only the latest example of Pakistan's reincarnation as a Chinese colony. Most notable, here, is Pakistan's response to what China is doing to its Uyghur Muslim population.

The Chinese Communist Party has thrown at least one million (and likely 1.5-2 million) innocent Muslims into a vast network of concentration camps that litter its northwestern Xinjiang province. From there, these victims have been stripped of their religious and cultural identity, raped, forcibly sterilized, and then deployed as slave-like labor. Even if multinational corporations like confectionary giant Mars are blinded by Chinese gold, what is happening in Xinjiang is clearly a genocide .

Pakistan, however, sees no Chinese Communist evil.

In June, Khan was asked by Axios's Jonathan Swan why he was so outspoken on Islamophobia but so quiet on the Uyghur genocide. A noticeably uncomfortable Khan responded that he is focused on internal concerns.

Again, it's just one more example of Pakistan's poodle policy toward China. Last October, Pakistan's U.N. delegation actually allowed the Chinese delegation to write a statement for them defending China's human rights record. The Pakistani diplomats then read out that statement as if they were actually Chinese diplomats. There's a broader issue here. Other Muslim governments play the same game when it comes to ignoring China's genocide. The United Arab Emirates , Bashar al Assad's Syria , and the Taliban are notable examples.

Regardless, the world should now be clear: When it comes to Imran Khan's Pakistan, if it's a choice between China's interests and those of the Ummah (global Islamic community), the Ummah can go to hell.

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Welcome to Pakistan, colony of the People's Republic of China - Washington Examiner

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is not known to shy away from offering opinions on almost all social topics. The 50-year-old billionaire has expressed before that hes worried about artificial intelligence (AI) and plans to build a colony on Mars. As an extension of this concern, Musk now claims that one of the biggest risks to civilisation" is that humans are not having more babies. I cant emphasise this enough, there are not enough people," he said at a Wall Street Journal event (via CNBC). Interestingly, his remarks come just days after a Lancet study Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100 pointed out that the worlds population is on its way to a decline in a few decades for the first time in centuries. Currently, there are roughly 7.8 billion people on Earth that is said to peak in 2064.

At the event, Musk reportedly claimed that many good, smart people" perceive the world to be overpopulated and are now deciding against having children. He claimed, Its completely the opposite. If people dont have more children, civilisation is going to crumble. Mark my words." In case youre wondering whether he practices what he preaches, Musk has seven children. His concerns also stem from reports that point out that climate change is directly or indirectly impacting the fertility rate in the US that some analysts at Morgan Stanley also reportedly do. UCLA researchers have shown that the number of births in the US dropped in the nine months after an extreme heat event.

ALSO READ: After Elon Musks Twitter Spat, Binance Restores Dogecoin Withdrawals On Exchange

Earlier this week, Musk announced that Tesla is looking for a hardcore AI engineer" to solve problems that affect people directly. Although the requirement seems demanding, the application is quite basic and wants candidates to fill in their email, name, upload a resume, and explain what they have done so far. We develop and deploy autonomy at scale in vehicles, robots and more. We believe that an approach based on advanced AI for vision and planning, supported by efficient use of inference hardware, is the only way to achieve a general solution for full self-driving and beyond," read the official website.

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here.

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Elon Musk Has A 'Save The Earth Warning' For You - News18

Tethers (2021) at DUST by Matthew Steele Finley (uploaded at DUST November 24, 2021, 5:22 min)

A woman travels in time to save another womans life but the risk could be far reaching for her own reality.

Review: Dont kill your mother or anything, the time travel technician (Larry Herring) warns Anna (Abigail Williams), as she prepares to travel back to prevent a tragedy set maybe thirty years ago in an upper middle class home.

Not too many spoilers but Anna must attempt to persuade her future mother Rachel (Alicia Kelley) not to marry her father a man whom she knows (the way the future knows the past) is not good for her mother. Sshe shows her mom the future coroners report.

Now, the question is, once Mom understands what is at stake, what will she choose to do?

This spare thought experiment by writers Jonathan Horne and James Legg captures well one of the dilemmas of time travel: Could giving people in the past knowledge change things?

Tethers offers a new take on the theme of Ray Bradburys A Sound of Thunder the Butterfly Effect by which a single change in the past can have far-reaching implications: Even if time travel can happen, can the famed Butterfly Effect happen? Watch it and see what you think.

And if time travel intrigues you, check out these shorts as well:

Can a man go back and fix his past? (11:11 min) It turns out that the old man calling from 2120 doesnt just want to give his younger self advice; he wants to change the past to prevent tragedy.Hey, its me offers a new approach to time travel, which depends on the concept of unchanging identity over time.

A man in dire need contacts his unborn grandson (17:00 min) The grandson gets the mail and sends back something from the future, via a mysterious mailbox, that gives the felons a considerable surprise. The Mailbox, set in a mid-20th century North American Chinatown, manages the time travel issues reasonably well by adopting the art of the folk tale.

Alone at DUST. (18:49 min) Space engineer Kaya Torres, the only survivor of a black hole, contacts an interstellar penpal to keep her company until she dies. She manages a desperate escape but then experiences one of the astonishing implications of time travel.

Can we live in more than the present moment? (24:42 min) When a tech entrepreneur succeeds with time travel, he gets trapped in his own past errors. In Container, the time traveler is locked inside his lab and can only get out by repeated, dangerous efforts to go back in time to when the door is unlocked.

We sort the films reviewed below by length in minutes and seconds so you can choose them based both on interest and on how much time you have:

Five minutes or less

This planet is not in our co-ordinates. (3 min) A space courier crew gets a surprise when delivering a mysterious machine to a strange planet. One could almost see something like McPhersons Toys happening, as an office gag, but 500 years from now. (Animated)

The robot waits for the humans return (3:25 min). Robert is a household robot who has little to do but prowl the house while the humans are away. This very short film is a meditation on loneliness, with musical accompaniment and a robot as the central character.

A cruel experiment plays with three lives (3:32 min). Rational thought offers no contest, in this minimalist film, to the will to survive or at least get revenge in death. In 2-Bullet Solution, only one of three people can survive being trapped in a test gas chamber by shooting the other two.

Fenestra, the aliens land in a domestic drama. (3:49 min) As the alien ships loom worldwide, the cheating boyfriend thinks he can just come back At under four minutes, Fenestra gives all the elements of a good, lean story against an alien invasion setting.

Can video games save a lone survivor? (3:51 min) High Score features fine animations of apocalyptic scenes of post-civilization. The game that turns out to be an existential struggle usually benefits from a longer treatment but the animation is well imagined.

When the robot discovers nature. On a ruined planet, a dog robot get caught in a time warp. If a robot dog had a dog mind, wouldnt it prefer to be as much of a real dog as possible?

What if the future does not include smarter people? (4 min) Comic scenes would dot the aerial landscape, dispelling the usual earnestness of sci-fi films. A brief sci-fi diversion like Floaters reminds us that cluelessness is not a problem we can just solve or should even try to. (Animated)

What if an old man could see his mother again? (4:02 min) Bygone is a hard film to watch if you lost a loved one recently, but worthwhile. The old man is paying to use his own memories, retrieved via neuroscience imaging.

Machine world at its most nihilist 4:38 min This very short animated cyberpunk thriller portrays a world of autonomous vehicles where faces are very rare. In the Autonomous near-future world, pretty much everything we see, except the drug dealers, is a machine. (Animated)

Would you become an animal to save a species? (4:13 min) The animation is good and the question raised is interesting. Floreana looks at a world where we become the animals we are trying to save .. Would it work?

A choice between saving ones child and oneself Is life always so simple? Well, we shall see. (4:58 min) Zoe is a pleasant summer view with a happy ending. Well done technically and the actors are veterans. Some questions remain.

Ten minutes or less

Watch what you wish for. There IS a tomorrow! (5:01) Carl, a lonely guy, is determined to proceed through the warning and try the Luvsik procedure, to make him fall in love at first sight. The short film features strong performances by Momo Dione and Samantha Lester, and the surprise ending avoids clich.

A girl with kinetic powers faces a choice. (5:06 min) Should she help relatives with activities she knows to be wrong? Kinetic is well executed but it breaks a fundamental rule of science fiction: There must be a clear science basis for the story premise.

Its 2075! Our motto: Ignorance is Bliss (5:12 min) This animated short asks us to consider a future world in which information is reduced to a sort of haze. An aging neurobotanist struggles to preserve the knowledge of plants in a surreal landscape of clutter flying amid futurist buildings.

In No Guarantee, brain uploading proves costly. (5:22 min) In a ruined mid-21st century Britain, a couple gains tickets to a virtual world if their brains can be uploaded. But can they? In this very short film, the theme of escape by brain uploading is handled in a refreshingly mature way with characters who face serious choices.

When virtual friends are a real addiction (5:31) Animated short Best Friends begins with the thirtieth birthday party of a rather glum young man. As is the way with addicts, our hero cannot use his futurist fix for loneliness responsibly and ends up doing desperate things.

What happens if Earth passes through a black hole (5:36 min) This story isnt exactly about passage through a black hole: It is a meditation on nothingness that crashes headfirst into nihilismThe film prompts thought about why anyone should believe that there is no underlying order behind the universe. It seems obvious from the artwork that there is.

Rescuing lost people. (5:41 min) Animated, in French, with English subtitles, but dont let that deter you. The professional relationships in Protocole Sandwich sound pretty real and make it worth the watch. The animation is very good.

The disabled robot vet in A Robot Is a Robot gets a job grooming cats. (5:49 min) Definitely worth your five minutes, in part in order to see what cartoonists can do in sci-fi with animated stills. In a research paper, Max Planck scientists recently concluded that it is not possible to hobble the danger from intelligent AI. This film offers a good illustration.

Are we alone? asks a new sci-fi short. But then why? (5:48) In Laniakea, we are introduced to a civilizations museum? Or what is it? An intriguing Sci-fi Saturday. The underlying idea of Laniakea is a serious thesis in astrobiology: Extraterrestrial civilizations die out unless they adopt an unconventional solution.

When oxygen becomes the most precious commodity (6:02 min) This sci-fi riff on what where atmospheric pollution could lead us offers beautiful renderings of abandoned advanced civilizations, housed in caves. Most drones have turned hostile, blocking a humans access to the precious oxygen supply, controlled by a friendly AI.

When a simulated world begins to fall apart. (6:11 min) In Untitled Earth Sim 64, Marie has reason to expect trouble when the simulator who explains reality to her cannot get her name right If Marie has found God amid strange events, as her friend thinks, the God she has found is highly disorganized one.

The (virtual) doctor will see you now (6:25 min) A lonely middle-aged man experiences a future where medicine works correctly but the human dimension has ceased to exist. In a nihilist future dystopia, a digital doctor dispenses instant diagnoses and treatments from a virtual kiosk, once bitcoins are rendered

When God gets distracted (6:36 min) A clever animated short offers a take on why there is so much violence and chaos in the worldIn Tales from the Multiverse, Earth is the beta version left unattended by a God who is too busy breaking up fights between his kids, including the devil.

When your oppressors are giant beetles. (6:36 min) In an eerily lifelike animation, a French team asks us to picture beetles trying to live the high life. How would humans combat intelligent human-size beetles? This animation crisply explores the possibilities.

The Wild West, as seen from another cosmos (6:58 min) Jane Montana must rescue a hostage from three villains. But is Montana what she seems? Cosmo invokes parallel universes: The story is vividly imagined by an inhabitant of a greater universe running on a slightly different time.

If you met someone in a dream every night ? (7:08 min) In a sci-fi short, a paramedic must confront a question about the nature of reality. Would a constantly recurring dream that you and another person shared be the equivalent of reality?

AI tries creativity! by kidnapping newborns (7:10 min). But the AIs seeking world dominance kidnap the wrong child. In The Shift, once the AIs realize that the human IS showing creativity, they realize that, on their view, he must be eliminated. That does not go well.

Worst case: AI robots invade to help us (7:22 min). A well-meaning AI attempts to rescue an impressionable child from the coming wipeout of humanity. Cera, a taut sci-fi short, explores the implications of the Zeroth Law of Robotics (robots must help humanity). Why SHOULD we expect it to go well?

When sci-fi gets earnest about colonization (7:12 min) Worth seeing but we never get to find out who the characters are fighting or why some treaty could not be arranged. The Ripple Effect looks at rebellion against the colonization of a new planet but the production values create more interest than the intellectual content.

Love among the ruins, for robots. Left behind is a beautifully rendered animated short of robots looking for some place to just exist in a deserted, ruined industrial landscape (7:14 min) At 275,000 views, this short film is deservedly popular. Animation eliminates many of the problems otherwise inherent in trying to make robots characters.

A fight for the winning ticket (7:35 min) In Here comes Frieda, in a 2040 superstorm, engulfing the planet, a young woman gets hold of a ticket out. But does the way out really exist? Or is she just hanging on and clinging to a fragile hope?

If we all depended on a few handfuls of seeds (7:39 min)Actually, we do. An inventive Norwegian filmmaker has made a short sci-fi film out of a possible outcome. What if aliens got hold of the carefully bred seed stocks that feed the world? No plagues or radiation would be needed to control us.

One day the door to the robots shop opens (7:44 min) In Roy, the robot, is suddenly confronted by another robot, determined to kill or die. Its a good short film but, while the special effects are well done, it makes no sense that the characters are supposed to be robots.

A space mission to infinity (7:55 min) After the space station module crash, the astronaut finds himself befriended by a friendly but mysterious neighbor. Who is he really? Flotando, which has won many awards, is a blend of sci-fi and near-death experience, reminiscent of the 1960s Twilight Zone series.

Layers of deceit plague a high-tech call center Sci-fi Saturday (7:57 min) In Lifeline, Jess, locked in, must try to save a competitors life when she can only contact artificial intelligence choices that are not programmed to provide the needed assistance. Jess is resourceful in attempting to save Keiths life, despite the constant AI roadblocks. But much more is going on than she really knows.

Human psychology in a world without water. (8:05 min) Oasis was filmed as a response to the Capetown Water Crisis of 2018. Good short film but one can take the empowered woman thing too far. That probably doesnt really work in a desperate struggle for survival.

Killing people for Likes on an alien planet: Sci-fi Saturday If only this crisp tale didnt sound so much like the social media we actually know (8:06 min) Happy Hunting follows a social media influencer who murders doomed people to break an online record and then faces a final, fatal choice.

We have met the aliens and they are comb jellies. (8:15 min) The alien life form, when it appears in Seedling, is very well imagined. Definitely watch it for the sense of isolation when our technology bubble evaporates and for the comb jelly space alien.

What if a loved one aged much faster than you? Sci-fi Saturday Its one of the implications of faster-than-light travel (8:19 min). Should youthful Cpt. Bernhard take her now very old husband to the new Earth, Gaia? Thats the emotional and ethical dilemma in ARK.

If its real, it must be endured. (8:47 min) Its Okay?, using futurist technology, takes a woman back through her time with someone she loves. This short sci-fi film plays around with time and neatly and deftly avoids the common shortcoming of becoming just plain confusing.

Kiko: A great short but key questions unanswered A lonely retail service robot longs for a world beyond her store. (9:21 min) An agreeable short but it never addresses the question of how Charlie acquired a robot that would want something different from its programming.

When The Workplace is anything but (9:32 min) The short film starts with a woman reassuring herself, unsettlingly, I AM the boss. This sci-fi short will appeal to many who have had a job at the corner of Rat and Race and sense thats a blessing compared to the alternative.

What if there were serious wars over clouds? (9:41 min) In a world that still has technology but is desperately short of water, such wars could happen. The short sci-fi film Oceanmaker features pirates who steal precious water from the clouds and a pilot who challenges them.

If roaches formed a miniature civilization (9:44 min) The roaches have built a rocket, intending to go to the moon, and their activity wakes up a dormant human. In Rocket Roaches, humans have retreated into virtual reality and it is left to the cockroaches to be the smart species that explores the universe.

In a futurist game inmost thoughts are real. (9:53) When a family plays the game in My House, long-simmering hostilities surface as acts. Confronting the inner violence that millennia of civilization have suppressed is a frightening experience for the players.

What if cloning were as easy as shopping? (9:57 min) A couple stumbles on a means of cloning life forms and they get, shall we say, far more than they bargained for This thought experiment, posed as a film, should make us glad that cloning is technically tricky and used mainly for farm animals.

Fifteen minutes or less

In a Future Market, Time To Live Is Bought, Sold (10:57 min) An employee wants to rebel against the greed and injustice but then she would run out of time The Bargain raises some issues as a thought experiment that appear in real life in the illegal organ trade

Terrified by a Scrap Monster (11:09 min) Well, if you have never been terrified by a Scrap Monster, as in Pinki. you are clearly missing out. Its fun watching a middle class South Korean business executive try to cope with the Scrap Monster. Perhaps an allegory of our big environment issues.

What if insects could put humans on trial? (11:11 min) In Science+, a shrunken inventor finds himself facing Ant Justice. In a comic turnabout, the ants, seen face to face, turn out to be roughly like people, of whom Matt discovers he has killed nearly 3500.

Can a man go back and fix his past? (11:11 min) It turns out that the old man calling from 2120 doesnt just want to give his younger self advice; he wants to change the past to prevent tragedy.Hey, its me offers a new approach to time travel, which depends on the concept of unchanging identity over time.

What if your AI started to talk like a human? (11:12 min) Should you just shut it down and leave the building? And not tell anyone? Intelligentia features strong performances and provides a good introduction to the Turing Test (how would we know if a machine had achieved consciousness?)

When the human race is down to its final offer (11:23 min) The aliens want Earths oceans (have they wrecked their own?) and now the fate of Earth turns on a single question: Is Henry really the worlds worst lawyer? The downbeat human lawyer and the alien corporate lawyer in Final Offer achieve artful comedy by the too-little used technique of comic dialogue, not gags.

Could stored memories bring back the dead? A nerd sees a way to bring back his friend Adam from Adams girlfriends memories (11:45 min) In Adam 2.0, the quest to bring back a dead friend from memory turns on a central question about the nature of human identity.

What would the ruins of Eden be like? Sci-fi Saturday (11:51 min)Scavenging for artifacts on a ruined planet, a space drifter comes across the ruins of a high-tech civilization. The derelict remains of an advanced civilization are sobering picture our own civilization looking like that.

If your life could be told in five photos Sci-fi Saturday A young woman accepts five key photos concerning a grandfather she never knew, taken at his death via a futurist technology. (11:58 min) Its a story about what happens when estrangement and loneliness become final, with the death of the one from whom one has been estranged.

Why you do NOT want to duplicate yourself. (12:07 min) The Unboxing Video offers philosophy as well as dark comedy around the question of what being oneself means. A lonely guy, filming himself unboxing his new android replicant, discovers how hard he is to live with when there are two of him. But can he return himself?

Speed of Time at DUST (12:19 min): A computer nerd writing a pizza delivery program discovers that his work is way more important than he, or anyone, thought. Imagine what happens when an accomplished ground warrior busts in from another time on a quiet family at the breakfast table

Landing back on Earth as the sole inhabitant unless we count the cat (12:24 min) In Origin, an astronaut from an interstellar colony explores the effects of deadly radiation on Earth.

How much can will power do against nature? (12:29) Despite his career-ending disability, Aaron as an alternative to accepting life as a bystander is trying to use his skills to take down a gunrunning gang. The climax will hearten persons who live with a disability though it leaves some fundamental questions unresolved. Maybe they cant be resolved.

The artists android has a surprise in store for him (12:33 min) He makes the fateful decision to allow her to depart from her programming during a crisis. In Muse, the gradually humanizing android Kay raises some interesting ethical and philosophical issues about being/becoming human.

Android asks, is immortality truly a benefit? (12:43 min) He argues that he can never appreciate life if he knows he can never die. More philosophy than sci-fi, Extent delves into the question of how much of the meaning we find in life derives from the inevitability of death.

Drapers chess metaphor seems apt: Life would be endless games where none is intrinsically connected to the previous one in any meaningful way.

Merv is the last man in a ruined radioactive world. (13:05) Hes been alone so long that the thought of another human being panics him. When Merv must confront another survivor, the story takes a classic turn but we might have expected that. Life goes on.

In a world run by robots, a bot becomes a joker (13:12 min) The dull, dystopian atmosphere of an Australia dominated by robots, portrayed in System Error, is well done and worth the watch. The story prompted this viewer to consider what thoughts a robot simply couldnt have without some kind of input from consciousness always the Hard Problem.

An asteroid lingers near Earth and devours time (13:23 min) Or, at any rate, it devours our perception of time, as one man discovers in Flyby. As the asteroid Chrono-7 hazes Earth, a man wakes up in the morning to find that he is living in his future, one he had never imagined.

In This Time Away, a robot helps an old fellow rediscover life (13:24 min) The robot is very well done and how he gets a name is charming. Lots of people abandon their elderly relatives, of course, so finding a helpful robot in the back yard is a pleasant fantasy.

The robot tries to learn about grief (13:37) In Rewind, an elderly woman buys a robot to help her when she finds herself all alone, due to tragedy. Investigating the womans unhappiness, the robot discovers more than it was, perhaps, intended to know.

What if next-stage evolution children appear? (13:44 min) Vikaari, a sci-fi short from Sri Lanka looks at the possibilities. The story is very well done as a parable of the social risks of continuous internal warfare.

What if the rescue is the worst part? (14:00 min) Crashed spaceship crew members find themselves on a desert planet with some very strange features. This film version of Stephen Kings 1985 short story Beachworld blends the science fiction genre and the horror genre leaving viewers sharply divided.

Can an alternative universe save a lonely girl? (14:05 min) A girl finds fighting space aliens easier than fighting a brain haemorrhage and a sense of guilt. CARONTE ends as it must not happily but inevitably, and with at least some sense of redemption.

Can parents get back a dead child as an android? (14:10 min) In Article 19-42, they arent even united in their grief; they just think they must do something to get back a facsimile of what they remember. They have no philosophical or spiritual resources to fall back on in order to avoid this dead end.

What if a new start in life were two pills away? (14:23 min) Would you feel the same about suicide? In Cam Girl, a woman whose life is going nowhere, largely by her own choice, learns what it means to be genuinely desperate.

A future where dreams have been privatized (14:26 min) Unfortunately, the dream Carlos wants in I Dream is to see his missing family again and thats illegal More dystopia than science fiction but the post-5G surveillance environment amid mass poverty and oppression is well imagined.

When emergency services are run by AI (14:38 min) Its not just that AI doesnt care; it cant. And that shows. In Stuck, a young woman in a mine accident far from Earth navigates confusing advice from bots to free herself.

What if sweet sleep were a distant memory? (14:51 min) In a world going mad in Dont Forget To Remember and dying from insomnia, a young woman may have a cure. The big challenge in writing about insomnia is not to be a cure for it. From the harrowing opening scene on, this film certainly clears that bar.

Twenty minutes or less

Could you be reconstructed from your memories? Sci-fi Saturday If you were, would destroying the digitized you be murder? (15:46 min) The Final Moments of Karl Brant is an intriguing sci-fi murder mystery crossover that raises intriguing philosophical discussion points.

When you are the only human left Sci-fi Saturday. Are you the only human left alive or are you the only one who is not alive? (16:19 min) In Martha, the stark reality of two girls on the brink of eternity slowly seeps into the viewers imagination.

A man in dire need contacts his unborn grandson (17:00 min) The grandson gets the mail and sends back something from the future, via a mysterious mailbox, that gives the felons a considerable surprise. The Mailbox, set in a mid-20th century North American Chinatown, manages the time travel issues reasonably well by adopting the art of the folk tale.

A one-girl war with the total surveillance state Sci-fi Saturday (17:24 min) The acting, ambience, and special effects in Bolero are top quality. Bolero tackles the pressing topic of total government surveillance, imagining it in the United States. But it is an everyday reality in China.

Alone at DUST. (18:49 min) Space engineer Kaya Torres, the only survivor of a black hole, contacts an interstellar penpal to keep her company until she dies. She manages a desperate escape but then experiences one of the astonishing implications of time travel.

When terraforming Mars means Mars-forming people. (19:14 min) In this award-winner, the underground humans must, according to the terraforming colonys rules, deny emotion, which pretty much guarantees a story. The New Mars colony embodies a contradiction: The alleged better world created by science and logic cant accommodate the nature of humans.

Can a Robot Find a Better Planet Than Earth? (19:31 min) The trouble is, the robot in Avarya is governed by Isaac Asimovs three laws of robotics. After 55 habitable planets, theby then very oldfellow is beginning to suspect something about the robots judgment

The rest is here:

Are We Tethered To Our Time Despite Time Travel? Sci-fi Saturday - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence