When new readers opt in for transmissions of The Lodestar, it triggers a welcome tour for what the new STARLOG is all about. (And do stay tuned for future plans.) One such missive asks if there is one science fiction world you could live in, what would it be?

It’s not a surprise that many people said Star Trek, and specifically the TNG-era. I’m sure for some it was because people want to spend each day in a tight-fitting one-piece jumpsuit, but others had more to say.

Kort A. praised the “genuinely optimistic vision of humanity’s future.” Brian T.C. concurred about the utopianism, though added that “the physics of it are all wrong!” (I’ll just add that the Heisenberg Compensator may do a lot more than we realize.) John P. fantasized about the “free healthcare, society that isn’t profit-driven, and [how one] can be left alone to learn and better oneself.” Daniel C. said that Trek meant “safety and comfort” to him, then recognized that this is not always where the good stories came from. It is interesting to note that the show really does make life aboard the Enterprise look extremely appealing, even with aliens or malfunctioning technology trying to find a new way to kill you each week.

Other shout-outs included a few for Pern, author Anne McCaffrey’s dragon-riding universe, which makes sense because TNG producer Ronald D. Moore tried for years to adapt these books into a series. Someone else said they wanted to live in the Dune universe, to which I say “send me a postcard!” I like reading Dune books and watching Dune movies, but I’m not hoping to move there. Both Ursula K. Le Guin and Iain Banks’s universes got a shout-out, as did David Weber’s (specifically Planet Sphinx in the Manticore system.) Props to the one reader who said they wished to live in Margaret Cavendish’s Blazing World, which reminded me that I’ve yet to read this 17th-century text. It was also nice to hear from Charlynn S., who wants to open a shop in Babylon 5’s Zócalo to “watch the chaos unfold.”

And this was just the start.

These responses reminded me that the best sci-fi is more than just ships zooming fast and wacky creature effects (though these, of course, are nothing to dismiss!). The best sci-fi opens your mind to civilizations dissimilar from our own, but shows in rich detail how they could actually work. Many fans, myself included, have collected blueprints of starships and battle stations and turned them into wall art. Is humanity also using the positive visions of the future to build blueprints for society? Or is that not sci-fi, but fantasy?

Jordan Hoffman, Communications Officer

The funniest part is how Shatner is ostensibly promoting the release of a concert album (William Shatner Live) which has an entire side dedicated to his thoughts on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, still in development, which he then negates in the STARLOG interview. You can listen along as Dave and I look back on the most recent STARLOG Podcast.

The STARLOG Podcast intends to cover Star Trek significantly, especially with the new season of Strange New Worlds around the corner. So we’re happy that the third guest on the show is someone affiliated with the franchise in one of the coolest ways.

Going all the way back to 1964 and the first Trek pilot, “The Cage,” Gene Roddenberry employed a science advisor whose job it was to help steer the ship toward verisimilitude. And since 2019, Dr. Erin Macdonald has been the franchise’s in-house sounding board, guiding the writers and producers toward more feasible storylines. I like to think of her as a human deflector dish, keeping the Enterprise safe from all the cockamamie ideas being thrown at it.

In our interview we discuss how she got the gig, what the day-to-day functions are like, and what some of her favorite scientific storytelling wins have been so far. And also some challenges — like explaining why everyone was singing and dancing in the Strange New Worlds musical episode “Subspace Rhapsody.”

I’ve been lucky enough to know Erin for years, from her first appearance at a Trek convention in Las Vegas to her canonical appearances on Star Trek: Prodigy. Her perspective on the show (and sci-fi in general) is singular and sensational. You gotta listen, and be sure to subscribe to get new episodes of The STARLOG Podcast on whatever podcasting platform you prefer.

SCI-FI

In 2011 the Justin Timberlake-led sci-film In Time came out, and was dismissed by most critics. (Though not I!) A recent reddit thread suggests the reassessment has finally come. Read more here.

SCIENCE

A recent study at McGill University proposes that a medical containment facility should be built on the Moon to protect Earth from extraterrestrial threats. Every science fiction bone in my body agrees. Read more here.

CULTURE

I can’t stop listening to Muse’s newly released science and science fiction-laced album with the awesome SETI-inspired title The Wow! Signal. The visualizer clip to the tune referencing both The Fermi Paradox and Cixin Liu, “The Dark Forest,” has me tapping my toes in interstellar space. Check it out.

ETHICS

AI drafting tools seem great for people in a hurry. Until they invert your intended meaning. Not surprisingly, evidence suggests there’s a political shade to many changes, as Robert Booth in The Guardian writes. Read more here.