IMAGININIG THREATSGovernments Are Using Science Fiction to Predict Potential Threats
From high-tech fighting machines to supercomputers and killer robots, science fiction has a lot to say about war. You might be surprised to learn that some governments are now turning their attention to these fantastical stories as a way to think about possible futures and try and ward off any potential threats.
From high-tech fighting machines to supercomputers and killer robots, science fiction has a lot to say about war. You might be surprised to learn that some governments (including the UK and France) are now turning their attention to these fantastical stories as a way to think about possible futures and try and ward off any potential threats.
For many years now, science fiction writers have made prophesies about futuristic technologies that have later become a reality. In 1964, Arthur C. Clarke famously predicted the internet. And in 1983, Isaac Asimov predicted that modern life would become impossible without computers.
This has made governments take note. Not only can science fiction help us imagine a future shaped by new technologies, but it can also help us learn lessons about potential threats.
There are many issues that science fiction engages with, which will no doubt be feeding into defense research around warfare and ways to mitigate risk. While we can never predict the future completely, we can only hope that our leaders and decision-makers learn lessons alluded to in science fiction, so that we may avoid the dystopia that some science fiction suggests.
Here are four issues from science fiction that governments may be considering.
1. Super Soldiers
Super soldiers are a major theme in science fiction and take many forms. Often they are “super” on account of their technology, such as in Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959) and Joe Haldeman’s Forever War (1974). However, more modern examples also explore how super soldiers can be further augmented with stronger muscles and even extra organs.
These super soldiers are stronger, faster and better able to wage war so there are, unsurprisingly, often many moral and ethical consequences to their role. The battle computer in Forever War has the power the blow up any soldiers that don’t follow orders.
Meanwhile, in the popular story-driven game Warhammer 40,000, monk-like warriors are implanted with a second heart, a third lung and a whole host of additional implants to help them survive on the field of battle. Known as Space Marines, they are changed to such an extent that they lose touch with the very things that made them human in the first place.
2. Drones
Drone operations play an increasingly important role in modern warfare, with the US and its allies making use of Predator and Reaper drones to patrol the skies and kill terror suspects from afar. More recently, we have seen examples of naval
