Sci-fi writers advise DHS -- pro bono

We have written many stories about DARPA and the projects it sponsors, projects which blur the line between science and science fiction. DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is also characterized by a penchant to blur such lines.

Washington Post’s David Montgomery writes that the 2009 Homeland Security Science & Technology Stakeholders Conference, held a week-and-a-half ago in Washington, D.C., felt at times more like a convention of futuristic yarn-spinners.

• Onstage in the darkened amphitheater, for example, a Washington police commander said he would like to have Mr. Spock’s instant access to information: At a disaster scene, he would like to say, “Computer, what’s the dosage on this medication?”
• A federal research director fantasized about a cell phone that could simultaneously text and detect biochemical attacks. Multiple cell phones in a crowd would confirm and track the spread.
• The master of ceremonies for the week was Greg Bear, the sci-fi novelist whose book Quantico featured FBI agents battling a designer plague targeting specific ethnic groups. “What if we had a black box that IDs DNA on the scene?” Bear asked a panel of firefighters and police officers. “Put a swab in the box. How long would it take us to do that? Would that be of interest to anybody here?”

Montgomery writes that there were a dozen or so novelists sprinkled throughout the breakout sessions.  These writers described their participation as “science fiction in the national interest,” and they consult government agencies pro bono. Sci-fi writers have been exploring the future, and “we owe it to mankind to come back and report what we’ve found,” said writer Arlan Andrews, also an engineer with the Navy in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Andrews founded an organization of sci-fi writers, called Sigma, to offer imaginative services to the government in return for travel expenses only. The group has about 40 writers. Group members have addressed meetings organized by the Department of Energy, the Army, Air Force, NATO, and other agencies, some of which cannot be named. Andrews says the the first recruits were only sci-fi writers, but that now about a third of the writers have Ph.D.s.

Montgomery writes that the attention from Uncle Sam does wonders for the self-esteem of science fiction writers. Despite the cultural acclaim of a few superstars, some others feel spurned by critics, dismissed by academics, and ripped off by Hollywood. This is now changing. Rolf Dietrich, DHS’s deputy director of research, said the writers help managers think more broadly about projects, especially about potential reactions and unintended consequences.

“They have a different way of looking at things,” Dietrich said.

This annual sci-fi security event, co-sponsored by the Washington Science Fiction Association, is the only night of the year that Reiter’s, a place for science browsers since 1936, sells novels. Montgomery notes that the fans lined up for autographs of their newly purchased fiction, ignoring the science.