Invention and Catastrophe
JULY 16th - today it's the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11, the first moon landing. Space exploration means a lot to me, in part because of my love of science fiction; in part because of my love of science, full stop; and in part because I grew up in Central Florida.
The last moon mission planned, Apollo 18, was set to launch around the time I was born, but - apart from being the inspiration for the album title above - this meant that I've never seen an actual manned mission to the moon in my lifetime. And not to be negative, I don't expect that I will. Who knows? I never thought we'd get confirmation about a single exoplanet's existence, much less hundreds of them. Life is strange.
But July 16th has another significant anniversary.
I've stated my love for interactive fiction many times, but - apart from the original Zork - I don't think any has influenced me as much as Brian Moriarty's Trinity. One of the seminal Infocom games and a product of the final days of the Cold War (around 1986), you played a tourist in London in the near future that finds themself in Kensington Gardens as nuclear war erupts - and you escape through a magical portal that apparently opens every time there is a nuclear explosion, to a mystic land that connects them all. There's a lot references and nuances that were lost on me as a teenager.
\
... although some allusions weren't lost on me, like the above - young cynic that I was.
The game's ultimate denouement is in the first atomic blast - at the Trinity Site, near Alamagordo, New Mexico, on July 16th, 1945; the blast was so bright that it could be seen reflected on the moon, if you had been looking for it. Prior to playing the game, I was unaware of the history of the atomic bomb (years later, I would read the award-winning "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes). Brian Moriarty's well-researched game became a window for me to get some sort of understanding of growing up in the shadow of the bomb. Not surprisingly, the imagery and story continued influencing me to this day.
Is there a connection between the two, other than what is a not very improbable coincidence of date? Honestly, it's hard to not find a connection - the two are almost inseparable in shaping the post-war world to this date, only missing the third other major discovery - computers. Which also, of course, are inextricably linked as well (especially since the first "Von Neumann machines" - the first real computers - were created to help with designing nuclear weapon simulations). But in particular, perhaps, each represents a future, one where humanity can no longer behave in the way it did - to "grow up" and either manage to get out into the cosmos or get annihilated in a nuclear explosion.
Or, like Frank Herbert once wrote, "History is a constant race between invention and catastrophe. Education helps but it's never enough. You also must run."
Which, in my usual long-winded and long-winding fashion, brings me back around to my own projects. In particular, the exploration of the 'what ifs', the alternate worlds that I was doing even back in 1986 when I first played "Trinity" (I had an extensive 'map' of the world that included all the different Infocom games set on Earth, as well as the Zork universe, for instance). I started the blog with "Neuromancer", arguably one of the tougher 'universes' to examine because of the paucity of information; but I have investigated a wealth of other fictional worlds and assembled timelines and other interesting data; and, like most modern fictional alternate earths, they involve space travel, or nuclear war, or both. To get back into the swing of things, I'd like to present some of the material.
And I haven't forgotten my own projects. The adventures of my erstwhile detective, Mr. Chandler, will eventually take him to NASA to investigate the first landing on the moon since the 1970s (in my fictional world, this would take place in 2001). My own long-delayed first story is sadly in written form and needs only for myself to sit down and do it. And my own bit of interactive fiction - which I figure I will simply put up the unfinished portions for now - while set in a fantasy world, it is one where you can explore the ruins of a city destroyed by their analog of a nuclear fire. I'm not moving as fast as I'd like. But as Mr. Herbert indicated, it's best to keeping running.
The last moon mission planned, Apollo 18, was set to launch around the time I was born, but - apart from being the inspiration for the album title above - this meant that I've never seen an actual manned mission to the moon in my lifetime. And not to be negative, I don't expect that I will. Who knows? I never thought we'd get confirmation about a single exoplanet's existence, much less hundreds of them. Life is strange.
But July 16th has another significant anniversary.
I've stated my love for interactive fiction many times, but - apart from the original Zork - I don't think any has influenced me as much as Brian Moriarty's Trinity. One of the seminal Infocom games and a product of the final days of the Cold War (around 1986), you played a tourist in London in the near future that finds themself in Kensington Gardens as nuclear war erupts - and you escape through a magical portal that apparently opens every time there is a nuclear explosion, to a mystic land that connects them all. There's a lot references and nuances that were lost on me as a teenager.
\... although some allusions weren't lost on me, like the above - young cynic that I was.
The game's ultimate denouement is in the first atomic blast - at the Trinity Site, near Alamagordo, New Mexico, on July 16th, 1945; the blast was so bright that it could be seen reflected on the moon, if you had been looking for it. Prior to playing the game, I was unaware of the history of the atomic bomb (years later, I would read the award-winning "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes). Brian Moriarty's well-researched game became a window for me to get some sort of understanding of growing up in the shadow of the bomb. Not surprisingly, the imagery and story continued influencing me to this day.
Is there a connection between the two, other than what is a not very improbable coincidence of date? Honestly, it's hard to not find a connection - the two are almost inseparable in shaping the post-war world to this date, only missing the third other major discovery - computers. Which also, of course, are inextricably linked as well (especially since the first "Von Neumann machines" - the first real computers - were created to help with designing nuclear weapon simulations). But in particular, perhaps, each represents a future, one where humanity can no longer behave in the way it did - to "grow up" and either manage to get out into the cosmos or get annihilated in a nuclear explosion.
Or, like Frank Herbert once wrote, "History is a constant race between invention and catastrophe. Education helps but it's never enough. You also must run."
Which, in my usual long-winded and long-winding fashion, brings me back around to my own projects. In particular, the exploration of the 'what ifs', the alternate worlds that I was doing even back in 1986 when I first played "Trinity" (I had an extensive 'map' of the world that included all the different Infocom games set on Earth, as well as the Zork universe, for instance). I started the blog with "Neuromancer", arguably one of the tougher 'universes' to examine because of the paucity of information; but I have investigated a wealth of other fictional worlds and assembled timelines and other interesting data; and, like most modern fictional alternate earths, they involve space travel, or nuclear war, or both. To get back into the swing of things, I'd like to present some of the material.
And I haven't forgotten my own projects. The adventures of my erstwhile detective, Mr. Chandler, will eventually take him to NASA to investigate the first landing on the moon since the 1970s (in my fictional world, this would take place in 2001). My own long-delayed first story is sadly in written form and needs only for myself to sit down and do it. And my own bit of interactive fiction - which I figure I will simply put up the unfinished portions for now - while set in a fantasy world, it is one where you can explore the ruins of a city destroyed by their analog of a nuclear fire. I'm not moving as fast as I'd like. But as Mr. Herbert indicated, it's best to keeping running.
Comments
Post a Comment