The Android Conspiracy: A Science Fiction Story

The story I am about to tell is probably the most unbelievable story you will ever hear, but I swear that every word is true. For the first time in many years, my father and I arranged to go camping and hiking together. We had taken these types of trips many times in the past between the years 2025 and 2035, and I figured it would be a great way for us to get reacquainted with each other. I thought it would be an ordinary camping trip, and I had no idea of the utter terror that awaited me, both physical and psychological.

We went camping and hiking at a beautiful spot that had everything: lakes, mountains, and the seacoast. Dad and I had lots of time to talk with each other. I noticed that Dad seemed a little strange. There was something rather stiff about the way he was talking. He just didn't seem like the same old Dad I knew and loved. I chalked this up to the fact that he was now serving as the US Defense Secretary, and had perhaps been kind of integrated into the bureaucracy.

While hiking we came to a beautiful remote pond that included a little waterfall. As I was very hot, I suggested that we jump in and take a swim. Dad refused.

The 9 Scariest Weapons of the Future

In the future man will develop many wonderful ways of improving people's lives, but man will also develop many new ways of destroying people, buildings, infrastructure, and possibly even all of human civilization. Let us look at nine of the most frightening weapons that may be developed in the future. All of these weapons are theoretically possible, but we do not know how many of them will be developed.

Artificial Diseases

We know of many scary viruses such as the smallpox virus which killed many millions. Smallpox thankfully now exists only in two well-guarded laboratories. But it is all too possible that genetic engineering technology will allow man to one day create an artificial virus as deadly as smallpox.
Virologist Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands and his colleagues discovered that a mere five mutations to the avian H5N1 virus was enough to make it spread far more easily. Fouchier knows of some way to tweak H5N1 to make it bad enough to kill many millions. He wanted to publish a paper describing his technique, but the publication was blocked. We can only wonder about whether future technology will allow scientists to create super-lethal viruses or bacteria capable of wiping out a large fraction of humanity.

Homemade Nukes

The threat of terrorists attacking with a homemade nuclear bomb has existed since at least the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Making a nuclear bomb from scratch is extremely difficult, but making a nuclear bomb is fairly easy if you have acquired 100 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. The problem is that there is a huge supply of highly enriched uranium scattered in places all over the world. Supposedly outside of the world's nuclear weapons there is enough highly enriched uranium to make 40,000 additional nuclear bombs. Some of this nuclear material exists in sites that are not adequately secure. If terrorists wanted to create a nuclear weapon, they would merely need to steal a blob of highly enriched uranium equal to about the size of a softball. Given that amount of nuclear material, it is fairly easy to make a small nuclear bomb. We therefore have a threat of a nuclear 9/11 that might kill many times more people than the attacks of September 11, 2001.

EMP Bombs


EMP stands for electromagnetic pulse. An EMP bomb would be a bomb exploded in the upper atmosphere. The purpose of the bomb would not be to kill people directly but to wipe out a country's electrical systems and computer systems. Exploding a nuclear bomb in the upper atmosphere creates an effect called the Compton Effect. The gamma rays from the nuclear bomb causes the ionization of huge number of atoms in the air, and that ionization releases a huge amount of electrons. The electrons are capable of wiping out all electrical and electronic systems for hundreds of miles. It has been estimated that a single nuclear bomb exploded sufficiently high in the atmosphere could wipe out a large fraction of the United State's electrical power and computer systems.

Asteroid Missiles


An asteroid missile would be a devastating weapon that might even be capable of making the entire planet uninhabitable. To create an asteroid missile, a nation would need to land a rocket on an asteroid that passes fairly close to Earth. The nation would then need to change the orbit of the asteroid, causing it to crash into our planet. Once you have landed a rocket on an asteroid, it is not that difficult to change its orbit, through techniques such as burning rocket fuel, or ejecting some of the mass of the asteroid into space. Basically the technical skill needed to create an asteroid missile is very similar to the technology needed to mine an asteroid, and perhaps even simpler, as the creator of an asteroid missile doesn't have to worry about extracting useful materials from the asteroid.

What is frightening is how devastating an attack can be launched with a small asteroid missile. Online calculator's such as Purdue University's Impact Earth allow you to calculate the blast effects of asteroids. Below is a screen shot showing the effects of a 20-kilometer asteroid hitting Earth. Even 2000 miles away, multistory buildings will collapse. Such an asteroid collision would send so much dust into the atmosphere that it would create a nuclear winter effect that would wipe out almost all agriculture for years.

How to defend against asteroid missiles? You would need a system to detect and divert incoming asteroids, which could also be used to defend against purely random unintentional asteroid collisions.


Antimatter Bombs

Scientists know that for each type of regular subatomic particle such as the proton there is also an antiparticle. For example, the antiparticle of a proton is the antiproton, and the antiparticle of an electron is the positron. Matter consisting of antiparticles is called antimatter. In our universe there is very little antimatter, but scientists can make very small amounts of antimatter in nuclear laboratories.

Antimatter is incredibly dangerous, because when even a tiny amount of antimatter is combined with regular matter, it produces incredible amounts of energy. In theory, you could make an antimatter bomb that would be much more powerful than a nuclear bomb. A single bomb might be powerful enough to blow up much of our planet. Thankfully it would require incredible amounts of technical expertise and research dollars to create even a very tiny amount of antimatter. So it is not appropriate to lie awake at night worrying about dying from an antimatter bomb.

Microwave Crowd Controllers

The US military has an existing weapon called the Active Denial System, which was designed for controlling crowds by beaming microwaves at them. It is called a non-lethal system, although such a system might cause eventual cancer for those to whom the beam was directed. A future version of the Active Denial System might work by beaming microwaves at a crowd, causing them intense pain, and low-level burns. People in the crowd might suddenly feel as if they had a bad case of sunburn. The current version of the Active Denial System supposedly makes you feel as if a light bulb has been placed on your skin.

Although the damage caused by such a system is trivial compared to some of the other weapons discussed here, this weapon is very scary because it is so easy to imagine it being deployed by a future government trying to disrupt protesters. Plus there is something particularly creepy about being microwaved just as if you were a chicken nugget.

Orbiting Charged Particle Beams

An orbiting charged particle beam is basically a death ray in space. Ever since the advent of Star Wars technology in the 1980's (officially called the Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI), the US military has spent billions working on similar weapons, designed to shoot down or disable incoming missiles. Similar technology could be placed in orbit for the purpose of destroying ground based targets: buildings, vehicles, or people.

The creepiest thing about such weapons is their potential for instant death: one minute you're alive and well, the next minute you're burnt toast.

Drone Swarms

The United States uses drone aircraft in Afghanistan and other places. These are large aircraft that work by remote control, with one person acting as the controller. Future drone weapons may be much smaller, and may work in a swarming fashion, with many drones acting in unison to accomplish a goal. Particular units in a drone swarm may communicate with each other by radio, exchanging information. For example, a swarm of small drones may attack a car, stripping it to pieces like a pack of hungry hyenas attacking and devouring an animal.

Imagine a future government that wanted to disrupt a mass protest. The government might send two types of drone swarms to attack the protesters: one swarm of wheeled drones that would attack the feet and legs, and another swarm of aerial drones that would attack from the air. If the government also used a microwave bombardment such as the Active Denial System, one can only imagine how quickly the crowd would disperse. The use of any such weapons against peaceful protesters would be morally deplorable.

Artificial Supernova Weapons

Alexander Bolonkin and Joseph Friedlander have published a scientific paper claiming that it may be possible to create a weapon that causes the sun to explode in an artificial supernova that would kill everyone on Earth and everyone in the solar system. That would be pretty much the ultimate doomsday weapon. Others doubt that any such thing is possible. Let's hope they are right, as we have quite enough terrifying weapons to worry about.

Julia's Horror: A Science Fiction Story

To the eyes of young Julia, age 10, everyone looked beautiful. Julia looked beautiful. Her mother and father looked beautiful. All of the adults Julia had ever seen looked beautiful. All of the teachers and children at Julia's school looked beautiful. Julia could never recall seeing a face that did not look beautiful.

Julia wore glasses, and her mother had given her a very specific warning about wearing glasses. Julia's mother had told her that if she ever took off her glasses while her eyes were open, Julia would instantly go blind. Julia's mother said that this was because of radiation in the air, which the glasses blocked. Julia had heard many times the story of Uncle Dave, who one day took off his glasses with his eyes open, only to find himself instantly blinded for life.

These stories had scared Julia into always closing her eyes whenever she took off her glasses.

One day Julia was at school walking down a hallway. A workman was carrying a steel pole, and accidentally smashed the pole into the side of Julia's glasses. The blow damaged a small electronic unit on the outer part of Julia's glasses.

“I'm sorry, kid,” said the workman. “Are you hurt?”

Julia looked at the workman. She had never seen such a face before. The face looked fiendishly ugly, with the features hideously distorted. 

Julia shrieked and ran down the hall. Then she saw another equally ugly face. It was the face of a woman who looked like her face was melting away.

Turning in the other direction, Julia saw two other faces that were equally horrifying. Julia ran out the door. She decided to go home to tell her mother about this terrifying experience.

On the street Julia saw two faces as horrifying as the faces she had seen at the school. Finally the young girl made it back to her house, which was near the school.

“Mommy!” shrieked Julia, running through the door. “There are monsters at my school!”

Julia came into the living room and looked at her mother. There was the same body, the same clothes; but the face was hideously different. Her mother now looked like some monster in a freak show.

Julia screamed. She didn't know what to do. She ran up to her room, and locked the door. She fell on her bed and began weeping. She thought to herself: am I losing my mind?

Julia's mother came to the door, and knocked on it. “Let me in, Julia,” she said.

“What have you done with my mother?” Julia asked.

“I am your mother, Julia,” Mom explained. “I just look different. Why don't you do this. Just unlock the door, go to your bed, and close your eyes. Then I'll explain everything.”

Julia tearfully did as her mother instructed. Then her mother began her explanation.

“In the world you have known, Julia, everyone looks beautiful,” said Mom. “But it didn't use to be that way. Once there was a world where some people were beautiful, some people were average looking, and some people were ugly. But then one day a terrible thing happened. A star near our sun exploded. It was an event called a supernova explosion. That explosion caused lots of gamma ray radiation to hit our planet. And that radiation caused what is known as mutations, which means changes in people's genetic makeup.”

“The next generation that was born after the supernova was a generation of mutants,” explained Mom. “And that generation was very ugly because of the mutations. I am part of that generation. I am a mutant. You are also a mutant, and so is everyone you have ever seen.”

“But if everyone in the world is an ugly mutant,” asked Julia, “how come everyone always looks beautiful, except for today?”

“It's your glasses,” explained Mom. “Your glasses are what they call augmented reality glasses. That's a fancy term meaning there's a little computer on the right edge of your glasses. When you see an ugly face, the computer modifies what you see through your glasses, so that every ugly face you see is covered up by a beautiful face. That way you see only beautiful faces through your glasses." 

“Your glasses look damaged, and my guess is that something must have gone wrong with them today,” said Mom. “But don't worry. We have a backup pair.”

Mom fetched the backup pair of glasses, and brought them to the child. She took off the child's damaged glasses, and replaced them with the backup pair of glasses.

“Now open your eyes, and I'll be the same old Mom you know and love,” said Mom.

Julia opened her eyes, and saw her mother looking as beautiful as ever.

The next day Julia had a question for her mother.

“So let me check if I have this right,” said Julia. “We're all mutants, and if you see us without glasses, we look hideously ugly. But everyone wears augmented reality glasses, so everyone looks beautiful to everyone else.”

“That's right,” said Mom.

“So what are we really – ugly or beautiful?” asked Julia.

“Imagine if it was before the supernova, and some hideous aliens came and saw the most beautiful couple in the world,” said Mom. “Those slimy hideous aliens would probably say the couple was really ugly, just because they would have a different standard of beauty. So beauty is really all about being perceived as beautiful. And we are perceived as beautiful, because everyone sees us as beautiful when they wear their augmented reality glasses. So therefore we really are beautiful.”

“Now the most beautiful Mom in the world needs a hug from the most beautiful kid in the world,” said Mom.

The Future of Cinema

The person who goes to a movie today has pretty much the same experience that movie viewers had 74 years ago when The Wizard of Oz was made. But technology may cause some big changes in the motion picture game. Let's look at some coming attractions in the cinema (pun intended).

CGI Characters Indistinguishable From Humans

CGI stands for computer-generated imagery. CGI is widely used for special effects, and also for generating onscreen characters. Movies such as Toy Story, Shrek, and Finding Nemo use CGI for creating onscreen human and animal characters. As software and hardware power advances, before long we will probably see CGI representations of humans that are indistinguishable from photography of actual humans. You may see a movie in which the male romantic lead is human, the female romantic lead is human, and the meddlesome father is computer generated. We are almost there already. In the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and the recent Star Wars prequel trilogy there were important characters who were entirely computer generated, and who blend with humans. The characters had unusual anatomies that made them distinguishable from humans, but before long you will probably leave a movie asking yourself: which of the lead roles were played by humans?

Augmented Reality Movies

The idea behind augmented reality is that you see basically what you would see without a computer's help, plus you also see some additional things that are created by computer software. An example of augmented reality would be: you are wearing something like Google glasses, and you walk by a store. Suddenly you see floating in the air some glowing ghostly signs that say “Save 50% here!” The sign images are sent to your glasses as part of the augmented reality. Someone not wearing the glasses could not see the glowing signs.

This type of technology could be integrated into a movie experience. Theater goers could be given special glasses to wear (or there would simply be augmented reality that works for anyone who is wearing Google glasses or a similar system). Then at certain points in the movie, you might literally see things bursting out of the screen. For example, when a spaceship explodes in the movie, you might see fragments seeming to fly out of the movie screen. Or when a house catches on fire in the movie, you might see crackling flames flying out of the movie screen. The things that would seem to fly out of the movie screen would be the software-generated augmented reality projected onto your glasses.

Electrode Enhanced Movies

Movie directors use music to manipulate the emotions of viewers. You will feel sadder when watching a tragic scene in a tearjerker movie if the background music has sad, slow violin music, just as you will feel more enthralled listening to blaring trumpets during the exciting climax of a movie. But there is perhaps a more efficient way to manipulate the emotions: electrical stimulation of the brain. Scientists have shown that different emotions can be generated by attaching electrodes to the brain, and sending in electrical currents to specific regions of the brain. 

 Credit: J. Contreras-Vidal/University of Maryland

We can therefore imagine a new type of movie in the near future: what could be called an electrode movie. Upon entering the motion picture theater, you would take your seat, and place a skull cap over your head, a cap with many electrodes leading to a computer next to your seat. At appropriate points in the movie, electrical impulses would be sent to specific parts of your brain. At that tearjerker moment when the hero dies on the battlefield clutching his sweet fiancee's picture, an electrical current would be sent to all the skull caps, causing the entire audience to cry like babies. When the happy ending arrived, another electrical current would be sent to a different part of the brain that might cause the audience to feel such joy that when the movie ended, the audience would seem happier than a bunch of kids splashing in a water park on a scorching summer day.

Electrical stimulation of the supplementary sensorimotor area has been shown to produce laughter. We can only imagine how such a possibility could be exploited by movie makers. At any point in the movie that was supposed to be funny, a little electrical current would be sent to the skull caps of the audience members, triggering laughter. Even the weakest comedy script might have the audience rolling on the floor with laughter.

Movies Made With Sensation Recorders

In the classic novel Brave New World Aldous Huxley imagined a type of movie called a Feelie which engages the sense of touch as well as the senses of sight and hearing. We can take this idea a little further and imagine a type of movie in which you see, smell, taste, hear, and feel everything that the protagonist is seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, and feeling.

Such a movie could probably be experienced only by someone who had an implant in his brain, one allowing a flow of sensations that would override the normal flow of sensations from a person's eyes, ears, nose, and skin. But there might be various other reasons why people of the future might have a brain implant, so this type of movie might work with a standard brain implant that had been created mainly for other purposes such as accelerated education.

To make this type of movie, producers might use a technology that could be called a sensation recorder. A sensation recorder would be kind of like a video recorder that records all of your sensations at once: everything you see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and feel. 

 

Such a sensation recorder might work like this: imagine you are a young man making a tourist trip to New York City with a beautiful young woman. Whenever you had some pleasurable sight, sound, smell, taste, or feeling, you would turn on your sensation recorder. So you would make sure to turn on your sensation recorder when you got to the top of the Empire State Building. But you would turn the sensation recorder off during the boring wait in line before you got to the top. If you then had a delicious meal at a great restaurant, you would turn on your sensation recorder, but only when you were eating the best parts of the meal. Unless you were making a family movie, you might turn on your sensation recorder when things heated up with your date (assuming you had her permission).

Movie viewers could then experience a Feelie type of movie, in which they experienced in two hours all of the best sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touch sensations of your trip to New York City. To watch the movie, a viewer might need to plug a wire into his brain, connecting with a brain implant added earlier.

One can only imagine how vivid such movies would be. For example, if the plot involved the hero escaping a fire, you might actually feel the heat of the flames as you watched the movie. Whenever the movie's hero plunged into water, you would feel the same sensation of water splashing on to your skin. Once you started experiencing such movies, you might ask: how did people get by watching movies with only sights and sounds?