Geeks and peeks at our future

Jesse Mills concentrates on a computer-generated game during the 2002 Armageddon event. Picture / Kenny Rodger

When Armageddon, the annual exhibition of all things comic-book, science fiction and assorted esoterica, descends on the Aotea Centre this weekend, Sir Julius Vogel will most likely be smiling.

The one-time journalist and former Prime Minister had an uncanny knack for predicting the future in a way that would make even Nostradamus tip his hat.

In 1889, Vogel penned New Zealand's first science fiction novel, Anno Domini 2000 - A Woman's Destiny, and in the process, set a standard here for science fiction imitating life. In Anno Domini, Vogel wrote of a New Zealand in the year 2000 where women not only had the vote, but mostly ran the show.

His crystal ball had remarkable clarity when you consider that New Zealand's Prime Minister, Attorney-General, Chief Justice and Governor-General were all women in 2000.

Five years later, Helen Clark is still more or less running the show, and life is still imitating science fiction, from personal digital assistants that bear an uncanny resemblance to the tablet computers on board the USS Enterprise to the latest generation of razor-thin, flip-action cellphones you can't resist uttering "Beam me up, Scotty," into.

While many may home in on the spotty-faced geeks clad in pointy-eared prosthetics, Auckland University of Technology doctoral student Dave Parry said sci-fi fans - and the people who give them what they love - have left a lasting impression on the technological body politic.

"One thing science fiction has been very useful for is the writers are often able to identify unmet needs," says Parry, whose research at AUT's Knowledge Engineering and Discovery Research Institute focuses on developing more intelligent tools for finding information on the internet.

Science fiction has always had the gift of tapping into a culture's zeitgeist.

From the legend of Icarus and its lessons on the hubris of humanity, to the rise of sentient computers that overthrow their human masters in movies such as The Matrix and Terminator, Parry says sci-fi's real gift is in its ability to not only predict human need, but also predict the unintended consequences of meeting those needs.

Armageddon chief organiser Bill Geradts expects 30,000 fans to attend this year's event. In addition to appearances by sci-fi and fantasy actors, corporate New Zealand is also putting in an appearance, with Telecom, its internet subsidiary Xtra, and Microsoft all having a presence.

Xtra spokesman Luke Baxter says the company's presence is largely driven by the fact that in spite of all the perjoratives, sci-fi buffs have a well-earned reputation of being early adopters, snapping up the newest consumer electronics on the market before anyone else.

They also use scads of broadband.

"We like these guys," he says, adding that the sci-fi community "are people in existing communities that transcend borders. They're living in a kind of networked universe, connected by the internet."

It's a trend Geradts sees in his own market research.

"You want to hear a crazy statistic? Sixty-five per cent of the people attending have cellphones. That's scary," he says.

The relationship between real life and science fiction isn't always sweetness and lightsabres, though. Many scientists are infuriated by the liberties popular science fiction such as Star Trek takes with basic principles, like physics.

For example, many people assume that if travel beyond the speed of light was possible, it would simply be a matter of some captain or another saying, "Ahead warp factor eight", and off you'd go.

The reality is far trickier, given the fact that moving from a standstill to eight times the speed of light would leave nothing but a bloody mess as the captain and crew were splattered up against the bulkheads.

Likewise, sci-fi's uncanny ability to predict human needs can also play into the all-too human desire for new items to mirror what we expect of them.

"Sometimes there's a restriction on the development of science because we've been constrained by science fiction," Parry says.

Take the humble laser, long a fixture of mid-20th century science fiction. While lasers are most useful as optical readers for devices such as CD and DVD players, for years scientists tried fruitlessly to fashion weapons out of them, just like the ones in any number of 1950s B-movies.

"Sometimes, we've got a stereotype to deal with," Parry says, adding that he doesn't mind a few liberties in his science fiction.

"You need a little magic. After all, it would be very dull if it took them 300 years to get to wherever they were going."