INTRODUCTION

Sometimes it's a little hard to get people to realize that not only has the world changed in the past, but that it is changing now, and will change in the future. In fact, it takes something on the order of an atomic bomb to blast them out of their congenital complacency.

And it took the literally shocking violence of the atomic bomb to make the general public understand the fact that science-fiction is not "pseudo-science" (that's what you find in Sunday Supplements—fiction, pretending to be science) but an entirely different breed of thing—fiction stories based on science, and attempting to extrapolate the curves of past development into future years. On August 6, 1945, people suddenly discovered that that fool fantasy stuff about atomic bombs hadn't been quite so fantastic as they had—well, to be brutally frank, hoped.

Their immediate reactions were that a good guess or two, a chance, coincidental correspondence between fiction-fantasy and fact, didn't mean much. Still, relatively few people have learned to understand how science-fiction originates—why it does successfully predict.

The answer is, actually, that science-fiction's prophecy is to a large extent phony. It isn't prophecy at all, not in the true sense. It's more like the astronomer's prophecy that there will be an eclipse of the sun visible for so many seconds, on such and such a day, at a specified point. The astronomer's prediction is based on information he has that is not generally recognized—though anyone who wants to get it can go dig it out of the text books.

The science-fiction author predicts in the same general way. With the knowledge of what has been accomplished in the laboratories, and a general understanding of what people have wanted in the past, want today, and will probably want in the future, it's not hard to guess how those laboratory facts will be applied.

By 1915 it was generally known among scientists that there was an enormous store of energy locked in every pound of matter. Men have, sadly, wanted more deadly killing instruments for all human history—and will pay much more for a means of killing an enemy than they will to save a friend's life. From these facts it's a simple prediction that atomic energy will some day be released—and probably first in the form of a bomb.

Science-fiction made such predictions. When the laboratories found U-235 was probably capable of a chain reaction, the science-fictioneer began saying U-235 bombs instead of the more generalized "atomic" bomb.

The essentials for good prophetic fiction—and hence good science-fiction—are fairly easily stated.

It takes a technically inclined mind.

That mind must be intimately acquainted with one or more technologies—and by that I mean both the branch of theoretical science and that branch's engineering applications as of today.

Imagination is a third requirement; if imagination is put first, fantasy, not science-fiction, results.

An understanding of how political and social set-ups react to technological changes must be added, for the best types of science-fiction.

George O. Smith's "Venus Equilateral" series represents an excellent progressive development of a single line of extrapolation.

George O. Smith is a radio engineer; at the time the Venus Equilateral series started, he was working on radar equipment and Army communications radio units. It was only natural that he should pick the field of communications engineering as his line for development—he was intimately acquainted with the problems and possibilities of that field, and with the past history of the art.

"QRM Interplanetary," the first of the stories, appeared in Astounding Science-Fiction to start the series; typically, it serves merely to introduce the concept of the equilateral relay station as a necessary link in interplanetary communications. But the story has been so constructed that the working out of its plot gives a good concept of the general nature of the station, and of its functioning. Still, the story is essentially simply a suggestion that interplanetary communications will require the construction of a station in space to relay messages.

The immediately following stories of the series introduce successive problems of the purely technical art; only gradually are the associated social and political reactions of the rest of that civilization of the future brought in. From the start, the author's problem has been simplified by picking a small, almost wholly isolated segment of the culture, so that only the technology itself need be discussed.

As the series develops, however, more and more the social and political effects of the developments are brought into the picture, until, in the end, practically nothing but the social-political effects remain. The final story of the series to appear in Astounding Science-Fiction was devoted entirely to the cultural, rather than technical, problems of the matter transmitter.

In essence, Venus Equilateral represents the basic pattern of science-fiction—which is, equally, the basic pattern of technology. First starting from the isolated instance, the effects spread outward through the culture. Scientific methodology involves the proposition that a well-constructed theory will not only explain every known phenomenon, but will also predict new and still undiscovered phenomena. Science-fiction tries to do much the same—and write up, in story form, what the results look like when applied not only to machines, but to human society as well.

The science-fiction writer can be extremely accurate in the guesses he makes of future progress—and yet there are factors that may make a complete failure of his prediction.

George O. Smith is a radio engineer; radio is his field of technology. As such, his predictions tend to be based on the extrapolation of a single line of activity. But it may be that all his predictions may come to nothing due to a development in an entirely separate field of technical progress. It might be, for instance, that Dr. Rhine's work on extra-sensory perception developed into a science, that equipment was developed capable of recording, receiving, amplifying and broadcasting whatever strange energy form is involved—and that telepathy completely displaced radio engineering. The atomic pile is the only form of nuclear energy machine we have available; because war-time engineering was operating under forced draft, and war-time basic science was in abeyance, we have no basic science from which to predict more advanced forms of energy-harnessing devices. But it is quite conceivable that, long before we reach Mars and Venus to establish colonies, we will achieve the ultimate in energy-harnesses for atomic energy—a small, sealed box with two projecting terminals from which unlimited electric power can be drawn directly.

Also, any extrapolation whatsoever is, necessarily, based on the implied, but unstated proposition, "If things go on as they have been...." The proposition is, right now, open to serious question. For one thing, whenever science becomes engineering, it meets legislation made by men. Now the laws of Nature are predictable, understandable, and absolute. They don't depend on the viewpoint of the individual, or the social theory popular at the time, or the Majority Leader's severe chronic indigestion. The patent law very definitely does. At the moment, as a matter of fact, an extrapolation of the trend of patent law suggests that half the Venus Equilateral series will be rendered plotless; there won't be any patents.

The science-fiction writer is, therefore, faced with a simply stated problem: Taking off from the solid ground of known laboratory science, sighting along the back-track of past experience, he launches into the future.

But he may come down in a never-will-be future, because somebody harnessed telepathy, and threw civilization off on an entirely unexpected track. Or because the Supreme Court, currently invalidating 24 out of every 25 patents brought before it, has eliminated the institution of patents. Or because a new social theory has decided that no scientific advance should be permitted for a period of 250 years while a great program of meditation and navel-inspection instead of Naval inspection is pushed forward.

Nevertheless, science-fiction can be not only fun, but an extremely valuable experience. If a friend steps out of a dimly lighted doorway it may provoke a "Yipe!" of momentary fear, or a casual "Hi," dependent entirely on whether or not you expected to meet him there.

The science-fiction reader is a lot less apt to jump in senseless fear and alarm when a new process comes from some unexpected doorway—he'll have been expecting it, and recognize a friend or an enemy—which can be very helpful to survival.

John W. Campbell, Jr.