A couple months back, it hit me that my son, now 3, could live to see the year 2100. Or even 2101, as in “In A.D. 2101, War Was Beginning.”
That made me think of SF landmarks that have already happened: 2001, of “A Space Odyssey” fame, has come and gone, and its 2010 sequel would be happening now. Joe Haldeman’s Forever War would already be underway. The 1960s cartoon “Astro Boy” is set shortly after the year 2000, so its world is theoretically in our rearview mirror.
So what other SF is set in years that are already in our rearview mirror? What else is coming up soon?
In the Star Trek universe, right now we should not only be recovering from the Eugenics Wars, but also making our way toward World War III and first contact with an alien civilization.
Well, it’s now more than 11 years since the radioactive waste dumps on the moon exploded, catapulting it out of Earth’s orbit faster than the speed of light.
1984 - Totalitarian takeovers of Europe (there were some scifi gadgets like the telescreens). [1984]
1993 - Eugenics Wars begin [ST: TOS]
1994 - Comet passes between the Earth and Moon causing widespread destruction [Thundarr the Barbarian]
1996 - Khan leaves Earth on the Botany Bay in exile. He had ruled over a quarter of the Earth’s population. [ST: TOS]
Judgment day happened in August 29, 1997. Skynet became self-aware. In a panic, the humans tried to pull the plug. Skynet retaliated by launching the USA’s nuclear weapons at their targets in Russia. Over 3 billion people died in the ensuing war.
The Macross crash-landed in 1999, and was relaunched last year. In the meantime, we had a series of wars.
The launch coincided with the beginning of a war with the aliens.
It hasn’t been a good decade.
Especially since in one variant on that timeline, the planet was completely sterilized shortly afterwards. In others, we suffered a rather thorough, but not complete, scouring in February this year.
In another variant timeline, there were a series of wars starting in 1989, which ended with the crash-landing of the ship, which gave way to a decade of peace…until the aliens attacked.
Per the Universal Century timeline (Gundam) the world Federation was established in 1999. The first solar powersat was launched in 2005.
According to The Morrow Project, WWIII was fought in 1989. Prime Base was attacked and shut down within five years, putting the Project in serious jeopardy.
St. Vidicon will be martyred in just ten more years.
On 13 SEP 2000, the event known as Second Impact happened, which the world is told a resulted from a collision with a small meteor traveling at relativistic speeds impacted on Antarctica, melting most of the austral ice cap, and causing massive damage and flooding worldwide. In reality, it was a direct consequence of fiddling with the extra-Terrestrial entity known as ADAM. (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
We’re now ten years past the “critical mass” described in Logan’s Run, where almost all the world’s population is under 21, sparking the Little War and complete overthrow of the established order.
I have a theory about this. In his quest to put his life on the right path, Marty Mcfly inadvertently ruined the future. Picture this scenario:
Robert Rutherford III, the heir to the Rutherford fortune, a brilliant but listless twentysomething billionaire is on his way home from yet another all weekend bender. Even though his IQ is off the charts he has resigned himself to a life of idleness, debauchery, and spending the Rutherford fortune. Suddenly a black pickup truck hits his white Rolls-Royce. Robert is badly injured and spends the next few days in a medically induced coma.
After waking up and realizing that no one but his loyal valet came to visit him in the hospital, Robert vows to clean up his act and save his father’s now crumbling legacy. With new found vigour he slowly raises Rutherford Industries from the ashes into the massive economic powerhouse it would be today. Personally overseeing and developing such projects as hover technology, portable fusion devices, self drying and fitting clothes, ultra-dehydrated food, dust-repellent paper, and much more, the name Robert Rutherford III becomes a house hold name often mentioned in the same breath as Einstein, Newton, or Stephen Hawking.
Robert Rutherford III’s genius and humanity has inspired mankind to reach further than ever before. For the first time in human history the thought of world peace and universal prosperity doesn’t sound so far fetched. All because of a fateful car accident on October 27, 1985 that forced one of mankind’s greatest geniuses to reevaluate his life.
While the Blade Runner world is 9 years away, that doesn’t seem like nearly enough time to develop: flying cars (the theme of this thread?), off world colonies and at least 6 model-generations of androids. Time to get going on these things.
In the year 1987, NASA launched the last of America’s deep space probes. Aboard this compact starship, a lone astronaut, Captain William ‘Buck’ Rogers, was to experience cosmic forces beyond all comprehension. In a freak mishap, his life support systems were frozen by temperatures beyond imagination. ‘Ranger 3’ was blown out of its planned trajectory, into an orbit one thousand times more vast. An orbit which was to return Buck Rogers to Earth five hundred years later.
On the first day of the year 2000, God was assassinated. (The Jehovah Contract)
In 2007, two time travelers arrived, both soldiers in a centuries-long future war. A cyborg “Troll” of the Kanga Empire, who wished to enslave or failing that destroy humanity. And Colonel Ludmilla Leonovna, the immortal “Thuselah” whose goal is to kill the Troll and preserve humanity. (The Apocalypse Troll)