Are SciFi Authors Prophets?

[madrotter]

One writer that I like is Allen M. Steele, mostly hard-sf, and as I'm a sucker for colonization science fiction I loved his Coyote series....

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/686344.Coyote

And Rude Astronauts, also great stuff....

[onawah]

It's been great seeing all the favorite scifi novels and authors!
It's clear that Avalonians have very good taste when it comes to scifi!
But could we please focus more on what scifi novels have proven to be prophetic in nature?
And any speculation about how the great scifi authors might be seeing into the future
Is it really prophetic or is there evidence that some of them may have been clued in by scientists as to what particular secret government projects have been in the works and what they have discovered?
Or are they perhaps being inspired by some kind of connection to more technologically advanced beings of some kind?
It's an interesting mystery, and that was my primary reason for starting this thread.
Thanks all!

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

One book not mentioned that comes to mind is Greg Bear's 'Eon'.

This involves an enormous elongated asteroid that enters the solar system and parks itself near Earth. Scientists call it the potato. But not all is as it seems... They send up a bunch of scientists and, yeah, it's an alien ship (but that's not all). Inside, they discover a multilayer, multi-dimensional reality, containing multiple civilisations -- the interior is millions of times larger on the inside than the outside. Oh, and the realities within span a dizzying number of alternate timelines.

It's the most confusing, convoluted, and bloated book I ever read. Not recommended. The only reason I mention it here, it has strong Oumuamua vibes, especially at the outset. The book was written in the 80s, long before this real object entered our solar system, causing a big stir a few years ago.

[madrotter]

To that I would (happily) reply:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DQbYiXyRZjM

[Open Minded Dude]

Posted by Open Minded Dude (here)
By coincidence or synchronicity with this thread start (sorry if it's a little off-topic), I just resumed reading Perry Rhodan novellas again after 45 years when I was 12 years old. I know this because the most recent novella in my vintage collection I have (#991) was published in 1980.

Now in a fit of nostalgia I downloaded the two #1 editions (PR and PR Neo) as Ebooks for me Ebook reader. Normally I do not read 'fiction' anymore but just woo-woo and documentary books (UFOs, Astral Projection, Reincarnation and Regression Hypnosis, etc.). But I somehow felt compelled to do this. And it's fun!


The first novel was started in 1961, it is what I read now. The plot started in 1971. There is a reboot called "Perry Rhodan Neo" from 2011 (50s anniversary) where it starts in the year 2036. I also read this one to compare it to the original #1.

So far both are amazing reads and I wonder why I stopped as a child back then when I was a sci-fi nerd indeed and also a Star Wars (first movie) and Star Trek Original Series fan.

PR is a typical Space Opera and actually one of the or maybe even the longest running book series started in 1961, it is thus maybe older than Star Trek. There are similarities of course but it is also different. For me it is a bit of a mix of Star Trek and The Expanse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan





(Again, sorry for being a bit off-topic, it just happens that I am so enthusiastic about it currently. I think this thread is a synchronicity for this, so thanks to the OP.)

I found another 'kind of' forecast today. It could be foreseen in a way though but for a novel of 1961 it's still interesting.

As told above, today I finished the first novel of Perry Rhodan (original from 1961) where they first meet with an advanced alien race who call themselves the "Arkonides".

While these humanoid beings are technologically far superior to the Earthlings they have become actually 'degenerated' over eons. Their superior space ship and entire technology is steered by machinery, AI (although of course other words for it are used) and robots.

Moreover, as they are also socially degenerated they no longer 'strive for' anything as over millenia they already built a Galactic Imperium which is now in decline (as e.g. Rome was). Instead, they get stimulated all the time by constantly looking at hypnotic screen programs to which the majority of them is now addicted to - and thus a consequence as well as a reason for their decline and degeneration.

Um .... Wait a sec ...

An advanced society with each member being hypnotically addicted to their individual screens all the time?

2020s Earth population: 'Hold my beer.'

[Ernie Nemeth]

I believe that the pursuit of technology must lead exactly to this place - where machines eventually take over the human world and destroy humanity in the process.

Business for profit leads to a technological world, driven by poorly understood discoveries with 'exploitable' characteristics. Prosperity is merely a spin-off effect, driven by a top-down hierarchical structure that can be easily manipulated by tyrants and patriots alike.

If that makes them prophets, then the title is aptly applied.


The pursuit of truth and excellence in all disciplines leads to another world entirely.

Business for prosperity is lead by solid science with deliberate trajectories aimed at acquiring strategic fundamental knowledge for the betterment of society. Discoveries are brought online in a comprehensive manner so that from the outset it is planned, researched, developed and implemented to maximize its usefulness for all its citizens.

That takes an educated citizenry of forward thinkers.
Mostly, it is a citizenry that takes freedom very seriously.

Unlike the technological world....

[onawah]

Brilliant speech from Philip K Dick!
I will have to listen more than once, as the concepts are very complex.
Definitely pertinent to any discussion about alternate universes.
And anomalies in which records of past events seem to have been altered somehow...
Here's another:

The 9 prophetic visions of Philip K Dick
Science Fiction with Damien Walter
67.4K subscribers
74,421 views Dec 31, 2021

"We are living in strange times. Politics. Society. Culture wars. Things have gone weird. We're looking for knowledge and wisdom to guide us in strange times.

I can think of no better guide to the year 2022 than Philip K Dick.

The author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the inspiration for Blade Runner, is best known as a science fiction writer. But after his infamous spiritual awakening and the events of 2-3-74, Philip K Dick became something more....a visionary prophet for the age we're all now living in. "

00:00 Welcome to strange times
01:07 The prophetic Philip K Dick
03:45 A career of three parts
08:54 2-3-74
12:40 The films of Philip K Dick
15:24 The nine prophetic visions of Philip K Dick
15:47 NINE - The Exit Door Leads In
18:10 EIGHT - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
21:21 SEVEN - Chains of Air, Web of Aether
24:59 SIX - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
28:12 FIVE - V.A.L.I.S
31:52 FOUR - The Electric Ant
35:25 Interlude: what is reality?
36:45 THREE - Ubik
40:18 TWO - Exegesis
42:53 ONE - The Man In The High Castle
45:59 The Man Who Gazed Into The Mythos
51:49 Writing the 21st century myth

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=f2LNhNS_UFE

Posted by madrotter (here)
To that I would (happily) reply:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DQbYiXyRZjM

[madrotter]

Thank you Onawah for posting that video, I watched it and really enjoyed it and now I find myself really enjoying some of his other videos, so far they all connect to this thread in different kind of ways... Take this one, and I am in total agreement with it, actually a subject I have been thinking a lot about in the last few years:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_LQa28X-1AQ

Basically, all these tech-lords all mention certain science fiction books as their source or sources of inspiration, Orwell, Iain M. Banks, William Gibson etc., but where the writers of these books wrote them as a warning to humanity, these tech-lord types use them as a blue print, fascinating stuff....

[onawah]

Ha! Synchronicity happens...
Going full circle now, back to my OP where I focused first on "3 Body Problem", and then to the brilliant Damien Walter, who I had never heard of until Madrotter's post #24.
(I can certainly agree with Walter's views about the Chinese Communist Party and their blatant use of propaganda and censorship, which he criticizes in his monologue on "The Three Body Propaganda Problem".
Warning: the visuals in the video are just monotonously repeating clips from "Star Wars" and "Star Trek". )

"The Oligarch Plan for our Fuedal Future" (posted above) is also helping to fill in the picture of current oligarchal developments that's been forming in my skeptic's mind's eye.

More from Walter in the following:

The Three Body Propaganda Problem
Science Fiction with Damien Walter
67.4K subscribers
31,624 views Apr 9, 2024

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uGZW1xnkzkI

[onawah]

I wish I could remember where it was that I heard of a scifi planet where the people were all united in a spiritual journey, one which kept technological development controlled and at a minimum, but focused instead on the development of consciousness and what the Ancient Atlanteans in "Stargate Atlantis" called "Ascension", whereby ultimately they no longer inhabited physical bodies, but had evolved into pure, energetic bodies.

(Which according to some, such as psychic and Theosophist Gigi Young, is the state in which Lemurians originally arrived on Earth but in their case, gradually became more and more material.
And that seems to suggest that evolution actually moves in cycles.)

The people of this scifi planet had not yet fully ascended, but they had merged so well with the Gaia of their own planet (which they kept in pristine health) that they were able to manifest the planet and themselves temporarily onto a different plane, undetectable to the races of beings from other planets.
So they were never troubled by invasions or attacks from without.
I hold that to be a wholly worthwhile course of action, but it seems to be quite far off for Earth as yet.
When the Yugas have cycled once again to an era where there is a balance of the Feminine energy, which is focused on Nature, and the Masculine energy, which focuses on technology, then that kind of spiritual evolution of an entire planet would seem to be much more likely.
Although it seems that planets each have their own path, just as human beings do.

[onawah]

I am watching the old Stargate SG-1 series, and am now in Season 5, episode 10 ( which aired in 2001, and the episode is also named "2001") in which a vaccine is used to decimate a population by rendering them sterile.
A synopsis of the episode is here: https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/2001_(episode)
...But the takeaway words are "vaccine" and "sterile"...
Also of interest is that in the storyline, Colonel O'Neill sends a message back from the future to Stargate Command saying to avoid the planet from which the vaccine originated, at all costs.

[onawah]

Nanobots found in the blood of Earth humans sourced from an alien invasion is part of the plot of Stargate SG-1 Season 5 Episode 13, entitled "Proving Ground".
That was released in 2001.
...And we thought injected nanobots to be such a new thing....

[Sunny]

Posted by onawah (here)
I am watching the old Stargate SG-1 series, and am now in Season 5, episode 10 ( which aired in 2001, and the episode is also named "2001") in which a vaccine is used to decimate a population by rendering them sterile.
A synopsis of the episode is here: https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/2001_(episode)
...But the takeaway words are "vaccine" and "sterile"...
Also of interest is that in the storyline, Colonel O'Neill sends a message back from the future to Stargate Command saying to avoid the planet from which the vaccine originated, at all costs.

I have always been grateful to science fiction writers for allowing us to experience an endless number of dystopian scenarios without having to create them in real life.

But as you point out, sometimes they do come true.

[onawah]

In season 7, episode 5 of Stargate SG-1 (which aired in 2003), the Stargate exploration team goes to a planet with only a small, enclosed civilization where the people are all wearing a device on their foreheads that connects them to what they call "The Link", an AI source of information that is actually mind control as well as population control.

[onawah]

The last episode of Stargate SG-1 season 7 entitled Lost City part 2 which aired in 2004 begins with the team's discovery of the lost city of Atlantis which the Ancients built situated under the ice of Antarctica, and there they find a kind of crystalline Zero Point energy weapon, which gives Earth a tactical advantage over their alien enemies.
(Of course, it's not that simple...)
But the point continues to be that that far back (in 2004 in this case), this is pretty futuristic info to be basing a plot on.
And that doesn't tell us when the script was actually written, or how far back we would have to go to find out what it was based on, but futuristic it is...

[onawah]

I'm in Season 9 of Stargate SG-1 and there are three basic villainous ET groups that the Earth-based group of space explorers are faced with.
The first two that were introduced in previous seasons, the Goa'uld and the Replicants, are waning in power, and SG-1 believes the Replicants have actually been destroyed.
The new menace, the Ori, are the new main threat.

What strikes me about the three negatively oriented groups is how much they represent threats that Earth is now and has been facing, and how the characterisitics of all three groups combined match what I see as being very similar to the problems humanity faces now.
That is, of being very vulnerable to parasitizing and mind control from other kinds of beings, and from humans who have already been overtaken and are serving the alien agendas.

The Goa'uld are parasitical beings in the physical realm that inhabit and control the bodies of their victims while pretending to be ancient Gods, and demanding to be worshipped.
(Though they are also able to physically heal and extend the lives of their victims, so it is a mutually beneficial relationship in one regard.)
I don't know of any physical beings that behave that way in this reality, but there are certainly non-physical beings that inhabit, parasitize and control their human victims.

The Replicants were self-replicating mechanical beings that eventually evolved into conscious robotic androids that could mimic actual individuals (whether they were really destroyed in the story line remains to be seen...)
The self-replicating nanobots that are actually being found in vaccines and now in chemtrails are a huge threat to humanity in this current reality, as they suck the energy from living blood cells and use that energy to replicate, also interacting with 5G and other technologies to create a kind of mind control planetary web.
...Not to mention "chips" and other devices which can be implanted into human bodies and turn humans into transhumanist beings.

The Ori are one branch from a group of Ancient beings who split off into two groups long ago in SG-1 history, one group of religious fanatics (the Ori), and another which has made science its religion.
But the ORI also have very advanced technology with which they destroy whole civilizations that refuse to succumb and worship them.
Again, the goal of being worshipped is foremost with the Goa'uld and the Ori both.
"Loosh" being what these parasitical ETs most crave.
Which certainly sounds familiar...

My theory is that the spirit guides of many scifi authors are feeding them info subconsciously so as to warn humanity to be aware of real challenges which are most imminently dangerous now and in the near future.
Military domination by such groups in this particular scifi saga is only what follows the initial phases of psychological domination.
I think that humanity tends to believe would come first is military domination by ETs, but that is backward from what scifi is so often warning us about.
First the mind and spirits of the ET's human victims are prepared for surrender, then the physical incursion takes place.
So it's foremost a battle for the soul and spirit, just as so many of humanity's seers and prophets have envisioned happening.

[onawah]

This entry doesn't have to do with future prophecy, but it's of interest to me as it's about something that has brought to my attention by watching Stargate SG-1, something that has long been a focus of my meditations.
...Having to do with the spiritual path, specifically Buddhism, and the difference between the paths of Hinayana and Mahayana as they are normally portrayed.
That being: the path of the Arhat in Hinayana, which is to attain to Enlightenment or Nirvana as quickly as possible, while the path of the Boddhisattva in Mahayana is to renounce Nirvana and vow to create skillful means of relieving the suffering of humanity, while showing the Way of the Buddhas to others.

How this relates to scifi: in Stargate SG-1 (I'm in season 10 now, the final one), those who have Ascended are portrayed as a group of beings who have left the physical plane for a higher realm and detached themselves from human affairs, having made an agreement amongst themselves that they must commit to staying detached.
To remain in this rank of the Ascended, each individual has to agree to abide by the rule of making detachment foremost, and that is strictly enforced.
Otherwise, one may face the consequence of being forced back into a physcal body by the other Ascended beings, and suffer a memory loss of their Ascended experience.
So there is a class of sort of "fallen angels" or beings who have ascended but then were cast out and returned to physicality, presumably because they simply relapsed into an egoic state of mind.
But also another class of beings who are cast out of the ranks of the Ascended because they were too compassionate to remain detached, and realized they wanted to help relieve the suffering of the physcial realm more than they wanted to remain detached and stay in the higher realm of being.

That dichotomy is treated very delicately in SG-1, in such a way that it brought home to me how much I have pondered over the that spiritual conundrum in my own life, and still do even though it has been mostly in my subconscious mind of late.
I think I must again just go with the Zen resolution to simply focus foremost on "Being Here in the Now", as simplistic as that may sound, but also to meditate more consciously again on that old Koan.

Meanwhile, kudos to the makers of Stargate SG-1, which though rather outdated now, has deserved its lasting popularity if only because it can still make people think and not just serve as distracting entertainment.

[meat suit]

Posted by Open Minded Dude (here)
I read 'Neuromancer' back in 2001 (Amazon order list tells me that's when I bought it) and it was indeed about all the Cyberstuff it was praised for back then and which also made me want to buy it. I admit though I have forgotten about the plot and all. Long ago when I read it and maybe also due to the multiple similar works that have since then appeared in movie, tv and literature in this sci-fi subgenre.
But as one of the pioneers in the area of 'cyber(punk)' and cyberworld in general it seems that nowadays and over half a century later (1984!) it has not lost any of its relevance. A milestone of sci-fi for sure.

I read Neuromancer and the couple more books that were out at the time in like 1992.
It blew my mind back then. Same timeframe as I was making music with Arari computers and Akai samplers.
It was an exiting time and back in the day it seemed unfathomable that we would get to where we are now in just 30 years.

I suspect that many scifi authors are actually remote viewing the future.

I read a big book by L.Ron Hubbard back then too, cant remember what its called...

[Mike Gorman]

This is a very interesting subject, I have been an avid Sci-Fi reader since I was a kid, also a watcher of science fiction drama/film - H. G Wells of course has been extemely presient and astute in predicting technology, and 'mushroom clouds', 'The Shape of things to Come' was a good one. However, the other evening I saw an episode of 'Thunderbirds' in my YouTube feed, and feeling fondly nostalgic I watched it, in this episode Virgil is asked to send a document from his Thunderbird 2 vessel, and he asks "By Radio Photograph"? - this was from 1964, a long time before Faxes, and decades before digital media transmission via TCP/IP/Wi-Fi - radio photograph is not a bad approximation of what we all use today!
Yes, I know Thunderbirds is hardly top shelf Sci-Fi, but I noted a few examples of how they depicted 'the future' very cleverly, perhaps training a young audience to accept technology in their immediate future? I wonder if Gerry Anderson had links with intelligence, and science circles informing his storylines?

[onawah]

In the 13th episode entitled "Hot Zone" in Season 1 of the series Stargate Atlantis which aired in 2005, something called a "nanovirus" is introduced, which is not actually a virus but was created by the Atlantean "Ancients" to be used as a weapon against their enemies the "Wraith".
It resembles somewhat the self-replicating nanobots humanity is now being infected with in reality, via vaccines, chemtrails and more.
More here: https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_nanovirus
and here:https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Hot_Zone