Introduction

The goal of this research-through-creation project is to discover processes, creative decisions,

considerations and techniques that facilitate the writing of a science fiction screenplay in relation
to an existing futuristic phenomenon and the social and moral debate around it. The creative
project at the heart of this research is the writing of a science fiction TV series pilot screenplay
that deals with the subject matter of human enhancement: a developing technological domain
that deals with modifying and/or augmenting human capabilities and functions, such as the
cognitive, physical, health-related and/or emotional abilities and traits of the human being. There
is a turbulent moral and social debate around human enhancement technology regarding its
potential threat to human society and human nature on the one hand, and the merits and even the
necessity of such technologies to humanity on the other (Bostrom and Savulescu, 2009).
The science fiction genre has a very important role in helping society to understand, frame and
discuss how the world can and should be in face of today's rapidly changing world and the
present and future evolvement of technologies that can change life, society and humanity, like
human enhancement. Historian and futurist Yuval Noah Harari writes:
"At the beginning of the 21st century, the most important artistic genre is science fiction. Few
are the people who read academic articles about Artificial Intelligence or genetic engineering.
Movies like "The Matrix' and TV series like 'Westworld' and 'Black Mirror' are shaping the way
most people think about the important technological, economic and social developments of our
time" ("21 lessons about the 21st Century", p. 246, translated from Hebrew)
According to Noah Harari, this places a responsibility on the shoulders of science fiction writers
to represent the real issues and threats that technological advances present, and not to plant the
wrong ideas or steer attention to secondary issues. In his eyes most of science fiction does not
live up to this responsibility:
"Science fiction is occupied with the possibility of war between robots and people, while what
should really bother us is a struggle between an algorithm-enhanced super-human elite and a
lower class of weakened 'homo sapiens'." (p.247)
So, Yuval Noah Harari thinks there ought to be science fiction stories about human enhancement
and its social consequences.
The major creative product of this creation-as-research endeavor is a TV pilot screenplay called
"Trans-H", which tells the story of life in a time when people are beginning to be able to
purchase enhanced capabilities. In fact, there is more than one creative piece another, earlier
pilot screenplay called "California Republic" and an intermediate series synopsis called
"California Nation". The research follows the progression of the work from the first attempt to
the final one, the creative decisions made, the writing and the re-writing, the studying of the
knowledge about human enhancement, science fiction theory and of other films, series and
novels, and how this newly gained knowledge has affected the writing. The insights gained from
this process and the reflection upon it are offered as conclusions and guidelines to the initial
question of how to dramatize a futuristic debate into a science fiction screenplay.
This is not a conventional academic dissertation. It uses the unorthodox yet growing use of
research-through-creation or creation-as-research (or practice-led research, Green, 2006).
Haseman (2006) called this "performative research". Skains (2018) claims that practice- led
research has been very common in engineering, medicine and design, and lately has started to
evolve as a research method in creative writing. She describes the essence of practice-led
research as: "Practice related researchers push this examination [the study of art, e.b.m] into a
more direct and intimate sphere, observing and analyzing themselves as they engage in the act of
creation, rather than relying solely on the dissection of art after the fact." (Skains, 2018, p. 84)
Mayers (2016) has described how the field of creative writing research has evolved considerably
in the decade prior to his publication, with more writers-researchers publishing articles,
emergence of new doctoral programs in creative writing, the foundation of associations and
dedicated journals and the publication of several books which solidified the foundations of the
field.
One of those books is Jane Webb's "Researching Creative Writing" (2015), where she presents a
conceptualization of what can be the goal of research-through-creation:
"In the best cases, writer-researchers will deliver a fine piece of writing, an improved
understanding about some aspect of professional creative practice and a new way of seeing the
world" (quoted in Hedengren, 2016)
One of the more common methodologies for conducting research-through-creation is the use of
reflective research (Green, 2006; Skains, 2018). Alvesson & Skoldberg (2000) define reflective
research as interpreting one's own suppositions and subjecting one's own assumptions to critical
review. The subjects of the reflection process could be practices, assumptions,
conceptualizations, considerations and decisions. The reflective research of the artist tries to
capture the internal process of creating, which is always unique and non- recurrent, and difficult
to approach from the outside by other research methods.
There are probably over a hundred doctoral programs in creative writing today, among which are
those offered by high ranking institutions such as Cornell University, University of Southern
California, King's College of London, University of Edinburgh, University of Melbourne and
more.
Creative writing dissertations are usually composed of two complementing components: a
creative piece and a critical essay. The relations between the two parts are usually decided by the
logic and the rationale of the project and the research. The critical essay should not stand on its
own and must gain its meaning from its relation to the creative work. The creative piece should,
of course, have value as a work of art regardless of any further explanations or interpretations.
However, when it is part of a practice-led research, it is valued also for the insights and the
learning that can be gained through it. Hence, reading the critical essay should also shed light on
other layers of meaning that the creative piece offers, such as evaluating creative decisions and
techniques used in the writing, and understanding the work in its creative context and in the
context of the larger theoretical study that took place. The structure and order of this dissertation
is as follows:
Part 1 of the doctorate reviews the subject of human enhancement. It includes a review of the
existing technology, the types of technology that can emerge, a brief review of the history of
human enhancement and some evidence from science fiction and other sources to the interest
that the subject creates. It then finishes with a review of the moral and social questions and
debate about the subject.
Part 2 studies science fiction theory. It starts with looking at the major definitions, characteristics
and impact of the genre, then covers theory and knowledge about science fiction writing and
reviews some of the more known science fiction creations that deal with human enhancement in
literature, film and TV (with a slightly greater emphasis on film and TV, since they are the result
of screenwriting and similar in medium to this project) and then reviewing the current science
fiction TV landscape.
Part 3 delves into the creative process, following it more or less chronologically from the
emergence of the idea to write about human enhancement, through to the writing of the different
drafts. Part 3 is written in a multi-perspective way, combining description of decisions, thoughts
and products of the creative writing process, along with reflection on insights, self-evaluation,
auto-criticism and interpretation. It uses evaluations from outer sources and offers a
conceptualization about science fiction writing in the line of this creative process.
The creative pieces are presented after the critical essay in the chronological order of their
creation with the first pilot screenplay going first, the intermediate series synopsis second and the
final pilot screenplay third.
This dissertation has a structure because it must have one. However, reading it can be done in a
different order than the one presented. It is possible to "jump over" and begin straight with the
screenplays, reading the last screenplay first or otherwise. I would recommend reading the
screenplays either before reading the essay, or stop reading the essay before part 3 (or on the
points in part 3 where I suggest reading the screenplays), then read the screenplays and only
afterwards continue reading part 3 about the creative process.
The order in which the doctorate is arranged is not the order it was written, and it is not the order
of the actual process. The meeting point of art creation and research is difficult to represent
linearly because of the nature of the creation. Shklovsky (cited by Bordwell, 1991) referred to
the creation of art as the knight's move in chess, which is the only piece that does not move in a
linear way and can jump over other pieces. If you wished to try and read it similarly to how it
took place in the entire research-through-creation process, it would go roughly like this:
1. The beginning of part 3 about the emergence of the idea
2. Some of part 1- to learn a little about human enhancement
3. "California Republic" screenplay (the first pilot)
4. Review and self-evaluation of the first screenplay (part 3)
5. A little more reading about human enhancement (part 1)
6. Analyzing science fiction TV shows (the end of part 2)
7. Learning about science fiction (part 2)
8. "California Nation" synopsis
9. Review and self-evaluation of the synopsis (part 3)
10. More study about science fiction theory, and especially about writing (part 2)
11. Learning more about human enhancement and more about the debate (part 1)
12. Reading the part about "lateral work" in the creative process (part 3)
13. "Trans-H" screenplay
14. Review of the screenplay
15. Conclusions
So, the process of creative writing research is very dynamic and involves a lot of moves between
writing, evaluating, reflecting, studying, conceptualizing, and all these steps "feed" and influence
each other. This will be discussed further in part 3.
Throughout the parts of the essay I try to briefly explain why every chapter was important for the
writing process or at least for the research.
Extended introduction: research approach and methodological framework
The research question and its underlying disciplinary assumptions
The main question that this work is trying to answer is what is the creative process (creative
decisions, considerations, challenges, conceptual framework) involved in writing a science
fiction TV series about a morally, psychologically, philosophically and socially charged
technological subject in this case, the technological domain of human enhancement. However,
the question and its answers are applicable to the dramatic treatment of other emerging
technologies and can serve as insights and guidelines that can help writers and researchers of
science fiction.
At its core the research question is routed in the field of creative writing research (Alvesson &
Skoldberg, 2000; Dawson, 2004; Smith & Dean, 2009; Webb, 2015; Brien, 2006; Green, 2006;
Haseman, 2006; Haseman & Mafe, 2009; Skains, 2018; Sullivan, 2009) and its sub- field of the
research of screenwriting (Baker, 2013, 2015; Batty et al, 2019; McAulay, 2017; Mathews,
2018). However, the assumptions underlying this question and its potential contribution crosses
the boundaries of creative writing research:
The social role and impact of the TV series medium in current days and culture, and especially of
science fiction (which will answer why using the TV series medium for this research).
The research of science fiction as a genre and as a narrative art.
Philosophy in the narrative arts.
Screenwriting.
This document will review the above mentioned disciplines in relation to the research question,
describe in more detail the methodology of creative writing research (with an emphasis on
screenwriting research) and discuss the conclusions and their possible contribution to the
different disciplines that this research is related to. The discipline of screenwriting will be
addressed, as part of the chapter about creative writing research.
An important note: This research is the meeting point of several perspectives and disciplines. As
mentioned, it is primarily a research into the creative writing process, but it corresponds and
draws its assumptions from several fields of research and schools of thought.
One implication of the above-mentioned note is that the way most of the disciplines are related to
the research is by looking at them from the different perspectives that the meeting of disciplines
allows. For example: The contribution to the research of the science fiction genre is done by
viewing the genre not from the conventional perspective of analyzing the completed work, but
from the perspective of the process of creating a science fiction story and how the concepts that
are used to research science fiction as a work of art (such as the "novum", Suvin, 1979) can be
used to write it. The contribution to the philosophical debate about human enhancement is not
done with the use of conventional philosophical tools, but through expressing this debate using
dramatic and screenwriting tools and translating it to the form of a TV series screenplay.
A second implication is that this research creates its own unique combination of conceptual
system or "space", not "following" or "continuing" any one specific disciplinary discourse and
research system, but rather "fuses" tools of creative writing (screenwriting), creative writing
research, science fiction, philosophy (of human enhancement) in light of the research question
and the creative challenge. This is common in the relatively young field of creative writing
research, as we will see later in a chapter about the Creative Writing Research approach.
Theoretical assumptions to the research approach
It can be said that the approach to this research draws on assumptions from the post- structuralist
view of the art and society (Bourdieu, 1972, 1984) and from the systems theory philosophy
(Laszlo, 1972), such as:
Artifacts (such as creative works and intellectual products) are created and can be evaluated only
in a context. In relation to this research, this assumption has two meanings: (a) The use of the
science fiction TV series medium as a creative work is and should be situated in the context of
the contemporary TV series world, the contemporary science fiction world, today's culture and
its relation to technology and the future, audience's expectations, the eco-system of TV series
production & consumption, the current theory of science fiction and so on. (b) The research
presented about the creative process in this dissertation is also a composition created in a context
(which is the heterogenic disciplinary origins of it).
Meanings are the result of underlying conceptual systems. This assumption is central to the
entire research into the creative process in this dissertation, since the central endeavor presented
is to elicit a system for the creation of a science fiction TV screenplay, and assuming that a story
is not just a series of events, but rather a composition that is built on a covert system of
constructs (such as theme, premise, values, genre tropes and conventions, antagonism forces and
so on). This approach to storytelling and screenwriting is evident in screenwriting teacher John
Truby's work (2009).
A system is defined by its components and their inter-relatedness. This notion, drawn from
systems theory (Lazslo, 1972), might be aligned with post-structuralist ideas as well. Its meaning
is that things affect each other in complex ways and the actual phenomena is the product of these
inter-relations. This assumption influences this work on three levels: (a) As an approach to
creative writing it places an emphasis on the relationship between the components that are at the
basis of the story (i.e. the choices of character, obstacles, genre, pace, style, symbols, locations
etc. form a story through the relations between them). (b) As an approach to the research of
creative writing it implies looking at the creative process by its relatedness to the different
factors that influence it (science fiction theory, the landscape of TV and science fiction TV, the
background and psychology of the writer etc.). (c) As an approach to the study of film and TV it
places an emphasis on the interactions between creative works, genres, audience and socio-
cultural reception the ways a novel, a film or a series is perceived, understood, interpreted
to the moral, psychological and social questions and dilemmas that the advancement in human
enhancement technology can incite.
(b) Stories can provide philosophy and philosophical thought a "large scale and holistic
simulation" of the philosophical inquiry. When writing a story, the writer creates a complete
system of characters, locations, motivations, events, values, institutions, ecology and so on, and
this could serve as a thought experiment in developing philosophical ideas on a systemic level.
The use of the word "holistic" means that in a story the philosophical issue is not isolated when
dealing with a moral question, the story can (and even must) refer to the emotions, value
systems, impact on others and so on.
Here is an example from "Trans-H", the screenplay written for this research: One of the
philosophical issues of human enhancement is the danger of growing inequality between the
enhanced and the non-enhanced (Noah Harari, 2018). In "Trans-H", a character called Sierra
Newman builds a company that manufactures very expensive implants that can boost cognitive
abilities. She claims that the results of using the implants will provide people with better
abilities. It will induce them to develop technologies that will benefit all the people, like medical
technologies, improving climate issues etc. However, one of the consequences of the new
industry is having people who cannot afford the implants feeling they become second-rate
citizens. This, in turn, leads to the evolvement of a pirate industry of cheap implants that people
take with risk. When a girl whose parents wanted her not to be a second-rate person bought her
such an implant enters a state of coma Sierra now has to face emotions of guilt about a reality
that emerged as a consequence of her actions. The same event also raises a demand for
heightened regulation over enhanced people and her company. The ability (and even necessity)
to explore all kinds of consequences, dimensions and inter-relations deriving from an issue is a
tool that storytelling, and especially the TV series medium with its wide canvas, can offer.
Following the second point, a more daring claim can be made that under certain conditions the
writing of a story, especially science fiction, is in itself an act of philosophical research. When a
writer needs to connect and invent a coherent system that incorporates events, characters,
motivations, emotions, a story world built with an eco- system, institutions etc., the creation of
such a system, if successful in being coherent and related to the theme, demands philosophical
reasoning (which is sometimes conscious for the writer and sometimes intuitive and hard to
explain) and can contribute its rules and relations to the philosophy. This is why many stories
become the source of philosophical investigation.
One of the contributions of this dissertation consists in gaining insight into the process of writing
a story that is created with the intention of expressing and simulating a philosophical issue.
Derivative questions can be: How does the study of the philosophy contributes to the
development of the story (if at all)? How does the "translation" of a philosophical issue into the
form of a TV series screenplay reflect on the philosophical issue and helps look at it differently?
As with the prior disciplines discussed most of the academic work linking between philosophy
and storytelling is done in relation to the completed work of art, and the perspective of its
creation is relatively missing. Applying the methodology of the creative writing research to this
subject can begin to provide insights and concepts to this aspect.
Creative writing research
Because this research is a creative writing research, and because this is an atypical and relatively
new academic field, it is important to devote a chapter in this document to the development of
this field and its methodologies.
This chapter will refer to:
The emergence and assumptions of creative writing research, and its academic eco- system.
The main research methodologies of creative writing research.
The screenwriting as a discipline and this research potential contribution to it.
Screenwriting within the field of creative writing research.
This chapter will provide a needed forward to the next chapter that will elaborate the
methodology of this research.
The paradigm of creative writing research
At the beginning of the introduction there is a quote by Skains (2018) that describes the essence
and the goal of creative writing research (which is a "practice-led research" approach applied to
creative writing):
"Practice related researchers push this examination [the study of art, e.b.m] into a more direct
and intimate sphere, observing and analyzing themselves as they engage in the act of creation,
rather than relying solely on the dissection of art after the fact." (Skains, 2018, p. 84)
The meaning of this claim is that while most of the academic research in art is based upon the
hermeneutic tradition of interpreting the text by trying to reconstruct the meaning that was in the
mind of the creator, and assuming that the impact of art is the way this meaning is interpreted by
the audience of the creation and through this interpretation triggers a change in the audience's
mind (Schleiermacher, 1819/1978; Schleiermacher in Palmer, 1969; Heidegger, 1950; Gadamer,
1960; Ricoeur, 1973, 1981; Bowie, 2003) - hence views the product of art from the outside and
as a completed work, the creative writing research seeks to explore the space that exists between
the writer and the work. In this sense, the creative writing research aims at completing the
hermeneutic tradition with praxis.
The usage of the concept of praxis has grown in the philosophical and intellectual discourse
through the work of Hannah Arendt (1958). Arendt placed a great deal of emphasis on the
actions of people and on the "theory of action" that guides them, meaning the assumptions,
interpretations and understanding of the world, which can be dynamic, that through which the
person forms an intention and acts upon it. Arendt, and also Freire (1970), used this term mainly
for political action, referring to the process by which people reach a perception of the political
situation and decide to act upon it to achieve a change. However, the concept of praxis can be
used in many domains (Lanir, 2013). Drawing on the works of Arendt and Freire, the praxis can
be shared or discussed, meaning that as a knowledge it is not just a personal knowledge, but a
subject of exploration and discourse.
The meaning of the praxis concept also resembles to some extent Bourdieu's "theory of practice"
(Bourdieu, 1972; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), by which a person can use his "practical sense"
and methods of reflection to understand the system (or the "game") in which he operates.
Praxis is a term that combines action and reflection (Freire, 1970). Its development is based on
action in the natural and social world (Scott and Marshal, 2009) and involves a cycle of taking
action, reflecting on both the results and outcomes of the action and the assumptions and
understandings that preceded it, then changing or adjusting those assumptions if needed and
using the new understanding to take the next action.
The philosophical term of praxis is very close to terms from cognitive psychology, such as
schema (Piaget, 1923) and heuristics (Simon, 1947; Kahneman & Tversky, 1982). Both these
terms refer to the internal concepts a person holds, which can be explicit or implicit, that he uses
to solve problems and make decisions. The lessons from cognitive psychology suggest that the
praxis can evolve in the process of acting and reflecting (Kolb, 1983).
Creative writing research (and the entire practice-led research domain) is a field of research that
mainly deals with the praxis of storytelling. This means that it involves action - writing a story,
and reflection into the creative process, combined with an appraisal of the work, to generate
knowledge about the creative process in the context of the creative challenge. The underlying
assumption is that the knowledge created through this methodology can be shared and contribute
to other writers and researchers of the creative process. It might also be valuable to the academic
discourse about the subject matter of creation by completing the knowledge created through the
hermeneutic tradition with insights from the praxis of the art (for example: the study of science
fiction can be comprised of the study of completed works and the study of the creative process of
a science fiction story).
Another foundation for creative writing research, that might offer a more unifying approach that
relates to both hermeneutics and praxis, can be found in the Csikszentmihalyi system's model of
creativity (1996):
Csikszentmihalyi views creativity as occurring in a system or a context, in which the creative
person gains knowledge of a domain, rearranges connections or concepts in that domain and
transmits it back to the domain (through the mediation of society) and hereby changes it.
Applying this systemic model to creative writing research means that the writer- researcher is not
only reflecting on his own mind, but also examines and relates to the context and the domain in
which he operates as an input (how the genre, the eco-system etc. influences his writing), and at
the same time as an output (envisioning the social reception of his work and uses it as a source in
his creation). A similar idea can be found in the "cognitive process model of composition"
(Flower & Hayes, 1981), that suggests looking at the artist's creative process as made of three
cognitive elements: (a) The artist's knowledge of the topic in which he wants to create (genre,
subject matter, context, audience etc.). (b) the task environment. (c) the creative process itself
(planning, the actual work etc.). Flower's and Hayes' model can serve as a framework for
accessing the content of the creative writing research' investigation.
The methodology of creative writing research will be discussed in more detail later in the
relevant chapter, and in the chapter describing the methodological approach in this research.
Creative writing research as an academic discipline
Creative writing programs have existed in the academy for a long time, however the discipline of
creative writing research as a recognized institutional academic field is rather young. In the
"Creative Writing Research Benchmark Statement" published by the British national association
of writers in education (NAWA) in 2018, it is noted that the first British doctoral candidate in the
field received his doctorate in 1990. The field has grown fast with Harper estimating in 2008 that
in the United Kingdom there are 400 active doctoral students in creative writing research. On the
same year Boyd identified 199 completed doctorates in creative writing research in Australia
between 1993-2008. Those numbers don't take into account the number of doctorates done in the
United Stated, which might be larger due to the greater number of universities offering this
option.
In more than a decade since, the field has grown even more, and today most of the universities in
Great Britain and Australia, many universities in the United States and some in other countries
offer doctoral programs in creative writing research.
Following is a list of a few of these universities, along with links to the descriptions of the
programs (The list has been screened to include mainly universities which' websites are more
elaborated):
In most cases the creative writing PhD is part of the literature of the language departments, and
in some cases, it is linked with programs of communication and media arts.
In the past creative writing researchers who wanted to publish articles turned to journals about
literature, culture, communication and media (which is evident in the bibliography of this work).
This is still the case, but in the past decades, established several academic and peer reviewed
journals were dedicated to creative writing research:
https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmnw20 New Writing: The International Journal for the
Practice and Theory of Creative Writing
https://scholarworks.rit.edu/jcws/ Journal of Creative Writing Studies
https://textjournal.scholasticahq.com/ TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses
Upon completion of this research, it might find a stage for publication in either one of the above-
mentioned journals (who also cover the research of screenwriting) or in journals dedicated to the
research of television, film and science fiction.
As a relatively young and emerging field, there have been several scholars who try to portray its
boundaries and characterize it as an academic and research discipline (Webb, 2015; Donnelly,
2009; Dawson, 2004; Barbazon & Dagli, 2010; Harper, 2007; Kroll, 2012; Mayers, 2016; Suya
Lee et al, 2016; Smith & Dean, 2009). Much of the principals developed through their collective
works about the foundations of the field is summed up in Derek Neal's "Creative writing research
benchmark statement"¹ from 2018, done in behalf of NAWA. The benchmark statement defines
the field of creative writing research and provides guidelines to its assumptions and
methodology, as well as guidelines to PhD candidates and supervisors in the field. Here are some
of the points made in the statement:
"The most common mode of Creative Writing research is creative practice. Creative practice
research can include a range of methods, approaches and styles, including those variously
labelled as practice-led research, research- led practice, practice-based research and practice-as-
research. The commonality in all types of creative practice research is that the researcher
produces a creative work. The process rocess of artistic practice and its resulting output are
perceived as contributions to knowledge.
In most higher education institutions in the UK, but not all, creative practice research also
involves the production of a critical investigation and often a critical, reflective or analytical
output. Such outputs can relate to any aspect of the creative work or process.
Creative practice research entails research into the process of artistic production, often called the
'creative process', though it may embrace multiple processes. In this sense, the making of the
work itself forms research into the way that it is composed, and the way it is presented, its
content, form, craft, and technique.
Research is also manifest in investigation into contexts related to the creative practice. This
contextual investigation might be historical, cultural or literary or involve various
interdisciplinary investigations. In this way creative practice research the artistic process and/or
the critical reflection can engage with a range of theoretical positions and disciplinary areas.
Though varieties of critical research might also be undertaken, creative practice research
primarily uses the act of writing to explore, articulate and investigate new branches of
knowledge and understanding. Creative practice research can result in critical works, and these
can be connected to, combined with, embedded within, or stand relatively free from, the practice
that informs them. However, there is usually at least a symbiotic link between the two; they are
often in dialogue with one another and in effect pose questions, which are reciprocally addressed.
The research is often fluid and responsive, the creative writer utilizing emotional, intellectual or
psychological stimuli to shape their work in mutative ways that may be difficult to plan for or
predict.
Creative Writing is not primarily a vehicle for what may be termed 'factual' knowledge, but a
synthesizing process that brings about both knowledge and emotional awareness through
imaginative interpretation and representation of experience.
The actions of Creative Writing research inherently include investigations and explorations both
in and of creative practice, whereby experience is transmuted into language."
Methodologies of creative writing research
As described before, the creative writing research attempts to create knowledge on the praxis of
the creative process. The basic modes of research are action (practice) and reflection. Around
this foundation, there could be many variations and methods.
The things that separate the creative writing research from just the practice of creative writing
are (based on Neal, 2018, and Skains, 2018):
1. It is a process that begins with a question or a problem. The question/problem can be about the
creative process itself, the genre, the rules or symbols of the art form, the situation and
circumstances of the writer, an external subject matter that becomes the subject of writing and
more.
2. Throughout the creative-research process there are deliberate actions that are directed at
expanding the knowledge around the question/problem (these might include reflection and/or
auto-documentation, studying, consulting, attending workshops or undergoing specific
experiences and more).
3. The writer-researcher evaluates and interprets data he documented or collected in the course of
the writing (thoughts, insights, intentions, decisions, actions, attempts etc.) in light of the
question/problem.
4. The "output" of the work conveys not just the artistic work, but also communicates in some
way the knowledge and insights gained about the question/problem. This can be done in the
work itself, but the convention of the field is the writing of an exegesis or critical essay that
accompanies the creative piece.
Creative writing research "belongs" to the methodological family of qualitative research. Flick
(2007) characterizes qualitative research as follows:
"...to understand, describe and sometimes explain social phenomena "from the inside" in a
number of different ways:
• By analyzing the experiences of individuals or groups. Experiences can be related to
biographical life histories or to (every day or professional) practices; they may be addressed by
analyzing everyday knowledge, accounts and stories.
• By analyzing interactions and communications in the making. This can be based on observing
or recording practices of interacting and communicating and analyzing this material.
• By analyzing documents (texts, images, film or music) or similar traces of experiences or
interactions." (Flick 2007: p. ix)
Creative writing research shares the definition of understanding the phenomena (of creative
writing) "from the inside" and operates by the first (analyzing experience) and the third
(analyzing documents) categories that Flick portrayed.
However, creative writing research is different in nature from more traditional types of research
and contains characteristics and limitations that need to be acknowledged. One of which is that
the course of research is influenced by the dynamic nature of the practice the creative process
(this is also true in other practice-led research fields, like in engineering, design, medicine and
others). The creative process isn't linear and cannot be accurately planned at its beginning.
Therefore, a research done around it needs to have a framework that allows for the creative
process to take its course, while being loyal to the process of generating knowledge that answers
the question/problem (the question/problem itself might change throughout the process).
Such a framework can be found in Kurt Lewin's "action research" (1946) paradigm, which is
done by taking "a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action and
fact-finding about the result of the action". Lewin developed this method for social sciences, yet
its principles of switching between action and research (or sense-making) apply nicely to the
needs of creative writing research.
Skains (2018) have tried to combine the different elements of creative writing research
discussed, along with Csikszentmihalyi's and Flower's and Hayes' models to form a cohesive
framework for creative writing research:
Skains uses the term "conduct empirical research" for doing the actual practice of writing
combined with documenting contents that emerge in the cognition of the writer. She advocates
including auto-ethnomethodological methods in the course of the writing- research (such as
conducting a writing journal, and documenting self-remarks), and also a step consisting in
evaluating the finished work "from the outside". A major take-away from Skains' model is its
nature as a dynamic process and that even the research question is revisited and most likely even
rephrased throughout the process.
Another methodological model for creative writing research is proposed by Boyd (2009). Boyd
also seeks to adjust the needs of research to the erratic nature of writing. She uses the term
"strange loop" proposed by Hofstadter (1979) to organize the writing-research process. A
"strange loop" means a cyclic movement through various levels, which relate to each other in a
tangled hierarchy. Moving in a "strange loop" means that one can find himself at the starting
point again throughout the process and doesn't necessarily knows if his next move is "upwards"
or "downwards" and might be both in some senses. The "strange loop" differs from a spiral by
that the "up" and "down" are not clear, and by that it is made from a tangled hierarchy of levels
(for example: in creative writing all the different components from the Csikszentmihalyi's model
could serve as a "level" - as the writer "visits" levels of craft, subject matter, theme etc.). Every
"movement" in the loop can be viewed as a cycle that incorporates actions on different levels.
The way Boyd describes the methodology she proposes is as follows:
In a simpler, more linear way, Boyd suggests the following steps in a creative writing research:
"1. Specify an area or areas of interest, problem and/or complexity, acknowledging these may
change as a result of the research process
2. State an initial intention of what will be included in the first „loop" of the research (e.g.
writing, reading genre, reading theory, experience, sketching, survey)
3. Conduct the research
4. Add or subtract items in the research "loop". Steps 1-4 will spiral the researcher toward a
closer understanding of the issue
5. Restate the area or areas of interest, and
6. Reiterate and refine until the output is complete."
One important emphasis that Boyd suggests over Skains' methodology (which shares many
features, and differ in some aspects and points of view for example Skains' greater emphasis on
the cognitive process of creation) - is the use of changing but planned actions that the writer
takes throughout the process, such as going to a workshop, reading theory, watching and
analyzing other creations etc.
The discipline of screenwriting
A major field that this work could contribute to is the domain of screenwriting teaching and
theory. Screenwriting theory for the most is a professional discipline, not an academic one. There
is an abundance of books, theories, courses, webinars and other instructional materials, which are
meant for screenwriters in all stages of their careers. This knowledge world is targeted at the
purpose of writing good screenplays - with "good" usually refers to the commercial value of the
screenplay, and sometimes also to its artistic value.
The way this knowledge has been created resembles the two perspectives covered earlier
regarding the research of art and stories: (a) analyzing films and TV series for their attributes and
then translating this observation into an organized theory about how to write a good and/or
commercially effective screenplay. Most of screenwriting theorists who use this approach are not
screenwriters themselves (Campbell, 1949; Field, 1979; Hauge, 2006;
Seger, 1987; Vogler, 1992; Truby, 2009). The fact that these story theorists are not screenwriters
themselves does not mean their conceptualizations are any less good than others, it only means
they employed a method of analyzing films, series and screenplays. to form their theory (it is
important to mention that many of those theorists have worked extensively as consultants to
screenwriters, so most likely have also gained understanding about the creative process itself
although it is always an "outsider" point of view). (b) creating the knowledge about storytelling
from a personal experience as a writer, coming up with concepts that the screenwriter used and
found helpful. Notable screenwriters- theorists are Snyder (2005), McKee (1997), Russell
(2018), Bork (2018), Bonnet (2006). This method of creating knowledge about storytelling is
similar to creative writing research, only done not under an academic framework and differs in
the way it defines the goal of the work producing knowledge that will help writers write better
and more sellable screenplays, as opposed to creative writing research that is aimed at gaining
insight into the conceptualization of the writing process in relation to questions that deal with
better understanding phenomena and processes of art, culture and creation.
Another rough way to categorize screenwriting theories is by their overall approach to
storytelling. There are two very general approaches: (a) "sequential" story theories that are
focused in identifying and portraying the effective sequence of events that will make the story
effective to audiences. The concept of three-act structure, greatly influenced by Aristotle's
"Poetics", is probably the most famous and recognized "sequential" story theory. Other story
theorists whose work can be described as belonging to this group are McKee, Snyder, Field,
Vogler and Campbell (the last two are known for promoting the "monomyth" approach to
storytelling). (b) "systemic" story theories that are focused more on the internal structure that
underlies beneath the actual step-by-step layout of the story. These approaches place greater
emphasis on the designing of the story components, like the characters, their relations, their
motivations, the obstacles and the rivalries in the story, the exploration of the theme, the use of
genre conventions and so on. The approaches of Truby, Burk, Russell and Bonnet can be
characterized as such.
These two roughly categorized approaches share one strong basic assumption that there is an
internal structure to good storytelling that needs to be identified. In this sense, the majority of the
screenwriting theory world is influenced by the structuralist school of thought.
When it comes to writing a TV series the number of dedicated story theories decreases (although
with the growing popularity of this medium this gap is starting to fill up). When considering the
applicability of story approaches to TV series, the "systemic" approach seems to have a clear
advantage, since most of the "sequential" approaches are designed mainly around the length and
dynamics of a feature film (or maybe a novel). A TV series, by nature, is a much longer, more
branching story (see for instance a sample of branching narrative patterns:
https://prezi.com/p/yo26wrcsa ax/interactive-storytelling/), not as "tight" and "lean" like the film.
It is much harder to form a "sequential" approach to current TV series that stretches to seasons.
The three-act structure, for example, or Snyder's "beat sheet", might cover an episode, but the
series story of today is less and less episodical. The "systemic" approach allows for the design of
dynamics and "story engines" which can support a season or more. This could be the reason why
out of the notable screenwriting teachers, two who are also known more than others for their
explicit work on TV series storytelling come from a more "systemic" approach - Truby and
Russell.
As for screenwriting in science fiction - very few story theorists and teachers have referred
directly to writing science fiction and even fewer to writing science fiction TV series. Again, the
two that appear in this niche as well are Truby and Russell.
Therefore, the contribution of this work to the knowledge world of screenwriting is by
broadening the scarce existing knowledge of science fiction screenwriting, and moreover of
science fiction TV screenwriting. It can also contribute by putting to use some principals of TV
screenwriting (mainly by Truby and Russell), and learn about the use of it in creating the series
which is part of this work.
Screenwriting in the academic creative writing research field
Within the field of creative writing research exists a niche that deals with screenwriting. Some of
the journals of creative writing research have dedicated issues to screenwriting research: "New
Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing" (volume
13.1, 2016); "TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses (volume 19, 2013).
Batty (2016) described that many of the screenwriting research up to that point linked
screenwriting to other subject matters (for example: sociological contexts) and called for more
research on the actual screenwriting work.
Batty and McAulay (2019) define the screenwriting research practice as follows:
"a practice in which the screenwriter makes use of the intellectual space offered by the academy
and those within it to incubate and experiment with ideas, with the intention that their processes
or their screenplays - or both change as a result."
The 2013 issue of "TEXT" dedicated to screenwriting published several screenplays that were
written as research. Each of these screenplays was written with an intention to explore the
execution of pre-defined goals and subjects, such as memoirs (Baker, 2013), the news
broadcasting manipulation to grow audience (Batty, 2013), a documentary screenplay exploring
concepts of the relations between a person and a place (Davis, 2013), the use of fictional
screenwriting in referencing and complementing real events (Beattie), screenwriting exploration
of themes associated with white inheritance (Hassal, 2013) and more. All these screenwriting
challenges differ from plain screenwriting by their commitment to explore the creative process
(decisions, techniques, the writer's learning throughout the process etc.) which is related to a
subject. It is a deliberate and reflective endeavor initiated with an intention and commitment to
produce both a work of art and expand the knowledge of the creative process and/or the ability of
screenwriting to represent and disseminate ideas from other domains.
The same paradigm is applied to the creative writing PhD's in screenwriting. Two examples for
screenwriting doctorates are by McAuley (2017) and Mathews (2018). McAuley is a western
screenwriter who loves Japan and intents in his creative research to write a screenplay that is
"Japanese" and "transnational" at the same time. Throughout the writing he explored the way his
own perceptions and experiences in Japan influenced his writing and how he found solutions to
use his point of view to make the screenplay be considered as authentically "Japanese".
McAuley's research is about the creative research of a screenwriter in a unique situation and
facing a specific challenge.
Mathews' research is about the professional screenwriting concept of the "character arc". He
wrote a romantic comedy and throughout the writing process tried to understand better the
concept, put to use and examination the way existing screenwriting theories gave guidance to the
character arc. In the writing-research he realized that the way this concept is presented is not
sufficient and offered definitions and practices to fill this gap.
Reviewing the two doctorates shows the diversity of questions that a creative writing PhD in
screenwriting can cover in one case a unique writing challenge related to the personal experience
and situation of the writer, in the other an exploration into one of the craft's concepts.
The research method
The creative challenge of this research is to write a pilot screenplay for a science fiction TV
series about the subject of human enhancement.
As Skains (2018) and Boyd (2009) describe in their methodological proposals, there should be
an initial research question that the writer-researcher is interested in exploring which is related to
the creative challenge. This question will be revisited and might be refined or rephrased
throughout the work.
In this study the initial question was what is the creative process (creative decisions,
considerations, challenges, conceptual framework) involved in writing a science fiction TV
series about a morally, psychologically, philosophically and socially charged technological
subject.
This question is dealing with a unique writing challenge, yet in itself it is relatively broad and
comprehensive (though not dealing with the entire writing process - but defining an area of
exploration within it: the "translation" of a technological and philosophical subject matter into a
TV series). It can be divided into several sub-questions, some of which were evident at the get-
go and some unveiled throughout the writing process:
Can a philosophical subject matter serve as an effective trigger to writing a screenplay?
How can the study of the technology affect the writing process? What kind of a study of the
technology should be done for the purpose of writing a screenplay?
How should a science fiction writer treat and work on the representation of the technology in the
screenplay? What dimensions of the technology should be explored and how? Which decisions
and considerations should a science fiction writer exercise in relation to the technology?
How can the study of the philosophy affect the writing process?
How can a science fiction writer represent and dramatize philosophical ideas? How can
philosophy be a source material to screenwriting?
Should a writer make his own stand on the philosophical debate or should he/she represent the
debate as it is?
How well should a science fiction writer know the characteristics of the genre?
How does the study and usage of genre conventions, concepts and theories contribute to the
writing? Can the writing process help to evaluate, redefine or contribute to the theory in science
fiction?
Method
The research method used draws from both Boyd and Skains and adheres to the conventions of
creative writing research. It consists of the combination of practice (developing and writing a TV
series concept and pilot screenplay) and deliberate steps and actions taken to elicit information or
trigger experience in a way that will help expand knowledge in light of the research question.
Those steps and actions include:
Keeping a writing journal/open thoughts development journal (which by the end of the work was
actually 5 different files from different periods of the project - totaling at nearly 200 pages in
Hebrew).
Taking a Coursera class on writing a TV series pilot screenplay.
Progressively reading and studying about human enhancement technology and philosophy.
Writing a three-part article about human enhancement to an Israeli scientific website.
Progressively reading and studying about science fiction theory and writing guidebooks and
taking a TV science fiction writing webinar (by Peter Russell).
Watching and analyzing several science fiction TV series and movies (the whole series or parts
of it; The series were "Westworld", "The 100", "Akta Maniskor" + "Humans", "Black Mirror",
"Limitless", "Years and Years", "The Leftovers"; The movies were "Limitless", "Lucy",
"Elysium", "Upgrade", "Gattaca")
Reading science fiction books, novellas and stories mainly those that deal with human
enhancement ("Beggars in Spain", "Odd John", "Flowers for Algernon", "Origin" by Dan
Brown).
Taking a number of consultations about the screenplay two conversations with screenwriting
theorist Erik Bork, one with Israeli screenwriter Eran Ben-Ya'akov, and one presentation of a
version of the series synopsis at a writers' group of the Israeli screenwriters' guild.
Ordering three screenplay coverages (two for the first version of the screenplay, and one for the
next to last).
Taking part each year in the SCRIPT Academy Sessions, University d'Evry Paris Saclay on the
Experts of one's research field, on Crisis,
Participating through SKYPE in a TTM (Trilingual Transmedia Master) seminar on Localization
and Branching Storytelling with Jean-Luc Vettier (Zero Games), University of Evry
Giving a lecture about science fiction storytelling theory at the SCRIPT ACADEMY (Prof.
Brigitte Gauthier's doctoral seminar), University of Evry Paris Saclay
Having the screenplay read and receiving feedback at the SCRIPT ACADEMY.
Some of those actions were pre-planned (such as keeping a journal and studying about human
enhancement and science fiction) and some were decided upon throughout the process in
different phases. Even the pre-planned actions weren't completely systematic reading and
studying has been done in different phases, not knowing how the reading will contribute to
writing, and some of the texts were revisited when it seemed right for the creative process.
The order in which this creative writing research has been conducted resembles the "action
research" paradigm and Boyd's use of the "strange loops" analogy as a framework for creative
writing research. This means that the factor leading the process is the development and the
writing of the creative product, with its ups and downs. A "layer" of documentation and
reflection has been added on top of the writing (for example: the writing journal), and throughout
the writing there were decisions to take actions that were perceived as potentially helpful to the
writing and to the simultaneous understanding of the writing process (for example: sending the
screenplay drafts for professional coverage).
Section 3 of the dissertation ("The creative process") is written as chronologically as possible,
following the development of the creative process and the development of the insights, decisions
and considerations that emerged. The final structure of section 3 goes from the emergence of the
idea, through writing a first and unsatisfactory draft, evaluating this draft, going back to ideation
and conceiving of the story premise, and writing the second, more satisfactory draft. The reasons
for deciding what is considered "unsatisfactory" and "satisfactory" are explained and produce the
source to many of the insights and conclusions. Those reasons relate to the entertaining and
artistic values of the screenplay, but also to the way the screenplay represents the subject matter
of human enhancement and conveys the theme around it.
Conceptual approach in the research
Another question about the research method is what is the content of the exploration? what in the
creative process is to be documented and researched?
The approach in this doctorate is influenced by Skains' emphasis on the cognitive process of
creativity (also referring to Flower & Hayes, 1981). This emphasis directs the research to the
following questions:
What are the main creative decisions in the process?
What are the considerations guiding those decisions?
What are the main problems that had to be solved and how they were framed and handled?
Which concepts of screenwriting and science fiction writing were used in the process? How did
they contribute to the work? Have these concepts received new meaning or understanding, or
turned out to have connections between them in the process?
How did the writer conceptualize the creative challenge and how did this conceptualization
grow?
Part 1 - Human enhancement
Science fiction is a genre which deals with technology (Russell, 2018). The artistic and
storytelling meaning of this point will be detailed extensively in the parts of the thesis which
focus on the conventions of science fiction and the creative writing process, but it is well worth
mentioning this pillar of the genre to begin the chapter, which is dedicated to the technology
underlying this specific creative endeavor. One statement needs to be made at this point, and it is
that the author of science fiction must know his/her technology. The extent and characteristics of
this "knowing" will be elaborated upon later.
The term of "Technology" is referred to here in a broad sense which entails not only the device
or devices of a certain technological family, but also the purpose of the technology, its usage,
economical echo-system, and its moral, social, psychological and political implications because
there lies its dramatic potential. For example: A technology such as touch screen cellular phones
is interesting for the science fiction writer with all its qualities, from the engineering to all the
ways it impacts or could impact the human condition: inter- personal relationship, intra-personal
experience, economy, governance and regulation etc. There is no question that cellular phones
changed humanity, yet it might be a small and insignificant comma in human history compared
to what the emergent technologies of human enhancement possibly have in store for us.
So, with a "what if' science fiction curiosity and a healthy interest in futuristic technology, this
thesis will now begin exploring the complex concept of human enhancement.
1.1 What is human enhancement?
There are countless ways by which people try to make themselves better. Individual people work
out, try to eat healthy, undertake psychological therapy, and take classes or training programs
with the goal of expanding or improving their skills and performance level in all kinds of
domains. Those domains are varied and can range from performing better in physical
appearance, as potential mating partners, in school, in sports, in arts, in business or any other
wake of livelihood and even in morality and well-being.
As a collective, human societies devote considerable resources to the development of drugs,
technologies and bio technologies that enable the entire humanity (or at least their own "clan") to
perform better, live longer and healthier, experience higher standards of living and further
continue the development of even more technologies which will solve more problems and better
the humane state, according to acceptable social standards of what "better" means.
Can all of it be defined as "human enhancement"? If so, then almost every technology, from the
hoe, which enables man to work his soil more effectively, eyeglasses that improve the sight of
the short-sighted, jewelry or perfume, which makes us more attractive, to the cellular phone and
the internet, which improve the speed by which we approach information, and prosthesis, which
restore injured bodily functions, all of those can be considered human enhancement. In this case
there is nothing much which is special, ethically challenging or "science fiction" about it.
However, reviewing the above- mentioned list again might highlight one of the items: the
prosthesis designed to repair flawed bodily functions. The concept of "Prosthesis" signifies both
a tremendous advancement in medical technologies which occurred in the last decades, and a
promise for future technologies made from a blend of real development reported in the media
and the imagination of people. What could the future development of prosthesis body parts
enable us? A cure for disabled people and for those who suffer from illness is already a common
use in the present (prosthetic legs and arms, artificial hearts, pacemakers, brain implanted
pacemakers that regulate neurotransmitter production in people who suffer from Parkinson's
disease Weaver et al., 2012 - and much more). But prosthetics does not stop there. Oscar
Pistorius' artificial legs did not just help him function better in day-to-day life, they helped him
run faster and become an Olympic athlete. Other prosthetic developments might start as medical
aids but end up enabling healthy people to become "better" or "more", depending on their
wishes. For example, two recent developments in brain prosthetic implants designed to help
people who suffer from Alzheimer's disease, have demonstrated a 15 to 30 percent increase in
memory functions that are not exclusive to people who suffer from Alzheimer's disease
(Hampson et al., 2018; Ezzyat et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018). The line that separates medical
use from "human enhancement" has been a benchmark for defining "human enhancement", as
suggested by Juengst (1998):
"The term 'enhancement' is usually used in bioethics to characterize interventions designed to
improve human form or functioning beyond what is necessary to sustain or restore good health."
(p. 29)
Even without the support of scientific data our imagination can run and come up with visions of
awesome uses for future prosthetics, like legs combined with jet engines that can help us hover
and fly, eyes equipped with the ability to see through walls, hands so strong, fast and accurate
that they can lift the car and change a flat tire in no time, and a stomach which will dissolve all
the extra calories we consumed. Science fiction provided quite a few of those visions of
prosthetic usage along the years, some of which have materialized, some of which are on the
way.
These kinds of technological possibilities move the discussion into two new areas: First, it opens
possibilities for some "cool stuff", appealing for creators of science fiction who look for
technologies they can use in stories to satisfy their readers' or audience's thirst for these kinds of
novelties; And second, it raises a number of ethical issues, such as: Is it just to use advanced
prosthetics beyond the relief of suffering? Where does "relief from suffering" end? What will be
the consequences of having such technologies giving certain people an advantage over others?
We can wonder what would happen if these technologies will be too expensive for most people,
and therefore affordable only for a few? What is the obligation that someone with "enhanced
abilities" carries for other members of society? These questions will be explored in later
chapters.
The point to be made through the discussion about prosthetics is that the concept of human
enhancement ranges from things we consider banal, like hoes, phones and perfumes, to much
more advanced technologies, which captivate the science fictional imagination and raise ethical
issues. The true discussion about human enhancement relates to the latter end of the above,
advanced technologies. It is logical to assume that technologies we now perceive as ordinary
were once futuristic and differentiated people. A farmer who had a hoe must have had some sort
of an advantage over his fellow farmer not in possession of this technology, who might have
witnessed his colleague with amazement using this odd thing and getting things done much faster
and more efficiently. However, two major characteristics make futuristic human enhancement
technologies a whole different story:
i. They hold a promise to not only "complement" humane capabilities, as prior technologies did,
but to intervene in the evolution of humane kind and create a person who is not confined to his
biology or to the regular pace of natural selection.
ii. As opposed to prior technologies, whose distribution has been accelerated for economic
reasons (for example the phone), the validity of the same expanding mechanism could be in
question when the technology which will promise superior capabilities will be available. The
developers of phones wanted everyone to buy one. The inventor of the "superhuman" might
possess a different desire which will be contrary to everybody becoming as powerful as him.
So, when we come to talk, discuss or write about human enhancement, we refer to the chunk of it
that deals with biological, genetic, electronic or other non-natural and non- organic interventions
or technologies which can improve the abilities of the human creature well beyond what it is
currently capable of.
Several definitions have been offered for this concept. One of the most common of these has
been proposed by James Hughes (2004):
"[A]ny attempt to temporarily or permanently overcome the current limitations of the human
body through natural or artificial means. It is the use of technological means to select or alter
human characteristics and capacities, whether or not the alteration results in characteristics and
capacities that lie beyond the existing human range”
1.2 Three types of human enhancement technologies
The current interventions and the research and development in the field of human enhancement
revolves around three major categories:
i. Genetic interventions. This type of enhancement strategy includes ancient practices as the
banning of interracial marriage and mating individuals with perceived higher genetic attributes,
and newer phenomena like embryo selection, DNA editing and genetic therapy.
ii. Biochemical interventions. This type of enhancement refers to the usage of drugs and
chemical substances for the improvement of human performance and abilities. The use of
Anabolic Steroids to enhance athletic performance is one of the known phenomena in this
category. A second common and growing "trend" is the consumption of "Nootropics", drugs that
are presumed to enhance concentration and cognitive abilities.
Man-Machine interconnectedness. The last major category of human enhancement technologies
deals with connecting machines and their current and speculated advantages over the human
body to people, creating what is usually referred to as "Cyborgs". This category can be quite
wide, covering all kinds of present and future prosthetics, tDCS technology, brain implants, and
in the future even the complete merging of mind and computer.
1.2.1 Genetic enhancement
On July 1933 the German Nazi government enacted the law for the prevention of hereditarily
diseased offspring, which allowed the forced sterilization of anyone carrying a supposedly
hereditary disease (Proctor, 1988). This was the first among several eugenic laws and projects
enacted by the Nazis, incorporating a rigorous approach to public health and, of course, a desire
for an ideal Aryan society created by genetics and designed reproduction. In September 1935 the
Nuremberg laws were enacted as well, including the law for the protection of German blood and
honor, which restricted, among other articles, marriage between Jews and citizens of the German
Reich (Freidlander, 2009; Evans, 2005).
Although it is highly questionable whether these laws can be framed as "human enhancement", it
is certainly a clear example of a society trying to design its genetic characteristics based on the
perception that some genetic attributes are superior to others. Yet there is another Nazi project
which can certainly qualify as a "human enhancement" endeavor of the genetic category: the
Lebensborn project.
The Lebensborn project was established in December 1935 (Albanese, 2006) under the oversight
of Heinrich Himmler and focused on mating high German officials and other Arian men who
signified the best of the German genetics, with carefully selected German women. The purpose
of the project was to increase birth rates but also to "produce" children of higher genetic features
who might serve as future leaders of Germany. In a memo to the members of the SS, Himmler
described the goals of the project:
"The organization "Lebensborn e.V." serves the SS leaders in the selection and adoption of
qualified children. The organization "Lebensborn e.V." is under my personal direction, is part of
the Race and Settlement Central Bureau of the SS, and has the following obligations:
1. Support racially, biologically and hereditarily valuable families with many children.
2. Placement and care of racially, biologically and hereditarily valuable pregnant women, who,
after thorough examination of their and the progenitor's families by the Race and Settlement
Central Bureau of the SS, can be expected to produce equally valuable children.
3. Care for the children.
4. Care for the children's mothers.
It is the honorable duty of all leaders of the central bureau to become members of the
organisation "Lebensborn e.V.". The application for admission must be filed prior to 23
September 1936." (Barret & Jackson, 2011)
Image 1.3: Joe Blake, a major character in the series "The Man in the High Castle", is a
Lebensborn. The series, based on a Philip K. Dick novella by that name, takes place in an
alternative history world where the Germans and the Japanese won WW2 and control North
America, with some individuals capable of travelling between parallel worlds. The series aired in
2015 on Amazon Prime and is still running. Joe Blake, portrayed by Luke Kleintank, is the son
of a Nazi minister and a selected genetically Arian American
mother, and was raised to become a secret service assassin and a future leader. 4
As can be learned from the Lebensborn project, there is a precedent to a state initiative to
influence and enhance the genetic distribution of the population. However, "designing babies" is
a phenomenon which occurs and even grows in the liberal, capitalistic free choice and free
market culture. One of the most prominent examples of that is the growing market of "high
value" sperm donors.
An article by Jenny Johnston and Jill Foster in the British Daily Mail describes a growing
demand for Danish sperm donors, responsible for thousands of children created through In Vitro
Fertilization (IVF), especially among single women and same sex couples (heterosexual couples
usually prefer donors who resemble the husband's traits). The large demand for "Viking" sperm
donors reflects trait preferences women want for their babies, mainly tall, blond and healthy.
Another study, carried out in Australia by Whyte et al. (2016), showed a preference for donors
with proven higher education and with calm character. Even though the traits might change
between cultures, the principle remains the same: when people are faced with the personal choice
of using a sperm donor to bring a child to the world, they seek to "equip" the unborn with the
best genetic starting point they can get according to their own judgement and personal model for
genetic excellence. A morally dubious initiative related to sperm donation was the "Repository
for Germinal Choice", a sperm bank founded in 1979 by a businessman called Robert Clark
Graham. His sperm bank wanted to produce highly intelligent children and was proud to offer
the sperm of Nobel prize winners, giving it the nickname "The Nobel Prize Sperm Bank". The
initiative did not last, partly due to immense public criticism as it was deemed racist. Yet the
story provides another chapter in the story of the human relationship with enhancement through
genetics.
Another type of genetic enhancement available today is embryo selection. Some of the more
well-known cases of embryo selection which are not based on health issues (which in itself is a
morally debatable issue) are the predominant preference for male babies under the Chinese birth
control laws or a similar preference in other cultures or socio-economic environments, where
male children are considered either a better financial resource for the family or of higher value
religiously or culturally. However, this does not really count as human enhancement in the way
this dissertation perceives it since there is no attempt to change the abilities or the performance
of the human creature.
A borderline but concise example for embryo selection as a "human enhancement" practice is the
case of terminating Down syndrome pregnancies, which is now estimated to be the case in 90%
or more of pregnancies in the western world (Morris, 2012). Humanity is practically on the verge
of eradicating Down syndrome by preventing children with this condition and some other major
deformations to be born. There is one factor or technological ability that will "push" embryo
selection into being true human enhancement, and this is the ability to diagnose the genetic value
of early stage embryos. If we had the ability to determine if a fertilized egg has the potential to
grow into a person with desired traits, such as high intelligence and good looks, health and
longevity amongst others, and based on that diagnosis we were able to select which fertilized egg
to use in pregnancy, we would be taking part in "bettering" our own offspring. Making such a
practice widespread will have a huge effect over societies and perhaps the entire of mankind. As
it happens, this kind of technology, which can diagnose the prospective traits of embryos, does
exist. Genetic Engineering uses the concept of polygenic score, a statistical model to evaluate
and predict the development of traits based on a specific genotype, in developing genetically
engineered plants (for example: Chen et al., 2014).
Several studies began to show that a polygenic score can be used to predict different human traits
based on DNA. A study done jointly in Croatia and Scotland by Spiliopoulou et al. (2015)
showed the ability to predict subjects' height and weight (BMI) by their DNA. Vassos et al.
(2016) showed a correlation between DNA and psychosis. Selzam et al. (2016) and Okbay,
Beauchamp & Benjamin (2016) showed that a polygenic score (analysis of DNA) can predict
achievements in education at a correlation of r=.3, which is not too far from the predictive ability
of intelligence test scores. Those studies and others practically imply that we can biopsy a
sample from the DNA of a fertilized egg, have the sample tested with a pre-implantation genetic
diagnosis (PGD) and predict with some degree of accuracy the height, weight, tendency for
mental illness, and potential academic achievement (and some other traits as well) of the person
who will grow from this embryo. The studies are based on statistical probabilities, which means
the polygenic score cannot promise the anxious mother who sends her fertilized eggs to be
inspected that her child will demonstrate all those traits, but the chances that he/she will do so are
greater. When thinking of it as a potential social practice (and if my neighbor had "embryo
selected" her kid, why shouldn't I) the consequences might change some distribution curves
dramatically, the way it changed the Down syndrome statistics.
Shulman and Bostrom (2014) have calculated that since every IQ point equals a 1%
increase in income, it is economically profitable nowadays for expecting parents to invest in
having the wife's eggs extracted, fertilized, and evaluated and then to continue with the IVF
process, starting with the embryo with the highest polygenic score for intelligence. This process
keeps the relatedness between the offspring and the parents since it is their child and not
something done with donors or through a fascist model such as Lebensborn. Shulman and
Bostrom (2014), however, recognize that this predictive model will collapse if many people do
the same, because with more intelligent people in the world the income variance might change.
Yet by another perspective one could argue that having more intelligent people could be positive
for human society, but that is something considered in the chapter dedicated to the moral and
social issues of human enhancement.
The next step in the journey of genetic human enhancement is "Designer Babies": the ability to
modify and even shape a future child's genetics to have him/her possess genetic qualities chosen
through a decision made by the parents or anyone being in the position to make and execute such
a decision.
There are two things people need to know in order to genetically modify any kind of organism:
the first is knowing the genetic architecture of the organism, mapping out the relations between
the DNA structure and the organism traits (like what Selzam et al., 2016, and Okbay et al., 2016,
explore in their research); the second thing to know is how to manipulate or edit the DNA so it is
possible to modify it by design. Once you hone those two knowledge components you can
genetically engineer what you want. Science has employed this model in countless genetical
engineering projects, like the creation of the flavr savr tomato, which does not rot for a long time
as the gene that controls the rotting process has been changed (Redenbaugh et al., 1992), and
many more. The huge advancements in human genome mapping contribute to the first
component, and the rapid development of CRISPR gene editing through genetically engineered
germs make this scenario seem more and more possible (Zhang, Wen & Guo, 2014).
Research which can indicate where things could go is the "doogie mice" study (Tang et al.,
1999). The research, conducted at several American universities, modified mice DNA so their
brain will activate more and faster a synaptic receptor called NMDA (N-methyl-D-as partate),
which is related to the formation and retrieval of memories and signal detection. The result was
mice with much better ability to learn mazes, remember environments, and use memories in
future connotations. In other words super smart mice. Their nickname "doogie mice" was given
to them after Doogie Howser, a TV character of a 13-year- old medical doctor.
Mice is one thing, but can gene editing take part in creating human children? In late 2018 a
Chinese doctor, He Jiankui, was reported to have "designed" and delivered twin babies whose
genes had been modified in a way he claims will protect them from HIV. He did not publish the
case in an article nor make his data transparent, contributing to the oddity of the case (adding to
the question of why, of all genes, change the gene that is responsible for HIV). His media
appearances have caused a huge criticism from the medical fertility and the genetic research
communities for its ethical boundary crossing. Julian Savulescu, the director of the Oxford
Uehiro for Practical Ethics (and a prominent advocate in favor of human enhancement, whose
work on the subject will be discussed later) have commented about Jiankui's report to the British
Evening Standard:
"If true, this experiment is monstrous. It exposes healthy children to risks of gene editing for no
real necessary benefit. These healthy babies are being used as guinea pigs. This is genetic
Russian roulette".
The criticism did not rule out the feasibility of the procedure, estimating it as unsafe yet at the
same time insinuating its plausibility. It is the first reported case of using CRISPR (or any other
genetic editing technology) to create a genetically designed human being. Another border had
been crossed.
What does the future hold for genetically designed reproduction? Michio Kaku, a Physicist and a
Futurist, estimated in his book, "Physics of the Future", that the technological ability to design
the entire genetic portfolio of an unborn child will exist sometime around the middle of this
century (Kaku, 2011). He portrays a future in which parents will be able to, at a very low cost,
decide the height, appearance, intelligence, character, athletic ability, color of skin, eyes and hair
and maybe even much more. In a more distant future, humanity could even begin to make more
radical changes in human features, creating children who could grow to stand extreme conditions
such as lack of oxygen, lack of food, and severe higher or lower temperatures, like those
expected in other planets to which men will need to travel if ever earth is in danger. Humans
have genetically acclimated vegetation and animals, so why not ourselves.
A radical potential use of CRISPR gene editing technology, which makes gene editing easier,
faster, and considerably cheaper than before, is not just in changing the DNA of the unborn, but
in changing it for living people.
1989 was the year in which a significant medical breakthrough was achieved. For the first time it
was proven that it is possible to insert genetic substance into human cells and modify the cells'
DNA for therapeutic intentions (Rosenberg et al., 1990). That study preceded the development of
CRISPR, and now with better gene editing options the use of Gene Therapy is constantly
developing and holds a great promise for the future. Michio Kaku gives evidence for future
breakthroughs in the use of Gene Therapy that will help overcome Alzheimer's and Parkinson's
disease, diabetes, and even cancer.
As with many of the technologies described in this chapter and the ones to follow, what starts as
medical breakthroughs ignites thoughts of "less-medical" uses where there are other human
needs or aspirations.
The direction to which CRISPR technology might be pointing can be implied in the story of
Josia Zayner. Zayner is a biophysicist and a former NASA employee who owns a company
manufacturing and selling do-it-yourself CRISPR kits, a business that he established through
crowd-funding. Zayner is a prominent "Biohacker", a term used to include people who try to
implement scientific knowledge to create new ways to influence their own bodies, health, brain
etc. and optimize their biological function. Zayner, in what might be interpreted as a commercial
stunt, self-injected a CRISPR synthesized DNA to inhibit the gene responsible for the production
of myostatin, a hormone which regulates muscle development. Zayner tried to copy a famous
genetic modification experiment, in which mice had been genetically modified to inhibit the
production of myostatin so that their muscles grew very fast. Other evidence for the impact of
the lack of myostatin was found in a German toddler whose muscles grew rapidly and his body,
due to a genetic mutation in the very same Myostatin inhibiting gene, had no Myostatin at all
(Schuelke etal., 2004). In short, Zayner wanted to "hack" his body to grow big muscles using a
CRISPR generated genetic substance that would change hormone production (Zayner's story is
told in numerous internet articles").
Zayner's muscles did not grow¹¹. He claimed he had self-injected too small a dosage for that
purpose. However, this thesis is not about scientific accuracy but about the creation of science
fiction, and so the interest moves from what actually exists to what could be, in different degrees
of plausibility. The current part of the thesis is the exploration of the science which will support
the fiction and is the basis for my decisions as a writer of how to shape and nuance the
scientific/technological pillar of the fiction. The creative decisions themselves will be discussed
in the last part of the thesis. Josia Zayner is one of those providing a vision for the development
of a do-it-yourself bioscience. He even encourages people to use his kits and try CRISPR outside
the domination of the drug companies, with the goal of achieving what he calls "Genomic
Freedom": "I think we're approaching a time when we do not have to be stuck with the genes we
were born with."12
Genetic Enhancement is a work in progress, but considerable progress has been made already,
and the models to push it further along already exist. A good way to conclude this specific
chapter can be found in the words of the well-known biologist, Edward Osborn Wilson:
"We have decommissioned natural selection and must now look deep within ourselves and
decide what we wish to become" (taken from "Physics of the Future", Michio Kaku, p. 141-142
of the Hebrew edition).
Exciting. Mind blowing. Frightening. A great place to create science fiction from.
1.2.2 Biochemical enhancement
In the 2011 American movie "Limitless", the hero, a young and unsuccessful author called Eddie
Morra, gets hold of a pill called NZT-48, which gives him superior mental capabilities. While on
the drug, Eddie manages to complete his novel in no time and, with the praise of his publisher,
invests in the stock market and gets amazing returns, learns Chinese, and manages to reverse
engineer the drug to have a long-term supply. His thinking becomes sharp and fast, he can recall
everything he ever learned or heard, and his ability to understand and manipulate people
increases (except for when they use the drug as well, like his antagonist and his girlfriend).
A pill with the same powerful effect of the fictional NZT-48 does not exist but in the last decades
there has been a leap in the field of psychoactive drugs. The notion that consuming substances
can alter the temporary or the long-term function of the brain is not new, of course, but the
human ability to control and design its impact for targeted purposes is something that started to
happen seriously in the second half of the 20th century and has progressed significantly and
become common in the last 20-30 years.
Most of the progress has occurred in the treatment of Psychiatric and Neurological illness, such
as depression (Prozac), schizophrenia (Haldol), Parkinson's disease (Levodopa) and others. Most
of these drugs operate by regulating - inhibiting or enhancing - the levels of certain
neurotransmitters in the brain, the chemicals that allow electrical transmission between synapses.
More of these neurotransmitters or less of them means either more activation of linked synapses
or the blocking of their activation, depending on the desired impact (Lopez et al., 2008; Jann et
al., 1985).
All these drugs were created specifically to address the treatment of medical conditions.
However, the boundaries of what counts as a medical pathology and what is a discomfort at one
degree or another, has blurred along the years. The widespread and unprescribed use of several
prescription drugs, like Prozac, has led to the emergence of a black market for acquiring them¹4.
When technologies originally meant to cure medical problems start to serve in helping people
with problems or needs that are within the non-pathological areas, that is the first indication of
entering enhancement "territory". When people take Prozac or Celexa to reduce stress levels
before an important or professionally demanding event, with the goal of performing better, it is
well within the boundaries of human enhancement.
Ritalin (Methylphenidate), a stimulant that proved to have an effective impact on people who
suffer from attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD; Lange et al., 2010), is one of those
drugs which is heavily used by people trying to achieve better attention and focus. Ritalin has
become popular with students and people who work at high pressure jobs, with a black-market
trade for those who could not get it from their doctor. Unlike the previously mentioned drugs,
Ritalin and his "unidentical twin", Concerta, is specifically intended to enhance cognitive
abilities and performance level.
Ritalin and Concerta are among a group of substances which was given the name "Nootropics"
(Giurgea, 1972). The nootropics (also referred to as "smart drugs" or "cognitive enhancers") are
drugs, supplements, and other substances that may improve cognitive function, particularly
executive functions, memory, creativity, or motivation, in healthy individuals (Frati et al., 2015).
The "queen" of the nootropics as for now is considered to be the Modafinil. Some have even
claimed it is the closest thing in reality to the "Limitless" NZT. Modafinil is a drug developed to
treat sleepiness caused by narcolepsy or sleep disorder caused by working in shifts (Fuxe et al.,
1996). However, it has demonstrated the potential to enhance energy levels, concentration, and
other cognitive abilities (Battleday & Brem, 2015) and became increasingly popular with
students, replacing the Ritalin as a "go-to drug" for high performance 15. Its popularity grew
when Dave Asprey, a famous biohacker, senior executive, and management consultant published
his personal experience with the drug, describing it as a "Viagra for the brain" and said:
"This could make the difference between I'm just making it through the day and, like, I'm having
the best day of my life".
It is reported in the same news story to be used as a secret stimulant by professional athletes,
professional poker players, military pilots, students, top executives, and others. Fronda et al.
(2018), claim the usage of Modafinil and other known enhancement drugs have become so
widespread in highly competitive professions, such as high-level management and stockbrokers,
that it is time to begin an ethical discussion about it.
The empirical evidence about its effectiveness is not conclusive and it is not fully understood
why or how it works (Battleday & Brem, 2015), yet some studies did show that Modafinil has
the effect of enhancing performance in assignments that require accuracy and decision making
over consecutive time periods, such as for nurses and surgeons (Sugden et al., 2012).
The nootropic market includes a variety of products, with some that are prescription drugs used
outside their original intent, some supplements (like the popular Racetam and Piracetam) and
others are "stacks" blending different components. Even caffeine is considered a nootropic by
some and can be found in some "stacks". There is very little empirical research on the real effects
of nootropics and much of the data published about it is through advertisements of manufacturers
and selling entities. The biohacking community is infatuated with the promise of nootropics and
keeps self-testing it, trying to find the "optimal stack" (which apparently is personalized and
changes from person to person) to "hack the brain" and help it to operate more efficiently, being
more energetic, focused, creative, organized, and so on.
A completely different case of human enhancement through biochemistry is the use of
performance enhancing drugs in sports. There are several categories of substances that
professional athletes use and are considered by sport authorities to be illegal as they create an
unfair advantage. There are anabolic steroids that enable the body to recover quickly from
intensive training and raise the intensity and frequency of training, which results in a steep rise of
athletic performance 18. There is also a use of stimulants which enable the athlete to display
higher performance levels and energy (Avois et al, 2006). The most known cases of these uses
are of course the sprinter Ben Johnson who set world records and won world and Olympic gold
medals in the 100 meters dash. the East German sports system has evidently been using
performance enhancing drugs systematically (Dimeo, Hunt & Horbury, 2011); There are many
world records lasting from the 1980's which are suspected to be achieved with the use of
performance enhancement drugs: the East German Marita Koch whose1985 world record in the
400 meters run has not been threatened yet (47.60 seconds; the gold medal winner of the Rio
2016 Olympics, Shauna Miller from the Bahamas, ran the distance in 49.44 seconds, nearly 2
seconds slower than Koch did 31 years earlier); The American Sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner
smashed the world records in the 100 and 200-meters race in the 1988 Seoul games, two records
that athletes have not come close to breaking since. Griffith Joyner passed away 10 years
afterwards at the age of 38 from a sever epileptic seizure, with many people assuming the
seizures she had been having were a result of an extensive use of steroids¹9. Another long-lasting
record is the 800 meters world record from 1983 set by the Czech Jarmila Kratochvilova: 1:53.28
minutes. Kratochvilova, who is also the only runner other than Koch to run the 400 in under 48
seconds, never admitted using performance enhancing drugs, and when discussions about
cancelling the 1980's records were held she objected to that, saying she trained hard and took
plenty of vitamin B12 supplements.
Another usage, less documented and not officially banned, is the use of the Human Growth
Hormone (HGH) by young basketball players who wish to increase their height. Michael Jordan,
who is still by consensus the greatest basketball player of all time, had a late growth spurt and
was reported to grow from 5"11 ft (180cm) at 16 years old to 6"6 ft (198cm) at 18 years old²¹.
Although not proven, there are rumors that this growth spurt was the result of the use of HGH22.
It is safe to assume that in the extremely competitive basketball world, in which the odds of
reaching the highest professional levels are slim, aspiring players will be motivated to examine
all kinds of avenues to achieve a competitive edge and be driven to use substances such as HGH
and stimulants.
Biochemistry has already proven itself as an enhancement technology in increasing athletic
performance and growing taller. It is also proven to help brain related problems such as mental
health issues and attention deficits. Although the empirical evidence is dubious, many people
swear that "smart drugs" significantly boost their focus, alertness, creativity, and other cognitive
abilities. Differently from Genetic Engineering it is not completely clear where biochemical
human enhancement will go to next. One scenario is that it will develop slowly, in small steps,
with a slightly better version of Modafinil and maybe a safer version of HGH. Another scenario
is that there will be a leap that cannot be foreseen now. Futurists like Ray Kurzweil, Michio
Kaku, Roey Tzezana (2011) and others do not relate to biochemical enhancement as much as
they relate to Genetic or Man-Machine enhancement (which will be discussed in the next
chapter), probably since it is not fully understood how biochemistry, especially in the brain,
operates and changes behaviors and moreover traits. It is, however, something which can be
explored in science fiction and philosophy, as it has been done in "Limitless" (which has also
been adapted into a TV series) and in the highly successful Luc Besson film "Lucy".
Image 1.7: "Lucy" is a French American science fiction thriller by director Luc Besson, starring
Scarlet Johansson. The protagonist, Lucy, is a simple girl forced to swallow and deliver a new
drug. The drug capsules tear in her stomach and turn out to be an extremely effective "smart
drug". Lucy, with new and astonishing cognitive and sensor-motor capabilities, sets off to defeat
the bad guys and achieve cosmic insights about the world. The movie grossed over 460 million
dollars.
When trying to imagine the potential of biochemical enhancement as a source of stories,
different possibilities emerge: that drugs can be used to alter moral behavior, extinguish anti-
social desires and attitudes like the anti-homosexual biochemical treatment of the 1950's or
maybe even just make sad people happy. When man wants to change himself. biochemistry does
and probably will take part.
1.2.3 Enhancement through man-machine interconnection
The thesis up to this point has set out the boundaries of what counts as human enhancement for
this work's purposes beyond the use of smart phones. Smart phones are modern shovels,
extending the efficiency and action possibilities of people but not changing their basic
"hardware" (some might argue with that). But what if the shovel would have been attached and
folded inside our arms, ready to pop out at will to do the work? What if smart phones and smart
glasses will be placed on our retina, or even more implanted into our brains - giving us the ability
to access every piece of information or calculation we want instantly within our mind? This
move from "wearables" to "implantables" is the continuation of the prosthetics example from the
beginning of the chapter. It is now perceived as one of the keys to the development of human
enhancement technologies.
Most of what there is to say about human enhancement through man-machine connection is
prospective and belongs to entrepreneurs, futurists and science fiction more than it is anchored in
current technologies and practices. Still, there is a realistic base for the predictions, ongoing
research and development initiatives, and even some present reality.
An existing technology that shows a potential to enhance human abilities via a man- machine
interface is transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS). tDCS is basically a non-invasive
electric stimulation of the brain meant to improve performance and make learning faster. The use
of electric stimulation of the brain has been long known, and for a long period of time even
notoriously known, for treating chronic depression. Actually, this line of treatment has proven to
be one of the most effective treatments for depression, maybe even the most effective one,
especially with treatment-resistant depression patients (Delaloye & Holtzheimer, 2014). The
same procedure of deep brain stimulation has also shown positive results in studies in restraining
severe aggressive tendencies and behaviors in patients whose aggression did not respond to
conservative treatments (Harat et al., 2015). It becomes clearer and clearer that electric
stimulation of the brain has an impact on brain activity.
Studies have shown that tDCS enhances skill learning success considerably (Clark et al., 2012).
Another study showed improved learning in mathematics in subjects using tDCS while learning,
an advantage that lasted six months after the experiment (Snowball et al., 2013). The American
Defense Advanced Research Projects agency (DARPA) has been actively testing and developing
tDCS technology for the improvement of soldiers' cognitive function in combat and improving
training effectiveness (Kraus et al., 2017). The scientific journalist Sally Adee published in 2012
an article called "Zap your brain into the zone: Fast track to pure focus"24, where she describes
her experience with a tDCS device in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Weisend, one of the
researchers involved in the DARPA project. In the lab she played at a combat simulator game
twice. The first time she did not wear tDCS electrodes, and performed poorly:
"I'm close to tears behind my thin cover of sandbags as 20 screaming, masked men run towards
me at full speed, strapped into suicide bomb vests and clutching rifles. For everyone I manage to
shoot dead, three new assailants pop up from nowhere. I'm clearly not shooting fast enough, and
panic and incompetence are making me continually jam my rifle."
In the second attempt she did wear the tDCS electrodes:
"Initially, there is a slight tingle, and suddenly my mouth tastes like I've just licked the inside of
an aluminum can. I do not notice any other effect.
I simply begin to take out attacker after attacker. As twenty of them run at me brandishing their
guns, I calmly line up my rifle, take a moment to breathe deeply, and pick off the closest one,
before tranquilly assessing my next target. In what seems like next to no time, I hear a voice call
out, "Okay, that's it." The lights come up in the simulation room and one of the assistants at
Advanced Brain Monitoring, a young woman just out of university, tentatively enters the
darkened room. In the sudden quiet amid the bodies around me, I was really expecting more
assailants, and I'm a bit disappointed when the team begins to remove my electrodes. I look up
and wonder if someone wound the clocks forward. Inexplicably, 20 minutes have just passed.
"How many any did I get?" I ask the assistant. She looks at me quizzically. "All of them."
The news about tDCS has caught public attention and it did not take long for some companies to
develop and start marketing tDCS products, such as "Halo Neuroscience", which developed
brain stimulating headphones that they claim significantly enhance training outcomes in sports
and in music, having prestigious clientele such as the NBA champions the Golden State Warriors
and the US national ski team, and displaying impressive data on their website. Other companies
target gamers who wish to perform better in video games.
Since brain implantable pacemakers are already in use for diseases like Parkinson's and in
helping restore memory deficits in people who suffer from Alzheimer's, the notion of an
implantable tDCS machine that sends currents from inside the brain at will to get into a cognitive
state that boosts performance and learning, does not appear to be that far away.
We mentioned DARPA as a major player in the tDCS development business. The same
organization is also in advanced development of the TALOS (tactical assault light operator suit),
a wearable robotic exoskeleton designed to serve as combat uniform that protects the soldier,
helps him to move faster and effortlessly carry big weights. The suit is also equipped with sight
enhancement aids and tDCS electrodes that improve the soldiers' vision and concentration. We're
talking about an Ironman suit. Current estimation is for the suit to be operational in 2021.
Image 1.8: A drawing of the TALOS developed by DARPA. The suit and its features highly
resemble the combat suits displayed in the 2014 science fiction movie - "Edge of Tomorrow". 25
When thinking of things such as tDCS, and combining them with technologies reviewed earlier,
a thought about the current possibilities of human enhancement emerges: If someone wants to
bring a child with the most chances to succeed in... whatever (this is, of course, a question on its
own), but let us say that he wants his child to have the best chances to be highly intelligent, good
at sports and so on, there is a path he can take. The path can begin with finding the partner with
the best genes possible (via donners' systems, or in the old fashioned "romantic" way), create
several embryos, have them assessed to establish their genomic score, then raise the "best"
fertilized egg and teach the child when growing up with the help of a tDCS device. It is the
modern and much more scientifically valid version of the "baby Mozart" frenzy that occurred in
the 1990's when a so-called research (that did not really happen) claimed that playing Mozart for
the fetus during pregnancy will boost the IQ of the future child26. Many parents made
distributers of "baby Mozart" tapes quite wealthy (because it is only a few dollars, and, well, you
never know).
The process of creating a "super-kid" is a very expensive one, and one which demands a great
deal of dedication. Who could say if there are no rich people out there trying to achieve such a
thing.
Still in reality, the biohacking community has a say in man-machine enhancement as well. Moon
Ribas is a Spanish dancer and avant-guard artist who planted a transmitter connected to a world-
wide system of seismographs in her elbow, making her feel whenever a seismograph detects an
earthquake somewhere in the world27. She is described in the media as "The world's first cyborg
artist". This is with no doubt an original form of human enhancement; however, it is human
enhancement, done by implanting a machine, connected to other machines, into the human body.
Another biohacker, Liviu Babitz, who is the CEO and co-founder of a company called "Cyborg
Nest", has implanted in himself a magnet that can sense the electromagnetic field. In other words
- he can sense the north (unless there is a competing electromagnetic force in his proximity). He,
and others who followed him, have artificially given themselves new senses.
Yet, the real story of enhancement through man-machine merger is something which belongs to
the future, perhaps not the very far future.
Elon Musk is a very well-known technological entrepreneur, a modern Howard Hughes and even
more than that, considered a sort of Guru and visionary of future technologies. He established
numerous companies, such as the online payment service, PayPal, Tesla, which builds hybrid
and electrical cars, SpaceX, which develops rockets for space travel, and he plans to settle Mars
sometime in the next 20 years. In 2016 Musk started the company "Neuralink". At the time of
writing this thesis, Neuralink's website contains only a call for candidates, which begins with
these words.
"Neuralink is developing ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and
computers.’
Based on rumors and statements Musk has given in interviews, Neuralink seems to target 3
goals: the first is to create transplants for medical use, which will help people with cognitive
damage; the second is to enable communication between people without the use of any external
device, which actually means telepathy; the third, and the most ambitious one (if it is possible to
be more ambitious than enabling telepathy) is to connect people to the Internet and to computers,
merging the human brain and cognition with all the assets that computers can provide, including
the prospect of growing in Artificial Intelligence technology. Elon Musk explained the reason for
starting Neuralink in an interview:
"The reason I want to create Neuralink was primarily as an opposite to the existential risk
associated with artificial Intelligence... We will not be able to beat AI, you know we cannot beat
them join them kind of thing... having AI as an extension of human will". 30
So, Elon Musk predicts that humans will not stand a chance against Artificial Intelligence and to
prepare ourselves for this scenario we should technologically develop ourselves. This is a
prelude to the next chapter that deals with the moral debate regarding human enhancement, but
also provides an insight into Musk's vision which he actively promotes: people could use
implants to connect themselves with the vast amounts of knowledge and computation powers
that AI can provide, and become part of AI, making computers work for and with humans and
not against them.
The technology behind Neuralink is currently unknown. Some rumors suggest it is based on
something called "Neural Lace" or "Neural Dust" - plenty of tiny electrodes and cheeps scattered
in the brain, connected between themselves and with outside networks³¹. The "Lace/Dust" will be
able to monitor the brain activity and communicate with the conscious mind.
Some of Musk's ventures were very successful and drove the technologies of their fields a few
steps forward, while others seem to lag behind and not fulfill their promises. To which of these
groups will Neuralink belong? Considering we live in a time when people already know how to
implant intra-brain pacemakers that work and help people with Parkinson's, and use tDCS to
improve focus and performance, it does not sound all that impossible.
Musk is not the only one predicting such a technology, and there is a chance he is not the only
one actively promoting them. One of today's major futurists, maybe even the most influential
futurist, is Ray Kurzweil. In his book, "The Singularity is Near" (2005) he foresees that the
advancement of artificial intelligence to a point that it surpasses human intelligence will bring us
to a "singularity point", a point that will change the entire arrangement of the world we perceive
and live in. It is highly likely that Kurzweil influenced Musk, since Kurzweil predicted (in 2005)
that by 2030 a technology of nanobots inside our brains will be used to connect us to the
computers who by then will display much stronger AI. He refers to it as the merger of biological
intelligence and non-biological intelligence. Kurzweil claims that the velocity of the biological
intelligence is very slow compared to that of the non-biological intelligence, and the connection
between them will enable people to use the speed of AI. Ultimately the non-biological
intelligence will be much stronger than the biological one. This will happen, according to
Kurzweil, by 2045 at the latest. The merging of the brain with Al is inevitable if we want to keep
existing or to stay relevant or in some sort of control over our world. In the long run this merger
might lead to our consciousness leaving our biological body and existing in some sort of a
cyberspace. Kurzweil portrays this as one of the possible scenarios by which people could
become immortal.
Image 1.9: "San Junipero" is an episode from the series "Black Mirror". The episode is about the
falling in love of two women who meet in an artificial world to which people can send
themselves (or their electronically downloaded consciousness) to before their biological body
dies. In the artificial world they can exist forever as which version of themselves they wish. This
is a vision of a technologically man- created heaven.32
Kurzweil analyzes that there is still one key component that has not been understood well
enough for this prediction to be fulfilled, and that is the phenomenon of consciousness and the
way it is created.
Since 2012 Ray Kurzweil is the head of engineering at GOOGLE, meaning he is in the position
to put his theories about Artificial Intelligence, brain-machine interface and others to practical
development, and rumor has it that he does exactly that. He is also practicing a rigorous lifestyle
with the goal of "living long enough to live forever" ("The Singularity is Near", p.350 of the
Hebrew edition).
Michio Kaku describes in his book, "Future of the Mind" (2014), a prediction not far from
Kurzweil's. Kaku talks about a post biologic era in which technology will enable the mind to
exist outside the biological body and in virtual artificially manufactured landscapes.
With Musk, Kurzweil and Kaku's visions of a transcendent man I conclude the review of the
technology of human enhancement. The review went through genetics, biochemistry,
biohacking, and man-machine hybrids and explored how humanity uses technology to satisfy its
desire to be better, to win, to outrun, outsmart and even outlive the competition and its own
biological boundaries. As part of my science fiction creative process the review had two critical
values for me: the first is validating my desire to write a story about human enhancement by
anchoring it in a current growing phenomenon - human enhancement is something that really
happens and occupies scientists, developers and the public; the second is providing me the
building blocks from which I can make some of the most important decisions as a science fiction
creator - the decisions about the technology I want to lay out in my story.
1.3 Post-humanism and transhumanism: the moral debate and social questions of human
enhancement
At the beginning of the technology review of human enhancement I claimed that a science
fiction author should know his technology. At this point I want to place another claim: the author
of science fiction should also know the social and moral questions that the technology raises and
ponder his stand. Both claims will have to be justified in the parts of the thesis dealing with the
science fiction genre and the creative process.
By "stand" I refer to the composition of the theme of the story, the thoughts and related emotions
I want to summon in my readers and viewers, and at the very least, understanding what the issues
and the questions are. "Stand" does not mean a simplistic "for" or "against" position and can be
complicated - which in itself is a creative decision.
The same way that I surveyed the technology of human enhancement in order to be the base of
the technological world-building of the story, it is important to study the moral and social debate
about human enhancement in order to create the moral tone and resonance of it and to be able to
respond and echo at least the current state of the debate and be relevant to its discourse. And
some debate it is. optimistic and hopeful about man's ability to transcend himself to better
existence. Julian Huxley even coined the term "transhumanism" in his 1927 book "Religion
Without Revelation":
"The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself not just sporadically, an individual here in
one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for
this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending
himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature" (taken from "Citizen
Cyborg", 2004, by James Hughes, p.158)
There are many concerns and arguments about the moral and social aspects of human
enhancement, most of which will be presented here, but all branch out from the difference
between Aldous Huxley and Julian Huxley. This difference can possibly be viewed as a
difference in sentiment, between being optimistic or being pessimistic about the technological
advancement of human enhancement and what it will do for humanity.
1.3.1 Nietzsche's Superman
Another prominent concept which provides a pillar for this discussion is Friedrich Nietzsche's
"Superman". In his book, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (1883-1891) he coined this term to describe
a human being which he suggests as the goal for deliberate and designed human evolvement.
This "Superman" ("Übermench" in German) is not fully characterized by Nietzsche, but does
indicate that the superman will replace current and failing value systems (such as religion) and
replace them with a new set of values, dedicated to the joy of life and creation, to compassion
and justice. Nietzsche suggests that women will have the goal of raising "supermen" in mind
when choosing men for mating and in the upbringing of their children. He also makes an analogy
that the "superman" is to current humanity, as the current humanity is to monkeys.
Nietzsche portrayed his "superman" in a relatively vague way, open to interpretations (Eshed,
2011): Christian interpretations regard the "superman" as a divine being, comparing him to
Jesus; Jewish interpretations compare him to the Messiah, a flesh and
There are many philosophers and scholars who take part in the discussion about human
enhancement, yet this discussion can be traced to the dinner table of one family: the Huxley
family. Two of this family's sons are Aldous Huxley, the author of "Brave New World", and
Julian Huxley, an evolutionary biologist, a prominent scholar, and the first director of UNESCO.
Aldous Huxley's famous "Brave New World" (1932) is a dystopian science fiction novel that
describes a society in which strict genetic regulation is used to "produce" babies with
differentiated capabilities. These babies are destined to take their place in a class system, with
each class system serving a role in the societal and economical structure based on its genetical
design from people who are designed to be smart and take their place in leadership or
development roles, to people who are born to be dumb and take their place in lower-class jobs.
"Brave New World" is a world in which no one knows hunger, violence or illness, but it is a
world without freedom. This is a frightening vision for what centralized control over genetic
engineering might resort to. Julian Huxley, on the contrary, was very blood person who can help
humanity reach its moral potential. Nietzsche's "Superman" is considered to be highly influential
of Nazism, even inspiring to the Nazi race theory, catalyzed by Hitler's great interest with "Thus
Spoke Zarathustra" and Nietzsche's own antisemitic sister who, after his death, promoted his
writings and managed his archives. It is also cited by anarchists as an inspiration and considered
as part of the motivation for several murderers throughout history, who used Nietzsche as a
rationalization of their actions, relating to themselves as "Supermen".
The book has influenced the creation of many stories, among which is the comic character of
"Superman" (who, initially, was a villain character who considers itself superior to people),
Alfred Hitchcock's film "Rope" (1948), George Bernard Shaw's play "Man and Superman"
(1903), Olaf Stapeldon's novel "Odd John" (1935), and others. The characteristics and moral
interpretation of the "Superman" varied greatly, from accepting it as a moral goal to portraying it
as a dangerous notion of someone who considers himself superior.
If there is something to be learned from both the Huxleys" "dinner table discussion" and
Nietzsche's "Superman" with its varied meanings, it is that this subject is highly complex and
morally charged, inspiring both evil and ruin on the one hand, and advancement, wealth and
well-being on the other.
1.3.2 Pro-enhancement arguments
One very strong advocate in favor of pursuing enhancement is the director of the Future of
Humanity Institute at Oxford - Nick Bostrom. In 2008, he published an article called "Why I
want to be a post-human when I grow up", where he says enhancement is basically meant to
increase the health-span of people (both their life-span and the health-related quality of life),
their intelligence and their emotional resilience. He claims that it is also meant to help people to
live a healthier, longer, happier life with better intelligence that enables them to better understand
the world, acquire skills, and be creative in their field of interest. Bostrom says that all of those
are strong and common desires that people have, and if enhancement will achieve those then it
should be considered a positive development.
Bostrom admits that since none of us are enhanced, we cannot completely say that it is a
worthwhile or an unworthy experience; he speculates that everything human enhancement will
advance are desirable qualities of life. Although he knows we cannot fully imagine the
experience of being radically enhanced in those dimensions, he tries to provide a general picture
of the life of an enhanced person:
"You have just celebrated your 170th birthday and you feel stronger than ever. Each day is a joy.
You have invented entirely new art forms, which exploit the new kinds of cognitive capacities
and sensibilities you have developed. You still listen to music - music that is to Mozart what
Mozart is to bad Muzak. You are communicating with your contemporaries using a language that
has grown out of English over the past century and that has a vocabulary and expressive power
that enables you to share and discuss thoughts and feelings that unaugmented humans could not
even think or experience. You play a certain new kind of game which combines VR- mediated
artistic expression, dance, humor, interpersonal dynamics, and various novel faculties and the
emergent phenomena they make possible, and which is more fun than anything you ever did
during the first hundred years of your existence. When you are playing this game with your
friends, you feel how every fiber of your body and mind is stretched to its limit in the most
creative and imaginative way, and you are creating new realms of abstract and concrete beauty
that humans could never (concretely) dream of. You are always ready to feel with those who
suffer misfortunes, and to work hard to help them get back on their feet. You are also involved in
a large voluntary organization that works to reduce suffering of animals in their natural
environment in ways that permit ecologies to continue to function in traditional ways; this
involves political efforts combined with advanced science and information processing services.
Things are getting better, but already each day is fantastic." (Bostrom, in "Medical Enhancement
and Post Humanity", eds. Gordijn and Chadwick, 2008, p.111)
More joy, better health, longer life, deeper appreciation and understanding of ideas and beauty,
and even a stronger sense of empathy and compassion. Is it not a wonderful thing? John Harris
(2007) defines human enhancement and making people live longer and be happier, smarter,
stronger, healthier and fairer as a "moral imperative". Having many more intelligent people in
the world is a good thing according to Harris. Savulescu (2009;2011;2014) even argues for the
use of enhancement technologies, such as embryo selection and genetic engineering, to promote
the enhancement of desired morality. This means the modification of undesirable moral traits
such as a tendency for violence or extreme anti-social behaviors or reducing their frequency in
the world and making desirable traits such as empathy, generosity, and so on more frequent.
Bostrom, Savulescu, Harris, and other scholars who can be counted as supporters of
enhancement (such as Hughes, 2004; Dworkin, 2000; Veit, 2018; Naam, 2005) base their
argument on more than the promise of good it could bring to mankind, but also on liberal ideas
of freedom of choice and one's control over his/her body, including that of the mother who has
every right to get every information she can about her fetus and make the decisions about
keeping him/her, and also modifying its genetic compound.
1.3.3 Enhancement might interfere with human nature
Yet the Aldous Huxley intellectual descendants raise many social and moral issues and dangers
regarding enhancement and turn it into a storming debate that accelerated in the previous decade
and continues until today.
Francis Fukuyama, in his book "Our Posthuman Future" (2002), makes a fierce warning that the
radical advancements in biotechnology, especially in the development of genetic engineering and
psychotropic drugs, threaten the core meaning of being human:
"The aim of this book is to argue that Huxley [referring to Aldous Huxley, E.B.M] was right, that
the most significant threat posed by contemporary biotechnology is the possibility that it will
alter human nature and thereby move us into a "posthuman" stage of history." (Fukuyama, 2002,
p. 7)
The term "posthumanism" is different from "transhumanism". Although these words sometime
interchange in meaning and are sometimes interpreted a little differently, generally their most
frequent usages in this discourse gives "transhumanism" the meaning of being positive and even
wanting and anticipating the possibilities that enhancement technology might offer, while
"posthumanism" is a broader term that defines the school of thought that tries to understand what
will replace humanism as the governing pillar of society. "Posthumanism" may include
"transhumanists" who welcome the posthuman era, and philosophers such as Fukuyama who
dread it (or try to analyze its consequences). Generally, a "posthuman" approach is more
skeptical and critical of enhancement.
After explaining the terms, it is worthwhile to understand why Fukuyama considers enhancement
as such a threat to humanity. His approach considers "being human" or of what human nature is,
as:
"[T]he sum of the behavior and characteristics that are typical of the human species, arising from
genetic rather than environmental factors." (p. 130)
Once enhancement technology starts dramatically changing the range, ran the frequency, and
distribution of the traits that we now perceive as human, making some traits reach completely
different levels or creating a huge imbalance in others, then we will not be able to recognize what
is human anymore. As a result, all social systems, that are based on the assumptions of human
rights and human dignity, and rely on a shared common perception of humanity, might collapse:
"Human nature shapes and constrains the possible kinds of political regimes, so a technology
powerful enough to reshape what we are will have possibly malign consequences for liberal
democracy and the nature of politics itself." (p. 7)
Habermas (2003) and Agar (2010;2014) share Fukuyama's concern, and claim that the infusion
of the biological and the technological could change the way man develops his moral
consciousness, that it is an instrumentalization of the human nature and will crumble human
moral agency.
What Fukuyama suggests is that states will heavily regulate the development of human
enhancement technology, and in fact limit it from ever reaching a point at which it is too
advanced to cause such a change in the authentic human nature:
"We should use the power of the state to regulate it. And if this proves to be beyond the power of
any individual nation-state to regulate, it needs to be regulated on an international basis." (p. 10)
The historian and futurist, Yuval Noah Harari, in his book "Homodeus" (2015), offers another
way to look at this issue. He says that enhancement will develop out of existing human desires
and goals, but those might be the subject of enhancement as well:
"How will we know how to shape the consciousness of future people? What determines which
capabilities should we develop in them and which to neglect? According to technohumanism the
human will should make this call. But what will happen if technological advancement will
enable us to reshape the human will?" (Noah Harari, 2015, translated from the Hebrew edition, p.
382)
If enhancement will mean that we can change motivations, then what will be considered a
genuine human sentiment and desire?
The problem with this criticism is its relative vagueness, with Bostrom (2008) and Hughes
(2004) claiming it is not providing sufficient evidence that what happens in this posthuman era
will necessarily be bad. Zylinska (2010) responds to that by saying that what Bostrom,
Savulescu, and Hughes are portraying and picturing as the "good" direction and results of
enhancement is representing their own humanistic and even liberal-democratic view of the
world, and this is a starting point that should be questioned for its validity when enhancement
will change what we now know as human. Noah Harari sums up this idea nicely:
"There are many smart answers to the question: 'what will human beings with desires and a
mental structure like ours will do with genetic engineering?', but there is no smart answer to the
question: 'what will entities with desires and mental structure different than ours do with genetic
engineering?". It is probable that human beings with desires and mental structure similar to ours
will use genetic engineering to alter their own desires and mental structure and about what
happens afterwards there is no ability and therefore no point to discuss." (Noah Harari, Hebrew
edition, p. 45)
1.3.4 The value of achievement
A related argument about the use of enhancement is the question of the worth of achievement
while enhanced. Miah (2016) makes an analogy to a mountain climber who gets to the top of the
mountain by helicopter. No one, including the climber, will treat this achievement as worthy.
However, if a researcher using coffee, or modafinil, makes a valuable discovery - then the value
of the discovery is high and there is no "unfairness" to it. So even though the means to an end
matter (as Miah phrases it), the picture is not clear as to what achievement loses its value because
of the use of enhancement. Leon Kass (2003) is opposed to enhancement partly for this reason:
"In most of our ordinary efforts at self-improvement, either by practice or
training or study, we sense the relation between our doings and the
resulting improvement, between the means used and the end sought. There
is an experiential and intelligible connection between means and ends; we
can see how confronting fearful things might eventually enable us to cope
with our fears. We can see how curbing our appetites produces self-
command. In contrast, biomedical interventions act directly on the
human body and bring about their effects on a subject who is not merely
passive but who plays no role at all. He can at best feel their effects without
nderstanding their meaning in human terms." (Kass, 2003, "Ageless
bodies, Happy souls", p. 22, quoted by Bostrom and Roach, 2008)
Extrapolating Kass' point might also question the use of anti-depressants or anti-psychotic drugs,
or other biochemical substances which take place in coping with miseries and illness and adhere
to the logic he presents. The line here is thin. Opposed to him, Bostrom and Roach (2008) make
arguments that even the use of steroids in sports is not that immoral.
1.3.5 The inequality argument
A third controversial point attached to the human enhancement debate is the issue or resulting
inequality. If the issue of enhancement as threatening the nature of humanity was a little vague,
the issue of inequality is much more concise: it is more likely that enhancement technologies, at
least in the beginning, will be too expensive to be affordable and widespread, and therefore
accessible to few people. What will happen at this point? Noah Harari speculates that the growth
of enhancement, combined with the growth of artificial intelligence technology, will pose a
threat of dividing humanity into two levels of humans:
"A third threatening option is that individual people will still be of value, but only a small
number of enhanced superhumans. These superhumans will enjoy wonderful capabilities and
unprecedent creativity and will keep making some of the most important decisions in the world,
but most humans will totally lose their value, not only because they wouldn't be able to compete
with the new computerized algorithms, but also because they wouldn't be able to compete with
the new superhumans. In this case, liberalism will collapse as a result of opening unprecedent
gaps between different human groups, and especially between the rich and the poor" (Noah
Harari, Hebrew edition, p. 363)
This kind of scenario seems probable. It would be naïve to assume that there would not be any
kind of a gap between people or societies that begin to use these technologies and others who do
not. Bioethicist Erik Parens (1998) identifies this loop:
"Those who already have economic resources will readily gain access to new technologies and
those new technologies will make them stronger competitors for more resources."
This gap might be between rich people who either genetically enhance their children or finance
the development of man-machine technology and use it to better themselves or their children. It
might be a growing difference between Western countries and Third World countries (does
anyone think that in the current state of the world, that even when there will be radical
enhancement technologies, they will be accessible to someone in Ethiopia or Senegal?).
The possibility of enhancement creating a "superior" species of humans rings a very loud bell to
the ears of humanists. It echoes the Nazi ideology. Noah Harari categorizes enhancement as a
manifestation of an "evolutionary humanistic" ideology, that has in its core values the idea of
bettering man's abilities and asserting man's will over nature, an ideology that is the foundation
of Nazism:
"this idea is an updated recurrence of evolutional humanism, that even a hundred years ago
belittled the value of "regular" sapiens and preached for the creation of superhumans with
amazing abilities. The main novelty is, that while the evolutional humanism of the beginning of
the 20th century thought to create superhumans through education, selective reproduction and
the extermination of lower human races, 21th century technohumanists hope to do it through
genetics, nanotechnology and brain-computer interface." (Noah Harari, Hebrew edition, p. 368)
Bostrom, Savulescu, Veit and Hughes respond to the issue of inequality in several ways. First,
they claim that technological and scientific progress had always proved to benefit and raise the
living standards of all people, and that the fear of new technologies separating humanity and
increasing gaps usually was proven wrong-new technologies lead to greater growth, more jobs
etc. Second, they argue that new technologies might start off as expensive but gradually become
cheaper and accessible to most or all. However, those claims rely very much on the assumption
that the way things happened in the past will remain the same, a claim that might be true to
human enhancement and might not be true (Zylinska, 2010). There could be a reason to suspect
that the first people to possess high level human enhancement technology will use it in a
different way from the first people to hold a smartphone in their hands. The last would see the
smartphone as a product with commercial value, and the first might view enhancement not as a
product, but as a way to change themselves.
Savulescu (2011) suggests that inequality exists by nature and by circumstances as it is, that it is
widely accepted because it is considered natural, and that it happens even without enhancement
technologies. He claims that inequality and other injustices, such as racism, are social problems
that should be dealt with regardless of enhancement. He claims that enhanced intelligence could
contribute to coming up with solutions to such social problems, and that it might be a strategy to
reduce inequality. Yet, even Savulescu, in a 2016 interview³³, admits that current socio-economic
reality might lead to a not so optimistic scenario.
Veit (2018) claims that human enhancement technologies' benefits outweigh any inequality
objection. Moreover, based on the findings of Randall et al. (2005), who found that the
cognitively enhancing drug of Modafinil has greater effect on people with lower IQs, Veit claims
that enhancement technologies might even close inequality gaps.
Hughes (2004) agrees that there are some social conditions that need to be addressed in
preparing for the enhancement age and avoid the inequality problem that might arise. The main
mechanism he offers is that the state and international organizations will use their resources to
invest in a public development of enhancement technologies and make sure that when it is
developed enough it will be accessible and affordable - and at that point the state will issue
"vouchers" for people to enhance themselves, breaking the relationship between current wealth
and prospective use of this technology. According to Hughes, a government today should
consider buying existing and proven tDCS products for school children, maybe even just for
children with attention deficit problems, because it will help them learn better, achieve more, and
close existing learning gaps.
So, even enhancement supporters claim that these technologies can cause an increase in social
gaps, although to what extent, whether it will be just an extrapolation of current gaps, whether it
will be temporary until the technology becomes cheaper and more evenly distributed, and overall
what will be the pace of the advancement - those are questions that will play a major role in the
shaping of the future and are open to several scenarios.
1.3.6 The thin line between therapy and enhancement
Another area in which the ethical debate about enhancement takes place is the line between
medical treatment and enhancement. Even "enhancement opposers" like Fukuyama or Sandel
(2004;2007) agree to biotechnological advancements in medicine, so, asks Bostrom and
Savulescu, where is the line? And is there a line? Even medicine, in the last decades, has begun
to shift towards preventive and salutogenic (Antonovski, 1979) approaches, dealing with
enhancing health and well-being rather than just fixing the wrong. Naam (2005) claims that it is
impossible to separate therapy from enhancement and that enhancement will benefit people's life
in various ways, so the legitimacy of research in therapy is fully applicable to it, while Lin and
Allhoff (2008) counterclaim Naam by saying that although the therapy-enhancement distinction
is hard to define, it does not mean the two are the same and can be morally regarded as belonging
to the same group.
Miah (2008) tries to provide a framework for this question by creating a typology that divides
human enhancement into different levels:
1. Engineering Traits of Accepted Value (e.g. greater resilience to disease, such as the
fluoridation of tap water or inoculations)
2. Engineering Traits of Contested Value (e.g. engineering piety and patriotism)
3. Radical Transhuman Enhancements
a. Extending Human Capabilities (e.g. height enhancement)
b. Engineering New Kinds of Human Function (e.g. changing color, flight).
i. Within the realm of biological possibility (e.g. flight capability)
ii. Outside of biological possibility (e.g. capacity to live in non-gravitational environments)
Miah says that the ethical decision-making is different for every category, hence "human
enhancement" cannot be related to as a complete concept. His take on the levels says roughly
that level 1 (expanding accepted traits) should be considered positive, level 2 (enhancement of
questionable traits) should be beyond the line of acceptance, and level 3 (radical enhancement) is
a discussion on speculative technologies and is too early to have.
It is not clear that there could be such a distinction. As Noah Harari writes:
"The first justification for human enhancement projects is nearly always the healing of disease. If
you'll ask professors who deal with genetic engineering or connecting brains to computers and
ask why they are doing their research, they will explain that they're doing it to cure illnesses.
'through genetic engineering', they will say, 'we could cure cancer. If we will connect brains
directly to computers, we'll be able to treat schizophrenia much better'. It is naïve or playing
naïve. Does anyone really believe that when they will find out how to directly connect a brain to
a computer, they will use it only to cure schizophrenia? If there are people who do believe that,
then they know a lot about brains and computers but much less about the human soul and human
society.
From the minute that a discovery as such occurs, it is impossible to restrict the use of it for
medical purposes only and ban enhancements. No limitation will hold when on the other side of
the scales stands eternal youth or genius children. The politicians who will publicly vote in favor
of the restriction will be first in line for the secret North Korean clinics, where they will perform
the treatments that are not allowed in the USA." (Noah Harari, Hebrew edition, p. 50)
Medical research cannot be scientifically separated from research that will lead to enhancement.
It might, however, slow it down a little bit. The vast majority of governments and public funds
will finance research with medical goals and deny research for enhancement related goals. This
financing mechanism provides a passive regulation to the advancement of enhancement - it does
not encourage such research, but it does not ban it. This policy leaves a significant space for
private (or in DARPA's case military) initiatives, like Elon Musk's "neuralink", to play a major
role in the development of these technologies, which probably promotes a scenario by which the
decision to share the technology or make it accessible will be in the hands of a private, wealthy
person, and not in the hands of government officials or elected persons that are supposed to
answer to the public.
1.3.7 Might enhancement be crucial to humankind's survival?
Some Transhumanists, like Elon Musk and Ray Kurzweil, claim that enhancement is essential to
the survival of humanity in general. In his 2018 interview (covered earlier) Musk talked about
enhancement as essential to keep up with artificial intelligence (AI), so AI will not replace us.
Kurzweil, as reported in a 2017 article34, says that AI will not replace us, but rather enhance us.
So, Kurzweil also sees it as a must in relation to the growth of AI. Noah Harari (2015) also sees
this "battle" demanding humans to enhance:
"If we are facing a split between consciousness and intelligence, and if consciousness-less
intelligence begins to develop in a dizzying pace, then consciousness must begin to upgrade
itself if it wants to stay relevant.' (Noah Harari, Hebrew edition, p. 368)
Juan Vasquez (2015) presented an interesting point of view about the potential importance of
enhancement that life on earth and the current human biology are fragile and suspect to all kinds
of dangers and threats. The point of enhancement is to prepare humanity to various risks as such.
He gives the example that any person in an organic biological body will not survive in space, or
on the sun, or under many physical scenarios. If so far most of the discussion on this issue has
been on things like intelligence, or maybe physical appearance and athleticism, Vasquez opens
up the thought for all different kinds of enhancement - like improving hearing, bat-like sonar
sense, flight ability, thermal vision, hot-resistant skin (or cold-resistant), a camel-like internal
nutrition system, and many more capabilities that might be useful in space, on other planets, in
case of an ecological disaster or simply that someone thought it would be useful or cool. This
view, apart from the survival argument, also ignites the imagination for this type of technology
becoming a diversified social phenomenon - all kinds of people take on different types of
enhancement or body modification. The world might be inhabited by different "persons" that are
designed differently, representing different types of being with diverse modifications.
1.3.8 Can and should enhancement be regulated?
One of the main issues in the pro vs. against enhancement debate is whether governments and/or
international organizations should regulate research, development, and distribution of these
technologies. Fukuyama (2002) suggested that governments should not only regulate it but
completely restrict it. Following Fukuyama are most anti-enhancement scholars, like Agar
(2010), who regard governments as the main entities which hold the authority and power to do
so.
On the pro-enhancement side there are two major claims. The first is that, as with many other
technologies, the attempt to regulate the evolvement and usage of enhancement technologies is
futile (Naam, 2005) and might even lead to a much more dangerous, unequal black market
(Bostrom & Sandberg, 2009). Veit (2018) says that prohibiting it might lead to the worst
possible outcomes of all regulative policies regarding enhancement. They also state that the
difficulty of differentiating therapy and enhancement will make the effort into an unsolvable
legal mess. The second claim, made by Hughes (2004), is that governments should get involved
in the research and development of these technologies and should even lead the way. This way,
Hughes claims, is one of the best ways to ensure that enhancement technologies will not create
too large an inequality. Bostrom (2003) suggests that when such differentiating technologies be
available, governments should give
vouchers and subsidies to those who cannot afford them.
1.3.9 The enhancement political landscape
An interesting aspect that enhancement could change is the political landscape. Hughes (2004)
has predicted that biotechnology will be a third major dimension of the 21st century political
discourse along with the cultural progressive/conservative dimension and the economical
progressive/conservative dimension:
"The political terrain of the twenty-first century will add a new dimension biopolitics. At one end
of the biopolitical spectrum are the bioLuddites, defending humanity from enhancement
technologies, and at the other the transhumanists, advocating for our right to become more than
human." (Hughes, 2004, p.55) Some of what Hughes is foreseeing comes to life with the
establishment of the transhumanist party in USA and some other places. The transhumanist party
is highly associated with the libertarian party, and its elaborated platform includes the following:
Individual privacy and liberty over how to apply technology to one's personal life. [Article III,
Section I]
• Support of all emerging technologies that improve the human condition, including:
• Beneficial genetic modification of plants, animals, and human beings [Article III, Section IX]
The ideas of the transhumanist party are highly influenced by Hughes' ideas. However, even after
they ran a presidential candidate, the transhumanist party and movement are still a rather fringe
movement. By and large, most governments and political discourse is quite conservative when it
comes to dealing with biotechnological ideas. Hughes might refer to today's politics as
"bioLuddites", or it is possible that aside from abortion rights, most of politics is indifferent for
the time being to questions about enhancement and biotechnology. This can also explain the
passive and conservative regulation and policy regarding the finance of biotechnological
research and enhancement - public establishments will finance research that shows relevance to
medical issues, which might be related to enhancement, but will not restrict or regulate research
and development done directly about it. Politics usually responds to necessities of the present,
and enhancement is still very far from being a pressing matter or a phenomenon that overtly
affects the daily life of people. In general, there is evidence that the general public is still wary of
ideas about enhancement. Research undertaken in 2016 by the Pew Research Center 36 showed
that most of the people (between 66-68%) are against genetically designing babies and/or
implanting chips in the head. This could be a picture of a reality that precedes the beginning of
an era of bigger advances in enhancement, painted by a normal fear of progress, and when
technology will start to move forward the public debate will change as well (or of a good TV
series about the subject comes out). Yet, so far, Hughes' prediction is not becoming a reality.
1.3.10 Wrapping the discussion
Is the debate about enhancement due? Miah (2008) thinks it is premature. The feeling that any of
the issues raised can be sufficiently answered or settled due to the ambiguity of how things will
evolve might support his claim. Others, like Agar (2010) and Zylinska think that the "for" and
"against" debate is obsolete because we already live in the age of enhancement, so the discussion
is definitely on time (even though it is not an emergency), but that it should focus on how to
handle enhancement and not on whether it is good or bad.
Is enhancement the savior of humanity in its future struggles and the rescuer from present
miseries? Or is it the end of it? Will it lead to humanity losing its common qualities? Will there
be a new superior species of people that will make "regular" humans redundant, or will
enhancement technologies, mediated by governments or the free market, be made accessible to
all? Will countries invest in enhancement or leave it to private hands? And if they will will it be
for military purposes first (and last)? How will enhancement technologies develop in huge
exponential leaps, accelerating themselves, or gradually and slowly, at a pace that will give the
world a chance to contain it? Will enhancement turn out to be the creation of intelligent
superhumans, or maybe it will be more diversified, with all kinds of people and communities
taking different sorts of enhancement like some growing wings, some developing empathy, some
designing themselves to survive in space etc.? Should we humans "wait and see" or take an
active stand, now? Would the enhanced me have made the decision to get enhanced if he was
me? Being as stormy, elaborated, and with as many participants as it is, it still feels like the
moral and social discussion about human enhancement only scrapes the surface of the issue,
maybe suffering from the large amounts of uncertainty that still exist around what the
enhancement technologies will really be and when they will begin to take a major place in our
world. Answers might be provisional, and at this point affected from a basic sentiment towards
technological process: being a techno-pessimist like Aldous Huxley, or a techno-optimist like
Julian Huxley.
And now I get a step closer to the question of how science fiction can handle such a debate and
dramatize it, and to my own personal question of how to include and represent it in my series.
Part 2 - Science fiction
In part 1 of the essay I have reviewed the technology and the philosophical, moral and social
aspects of it that I wish to write about. I have claimed that the author of science fiction must
know his technology for the building of the story's world. But why is building the story world so
important? How and why is it different for science fiction than for other genres? These are only
two of many questions and issues revolving around the creation of science fiction.
I would like to begin this part of the essay with another claim: a writer, in any genre but certainly
in science fiction, must know his genre. This claim is the starting point of this part which will
deal with understanding the genre, its conventions and techniques, the way it shapes its themes
and the audience's experience. It will also deal with looking at how science fiction has dealt with
human enhancement and maybe transhumanism and post- humanism in general, reviewing
selected creations and learning from them.
There are a few reasons for including a research and review of the genre and of creations
resembling the themes and subjects I wish to write about in this work:
1. As a writer it helps me to understand and reflect on my writing, assess my writing and make
informed decisions about the use of conventions, structures, techniques etc. in my own creation.
2. From the "research-through-creation" point of view, it is important to use conventions and
examples of the genre to "fuel" the creative process. It enables me to deepen and provide more
justifications to my insights about writing science fiction.
3. Knowing what has been done in different kinds of science fiction, in pieces which are close in
spirit and in theme and subject to mine, helps me to "position" my work, helping me in creating a
story which is "new enough" and does not repeat previous stories in an overwhelming way, but
at the same time draws on its "family members" continues the genre or the genre trends while
making itself unique.
4. This is, after all, an academic work (even if it is in the unique form of "research- through-
creation"), and to do it properly, delving into the theory of the genre is essential. It serves to
illuminate and direct the insights about creative writing within the genre.
Before going into science fiction theory and looking at novels, stories, movies, and TV shows, I
would like to express something which, for me, is very basic, but can be a little forgotten when
entering the nuances of a genre. It is that every science fiction story is, above anything else, a
story. This means that the first "test" of the story is whether it evokes emotion, laughter, tension,
excitement, fear, and causes the recipient (the reader or the viewer) to empathize with characters
who want to solve complicated and emotionally charged problems and achieve something very
important and difficult. If a story does all that, it is a good one, no matter what genre it is. If the
story also causes the audience to reflect on their values and beliefs and the norms of society,
maybe question them, it is even more than just a good story.
Having said that, talking about genre is crucial and cannot be divided from talking about
the story. A story cannot be "good" as a story and "not good" compared to its genre. The
story comes already genre-packed, a whole creation in which the "general story" parts and
the "genre" parts blend together, unable to be separated. The researcher's or the writer's
eye can artificially address the way the components of the story reflect, respond, or use
principles or conventions of stories in general and those of a genre.
The last remark before entering the discussion about the genre is more technical: when talking
about science fiction I am not restricting myself to one medium and the work refers to most of
the narrative arts - novels, stories, movies, and TV shows (yet not video games or theatre).
However, being a screenwriter and writing a thesis dealing with screenwriting, there will be a
strong tendency to cite and address movies and TV series more. The decision to write a TV
series as opposed to a feature film screenplay will be discussed in part 3 of the thesis the creative
part.
2.1 Defining science fiction
The preface to this part and the essay so far has referred to science fiction as a genre. This might
have been a little premature:
"If sf were a genre, we would know the rough outline of every book that we picked up. If it were
a mystery, we would know that there was 'something to be found out'; if a romance, that two
people would meet, make conflict and fall in love" (Mendelsohn, 2003, in "The Cambridge
Companion to Science fiction", p.2)
Science fiction, therefore, is not exactly a genre. This is, of course, dependent on how one
defines what genre is. If it is a specific story form, in which its structure includes a typical
storyline and highly resembling steps or beats, then science fiction is not a genre. The love story
of a film like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and the intergalactic war saga of "Star
Wars" have next to nothing in common in their structure and in the experience they convey to the
spectators. Yet they both can count as science fiction movies. This point of the variety of science
fiction could have been exemplified by thousands of other examples, but that would be tiresome.
Adam Roberts, a science fiction writer and researcher, agrees with Mendelsohn:
"Science fiction is not a 'genre'; fantasy is not 'another genre'; They are both collections of
subgenres, related families of writing types that get lumped together by marketing people and
booksellers." (Roberts, 2014, in "Get Started in Writing Science fiction and Fantasy", p.22)
But there is such a thing as "science fiction". When we read or watch it, we almost always
recognize that it is part of this group. Book marketing people and film distributers place the "Sci-
Fi" (an abbreviation that science fiction writers and fans usually reject) tag for a reason, and this
is that it attracts more or less a defined sector of the audience (although this sector is very
dynamic and evolving the range of readers and/or viewers of "The Handmaid's Tale" differ from
those of "Ready Player One").
One way to unify science fiction after all and make it deserve its title as a "genre" is offered by
Peter Russell, a screenwriter and a screenwriting teacher. In a 2018 webinar Russell said that "In
science fiction, technology causes the problem and technology needs to be used to solve the
problem". Russell's claim is more than just saying that in a science fiction work the author places
all kinds of non-existing technologies and/or creates a world in which science has progressed,
and/or nature and the laws of nature underwent a change, bent or caused an extreme and yet
unknown outcome (yes, I have quite stretched the use of the term "technology") - Russell is
saying that this technology takes part in creating the problems the characters in the story face,
and in some way the technology has to take part in solving the problem or achieving the goal of
the story. Usually, according to Russell, this solution happens when the hero manages to master
the technology and use it to his/her advantage. For example: in "The Matrix" (1999) the problem
is caused by a technology that makes people believe they live in a "normal" world, when in fact
this world is a simulation and people are actually enslaved to advanced machines who use their
bodies as batteries. The problem is solved when the hero learns how to manipulate the simulation
and overcome the forces which were sent to destroy him within it.
I think that Russell's idea does not "hold" as a definition, especially when trying to apply its
second part. Too many stories are science fiction stories even when their problems are not solved
through the technology. Even "Star Wars" is ending with the hero achieving a control over "the
force", which is not a technology but rather an innate power related to believing in one's self (for
fairness, some might consider "the force" to be a tool too, hence a technology). Russell's
principal does carry weight, perhaps not as a real definition, but as a unifying motive.
One of the most influential screenwriting teachers today, John Truby, uses his own perception of
what genre is to provide guidelines to the story beats and the underlying structure of science
fiction. Truby begins by identifying a thematic characterization of the genre: "Science fiction is
about human evolution in the grandest scale." (Truby, 2009, "Secrets of Genre", p.7). Does this
statement not go perfectly with the subject of human enhancement? This is a broader way of
looking at science fiction that deals with how humanity and human life might change or evolve
due to its coping with a technology, natural change, scientific discovery, or abnormality that
makes the world different than the one we know.
2.1.1 The tools of the world - science fiction, technology and the 'novum'
In Truby's story system there is a very important role for the desire line of the hero (and other
characters). He differentiates genres according to their hero's typical desire line and describes the
desire line of a science fiction story as "To deal with the tools of the world". Truby, here, is
getting very close to Russell: the "problem" that Russell talks about, and the "desire line"
according to Truby are the most primal and basic "engines" which create the story and give it the
momentum and movement the reason that the hero goes on a mission. Without it there is no
story, and both Russell and Truby relate this "engine" to technology the story begins with some
sort of disruption to the way the world and/or humans live, caused by a yet unknown
technological function or scientific twist/circumstances, and people (including the hero) must
somehow cope with or solve the problems and disruptions caused by it. Here are a few examples:
In "Star Wars" Luke Skywalker joins the rebels to fight the empire, which uses a new destructive
technology - the Death Star which can destroy whole planets.
In "Children of Man" (a 1992 novel by P.D. James, turned into a 2006 movie directed by
Alfonso Cuaron) humanity deals with the complete arrest of reproduction, and the hero is sent to
protect the first pregnant woman in 18 years.

In "Gravity" (a 2013 movie, again directed by Alfonso Cuaron) the hero tries to go back to earth
after her spaceship is damaged.
In "Gattaca" (a 1999 movie directed by Andrew Nicol) the hero is a person born with no genetic
selection into a world in which genetic selection determines social roles and jobs and tries to
enter a space mission program reserved for people with specific genetic qualities.
In "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (a 2003 movie directed by Michel Gondry) the hero
learns that his ex-girlfriend had him completely erased from her memories, and he tries to erase
her as well but during the process his inner self begins to fight and protect the memories.
In "The Handmaid's Tale" (a 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood, turned into a TV series first aired
in 2016) the hero is a woman enslaved to carry the child of one of the leaders of a militant
religious group which took over the USA, in a world in which fertility rates went down.
In "Star Trek" (a long running TV show, first aired in 1966 and with several continuations) a
crew of a starship explores unknown worlds and has to fight and overcome hostile alien life
forms.
In "The Time Traveler's Wife" (a 2003 novel by Audrey Niffenegger, turned into a 2009 movie
directed by Robert Schwentke) the hero and his wife need to manage their love when he keeps
jumping between time periods with no control.
In "Akta Manniskor" (from Swedish: "Real Humans"; a Swedish TV series first aired in 2012
and reproduced as an American-British show called "Humans" since 2015) people face all kinds
of moral dilemmas when human-like robots become common and serve people, and when a
small group of the robots start to develop self-awareness.
In "Westworld" (a TV series first aired in 2016) human-like robots who were designed to
entertain people in a futuristic theme park go through some sort of "malfunction" (later
discovered to be pre-planned by the robots' creators) that causes them to develop self-awareness
and try to liberate themselves from the humans. If Truby and Russell describe the humans as the
heroes, in "Westworld" the conscious robots are heroes, yet the theme of human evolution still
stands as the robots take part in a humane vision and their struggle and story is crucial to human
development.
In "The Hunger Games" (a novel series by Suzanne Collins, first published in 2008, turned into a
movie series directed by Garry Ross, starting from 2012) the hero participates in a deadly and
cruel reality game designed to provide entertainment for the mass and help authorities oppress
the people and preserve power and control.
The examples described above were selected to demonstrate that the range of problems or
"disruptions" we can consider as science fiction is quite wide: decrease in global fertility;
encountering aliens; time travel; major technological malfunction; a new, dangerous and highly
destructive technology; a technology that can manipulate human memories and/or minds in a big
way; robots who begin to possess self-awareness; a major change in social norms, structures
and/or politics (as is the case with "Gattaca", "The Handmaid's Tale", "The Hunger Games",
many "Black Mirror" episodes and of course George Orwell's "1984") and many more. Science
fiction begins when "what if" questions transcend the technological, scientific, and even social
norm conventions. It is still not a definition and can be challenged by other examples or even
genres with some relation (the supernatural genre, fantasy, superhero etc.), yet it provides a
framework that allows creators, marketers, and audience to engage in a discourse surrounding
"science fiction" and to study and learn its meanings and creative approaches, decisions, and
techniques.
This unifying motive, the technological novelty or scientific twist, is termed by one of the
leading science fiction scholars, Darko Suvin (1979), as "Novum". The "Novum" differentiates
the story world from the real world. As opposed to magic in the fantasy genre, the Novum is
some sort of an innovative idea that follows an acceptable scientific logic of the story world.
2.1.2 Science fiction and the future
So far, the word "future" has not been used to define or describe science fiction. This is because
science fiction does not necessarily deal with the future. It can, but it does not have to. "The
Handmaid's Tale", the 1966-1967 TV series "The Time Tunnel", Jules Verne's "Twenty
Thousand Leugeus Under the Sea" are just quick reminders of thousands of science fiction
creations which happen in the era in which the story has been written. There are also science
fiction works that happen in the past (not including time travel stories), like Philip K. Dick's
"The Man in the High Castle" and the TV series based on it. They all adhere to igniting a story
from a technological or scientific "game changer" but take place in a time period the author finds
most appropriate to the story, whether it is the far future, the near future, the present, an
alternative present or the past. The decision of when to locate the story is an artistic one and
actually a "privilege" of the science fiction creator
that does not exist in other genres. It is, however, a very important decision that carries a huge
meaning for the metaphoric qualities and the impact of the story, and sometimes to its credibility
as well (would anyone have taken "Star Wars" seriously if it had tried to pass as a contemporary
story?). The meaning of setting the story's time period will be discussed later as part of the
creative process. It goes hand in hand with another creative decision how different do we want
our story world to be from our known world?
2.1.3 Science fiction combines with other genres
Another characteristic of science fiction is that it mostly goes with other genres and creates
multiple sub-genres. "Star Trek" is a science fiction journey with some elements of a war story,
and can also be described as a "space exploration" sub-genre, with some referring to it as a
"space opera"; "Star Wars" is, well, a war story with some other elements, and can also count as
a "space opera" (Russell even describes it as more of a fantasy story than science fiction);
"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" blends so well with drama and love story that many do
not even experience it as science fiction, and so on. Science fiction sub-genres can also be
defined very differently, with some sub-genre lists describing the type of technology, scientific
disruption or "Novum" taking place in the story (space exploration, time-travel, android or
human-like stories, utopias, dystopias and so on) and some sub-genre lists are based on the genre
combination (like science fiction/thriller, science fiction/love, science fiction/comedy; examples
for the latter are the hilarious "Space Balls" from 1987, directed by Mel Brooks, or Douglas
Adams' 1979 novel "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and so on).
Truby divides his genre analysis into "technical genres" and "non-technical genres". "Technical
genres" are those whose story beats and structure are relatively "formulistic" and tight, paving a
type of story that an audience can more or less expect. "Non-technical genres" are those whose
structure is relatively open and can take many forms and storylines, and its central features are
comprised more from the existence of certain motives, subjects, and themes. Ironically science
fiction is a "non-technical genre", and often (if not always) has to be matched with a "technical
genre", such as thriller ("The Matrix"), detective ("Blade Runner", "Altered Carbon"), romantic
comedy ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"), myth ("Star Wars") and/or others.
Screenwriting teacher Robert McKee (1997) also describes science fiction as a "meta-genre",
which can "entertain" other genres. The combination that science fiction forms with the
"technical genre" makes the specific form and structure of the story. Again, in all of its sub-
genres, science fiction tells a story about a world different than ours in which a new technology
or a scientific twist (which can come from the social sciences as well as from natural sciences)
causes a major problem that people have to solve or cope with.
It should be noted that when discussing the definition of science fiction and its characteristics, it
was more comfortable for me to turn to the way screenwriters and screenwriting teachers handle
it, and not review more academic attempts to define it. This is due to two reasons and purposes:
The academia (as Adam Roberts and Mendelsohn implied) has failed to accurately define
science fiction, and the evolving world of creations keeps challenging and redefining the genre.
I am a screenwriter, and as such the point of view that helps me most is the one that looks at the
genre from the perspective of the creative process, and Russell (a screenwriter himself) and
Truby try to offer such a perspective. This is also the more relevant approach when engaging in a
"creation-based-research" endeavor, where the concepts and insights emerge from and relate to
the creative process.
2.2 The power, the role and the significance of science fiction
Take a few seconds to observe the list of the highest grossing movies in history:
Among the top 15 successful movies of all times, 6 will be tagged as "science fiction" first, with
5 others borderlining between science fiction and superhero, containing clear science fiction
motives so central to their plot that many regard them as science fiction as well (The 'superhero'
genre in itself might be questioned as being labeled 'science fiction', since the super powers
could be considered more of a fantasy than a technology/twist of nature, yet some movies go a
long way to ground the super powers in a scientific context and/or include many other science
fiction elements. All the "Marvell" films of the last 20 years do that). It is true that this table
tends to highlight recent movies due to inflation in prices, but when adjusting to get a more
balanced and time-relative film success, science fiction stays at least as dominant if not more so,
with movies like the early "Star Wars", "E.T", "Blade Runner", "Alien", "The Matrix", "The
Terminator" and others breaking into top places and leading the most successful films' lists of
their time. In Television, nowadays the most successful narrative art form, there is an increasing
number of prominent science fiction TV series like "Westworld", "Black Mirror", "Altered
Carbon", "Humans", "Stranger Things", "The 100", "The Man in the High Castle",
"S.H.I.E.L.D", and others.
Most of them are shows done by cable and Internet companies (like HBO, Netflix, Amazon
Prime etc.) but there are some done by large networks. The big break of Television science
fiction occurred in this decade, with not only more shows reaching public success but also with a
significant development and variety of the sub-genres and themes from the days of mainly space
exploration shows like "Star Trek" and "Battlestar Galactica". Today's shows try to blend much
more with drama, thriller, and detective and they even tackle social issues.
I will not try to explain why science fiction is such a popular genre in film and TV. It is also not
the case for every science fiction work or sub-genre, and it is hard to compare the vast success of
"Star Wars" or "Star Trek" to the more artistic presence of "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Black
Mirror", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or "Arrival" (a 2016 movie by director Dennis
Villeneuve, based on "Story of your Life", a 1998 short story by Ted Chiang). What I do want to
point out is how science fiction has a very strong presence in modern culture, and that this
presence justifies examining the metaphorical qualities of science fiction, its meanings, the real-
world issues it mirrors, and the psychological aspects of it.
2.2.1 Genre success and society: the case of the 1970's conspiracy wave
Before going into the ways in which science fiction interacts with culture and society. I would
like to briefly demonstrate this kind of relation between genre growth and success and society
through another genre: the detective-conspiracy-thriller.
In the late 1960's and early 1970's, the United States went through a crisis in the trust the public
had towards the government. The Vietnam war and the public criticism it summoned, the licking
of reports about the white house knowing the war was a lost cause years before ending it, the
Watergate story, and even the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, and
others all caused the public to sense that they know little of what high officials are plotting and
scheming, and a narrative of distrust and paranoia emerged (Berkowitz, 2006). This feeling has
resonated in the rise of an evolved form of the detective genre the detective conspiracy thriller.
Films like "Chinatown", "Three Days of the Condor", "The French Connection", "The Long
Goodbye", "The Parallax View", "The Conversation", and finally "All the President's Men" were
made and had received success and presence commercially, artistically, and culturally. All those
movies used the basic story form of the detective story: a crime has been committed and the
detective sets out to discover the truth. "Discovering the truth" is probably a motive that
resonated well in the American public at that time. But those movies added to the detective form
some other motives: the truth is illusive and sometimes cannot be known (like in Francis Ford
Coppola's 1974 Palme d'Or recipient: "the Conversation"); The villains are most often on "the
same side" as the detective-hero, being his countrymen, maybe even part of his own organization
or the very same people who hired him for the job, teaching him and the audience to trust no-
one; those villains are also usually among those who were appointed or selected to keep the
common people safe; the detective-hero is sometimes forced to act, and did not choose to do so,
and he is being haunted and turns into a victim himself. All these motives corresponded with the
public sentiment of the time.
Image 2.2: The final shot of Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" (1974). Gene Hackman
plays Harry Caul, a surveillance expert, turned paranoid believing some unknown powerful
people are after him because he thinks he recorded a murder. Out of his paranoia he completely
tears up his apartment, looking for microphones. The movie carries many similarities to
Antonioni's "Blow Up". One could argue that the production of such movies was an intended and
conscious endeavor, done by screenwriters and directors who wanted to react to the politics of
that time. This is most likely true. Even me, in the series I write for the purpose of this thesis,
started consciously from a subject I wanted to explore and say something about, so it is likely
that Coppola, Polanski, Pollack, and the others knew they wanted to comment on that reality.
However, if the audience would have been indifferent, then that list of movies would have been
far shorter. We probably would not have "Chinatown". Coppola, Polanski, Jack Nicholson, and
Gene Hackman owe quite a bit of their careers to Richard Nixon.
2.2.2 Science fiction's affect
After demonstrating how genre interacts so tightly with social, political and/or cultural processes,
we turn to science fiction. The popularity of science fiction has already been demonstrated
earlier in this chapter, and it is an evolving genre which keeps its popularity for a long time. As
said, I do not set out to explain why it is successful, but to understand the ways it echoes and
interacts with the human experience. Is it important for a writer to understand this? I cannot
answer this yet. To be more precise I believe it is crucial for a writer to understand the emotional
and thematical significance of the genre he writes in, at least because it embodies the
expectations of the crowd, but I do not know if that understanding needs to be explicit and
articulated, or if having it in a more intuitive and implicit manner is as good (or better). Part of
the reason for me to explore it more explicitly is the fact that this is an academic work. It is
important to note that at the time of writing the thesis, the vast majority of the creative work on
the series had been done already.
What makes science fiction stories so central in modern day culture? In what way do they serve
audience's need for entertainment? What emotions do they evoke and what kind of a mental
experience and learning, that is so captivating (when done well, of course), do they offer?
Peter Russell talks about "A fetish for technology" as being the "weed" of the genre. "Weed" is a
word Russell uses to emphasize the excitement and the "fun" that a story, and more generally a
genre, offers the audience. After establishing that technology (or the more general term of
"Novum") is so important to science fiction, it seems that Russell has a strong point, and science
fiction movies, series and novels strongly appeal to the part in people which is infatuated with
technology and novelties. The science fiction audience loves to see human-like robots,
spaceships crossing the galaxy, people's minds moving from one biological body to another,
hovering on a skateboard with jet engines and other kinds of "cool stuff". It is possible to widen
this notion a little bit and talk not just about the infatuation with technology, but the entire range
of emotions people have around technology that might attract them to read or watch a science
fiction piece and hope to feel or maybe even gain insight about. It is a reasonable assumption that
people who sleep in front of an "Apple" store to get a place in line for the newest gadget will also
buy tickets for the new "Star Wars".
But a fetish for technology, strong as it is, does not tell the whole story of science fiction, and I
think not even a small part of it.
John Truby, in his system to define story and genre, uses the term "key question" of a genre to
describe the kind of learning that the characters and the audience experience and needs to resolve
throughout the story. The key question of science fiction is: "How do you create a better world?"
(Secrets of Genre, p.7). If this is the case, that science fiction is an artistic narrative arena (as
opposed to an intellectual or political discussion) for figuring out how the world should be, then
it can appeal to a collective sentiment of people who are not happy with the way things are.
Science fiction stories do not do it all at once they do not offer a complete vision of the entire
world that fixes all of humanity's problems in one story. Each story takes a certain
technologically or scientifically based issue and explores it as a tool that reflects a possible dark
side of human society and/or a possible growth or evolution of it. "Arrival" and "Story of your
Life" on which it is based, use the mysterious appearance of vessels with aliens who use a
strange circular language and can see through time to explore the passage from the dark aspect of
people fearing the strange (probably the most prominent theme of all alien stories) and unable to
communicate between each other, to a brighter vision of taking responsibility of each other and
cooperating. The story also conveys an idea that by looking forward in time and understanding
the consequences of decisions we might be able to achieve that. "Blade Runner" tries to explore
"a better
world" question about the relationship between man and artificial consciousness (which is, of
course, a mirror of ourselves, since we created this consciousness in our own image).
"Westworld" asks if there is a chance that artificial intelligence could be a better version of
ourselves, "Star Wars" tackles tyranny and freedom and the idea that creating a better world must
come from a commitment and even duty to fight for freedom; "Altered Carbon" touches on
immortality, and so on. Those are all huge subjects, yet they are different from each other and
every one of them deals with creating a better world from a different angle. Science fiction
stories can also operate through a different strategy, showing only the ugliness and darker
aspects and leave the audience contemplating about the dangers of something. For example: the
"Black Mirror" episode "Shut up and Dance" tells the story of a young man who is being
extorted into robbing a bank and a forced upon "fight to the death" with someone else by being
filmed masturbating to child pornography through his computer's camera. It is a horror-thriller
story (again, science fiction mates with other genres) about the loss of privacy and its price
(although some could claim that capturing pedophiles, even those who restrict themselves to
masturbation, is a good development in society). The story leaves the audience asking
themselves weather this is the world we live in or are heading to. "Shut up and Dance" does not
offer the solution but warns about the deterioration and by doing so remains in the boundaries of
the "creating a better world" question.
Image 2.3: "Shut up and Dance" episode from "Black Mirror" (Premiered on Netflix on October
21, 2016). Someone recorded the hero, a teenager, masturbating with child pornography and now
extorts him and sends him instructions through the phone. The audience never meets the extorter,
it is all done through technological devices. Hacking phones and data bases and using them for
extortion is not science fiction anymore.
Another "Black Mirror" episode, "San Junipero", takes the opposite strategy and shows a world
of optimistic immortality by creating a computerized heaven to which people who are about to
die can "move". In this place people can grow, change, be who they really want to be, live in
eternal youth if that is what they please, and find love. The digital afterlife is a place with no
scarcity of resources. Again, technology drives a story about the "how to create a better world?"
question, even if the avenue to get there might surprise the audience.
However, science fiction is a form of story; it is not an essay nor an opinion column. It must
attract audiences who seek an emotional and entertaining experience and engage them with the
story while constructing an investigation into a "better world" issue. It is not done as a tactic the
science fiction author does not say "I'll grab them with some 'cool technological stuff, a
mystery/war story, and when they fail to notice I'll plant a propaganda message" - the story,
combined with its artistic and entertaining qualities is the exploration itself. When we watch and
enjoy "Star Trek" we emotionally and physically feel the curiosity and fear when the crew of the
spaceship "Enterprise" walks on the surface of a new planet, about to find out what kind of alien
life form it inhabits, and does not know who they are: are they friendly? Are they stronger and/or
more advanced than us? Is there danger for the heroes? etc. Inside that emotional experience lies
the meaning. "Tagging" those emotions as the same feelings we might have in face of foreigners
from different cultures and races is a blend of explicit interpretation and subconscious
psychological processes. Not anyone will infer or transfer those emotions or meanings to the
"real life” domain and to accepting diversity, but some might. Yet the experience of watching
"Star Trek" remains.
Basically, this is the kind of metaphor that science fiction portrays. If the "detective- conspiracy"
movies of the 70's created the feelings revolving around not knowing the truth and being in a
state of paranoia, being a metaphor for the politics and reality of that time, science fiction creates
a different experience in which the writer and the audience detach themselves from the known
world to explore issues through creating new possibilities.
Adam Roberts, in his book: "Science fiction: The New Critical Idiom" (2006) tries to pinpoint
what is the metaphorical quality of science fiction. He argues that it is wrong to view or assess
science fiction creations as "one to one" metaphors. That might turn the writer's work to a
technical ongoing comparison between what he/she wants to reflect on in the real world into the
created world. The result will be more of a puzzle for the audience than a story, probably without
too much fun or excitement. It would be trying to overstretch a parable.
To better understand the kind of metaphor that science fictions creates, Roberts is building on
two concepts - Suvin's "cognitive estrangement" and Paul Ricoeur's "distanciation". Suvin
defined science fiction as:
"A literary genre or verbal construct whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence
and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main device is an imaginative
framework alternative to the author's empirical environment" (Suvin, "Metanorphoses of Science
fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre", 1979, p.37)
Although Roberts manages to demonstrate that this definition is not complete (and this is why it
was not mentioned in the previous chapter), it does offer a lead into the kind of creation science
fiction is the term of "cognitive estrangement" suggests that creating a distance world, clearly
perceived as different from our own, is very important to the experience the genre offers.
Roberts refers to Paul Ricoeur and his take on metaphor (Ricoeur did not refer specifically to
science fiction) with his use of the term "distanciation":
"For our purposes, we can take Ricoeur's "distanciation' as the imaginative space that opens up
between the lives we live in London or Chicago (or wherever we happen to live) and the lives we
live in 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Dune'. It is because SF is both poetic and speculative that it is
proper to think of it as metaphoric, in this strong, Ricoeurian way." (Roberts, 2006, p.146)
According to Roberts, the metaphorical strength of science fiction is created from the story
taking place in a different world and that the story world is open to many possibilities. The
author can (and should) use it simultaneously to explore his/her speculations and create a vision
of symbols and poetics. Many of us asked ourselves as children: "what is the perfect place we
want to live in?" or "how would a perfect world look like?". Those questions ignite our minds
and imagination to new constructs, ideas, and possibilities (the speculative part) and/or beautiful
images which reflect our wishes, dreams and fears of what the world can be (the poetic part). It is
a humane world, but it is not the one we know. Of course, as a story, science fiction cannot be
simply and solely a utopia and just portray the perfect world, first because it will be boring and
nearly emotionless (a story is built from its conflict), and secondly because it wants to show the
road to having this better world. This is the difference between science fiction and a virtual
world like "second life" or an article someone writes about how he/she would like the world to
be.
Interestingly, when many past scholars wanted to portray their utopian visions, they chose to do
so not as a non-fiction composition but rather as a novel (Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward:
1887-2000", 1888; William Morris' "News from Nowhere", 1890; Theodor Herzl's "Altneuland",
1902, in which he imagined the future Jewish state and is considered one of the most important
founding texts of the state of Israel). They chose so, even when that was the only time they ever
wrote fiction, most likely because presenting their utopian vision by creating empathy to a
character and his struggles is a much more engaging, exciting, and maybe even an effective way
to convey their utopian ideas.
Much of the metaphorical quality I related to science fiction is shared with the Fantasy genre.
There are similarities between the two genres; however, science fiction differs from fantasy by
the "novum" - the science fictional world is based, as mentioned, on technology or scientific
twist, and hence it tries to deliver a scientifically acceptable world (even when the science is not
reliable), while fantasy abandons realism completely and bases itself on magic.
2.2.3 Science fiction as criticism
An even "edgier" view about science fiction is offered by Carl Freedman. In his book "Critical
Theory and Science fiction" (2000) he compares the creation and the basics of science fiction to
the foundations of critical theory as a whole. Critical theory, he says, is based on the gap between
the reality of the world and the perception of it. The critical theorist uncovers the structures by
which people and societies organize themselves, perceive the world and form meanings, and then
he inspects those structures, questions them and makes room for other concepts to replace them.
Science fiction does the exact same thing - it shows a different world and that which arises out of
it causes us to look past and/or through the formulation of our world and consider other
"arrangements".
This might be the reason why Margaret Hartley claimed in 1953 that science fiction is a
"subversive genre". In her article Hartley claims that the patriotic congressional committees who
censor and regulate content from being "communist" or disloyal overlook science fiction because
they do not regard stories about aliens or imaginary technologies as dealing with real world
ideologies, and that they are wrong about it. She claims that writers can use science fiction to
disguise their ideas and criticism by placing them in the future or in other worlds.
The best movie to exemplify the idea of science fiction as a critical genre might be "The Matrix".
Image 2.4: Keanu Reeves is Neo in "The Matrix" (Directed by the Wachowski brothers, 1999).
In this scene Neo reaches the ultimate recognition that the matrix is a computer programmed
whole-world simulation to which the minds of all people are connected. When he accepts the
simulation for what it is, he can do almost whatever he wants in it, such as stopping bullets in the
air.
"The Matrix" is a modern cave parable regarding a character "waking up" from living in a
simulated world created for humans by aliens who use the people's bodies as an energy source.
Neo, the hero, is given a choice between continuing his life "inside the matrix", meaning
preferring living in a fabricated world, or leaving it and going to the real and truthful world.
Choosing the matrix has its advantages of convenience and safety, but it means never being truly
free. Choosing the real world has considerable dangers, among which is being haunted by the
creators of the matrix, but also the opportunity to know the truth and ultimately manipulate the
simulation at will. The entire story can be perceived as a metaphor for many things, among
which is viewing reality as not more than a simulation, or a perceptual prison we live in or
maybe even a place made for ourselves (this is how Roberts interprets it). Building on this
metaphor once you know that the world is fabricated you can free yourself from it or grow above
it, being stronger and more powerful than before.
The Matrix stands as an appropriate point of conclusion for this chapter, because it can serve as a
metaphor for the entire science fiction genre. By creating stories that take place in alternative
realities of the certain kind that we discussed, the creators of science fiction try to deliver an
essence that their audience seek: playing with options, revealing a better way to live, detaching
ourselves for a short while from our own world, and turning it into not more than one suggestion,
among many more.
2.3 The unique aspects of science fiction writing
"Science fiction presents to a writer challenges and problems that cannot be found in other forms
of fiction. In addition to all the usual problems of writing, science fiction stories must also have
strong and believable scientific or technical background. Isaac Asimov often declared that
writing science fiction was more difficult than any other kind of writing. He should have known;
He wrote everything from mysteries to learned tomes on the bible and Shakespeare." (From "The
Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells, Ben Bova, 2016, p.16)
The entire previous chapter could be read as portraying the difficult challenge of the science
fiction writer. Of course, it is not "science fiction" that explores the question of "how to create a
better world" and walk the viewer or the reader through an experience in which he is captivated
into a transcendent world that changes his perception of how the entire world could be. It is not
the genre, but it is the stories. And someone has to write them.
As discussed earlier, science fiction stories are, first and above all, stories. This means that the
science fiction writer has to master the art and craft of creating a good story. Those stories will
not be discussed here due to their overly broad and generic nature yet will be presented when
relevant in the 3rd section about the creative process. Beyond those there are challenges, skills,
considerations, and characteristics which are either unique to writing science fiction or at least
more important or handled differently when writing a science fiction story. In order to build an
argument about science fiction writing in this thesis, it is important to review the literature that
exists about the genre. This would be the professional and academic arena this thesis seeks to
provide a contribution to.
This chapter will identify the major recurring points (meaning considerations, techniques, norms,
tropes, questions, decisions etc.) about writing science fiction from the relativelymore well-
known existing sources. The selected sources will include: John Truby's "Secrets of Genre"
booklet and "Science fiction" audio class; Peter Russell's "Science fiction" webinar; Orson Scott
Card's "How to Write Science fiction & Fantasy" (1990) and his chapters in "Writing Fantasy &
Science fiction" (2013; Orson Scott Card is one of the most prominent science fiction writers of
today and probably all time, best known for "Ender's Game" and the "Ender" series); Adam
Roberts "Writing Science fiction and Fantasy" (2014); Ben Bova's "The Craft of Writing Science
fiction that Sells" (2016; Ben Bove is another well-known Science fiction author).
The major points about writing a science fiction story which will be discussed are:
The science fiction premise, or why does the story need to be a science fiction one
Building the story world
Setting the technology (or "novum") and weaving it into the story
2.3.1 The science fiction premise
Earlier it was explained how science fiction almost always interconnects with other genres. This
challenges the writer to justify that his story is best told as science fiction rather than in the
companion genre. Orson Scott Card raises such a question when referring to the space travel sub-
genre:
"Why would a story need space travel at all?" (Scott Card, 2013, p.37).
A writer of science fiction needs to know the answer.
If, for example, a writer wrote a story about a war between two planets, using futuristic weapons,
we might ask would the story be any less good if it was about a war which takes place in current
or past days, using current or past weapons. Does setting the story in the future and in a trans-
galactic world add some sort of added value? Truby (2009) says that the "desire line" (what the
hero goes to achieve) of a science fiction story is "To deal with the tools of a world". Russell
claims that in science fiction technology creates the story problem. So according to both, in
science fiction the story's premise needs to have a very clear connection with the "novum", the
technological/scientific "change maker" of the story, in a way that the story could not have been
told without it. If in "Blade Runner" the hero, Rick Deckard, instead of chasing a dangerous self-
conscious android had chased a vengeful slave - it would have been a different story, deprived of
its meaning; In "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" we could not replace the hero's inner
self-fighting to keep the memories of his loved one from being erased with any other non-
technological instrument; Would "Avatar" be the same story if Jake Sully could not switch into a
Na'vi body and experience the Na'vi life in its fullest?; The goal of the story needs to be tightly
linked with the "novum".
The question remains, however, as to whether this is a rule. This can be tested by coming up with
a story that could be told as science fiction but also as other genres. We will continue with the
war story and portray it as about a commander who tries to compensate for the loss of some of
his soldiers in a previous battle, so he takes too few risks and maybe protects his men but
endangers the entire cause and possibly the lives of other soldiers from his army and ultimately
the freedom and survival of his side. As a science fiction story, we could have imagined it
occurring in a war between planets, with his unit sent on a mission to destroy the enemy's
headquarters and perhaps kill the wise opposite commander. But we can also picture this story
taking place in every violent conflict happening today or in the past, even as a mob story. Will it
be a bad choice to tell it as science fiction? Not necessarily (Yet, if I was a producer presented
with this story, I would certainly question if the higher science fiction budget is worthwhile). Is it
really the best way to "squeeze" the potential of science fiction? I believe this not to be so.
The question gets more complicated when referring to "Star Wars", which is in part a war movie
that takes place in an intergalactic futuristic world. Does the "novum" really give an added value
to the movie? The box office provides a strong claim that it does. However some might say it
does not, and Russell, in his webinar about science fiction, actually says that "Star Wars" is not
science fiction but rather a fantasy: the most important "novum" of the story, the thing that
ultimately is the "tool" that decides the battle and that the major characters want to learn how to
use and control, is "The Force", which is more of a magical capability than a technology or a
scientific twist. However, it is very difficult to rule out "Star Wars" from being science fiction, so
having the storyline derived and linked with the "novum" is a strong guideline to making your
science fiction story better and more "loyal", or better manifest the genre, yet not a rule.
Specifically, in "Star Wars" there is some technological tool that causes the problem - the "Death
Star", which is a mass destruction weapon of magnitude that has never been seen before. It
brings about the theme of the morality of technological gaps, a theme worthwhile of a science
fiction story. We might replace the "Death Star" somehow with an earthlier version, like the
nuclear bomb. But maybe the "Death Star" is a parable for nuclear weapons? Remembering that
"Star Wars" was conceived in the late 1970's, when the cold war was still happening (and with
Ronald Reagan elected president and leading a "hawky" policy against the soviet nuclear threat)
this assumption is not that farfetched. So, a science fiction story might sometimes be told in
another genre, but it is recommended to create a storyline that binds closely with the technology
or science that distanciates from our known world. Even if the premise can be told in other
genres, there should be some reason or meaning to locate it in a science fictional world.
Distancing ourselves from our known world and commenting about it through either a metaphor
or an analogy to real phenomena might be not the best method, but it is a good enough story
strategy for science fiction.
Another point about the premise of a science fiction story is made by Ben Bove, who called
science fiction "a literature of ideas", and elaborates on this using the term "The Thematic
Novel":
"My dear friend Gordy Dickson calls such works 'thematic novels', meaning novels that have a
strong point of view, which the author wants to impart to the reader... I believe science fiction
should encourage people to think. God knows we have enough forms of amusement that
discourage or actively prevent rational thought... I regard these thematic novels as true
explorations, where the author and the reader investigate a certain concept or group of ideas,
examine a mindset, look at the world that might actually come into being within the lifetime of
the reader" (Bova, 2016, p.256-257).
What Bova says can be viewed as an expectation, maybe his own, and not necessarily as a rule or
principle for science fiction premises. It is certainly possible to write science fiction that is
mainly commercial and aimed at entertainment and emotional reaction. Moreover, in all genres a
writer can, might or should aspire to write a story that provokes thinking. Is science fiction
unique in that regard? I believe that it is. A science fiction story should deal with serious social,
psychological, and moral issues that are relevant for today's life or will be soon. It is the prime
justification for creating the different world: when the writer presents a "novum", he provokes
the audience's thoughts, imaginations, questions and fears about it and must be responsible for
treating those with respect. Adam Roberts highlights this argument and gives it flesh by
connecting it to the relationship between people and technology:
"One of the ways science fiction works is by mediating the tech revolution that has determined
human life for the last couple of centuries... Tech makes our lives richer, but it also generates
anxiety when the mere thought of leaving the house without having your mobile phone with you
gives you heart palpitations, then you know something's wrong. Tech makes us anxious because
we do not understand it; we fear what it can do when it goes wrong because it reveals our
inadequacies and magnifies our secret phobias. Tech in SF stories will resonate most potently if
it connects with this anxiety" (Roberts, 2006, p.109-110)
So, the writer of science fiction will do a better job, more loyal to the true potential of the genre,
if he/she properly develops the moral, psychological and social meanings and implications of his
story (as previously mentioned, this is true for EVERY writer, but in science fiction it is much
more eminent to the genre and to the decision to write in a differentiated world). This
"imperative" comes with risks, however:
"The danger of the thematic novel is that it can slide into propaganda." (Bova, 2016, p.257)
To avoid that Bova suggests 2 techniques:
"First, do your own thinking. Never sit down to write a story that represents an existing political
position... Second, eschew the pleasure of creating a villain." (Bova, 2016, p.257)
To conclude, the challenge of a story idea or premise in science fiction has some unique qualities
that the writer should address: It should include a clear "novum"; it should be well enough
justified to tell the story as science fiction; it should, from the beginning of the development,
manifest an awareness and maybe even focus on the thematic aspect and potential of the idea.
2.3.2 Building the story world
This is the most unique writing challenge for the science fiction writer. There is a story world in
every story every story takes place somewhere but the creation of the story world in science
fiction (but also in Fantasy, although it is a little different) is unique and demands unique
considerations and decisions not like any other genre. This is because, by definition, science
fiction is a genre that takes place in a different world. Writers in most genres can rely on their
life experience or good research to provide their story with a suitable setting or environment and
make it believable and detailed enough. The science fiction writer cannot do that; he never lived
or experienced the world he is writing about because that world never existed (only, maybe, in
his mind). One piece of advice writers receives from professors and writing professionals is
"write about what you know". If that was to be widely accepted, we might never have science
fiction. It is true that in science fiction there are also elements which originated from the personal
experience and the "real world" of the writer, but all in all the story world will always contain at
least one "novum" that changes it completely and makes it significantly different:
"In other forms of fiction, the writer must create believable characters and set them in conflict to
generate an interesting story. In science fiction the writer must do all this and much more. Where
in the universe is the story set? Is it even in our universe? Are we in the future or the distant
past? Is there a planet under our feet or are we dangling in zero gravity?" (Bova, 2016, p.19)
For many science fiction consumers, the story world is part of the experience of the story. They
want to learn about the geography, creatures, technology, establishment, history, economics,
politics, living structures, architecture, cultures, era/time, and more. They are also likely to
criticize the world they read or view if it is not coherent enough, or for many other reasons.
There are numerous problems, challenges, and considerations identified by Truby, Roberts, Bova
and Card, that the writer needs to address:
Originality: Since the story world is so essential to the science fiction story and even evaluated as
part of the merits of the creation, it can be viewed as part of the story itself. Hence, the writer
needs to be aware of repeating the same worlds or worn out settings that have already been
written and come up with something new.

"Every good science fiction story must present to the reader a world that no one has ever seen
before." (Bova, 2016, p.19)
"What separates the best hard-SF writers from the run-of-the-mill ones is the fact that while the
ordinary guys usually invent the scenery of their created world and maybe work up a good
evolutionary track for the life forms there, they then resort to clichés for everything else.
Characters, societies, events are all taken straight out of everything else they've ever read. That's
why formulas are resorted to so often" (Scott Card, 2013, p.60)
Recognizability: Truby warns that one of the biggest hazards of writing science fiction is that the
story world will be too strange or distant so the audience will have a hard time relating to it and
might experience the story in a too intellectual manner. The technique he offers is "create a
recognizable world so the viewer does not have a clinical, or intellectual, relationship to it".
Creating a world that the audience will simultaneously be curious and astonished by and feel
comfortable enough in to allow the story to be at the front is a complicated task. The writer does
that by making decisions about the balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar elements of
the story world; the way the structures, themes or processes of the story world resemble or
remind the audience existing concepts (for example concepts such as the desire for power, clash
of classes etc. will echo as familiar); the time period in which the story takes place, and more.
One strategy of achieving this is to set the story in a world resembling ours and change one
crucial thing which serves as the story's "novum" and its ramifications in all kinds of life
domains. For example, in "the Handmaid's Tale" the story takes place in an alternate reality in
which fertility is declining (the decrease of birth rates is a true thing happening in the Eastern
world). That "novum" leads to many social consequences, such as an extreme religious group
taking over the USA, enslaving fertile women, and more. Of course it is possible to use a
strategy of designing a world with greater differences, but then there is bigger risk of having the
audience confused or mentally giving too much attention to "taking in" all the differences and
understand how this world works, which might hinder the emotional connection to the story.
However, it is not impossible, but the writer needs to come up with mechanisms that will provide
it. For example: in the TV series "Altered Carbon", which takes place roughly 350 years in the
future, there are quite a lot technological novelties, some are very drastic (with the prime
"novum" of minds being able to move between different "sleeves" - bodies, and even inhabit
artificial bodies). It is not any less good artistically than stories created with a "singular novum"
strategy. If any, it might even offer a more wonderous world and probably a more reliable one (it
is absurd to believe that over 350 years only one technology will seriously evolve) but it does
require the writer to solve some of the "bombing" of new technologies and many novelties. In
"Altered Carbon" they used the "fish out of the water" strategy, where the hero himself is
"resleeved", or put into a new body, 300 years after "dying", so he begins to explore the new and
strange world along with the audience. Setting other elements of the story, such as the mystery or
the goal of the character or creating strong empathy to the character and/or getting the story
moving early, becomes more important when telling the story in an extremely odd world.
Another TV show that offers an interesting technique is "Westworld", where the story takes
place in a very different future with major technological advances (robots have become human-
like and some even begin to grow consciousness), but the arena of the story is a theme park that
recreates the scenery and culture of the Wild West, a more recognizable "view" for the audience.
Rules, details, credibility, and coherence: the writer needs to decide the rules that hold the world
he created "together" and make it coherent. "So far, world creation sounds like a marvelous free-
for-all, in which you come up with all kinds of ideas, ask 'why' and 'how' and 'what result' a lot,
and when there is a really big pile of good stuff, you sit down and write. I wish it were that easy.
But that pile of neat ideas is just that a pile, shapeless, chaotic. Before you can tell a meaningful
story, you have to hone and sharpen your understanding of the world, and that begins with the
fundamental rules, the natural laws." (Scott Card, 2013, p.36)
A habit of some science fiction fans is to dissect stories for their credibility and reveal "holes" or
"illogical" things about the story and its world. This might be interpreted as having the story
world "obey" the laws of nature. Bova even directs writers to "feel free to invent any new device,
to make any new scientific discoveries that you can imagine providing they do not contradict
what is known about science today" (Bova, 2016, p.64). However, there are certainly successful
and maybe even good science fiction stories in which there are very dubious scientific
occurrences, such as time travel, traveling faster than the speed of light, being able to physically
exist in many places in space, and even fire from explosions in space, something that happens all
the time despite the fact that it is physically impossible since there is not enough oxygen.
Audiences can accept all those if the writer created a consistent story world in terms of its rules
and did not "go too far" without providing sufficient explanations. Rules and details are true not
only for nature, but also for social, economic, and political systems and the history of the world.
Scott Card suggests the science fiction writer should "invent the past" of the story: "Worlds do
not spring out of nothing. However things are now, they used to be another way, and somehow
they got from there to here" (Scott Card, 1990, p.49)
If, for example, in "The Handmaid's Tale" the structuring of the Gilead cult governance or the
understanding of the process and circumstances that led them to power had been sloppy, it would
have hurt the power and credibility of the story. The science fiction writer, who must invent all
that, is challenged much more than a writer who tells a story about our world or the past.
Exposition or revealing the world: Exposition in a story means providing the audience with the
information it needs to understand and fully experience the story. A banal example: Romeo and
Juliet's story would not be interesting if the audience didn't know that the Montague and the
Capulet families are rivals; in order to understand the story of "Blade Runner", learning about the
Voight-Kampff test that
differentiates humans from androids and even to know some of its content (which
charges several scenes with tension) is a must. In science fiction this is a very
delicate and necessary job - how to inform the audience with the necessary
knowledge about the world, the technology, the social systems, the religions, the
economics, the geography, and so on and so on, so they could understand the events
and the meanings of the story and that the pace and engagement in the story would
not hurt? Bova provides some advice on the matter: providing only background
which is necessary; not trying to explain how machinery works, just showing what
it does. There might be other techniques, like using a character who does not know
and have the audience learn with him/her, planting background in a way which
serves the action in a scene, placing information only when the story gets to a point
in which it is logical to learn about it (yet risking some confusion or information
gaps earlier which with the right setting might contribute to the mystery), using
the "show do not tell" principle and dramatizing the information etc. An example
for dramatizing information can come from "Altered Carbon", where the existence
of religious people who are against "resleeving" (returning after death in a new
body) are presented as the family of the leading female role who becomes herself
in conflict about "resleeving". In general, most of these techniques are not specific
for science fiction, but they are in heavy use in the genre because of the big
challenge of conveying the details of the world, the technology etc. As imaginative
and as professional the writer is, that is how his solutions to the problem will be
better.