The scientific method thrives off a free exchange of ideas and information. All of the various perversions of science are naturally self-correcting, given time. That’s what science does-it roots out mistakes and wrong results in a never-ending quest to understand the way things really are. And it’s been remarkably successful in this, using tools such as open peer-review and reproducibility. Still, these tools only work in an open environment; you can’t root out a mistake that you don’t even know exists. That’s the danger of secret scientific programs.
Try to envision the backstory of the Miranda tragedy. How could such a thing have happened by purportedly well-meaning individuals? No matter how ideological they were, the storyline doesn’t really hold together unless you also assume a vast cloak of secrecy over the whole project. It’s hard to imagine that the Alliance doesn’t have any ethical safeguards on their research-but maybe those safeguards didn’t apply on Miranda. After all, how could safeguards have been enforced without at least an even general knowledge of the project?
It’s important to imagine the type of scientists who might have agreed to work on the Pax. The movie Serenity asks us to believe that well-meaning people might act in this manner, even in the absence of ethical safeguards. Well, why do scientists work for secret government programs in the first place? What might these scientists have said, when asked? Probably the usual excuses: “I’m just developing technology, not deciding how it will be used.” “If I refuse to do this, they’ll just hire someone else.” “This has to remain secret, because no one else can be trusted to use this wisely.” Throw in money and power, and yes-it’s imaginable. Scientists are just as human as everyone else, and everyone likes to know a secret, everyone likes the illusion of control. But it is just that-an illusion-and scientists have been far too slow to learn this lesson, even after the experience of the development and use of the first atomic bombs.
During World War II, America concentrated many brilliant scientists and engineers under tight security in a major effort to create these weapons. Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist running the effort, kept the exchange of information relatively open (within the large project), and the scientists were able to produce two different types of atomic bombs-from scratch-in just a few years. But despite their quick work, the war in Europe had already ended, leaving only the war with Japan. Japan was effectively already defeated; they were simply holding out for face-saving surrender terms. The Russians were about to declare war against Japan, clinching the victory. All of this was known to the U.S., and yet they deployed not one, but two atomic bombs on civilian populations before Russian involvement could end the war on less favorable terms. The death toll was hundreds of thousands.
Would the scientists in charge of the project still have completed the bombs if they knew that Russia was about to declare war on Japan and end the conflict? We will never know-because the government never told them. And after the war, when Oppenheimer and other scientists proposed strict controls over these weapons, they were persecuted by the very government that they had served so faithfully. Then as now, scientists “in charge” of secret projects have been manipulated into producing what is desired of them, but upon success, they inevitably lose their imagined control. The weapons becoming militarized, the knowledge becomes classified, and the scientists become obsolete nuisances.
But America’s primary cultural contribution to the Alliance’s anti-science attitudes-our present-day link to future Miranda-style atrocities-is not a culture of secrecy. With a few exceptions, we’re less guilty on that front than most. No, our primary anti-science innovation has been the rise of the Corporation.
This is ironic, because most people naturally associate Corporations with research and development. Many Corporations require science to keep moving their products forward via technological innovations. But to a Corporation, science-and everything else-is subservient to their only reason for existing in the first place: to make money. And if any obstacle gets in the way of that goal, the full might of the Corporation is brought to bear against it. Because of this, scientific truth is a frequent casualty of capitalism.
In the Firefly universe, the Mega-Corporation “Blue Sun” pops up in logos everywhere. In the DVD commentary for the pilot episode, Joss Whedon tells us that Blue Sun is a powerful corporate conglomerate: “practically half the government was Blue Sun.” Sounds like the direction today’s trends are pointing, especially in our modern one-dollar /one-vote society. In a separate interview, Whedon tells us that the two “Hands of Blue” men work for Blue Sun. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that Blue Sun might also have been involved with the Miranda experiments.
But would a universe with an all-powerful Blue Sun Corporation really be more anti-science than, say, the U.S. today? After all, money’s influence on science isn’t unique to Corporations. The same can be said of any individual willing to bribe their way out of government regulation or into a fat government contract. But the difference between an individual and a Corporation is that one is human, and one is not.
Prior to the rise of multi-national Corporations, the main influence of big money on government was through ultra-rich individuals, who actually controlled the pre-corporations. While these rich individuals sometimes could convince/bribe governments to favor them, at least this was still a human influence. And we humans tend to have a respect for the truth, especially as revealed to us by science. Indeed, the scientific method is not merely the best method we have of learning facts about our physical universe-it is our only reliable method. No other method has ever come close.
But inhuman Corporations have no bias toward the truth. Even though every decision and action in a Corporation is made by individuals, these organizations are probably best viewed as higher-level organisms, subject to their own Darwinian selection pressures. It is becoming less and less possible for the CEO, or the Board of Directors, or the shareholders, or any human group to actually control such a corporation. By the time a Corporation evolved to Blue Sun-like status, such a notion of control would probably be as laughable as if a group of cells in our bodies claimed to have control over us. Corporations use humans the same way that humans use cells-and they are “naturally selected” to perfect a single trait: a higher rate of return.
Scientific knowledge can indeed be a path to making money, but it can also be an obstacle. People will not buy a product if they know it will not work, or is harmful to them, or is harmful to those that they care about. But if people do not know such facts, they will continue to infuse the Corporation with its lifeblood cash. Manufacturing processes that make dangerous chemicals or pollution are in similar danger from scientific facts; sometimes the science implies that the processes should be regulated. From a corporate-logic perspective, science is just another commodity that needs to be controlled to maximize profit.
Still, until this millennium, Corporate efforts to relax government regulations and health warnings had met with mixed results, precisely because the scientific facts won out. So Corporations converged on the concept of attacking the scientific method itself. Much is made of the supposed adversarial nature of science and religion, but Firefly and Serenity may be correct in predicting that science’s most dangerous adversary will actually be the future Corporation.
Of all the corporate anti-science strategies, the most obvious has been to simply perform Lysenko-style “research” to yield the desired outcomes. The methods by which Corporations force certain conclusions vary widely, from simple funding threats to outright data fabrication. But the result is the same; careful science is being discarded in favor of Tobacco Institute-style falsehoods. The scientific method requires an objective assessment of all the evidence, and, most importantly, potentially falsifiable hypotheses. A typical corporate research “hypothesis” is just the opposite: a purported truth that must be supported by any means necessary-no matter how much evidence needs to be sifted through, processed, or flat-out ignored. America is fast becoming the leader in such
“research”-often in the guise of Research Institutes set up to churn out pseudo-scientific results. The end result is public confusion as to what is scientific fact, and what is spin.
And that is precisely the Corporation’s desired outcome: a confused public, and scientifically illiterate politicians dependent on large campaign donations. And manufacturing false research is only half of the battle-plan; they also need to cast doubt and aspersions on the actual science. These efforts also take many forms-magnifying and playing up scientific uncertainty, packing review panels with ideological supporters, misrepresenting scientific findings, and more often than you might think, intimidating and ruining the reputations of actual scientists.
It’s not hard to fast-forward these trends to see where science might end up-and sadly, it’s not too far off from how things are portrayed in the Firefly universe. The worst scientific offense in the series is not the Pax release on Miranda; that, at least, was performed by “well-meaning” ideologues. The worst portrayal of science is what was done to River Tam.
Imagining that these scientists are real people takes a great deal more mental gymnastics than in the case of Miranda. Such brain experiments on unwilling and talented children seem revolting to us for a reason-they are! Being part of a secret organization can’t explain why scientists would do such a thing; the ultimate cause has to be more sinister and more motivating.
Sadly, we’re all aware that humans can do horrible things to other humans. Nazi “scientists” did unspeakable things to people in concentration camps. The factors that can goad a person into such ghastly behavior have been studied by psychologists; one of the key elements seems to be a mental dehumanization of the victims. Some of this is evident in the opening scene of the Serenity movie, where River is treated more like a piece of lab equipment than as a person. But that’s not the main issue; the main issue is why anyone would set down this particular dehumanizing road to begin with. In River’s case, the only logic that would come to such a conclusion is not a human logic, but rather a Corporate one. River’s brain “experiments” have Blue Sun written all over them. Sure, developing these ultimate fighters might have been a response to the Miranda debacle and the creation of the Reavers, but it’s still the response one might expect of a faceless Corporation, not human beings.
Between the experiments on River and the Pax on Miranda, the Firefly universe portrays scientists as easily manipulated by government and Corporate interests-and maybe they are. Scientists are people, after all, and they can be manipulated right along with everyone else. But if we don’t like the future portrayed in this body of science fiction, we should take a close look at what is happening around us in real life. The only way to stop these trends is to recognize them for what they are. In recent years, scientists have been speaking out about these types of government and Corporate abuses, but quite a few scientists still don’t think it’s their “place” to discuss political issues. The general public is getting more involved as well, although that front is hobbled by a general misunderstanding of what good science is all about, and why it is crucially important to our society.
Are we going to end up in the kind of evil-scientist future shown in Firefly and Serenity? The show’s creators have done an admirable job of showing us the dangers that are brewing in our world today-from both government and Corporate control. But of course Firefly and Serenity are just science fiction; it’s up to us to make sure that such a future doesn’t actually come to pass.
KEN WHARTON is a physics professor at San Jose State University. He is also the author of the science fiction novel Divine Intervention, along with a handful of short stories. For his fiction, Ken has been a finalist for the John W. Campbell award for best new writer, the Philip K. Dick award, and the Nebula award.
When Joss Whedon put together the elements of a compelling television show (and eventually movie), it seems that he was also assembling exactly what was needed to create another tasty entree in the banquet that is Firefly. Bridges explains the world of MMOGs, and how Firefly is coming back to the table yet again.
The Virtual ’Verse
COREY BRIDGES
On December 7, 2006, the news shot worldwide via the Internet: Firefly was not dead.
Again.
Was it another movie? Nope. A new TV series? Nuh-uh. More comic books? Not so much. It was to be (drumroll) an MMORPG.
If you’re scratching your head and muttering, “MMO-whosawhatsis?” here’s the deal: MMORPG stands for “massively multiplayer online role-playing game.” Called MMO or MMOG for short, this genre of game is the most compelling kind of video game to be developed in years, and it’s shaking that industry to its foundations. An MMOG lets millions of people meet (and socialize, fight, cooperate, or do practically whatever they want) in a computer-generated virtual world. If you’ve heard of World of Warcraft or Runescape, that’s what we’re talking about. As compelling as single-player games can be, MMOGs are orders of magnitude more rich and interesting, mostly because it’s real people you’re working with or against on short-term quests or epic multi-month projects. You’re surrounded by friends, enemies, and people whose agendas are downright unfathomable. It’s not uncommon for people to put in twenty hours a week playing these games, and play the same game for years at a stretch. Real world relationships have been made and unmade around these games. It’s a remarkable phenomenon, and it may well be the future of entertainment.
Proving that God(dess) enjoys irony, the announcement of this latest Firefly resurrection came from FOX. Specifically, 20th Century FOX Licensing & Merchandising Division announced with upstart video game company Multiverse that they were building the MMOG. Wired Magazine broke the story online, and it turned out to be big news. Crazy big international news for a humble video game that isn’t even built yet. Why did this strike such a chord?
As a cofounder of Multiverse and a committed Browncoat-hi, hello, nice to meet you-I can share with you the inside story of why and how this all came about. And why, even if you don’t play video games, this is good news.
So. Let’s start by drilling down a bit on this whole MMOG thing.
Like any respectable form of life, MMOGs evolved out of the primordial MUD. That’s M.U.D., as in “Multi-User Dungeon.” Created by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle in the late ’70s, the first MUD was an online text-based adventure in a Dungeons & Dragons-like fantasy setting. Your interface to the game was a screen of text describing the room you were currently in, and you could type in short commands like “look north” or “kill rat.” Other people would be logged in from their own terminals (usually at universities), so you could travel from virtual room to virtual room with your friends, killing monsters and looting treasure together; hacking and slashing your way, one paragraph at a time, into high adventure. Back in the day, MUD was a specific game, but now it’s a generic term for any text-based multiplayer adventure, whether fantasy, sci-fi, or what-have-you. Even with the advent of graphics and MMOGs, MUDs are still around. The current crop, while still text-based, are remarkably complex, and quite emotionally and creatively satisfying for their denizens.
Through the ’80s and early ’90s, as the video game market grew, role-playing games become a popular genre, adding graphics but ironically losing the multiplayer aspect for a while. The Ultima series of fantasy role-playing video games was thought by many to be the pinnacle of the genre. Then, in 1997, Ultima Online was released. Inspired by the MUDs (and created by some of the top talent from the MUD industry), Ultima Online made its land of “Britannia” habitable by thousands of people at once, as the players logged in from all around the real world. It soon garnered more than 100,000 subscribers, making it the first mainstream MMOG.
The video game business is annoyingly similar to Hollywood in many ways, so the success of one fantasy-themed MMOG inspired other game companies to create, you guessed it, more fantasy MMOGs. And as with Hollywood, I suppose I can’t really blame the risk-averse producers-after all, they have to jus
tify the stratospheric budget it now takes to build an MMOG. The easiest way to do that is to point backward and say, “Look at that last success. We’re gonna do just like that, but a little bit better!” So Ultima Online begat Lineage, which begat EverQuest, which begat Dark Age of Camelot, yadda yadda yadda, leading us to World of Warcraft, the 800-pound gorilla in this space today.
And what a rich gorilla it is. The Donald Trump of gorillas. Most MMOGs charge their players a monthly subscription to log in to their worlds. World of Warcraft sells the game itself for about $50, and then charges most players $15 a month to play. As of early 2007, the game had more than 8,000,000 players. That’s about a billion dollars a year in recurring revenue-from one video game. Of course, it allegedly cost upwards of $50 million and six years to make World of Warcraft. And before the game launched, its development team had no idea how successful it’d be, so once again, at that kind of price tag, I have some sympathy for the guy who said, “Uh . . . how about we make yet another hack-and-slash fantasy game?”
Just to give you the full context, that’s why our company, Multiverse, exists. We’ve built a network and the technological infrastructure for MMOGs, and our customers-game developers-build their games on top of that. It saves years of engineering work and millions of dollars for the development teams. And yes, the games built on Multiverse can all be radically different from one another. The whole reason why we created Multiverse is because MMOGs can be so much more than the current glut of fantasy-themed men-in-tights games. (Instead of men in tights, might we suggest Captain Tightpants?) There are entirely new gameplay elements that can be added to MMOGs. Entirely new subject matter that can be covered in these games-how about a mature sci-fi game that’s not all about killing, or a social game built for young girls, or an educational game that teaches students about the works of William Shakespeare? These are all games that are being built on the Multiverse platform, because the game developers can now afford to take chances. We’re betting on the proposition that if we make it economically feasible to experiment, then we’ll see innovation.
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