My pitch is SG-100. Set it a century into the future, as pointedly low-fantasy sci-fi, like very little is going to change for day-to-day life. A techno-pessimistic sort of humanism as a counterpoint to Star Trek’s grand visions. Yeah, fifty years of public knowledge about the gates unites humanity in the sense that you can walk to alien planets, but we’re still a bunch of factionalist dinguses, on Earth and elsewhere.
The years following the series we got are full of “bicycle diplomacy,” where we hand out everything that’s cheap and common for us but weird and rare for foreign planets. We’d also be pretty free with weedkiller and pesticide, so invasive species we accidentally carry over can be dealt with swiftly. Domestic cats are back to being classic villain props, because they’re not allowed offworld unless spayed or neutered, so they’re obscenely expensive. Dogs are omnipresent.
We invent proper AI, but it’s nearly incapable of opinion, and every artificial person is more of a character being played. Still an intellect! Still capable of explaining why and how it reached a conclusion from observation and reason. It just is not wired like any living creature. Basically: a refutation of Chinese Room nonsense, but also a bizarre angle on general intelligence.
The real fun for this series would be skipping “back in time” about fifty years in the future. It’s always going to be dramatic irony, where major series arcs are established as minor problems that should blow over in a couple months. It’s also an excuse to bring back actors from SG-1 and Atlantis - all in old-fart makeup, except for Christopher Judge, who is eternal.
My pitch is SG-100. Set it a century into the future, as pointedly low-fantasy sci-fi, like very little is going to change for day-to-day life. A techno-pessimistic sort of humanism as a counterpoint to Star Trek’s grand visions. Yeah, fifty years of public knowledge about the gates unites humanity in the sense that you can walk to alien planets, but we’re still a bunch of factionalist dinguses, on Earth and elsewhere.
The years following the series we got are full of “bicycle diplomacy,” where we hand out everything that’s cheap and common for us but weird and rare for foreign planets. We’d also be pretty free with weedkiller and pesticide, so invasive species we accidentally carry over can be dealt with swiftly. Domestic cats are back to being classic villain props, because they’re not allowed offworld unless spayed or neutered, so they’re obscenely expensive. Dogs are omnipresent.
We invent proper AI, but it’s nearly incapable of opinion, and every artificial person is more of a character being played. Still an intellect! Still capable of explaining why and how it reached a conclusion from observation and reason. It just is not wired like any living creature. Basically: a refutation of Chinese Room nonsense, but also a bizarre angle on general intelligence.
The real fun for this series would be skipping “back in time” about fifty years in the future. It’s always going to be dramatic irony, where major series arcs are established as minor problems that should blow over in a couple months. It’s also an excuse to bring back actors from SG-1 and Atlantis - all in old-fart makeup, except for Christopher Judge, who is eternal.