Holy cow, I cannot get enough of this trailer for Civilization: Beyond Earth! It’s like something from a book I would write. There’s the classic Science Fiction story about leaving Earth to colonize the stars, but there’s also a deeply human element to it. And I love the religious element to it, how the colonists take the old religions of Earth with them to the new world. Awesome.
This definitely looks like a game I want to play. I grew up with Civilization 2, perhaps the most classic title in the series, and discovered Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri in college. In a lot of ways, Alpha Centauri shaped my love for Science Fiction, and gave me many ideas that later influenced my stories. Genesis Earth is, in some very key ways, a response to the vision of humanity’s future presented in SMAC.
While on the subject of awesome trailers, it’s worth pointing out this one for the new Christopher Nolan film, Interstellar:
Again, this looks like a fantastic story–the kind of one that I’d love to tell just as much as I’d love to hear. And with all of our modern problems like climate change, resource depletion, wealth disparity, terrorism, and global war, it strikes frighteningly close to home. Are we as a species on the verge of driving ourselves extinct? What will we do if our home planet can no longer support us? Where could we go, and what could we hope for?
So much awesomeness. I really, really, REALLY want to see this movie and play this game! But even more, these trailers make me want to write an awesome story along those same lines. I’ve already written at least one novel that addresses these issues, and it’s definitely part of the background of the Gaia Nova universe, but I want to revisit these same issues again.
Maybe in Starship Lachoneus? Who knows?
