Comments on: Elevator Pitches: Time for Focus-Group Input

By: New Horizons | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

New Horizons | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:57:36 +0000

[...] the winner of our Elevator Pitch Contest is: Jason Dick, for New Horizons! Takes place about a century from [...]

By: kdormuth

kdormuth — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:41:44 +0000

I voted for Parameters, picturing the mechanics professor as a zany, Doctor Who-type character. Think of all the ridiculous scenarios the characters could get themselves into. =)

By: Marshall Eubanks

Marshall Eubanks — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 04:12:17 +0000

I wonder if the creator of “The Scientific Inquisitor” knows what a Devil’s Advocate (advocatus diaboli) is ? Every canonization proceeding for centuries had one, until John Paul the Second decided the Church needed lots of new saints, and no inconvenient roadblocks.

By: Claire C Smith

Claire C Smith — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:54:43 +0000

Hey,

Who ever wins this, well good for them. Lets hope it’s a hit!

I dunno, maybe astromcnaught’s idea is ok? Just… who ever, then that’s great news. I am just really no good at stories, especially SF or fantasy etc. Will keep an eye on the show!

Claire

By: CW

CW — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:56:45 +0000

LOL, you DIDN’T!!!

By: Loki

Loki — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:22:27 +0000

Max Raabe version?

By: CW

CW — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:49:29 +0000

@ Loki

I just thought, wouldn’t it be funny if the theme song in the former ship was a special version of Britney Spears’ hit song “Oops I Did It Again”? That would add some sex-appeal to the show too!

By: Loki

Loki — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:25:12 +0000

What about some adaptation of The Culture of Ian Banks? E.g. i’m sure that the novel “State of the Art”, where Culture Ship visits the Earth and crew members spend some time on the planet (and are generally appaled by our wicked ways), can be a base of a good TV serial.

Several Culture citizens – kind of human-like people with lots of extra glands and abilities that come from millenia of genetic tinkering – spend time on Earth living among us. Also, they regularly return to the Ship to take a rest, discuss things etc. Worth to note that Culture Ships are extremely powerful AIs and have rich personalities, usually viewing the Universe with sarcastic wit. Also they usually have funny names like “Oops i did it again”, “Don’t bother” or “I told you i’m a bad guy!” (warship).

Crew members have very different temperament, ideas about whether to involve Earth into some improvement program, level of antypathy towards humans etc. In the end the Ships is leaving solar system. One of the crew abandons his extra abilities and stays on Earth, the other is dead. The Ship decides to let Humanity evolve by itself.

By: CW

CW — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:16:10 +0000

@ Matt

Ok, I DID mean to disparage your suggestion by comparing it to a Dan Brown novel, but it was a total joke because I’ve never actually read “Angels and Demons”. So don’t be offended! I really think a lot of these ideas are great though, and I’m glad you all took the time to write them.

@ Nick Ernst

If they used any of those structures (they’re all so similar so it doesn’t matter which), I was thinking the story could even be slightly different, like these people are testing these new facilities in space and maybe something goes wrong. You really got me thinking though!

And whether you posted that “24″ story or not, I thought it was hilarious, LOL!

By: Nick Ernst

Nick Ernst — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:50:42 +0000

(That last comment wasn’t left by me! Not that I disagree with the joke, but that was almost certainly Marc Humpert causing trouble.)