Scenario: In the year 2014 a NASA project began at a site near the radar telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. This project was named the Clark project in memory of scientific visionary and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke. This project represented a change in agenda for the american space program. Space travel was becoming outmoded, a costly undertaking that was bringing only very limited benefit to society. Under increasing pressure from a Republican hold on Congress and the Presidency, actual space travel was limited to the launching of satellites subsidized by the corporations who built them. Instead, increases in computing and information technologies as well as advances in mathematical modeling prompted the beginning of the Clark project.
The project itself consisted of the construction of a supercomputer designed and programmed by a minimal group of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and computer programmers whose goal it was to construct a model of the Milky way galaxy based upon mathematical extrapolation from known astronomical data. The project met with numerous problems, and the limited benefits it could promise with the end of space travel caused funding to be cut and the project to be shut down. The Clark station was donated to the University of San Juan and because the school lacked both the funding to use it and a project worthy of its computing power the site remained abandoned for some years.
In 2026 a graduate student from the university working towards his PhD in Probability mathematics obtained permission to access the site if he could find sufficient funding from independent interests to power the station. The proposed project was dubbed project Plutarch by the student and its mission was novel.
The idea was to use the computing power of the Clark station to compute the shape of History, rather than the galaxy. Floyd Garcia, head of the project, had devised a set of probability models and algorithms which when programmed into the computer, would allow the user to put in a wealth of data on any historical event and compute the probability concerning the praobability of its actually having occured as well as probable details surrounding its occurence.
In 2030 the standard hardware and software was in place, and the Plutarch
computer was ready for its first tasks. The design of the project,
while vaguely resembling the theories and structures of the Clark project,
had several advantages over it.
There were however, several drawbacks to this method of historical extrapolation:
Government: Government in 2026 is pretty much a continuation of modern day trends, everyday a little bit worse. If you think the bureacratic beast is huge and sick now, you haven't seen anything yet. Republicans are in power, but party lines have continued to blur. As crime increases and terrorism rears its ugly head, the focus of government is continually sliding away from upholding the law and into maintaining control.
Economics: The middle class has all but dissappeared. THe preeminence of computers in everyday life necessitates early computer experience to achieve any sort of financial stability. Since the poor can't afford this type of education their children can't be successful and class mobility is nothing but a fond memory. The rich work with computer programming and information technology and the poor push brooms, computers and robotics do everything else.
Technology: Technological development for the last two decades has focused primarily on information handling, on processing large amounts of data into a palatable form. Computers are getting better, smaller, and faster steadily but there have really been no groundbreaking new discoveries. THe one exception to this is the heightened use and application of A-life programs.
A-life (artificial life) programs are the advent of darwinism in computer algorithms, a sort of simulated evolution. A set of requirements or preferences for any given data is established. The computer then generates a small number of possible solutions (like an evolutionary population). THe program goes through several iterations. At each iteration the "population" of possible solutions is exposed to evolutionary pressures based on the established parameters. A certain number of the less viable solutions are thrown out and the remaining "population" undergoes a breeding process to produce a new set of solutions and the process repeats until a satisfactory answer is obtained.
If you're not familiar with evolution or A-life programs what it basically boils down to is that it is a more efficient way of comparing solutions to a mathematical problem in terms of memory space requirements.
Entertainment: THe one bright ray of hope in an otherwise dull future. The music industry circa 2010 becomes entirely too spread out, too diversified with too much music being put out, to the point where the entertainment dollar is spread to thin to support any one band or music label. THe industry collapses and only nine or ten super bands with a large loyal following are left, a musical dinosaur era. Music regains its creativity because the bands hve equal share of the markets, allowing them creative liberties they didn't have during the flooding of the market. Hollywood Movies have become so watered down by public opinion analysts that they really don't satisfy anyone anymore. With increased leisure time the rich are turning to the theater for quality entertainment that's less susceptible to public opinion and government censure. As the poor get poorer they are returning to entertaining themselves with street carnivals and corner bands.
Sociology: Racial strife has been nearly completely replaced by economic mistrust. The rich fear the masses of the poor. The poor are suspicious of the rich. Among the rich sexism still rears its uglly head. The lower classes, scraping to keep their heads above the water, the labor of the female is too valuable to let sexism continue.
Overview: Humanity is about to discover the truth behind its own past. But how accurate will this information be? Who would not want humanity to know the truth about historical events? The government? The church? Historians who have made a living by conjecturing about events which can now be simulated and observed directly? Will the knowledge that some of the formative events of Western Civilization is incorrect change the way we think about ourselves?