Episode 25 - The Last Flight of Dr. Ain

TBD - To Be Determined

Theme: A plague of humans.

Episode Connections
Authors, stories. Lynn Margulis, the Gaia Hypothesis. Stephen King, The Stand. Richard Matheson, I Am Legend. Richard Preston, The Hot Zone. Albert Robina, The War in the Twentieth Century. Aldo’s Huxley, Brave New World. H.G. Wells, “The Stolen Bacillus.” Nicholas Christakis, Apollo’s Arrow.
Films. The Matrix. Resident Evil films. The Omega Man. The Last Man On Earth. I Am Legend. 12 Monkeys. The Andromeda Strain. Outbreak.
Games. Plague Incorporated. The Goliath Virus.
Ideas. More post-apocalyptic sci fi. Male pseudonyms for female authors. Environmental degradation is an essential element of the background setting for the story. At the core of the story are military efforts to weaponize diseases. Dr. Ain seeks to reboot planet Earth by killing off humans and other higher order primates, thus leaving things to the other animals. Maybe bears. The Gaia Hypothesis. Humans as a threat to life on Earth. On the possibility of weaponized diseases. CoVid 19 and conspiracy theories. We love to make light of apocalypse by virus. Look up Biosafety Level IV. We do not always understand the vectors that spread viruses until it is too late. Our economic connections make us vulnerable to disaster. Monkey Pox. SARS. HIV. And more. We have been writing stories about such things for over 100 years, although the maladies evolve over the years. We also have a lot of stories that anthropomorphize the Earth. Human patterns during crises such as pandemics and plagues. Fear is a mechanism for controlling people. And we have a long history of weaponizing fear and disease. The suicide pact between Alice Sheldon and her husband. Parallels to contemporary events. The continuing arc of disaster stories on TBD. Who gets to join our post-apocalyptic island society? There is a lot of utopic fiction. This one balances that with some apocalyptic vision.
Whoa - Hmmm - WTF. Dan says Hmmm. A very plausible hmmm. Bill wishes that it could be a WTF story, but it is just too real.

Previous episode: Larry Niven, “Inconstant Moon”
Next episode: Ray Bradbury, “There Will Come Soft Rains”

Music Credit: "Ouroboros" Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
Link: Creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/