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[gfxtwin]

When I listened to a podcast where John C Reilly did nothing more than a quick summation of The Lobster's sci-fi concept I couldn't stop laughing.

 

[Stiler]

One thing I love are sci-fi stories that take the human aspect and place them as rare/limited within the world that it sets up.

Farscape is an example of this. A lone astronaut taken far away and having to survive amongst nothing but alien species.

Most sci fi (shows at least) it's always a bunch of humans at the forefront and a few aliens here and there.


Colony ships are another aspect I like, drifting through space searching the unknown looking for a place to finally call home over many generations. To me this is how we are going to eventually leave earth Not on some super "warp drive" space ship that can take us to the nearest planet in a few seconds, but rather a giant ship that will hold thousands of people and have to make it an own ecosystem that we can survive on for hundreds and hundreds of years as we drift through space looking for a new planet to call home.

That's why I enjoyed Ascension and was looking forward to more, but sadly it never got picked up.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3696720/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_15

 

[Xero]

transhumanism like deus ex and soma. Always interested in a good book on it and I've heard good things on altered carbon, but didn't care for snowcrash.

Also alternate dimensions which is why i was such a big fan of his dark materials and fringe.

Along those lines, super advanced humans from the future coming back to enslave the humans of the present was interesting in concept.

 

[NekoFever]

Actually hold-up: What are some stories that explore the question of how the first permanent human habitats away from Earth are governed, or who governs them? Like, at what point do space and Martian colonies declare independence from Earth?

Spoiler

Other than Gundam.

The Expanse series partly deals with this, although it takes place after the establishment of colonies throughout the solar system. Mars was a colony that declared independence and is in a cold war with Earth. The asteroid belt has a separatist movement and a distinct culture that's pushing for more independence from Earth and Mars.

Later book spoilers:

Spoiler

I'm not completely up to date, but later on humans get access to some kind of alien wormhole technology that opens up distant star systems to colonisation, which could lead to more issues on this theme.

 

[BigDes]

Speaking of Generation Ships, Unto Leviathan/Ship of Fools is a decent horror story set on one.

Basically a ship full of religious fundamentalists find and abandoned colony and well, stuff goes bad.

 

[Airola]

-People being somewhere and suddenly see copies of themselves going around. I absolutely loved Coherence. Triangle was great too. I'm currently waiting for a movie called +1 (AKA. Party Invaders) to arrive on mail. I think it's supposed to have something like that but I've tried to avoid getting any more information about it before I've watched it.

Ok, finally got this +1 / Plus One / Party Invaders / Shadow Walkers DVD.
Watched it and oh boy this movie is all kinds of awesome!

Definitely a must see for anyone who likes movies like Coherence and Triangle.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2395385/

 

[Shake Appeal]

Outside Context Problems: the moment when an advanced spacefaring society encounters something so beyond their experience it's akin to native tribes encountering warships with cannons.

Seen: Iain M. Banks's Excession.

 

[zeemumu]

The idea of accidentally opening a way to a realm beyond your comprehension trying to invent faster forms of travel (Event Horizon, The Mist, etc)

 

[More_Badass]

Outside Context Problems: the moment when an advanced spacefaring society encounters something so beyond their experience it's akin to native tribes encountering warships with cannons.

Seen: Iain M. Banks's Excession.

Isn't that essentially the nature of first contact?

Edit: do you know why like half of the Culture series isn't available as ebooks or audiobooks?

 

[Captain Tuttle]

Outside Context Problems: the moment when an advanced spacefaring society encounters something so beyond their experience it's akin to native tribes encountering warships with cannons.

Seen: Iain M. Banks's Excession.

Do you mean something similar to The Federation encountering The Q in Star Trek? Maybe handled with a bit more complexity, Q basically ends up just being a space wizard in Star Trek

 

[More_Badass]

Time travel, in particular going back in time and dealing with a resulting paradox of some sort e.g. Back to the Future, Timecrimes, Predestination.

Just saw Timecrimes, and it's probably my favorite time travel movie. I loved the way it handled its premise and its use of time travel

Are there any other movies (not Primer!) or books that deal with time loops and paradoxes in a similarly grounded and kind of horrifying way?